Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog

Archive for the ‘Ramblings’ Category

I’m back from a lovely month in France. I could bore you with a slide show of my adventures but I thought I’d put up this photo instead.

It was on display in a French newsagent on a low shelf. Where children could see it! Ack! Cue the moral outrage! How could this happen? Don’t they know that images of boobs irretrievably corrupt children and turn them into nasty, fire-breathing atheists, or something? Quick! something must be done! I’ll have to complain to a politician and demand greater censorship somehow.

I believe the model on the left is androgynous male model Andrej Pejic, whose image was recently censored in the US because he looks too female.

Interestingly, images of bare boobs seem to be relatively common in France. I saw some on a movie poster at a cinema complex, right next to a poster for the Smurf movie. I also spotted a nipple or two on a billboard advertising cars.

France is also delightfully blase about putting condom vending machines everywhere. You’ll find them on any street in larger cities. Voila:

I took a pic of that one because of the sexy ad for skin cream behind it.

Seems that France doesn’t have much of an issue with public displays of sexuality. There’s no demand to hide it from children, no plaintive wails of “what will I say to my kids!” (or equivalent in French, although I suspect there’s no translation because the French don’t bother with such shit). Sex is part of life there and the French happily embrace it as part of the joie de vie.

It’s part of a wider culture difference I observed in that country, one that expects individuals to take responsibility for themselves. There are no signs on ruins warning you that it’s dangerous to climb on the ruins. The French think that if you choose to be an idiot, that’s your own problem. There are no signs telling you not to swing off ropes into the river or to walk along high walls. There are very few railings in high places. The one time I did see a sign warning of danger due to steep drops, it was telling parents to keep an eye on their kids.

So naturally there’s no ramped-up hysteria about the “sexualisation of children” and no concerns that a picture of a woman’s breast will somehow ruin a child’s life. Zey are boobs, zey are beautiful. What is ze problem?

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That’s it, I’m outta here.

I’m going to France for a month. For a holiday. When the FTG revamp went to hell again in July, I threw up my hands and said, fuck it, I’m running away. So I am. I’m going to Europe and I’m just going to enjoy myself. No work, no porn, nothing. Just me, having a good time with my lovely spouse.

I was going to do all sorts of filler posts in the meantime, leave you with some nice pics or interesting info. But sometimes you just have to stop, step away and let things slide. So the Ms Naughty blog is going to be even more neglected than the last month. I’m sure you’ll be OK without me.

I will have a netbook and access to lots of free wi-fi while I’m away so I may happily tweet every now and again. Look at the sidebar for those.

And when I come back, I’ll be relaxed, refreshed and ready to make more porn, as is my want.

Cheers.

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Mea Culpa. I haven’t posted on the blog all month. Firstly, I’ve been busy, and secondly, it’s been kind of nice to just leave it.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been taking a bit of time for myself lately, stepping away from porn and doing other things – namely planning a holiday. I’m bogging off overseas for the whole of September and have been madly getting FTG work done ahead of that time. Thus this blog will be even more neglected than before. I might try and do a few filler posts in the meantime.

When I come back, I hope to be re-energised. There’s a lot of things that need doing on my sites. And I am going to finally make my film, dammit. I’m also going back to Europe to the Berlin Porn Film festival in late October because my new film, The Thought Of Her, is screening there. And I’ve just finished a 3000 word essay on feminist porn that will feature in the German film magazine Schnitt at the same time as the Berlin PFF is on. I will add an English version of the essay to Ms Naughty in November.

Right… we fly out in 3 days. I need to think about packing.

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If you follow my blog or Twitter feed you’ll know that for 19 months now we’ve been trying to get the member’s area of For The Girls revamped. Read about it here and about how we were originally ripped off last year.

I really thought we’d finally have it done by July 1.

Nope.

Our programmer has resigned. He’s been working on it since September 2010. It’s 95% done. But he’s gone. We need to find somebody new to finish the job.

I’ve had to hand-edit every single article, gallery and video on our site, even though we wanted that to be automated. I’ve done weeks of data entry work, worked weekends and neglected the blog and my other sites. I’ve done my utmost to bring it all together but right now, it’s stalled again. This is more than a little soul destroying.

I’m going step away from this and take some time off. And I’m going to rearrange my priorities to try and get a better balance when I come back. I hope you don’t mind the blog silence in the meantime.

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June has rolled around again and that means it’s now 8 years since we launched For The Girls.

Allow me to stand around in wide-eyed astonishment for a bit. Eight fucking years! That went quick. It’s also been a bit of a slog, especially over the last 18 months with the never-ending struggle to revamp our member’s area (still going). But wow. I never thought when we started out with our little “porn for women” site that it would still be going strong eight years later. I’ve seen so many changes in the adult industry and porn has practically fallen to pieces over the last year or so but we’re still here and still going strong.

We considered having 8th birthday competitions but we’re going to hold off for a bit. When the revamp finally goes live, we’ll do something big. Because by god that’s going to be worth celebrating.

Thanks to all the lovely women and men who have joined FTG over the years. I hope we made you happy. And thanks to everyone who has supported For The Girls and what it stands for. I still believe that straight women want and need porn that caters specifically to them. It empowers, it entertains, it includes and it satisfies.

Time to open the champagne and eat cake. Who cares if its 10am?

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I’m feeling a little snowed under at the moment. I suspect that the blog is going to be a little neglected for the next few weeks. Here’s why:

We are going to have to build the new member’s area of For The Girls from the ground up.

In November 2009 when we hired the first company to do this, we hoped we could automate the build. We asked them to create a database of the 1200+ text articles inside FTG and transfer it to the new content management system. They didn’t do it. Worse, they lied for 7 months and told us they had done it. They ultimately ripped us off and wasted our time.

Now our new programmer, despite his best efforts, has also been unable to achieve what we wanted. He did manage to import the text but the end result is ultimately unworkable. Titles are weird. Paragraphs and photos are missing. Some text didn’t import properly.

Instead I’m going to have to edit each entry by hand, manually cut and paste every article and then add categories, tags and photos to each article. We’ll also have to hand-tag and add descriptions to every single photo set and movie inside the site.

It’s a HUGE job. It’s going to take a long time. My hands and arms are already worn out. I’m quailing at the enormity of the job.

I’m also kicking myself that we didn’t just do this at the very beginning. It would have been done by now.

Anyway at least we have progress. We’ll get there. Just please be understanding if I’m not around here much.

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My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

- Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

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I seem to be doing a lot of travelling and going offline. I’m doing it again now – I have a wedding to attend 2000km away and I’m driving down there. Plus I’m going to see Sting which will be great. I’ve been to every concert of his in Australia since 1993.

So the poor blog is neglected again. I’m sure you’ll understand. Please, have a look at past posts or enjoy the free porn in the links area.

Or check out Porn Movies For Women if you’re after quality women’s erotica on film.

When I get back I’m doing a presentation on porn for women at the Erotics Conference in Brisbane. I’ve managed to write my speech but I still have to practice it. Given I’m used to sitting alone in my office not talking to people for days on end, this will be a challenge. Still, I’m looking forward to meeting lots of fabulous academics who have studied erotic work and also getting together with fellow pornographers and dirty pervs for a few drinks. Will be nice to do it in Australia, for once.

Cheers.

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I’m flooded in.

I haven’t been posting on my blog or doing much work lately because I’ve a) been on holidays and b) have been very distracted by an unfolding natural disaster over the last few days. Where I live in Australia is suffering the worst flooding in many years. I’m safe but all the roads into my town are cut by floodwater. And yesterday things became so much worse with flash flooding (see above) and drownings further south. Brisbane is due to be seriously flooded tomorrow and Thursday.

The disaster is huge in scale and heartbreaking for so many.

Today, however, there was a more quiet, sad moment. We went down to the water’s edge where the flood is very slowly receding. There an ambulance crew were delivering the body of someone who had died, handing over the maroon-wrapped bundle to the SES emergency workers. They put the body in a small boat and ferried it across the huge, brown, swollen river, presumably to the morgue.

The death was of natural causes, as far as I know. Even in major emergencies, life – and death – goes on.

The scene had echoes of the tale of the River Styx and the robed ferryman awaiting his toll. But I also found myself thinking of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, The Lady of Shallott. And reading that romantic piece of writing, I felt moved to post it here. I don’t have prayers to offer people caught up in the floods but I do want to say I’m thinking of them. And a beautiful piece of writing is always better than a prayer.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance –
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right –
The leaves upon her falling light –
Thro’ the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

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I’m an atheist but I still enjoy Christmas because it means good times with my family. Whatever it means to you, here’s wishing you a fantastic festive season.

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I’ve been away for a week, visiting Sydney on a bit of a junket. While I was there I joined in the Marriage Equality march that went from Town Hall to Taylor Square. I had intended to go to the speeches at the start but… well, I must admit I got a little caught up at the AC/DC exhibition. Marching is more fun anyway. I took a bit of video as we went along. As you can see, someone threw an egg from an apartment near Hyde Park which thankfully missed. Most people, though, were supportive.

The Sydney Star Observer says there were around 2000+ people there which they considered to be a good turnout. The comments then erupt into an argument over whether that number of people is good enough or not.

I must admit, I sometimes feel that rallies and marches have had their day. It seems that now we’ve got the internet, it’s a bit redundant to march down the street shouting slogans and blocking traffic. I think I developed this hesitation after going to a very-poorly attended anti-filter protest in 2008. I KNEW that heaps of people opposed censorship but unfortunately they didn’t turn up. It was too hard, apparently, they were all busy doing something else. It left the rest of us looking like a rag-tag bunch of losers protesting something that no-one really cared about.

I suspect it may be more effective to spend the time writing emails to MPs or creating online campaigns. I noticed that not a single major media outlet covered this Marriage Equality march, even if there were photographers there. Getting on the news has become the main reason for protests now; it feels as though the success of your issue relies solely the mercy of a faceless old-media editor somewhere.

Maybe I became cynical about protest rallies in 2003 when MILLIONS of people turned up to anti-Iraq war protest rallies all around the world and it made no difference at all. And yet I know that it’s still important to get out there and be loud and visible sometimes. It is worth it – if only so we can make witty signs and then upload our videos.

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I’m in love with this video: it’s called The Complete History Of The Soviet Union, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris . Yes, strange, but very clever.

I’m posting this because I don’t have time to blog at the moment. I’ve decided to take part in National Novel Writing Month. I’ve got to have a 50,000 word novel written by November 30. Trouble is, I only started on November 7. So I’m kinda busy.

At the moment I’ve got about 15,000 words done and I’m really enjoying it. It’s been a while since I actually enjoyed writing anything so this is really good for me.

Of course, the blog suffers in the meantime but I’m sure you’ll forgive me. I’ll post a few skerricks of fun over the next few weeks so it doesn’t look too dead.

Wish me luck.

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It’s Movember and that means all over the world, guys are growing some lovely facial hair under their noses for a good cause, usually prostate cancer research. I think it’s fabulous and I enjoy seeing the hair-growing progress of my male friends as the month goes on.

There’s a certain air of irony to Movember. It seems to operate on the idea that a sane man wouldn’t ordinarily sport a moustache and that there’s something wrong with having hair on your upper lip. I’ve read comments that the end of Movember results in guys looking like pedophiles, as though the two things are synonymous.

This also ties in with a general squeamishness in Western society surrounding the beard. I know a lot of women don’t consider them to be very sexy. There are also certain facial hair styles considered to be very untrustworthy, as this chart reveals.

I thought I’d stand up and say that I, for one, am partial to a bit of facial hair, particularly to a nicely trimmed goatee or stubble. This may well be because my husband sports a beard and has ever since I’ve known him, but I do like the definition that facial hair can give to a man’s face.

And, from a philosophical standpoint, we women shouldn’t be so picky about whether a man decides to grow a beard or not. The right of women to not shave their body hair has been a longstanding feminist battle; we should extend the same freedom to men.

Thus, I thought I’d do a pictorial post praising the sexiness of beards, moustaches, goatees and facial hair.

First, some celebrity facial hair:

Tom Selleck as Magnum PI – the original and best moustache. And look at that fabulous hairy chest.

George Michael originally made designer stubble cool. And damn, wasn’t he good looking before all that nasty plastic surgery?

Burt Reynolds showed off his mo in the first ever male centerfold. Now that’s a bearskin rug.

I’ve always found Billy Connolly to be very sexy. Add purple into the equation and he’s glorious.

Viggo Mortensen made us all long for wild hair and unkempt beards.

George Clooney’s beard makes him look distinguised AND handsome.

I was going to put one of Sean’s more regal beard pics in here… but I just couldn’t resist this photo from Zardoz.

Johnny Depp. Need I say more?

Oh wait…

I rest my case.

And now, some beefcake with beards for your ogling pleasure. Some of these pics are old but they’re also favourites of mine:

PS. A bit of fun – check out these celebrity pics that have been photoshopped so they’ve got beards.

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This happened two nights ago.

It was a balmy evening by the beach and we were heading off from the caravan park to have dinner at a nearby restaurant.

As we headed for the exit we noticed a young woman walking quickly away from a man muttering “fuck off!” She started to run into the main area of the park. She and the man were followed by two other people (as we found out later, the caravan park attendants) who were calling to the woman, trying to get her away from the guy.

It became apparent that it was a chase and that the woman was very scared.

My husband turned and went after them while I stayed back out of the way. Moments later, the guy was being held down by my husband, the caravan park guy and two others who had rushed over to help. The woman, apparently the target of a rape attempt, ran off and we didn’t see her again.

The very drunk or drugged would-be rapist swore, struggled and yelled his guts out until the police arrived, at which point we left them to it and went to dinner, discussing what had happened. My husband’s karate skills had been put to good use and I felt glad that he’d stepped in and stopped something awful from happening.

As we returned from dinner, we encountered the caravan park guy again.

Now, I should say here that I wasn’t very keen on this guy to begin with because he was a rule Nazi, was wearing a fairly sexist T-shirt when we arrived and seemed fairly light on for intelligence. The conversation we had after we got back confirmed this.

“Do you think the police will want to talk to me about this?” my husband asked.

“Nah, mate,” the caravan park attendant said. “They’ll get him for drunk and disorderly. I don’t like people disturbing the customers like that.”

“Well,” said my husband, “at least we stopped him. He looked like he wanted to rape that girl.”

“Yeah, well, she must have egged him on, I reckon.”

At first I couldn’t believe the idiot had just said what he’d said. Not two hours ago he’d been instrumental in physically restraining a man who obviously planned to attack the fleeing woman. Then he’d assisted in the arrest of that guy. And yet this numbnut had already decided that the woman was probably at fault somehow. And that the more worrying issue was a drunk guy waking up the people in caravans.

I should have told him he was a fucking idiot. Instead I just walked away, angry. My husband was good enough to say: “Well, no means no and she definitely wanted nothing to do with him.” But the caravan park guy wasn’t the slightest bit convinced.

I have an awful feeling that this attitude isn’t rare. And from now on, when feminists talk about “rape culture”, I’m going to think of this incident. Because apparently it doesn’t matter if you’re running away screaming from a rapist, it’s still somehow your fault.

Unbelieveable.

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You may have already seen this video by sex advice columnist Dan Savage. In it he and his husband urge gay teens to ignore the bullies at high school because life does get better.

Today I also watched this very moving speech by Texas city councillor Joel Burns, discussing his own experiences of bullying and the happy life he’s led since high school:

The “It’s Get Better” Project has now picked up speed and over 100 people have made videos talking about their own experiences of growing up gay. It seems that abuse and victimisation are par for the course for gay and lesbian teens (and also for many straight teens – being called a “fag” or a “dyke” is a common form of abuse, whether one is homosexual or not).

I applaud Dan for starting this campaign which aims to offer advice and support to teens and I think it’s created a much needed dialogue about the horror of bullying at high school.

I’m now pondering the underlying idea that teens have to just grit their teeth and bear it, at least until they leave high school (or even college). There’s almost a grim fatalism to the message, as though nothing else can be done. There are bullies, there always will be bullies. Just wait it out because you’re better than them.

This is essentially the same thing my mother said to me when I was 12, crying at the kitchen table because I was on the receiving end of the usual bitchy nastiness that so many girls endure at school. And it’s pretty much the same thing I said to my nieces a couple of years ago when they were being picked on by their school Queen Bee.

I understand the truth of it, of course. It does get better. And the people who are cruel and bigoted in high school don’t go anywhere. That’s the best they ever do in life.

But I wonder: why do we as a society just accept that bitchiness and bullying and hatred are par for the course at school? Does it always have to be that way? Is it something that inevitably happens because teenagers are just teenagers?

Last year I saw a fascinating documentary on the ABC’s Catalyst show called Whatever, The Science of Teens. It was looking at the different ways teenagers think due to the way their brains are still forming (see also this transcript). It showed that during adolescence, the parts of the brain that deal with social interaction and peer acceptance suddenly take on huge importance. Meanwhile, decision making ability goes out the window and risk taking becomes par for the course. There’s also a decrease in a teen’s ability to empathise with other people; being self-obsessed is common. This study found that girls become very concerned with how individual peers viewed them while boys focused on their status within the male pecking order.

So the science says that teens are especially vunerable to what other people think about them and that they can also lack empathy for others. In theory, the teen years are fertile ground for bullying and being bullied.

Is this why we just shrug and say “grin and bear it?” And is it even possible to imagine a way for teenagers to make it through adolescence without that pain?

I sometimes wonder why we as a society like to confine teenagers into high schools during those difficult years. In theory it’s because kids should be learning while their brains are still fresh. It’s a nice theory… but I’m not sure it’s accurate. Do you remember what you learned at school when you were 14 or 15? Or are your memories more involved with romance and looking cool in front of your friends? I know I’m pretty vague about my school work from that time but I can clearly recall episodes of bullying, along with embarrassing moments, earnest crushes and – thankfully – good times with my small group of nerdy friends.

Given the new information about what’s going on inside teenager’s heads, it’s a wonder we don’t do something else with them during that time, like mentoring them individually or just getting them to do menial work while they concentrate on their social lives. Surely throwing them all together into one place and letting them fight it out amongst themselves is a less-than-satisfactory solution? Of course, there’s all kinds of programs in schools now to prevent bullying but it’s the kind of problem that is very difficult to bring out into the open. And there’s all the added stress of social networks, meaning that harrassment can happen outside of school hours.

Maybe we just throw them all into high school to get them out of the way. Because, after all, teenagers are pretty annoying sometimes.

I was recently talking to a good friend who was part of the “popular” clique at school (we used to be deadly enemies). She and her group were all horrible to me and my friends… but they were also mean to each other, taking it in turns to ostracise a different girl every day. We talked about the whole dynamic of what went on and she said that all of the nastiness came from a single girl… but the others joined in to be part of the group, in the hope of not being the target the next day. It became a matter of self preservation. The “queen bee” enjoyed her power over the other girls and used bullying to maintain it.

Perhaps bullying is only ever the result of a few “bad eggs” who seek to be an “alpha” within their own social group. And the others follow so as not to become targets themselves. I guess the question is whether the restricted environment of high school helps these kinds of negative social interactions to flourish.

I do agree with Dan’s point here, though: the teen “bad eggs” usually get their negative attitudes from their parents. When those attitudes are homophobic, the inevitable result is that gay teens will be harrassed and bullied. And homosexual teens seem to be the easy target, the inevitable target, the ones who are more often on the receiving end of serious abuse and violence.

Does it always have to be this way? I don’t know the answer. I just wish there was a better response to the horror of high school than “grin and bear it.”

More about the It Gets Better Project here. And here’s the Youtube Channel.

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