Tuesday Links of (Varying Degrees of) Awesome

Hello again, folks! I’m pretty busy this week, getting ready for the big reading Wednesday night and dealing with power outages at home (no power last night = no blogging and no AC!), so now’s a great time for some link magic!

1) SO AWESOME I’M GETTING JUICY: I’m not one to get caught up in celebrity gossip, and I’ve always been leery of reading too much into Angie Bowie’s admission that she once found Mick Jagger and David Bowie in bed together–I kind of really wanted an affair between to the two rock icons to be a reality, but extrapolating too much can lead to disappointment, n’est ce pas? And this might be a real disappointment for me if it was proven that the two weren’t actually having an affair, though that seemed likely; you see, in case you’re not aware, I am obsessed with David Bowie. I have done photo shoots as homages to him. I may/may not be decorating a canvas uterus with Aladdin Sane makeup (oh yes, I’ll post photos). I may/may not (read: I totally do) have a Bowie Shrine (a five-pointed, gold, beaded star with a tea candle in each tip and an Aladdin Sane votive in the middle). I may, in fact, be a total, unapologetic, freak of a geek about Bowie. I’m not so keen on Jagger as a person, but I recognize his genius and charisma. And I freakin’ love gay love affairs. So imagine my guilty-pleasured, drool-wiping, geek-juice-slobbering joy when I read this little tidbit in the NY Daily News. In short: according to everyone, the affair was real, and it was super fucking sexy. I’m not the type to go for a biography of Mick Jagger, but this one might well be worth a read…

2) ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AWESOME COIN: Reductionist rhetoric about sex trafficking is showing up in commercials from FAIR girls. Obviously, obviously, the BackPage.com debate is a massive one, and the  issues it brings up about the legality of prostitution, the existence and acknowledgment of sex trafficking, the benefits and drawbacks of open venues like BackPage for sex workers to advertise their wares, etc. are all incredibly complicated. I can’t say that this commercial is wrong, but I can say that it promotes a very reductionist way of thinking about the issue. It’s so easy for us in the Puritanical U.S. to forget that not all sex work is sex trafficking and that not all sex workers are being exploited. The story of this unfortunate girl is absolutely horrifying, but it’s not always that way and it’s not that simple. BackPage provides a place for independent sex workers to relatively safely advertise and then screen their clients without the aid of a manager, boss, or pimp, but it also can be a place for much more dastardly deeds to be done, if people have a mind to do them. And the controversy rages on…

3) THE POSSIBILITIES ARE AWESOME: No less a prestigious force in the world of scientific research that Johns Hopkins University has released a study that estimates that better access to contraception could reduce the maternal mortality rate worldwide by a full third. That may seem like news to exactly nobody, given that abortion-related fatalities and complications from medical problems encountered during pregnancy and birth would obviously be reduced if fewer unwanted/difficult pregnancies happened in the first place, but as the NYTimes points out, funding for family planning funding in developing countries, where it is often most needed, has dropped prodigiously in recent years, as America and its money has grown more skittish about abortion and contraception issues. But now that a medical science behemoth like Johns Hopkins has shown some solid evidence that contraception can save lives… maybe some of the queasiness will end? There’s an opportunity for awesome here. More likely, of course, pundits and Republicans will seize upon this news in some hitherto unprecedented display of small-minded backwardness and declare medical science all hooey insofar as it applies to womenfolk because people with vaginas simply cannot be trusted to make their own medical (or other) decisions, but hey… we can hope, right?

4) Also, this is happening next week. You want to come, don’t you? It’ll be a queerly delicious good time:

Spill! True Stories of Queer Sex, Desire and Romance

Tuesday, July 17, 8-10pm, $8

Fontana’s, 105 Eldridge Street, New York, New York 10002
212/334-6740

Each month, Spill! brings together storytellers, comedians, sex educators and others to share true tales from their own experiences of sex, desire and romance. With stories as diverse as the people telling them, Spill! opens doors to bedrooms, back seats and dungeons to tell what your mama left out about the birds, bees and in-betweens.

Join these captivating captives for tales of the ever-elusive : Hosted by Jefferson (One Life Take Two, Bare!), Damian Bellino (My High School Boyfriend Was Gay), Chris Doucette (Comedian), Lynsey G (WHACK! Magazine, New York City Poetry Brothel), Greg Walloch (Writer, Monologist)

Musical guest Reformed Whores

. . . and you! You’ve got stories of first-time foibles. Try your luck by putting your name in the hat for a chance to spill all on the Spill! stage.

And still more! One lucky audience member will win Spill’s sex-toy raffle, courtesy of Babeland.

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