Spitzer coverage on Sex In The Public Square

Forgive me for not posting here for a while. I’ve been concentrating my attention on the other Sex In The Public Square and have been so busy that I forgot to mirror everything here. (Really, don’t you want to just come over and join us on SexInThePublicSquare.org? There’s a lot more going on over there!)

Some quick news about where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to first:

Last Wednesday night I was interviewed by Seska Lee on Audio Smut, a feminist radio collective that broadcasts on CKUT in Montreal.

From Friday through Monday I was at South by Southwest, where I presented a core conversation with Lux Alptraum. I also saw a great movie about bisexuality, a not so great movie about training of US soldiers, and some good panels on sexual privacy, 2257/2257a record keeping requirements, and creating interaction online. I got to talk with Cory Silverberg, Melissa Gira and Karen Rayne and Violet Blue in real live face-to-face space, and I’m finally starting to recover from the general lack of sleep. (More on SXSW later, I promise!)

I landed in NYC on Monday to a misplaced bag and to the news of the Spitzer/Emperor’s Club story. It’s been a busy week! You can follow our coverage of the story on SexInThePublicSquare.org. Here’s what we’ve had to say so far:

• Forum topic: Spitzer is linked to prostitution ring
• Chris’s blog: Eliot Spitzer caught in prostitution ring
• My blog: What can I say?
• Blog/forum topic: What good is sex work (Reprise)
• My blog: Kristof calls prostitution as dangerous as…

For updated lists of Spizter-related posts from SexInThePublicSquare.org click here.

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Last chance to send Pink Ghetto Blasters to SXSW!

I told you a while back that I proposed a panel for SXSW Interactive 2008 called Pink Ghetto Blasters: Destigmatizing Sex via Online Community Building. The panel would include Chris Hall, Lux Nightmare, Violet Blue, and Rachel Kramer Bussel as panel members with me moderating. Voting ends at 11:59pm central time.

As Chris explains at SexInThePublicSquare.org:

One of the principles behind Sex in the Public Square is that by putting the sexual aspects of our lives off-limits and keeping discussion of them “private,” we lose a valuable component of democracy. The category “NSFW” diminishes us as individuals and as a society because large chunks of both are kept in the closet. In short, we’re all about busting the Pink Ghetto, and this panel is a great way to get some of the sharpest minds in the field together to get beyond the basics and into the practical matters of what the real implications of fencing sex off from the rest of society are. This is a great opportunity for us, and we hope that as many of you as possible will give us your support.

If you have voted yet, please do! Click here for our panel’s page.

While you’re voting, consider these panels too. I’d love to see them make the cut!

• Violet Blue’s Sexual Privacy Online
• Lisa Vandever’s The Porn Police: Know the rules
• Cory Silverberg’s The Future of Sex in Interactive Narrative and also When No means 01001: Sexual Ethics and Interactivity
• George DeMet’s Content Management System Roundup
• Erin Denny’s Sex, Trees and Gun Control: Cause-related movement building

Pink Ghetto Blasters — A new sort of superhero or a SXSW Panel?

That depends: It will only be a SXSW panel if enough people vote for it, so head over to our SXSW panel picker page and vote! (You’ll need to register there to vote, but I promise you it isn’t a terrible process, and it’s not like you’ll have to remember the password for long!)

SXSW (which stands for South By Southwest) is a week-long annual music, film and “emerging technologies” festival that takes place in Austin, TX. The SXSW Interactive festival focuses on the emerging technologies part.

So what’s this Pink Ghetto Blaster stuff all about? You can get a great description of the Pink Ghetto problem in the writing of Lux Nightmare and Susie Bright. Our panel, if chosen, will explore ways to “blast” the ghetto using the networking, organizing and publishing power that the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies make broadly accessible.
Our panel, as officially described in 50 words or less:

The Internet has increased access to sexually explicit material and also created a new category, “NSFW” (not safe for work) with which to stigmatize sexual material and the discussions around it. We discuss specific strategies used to resist and challenge the stigmatization of sex.

Some key points:

• Stigma around sexuality is still a social problem, and the very blurry category “Not Safe For Work” reinforces that stigma.
• The networking and organizing power of Web 2.0 technologies provide a tremendous source of power and cultural leverage for marginalized groups.
• Everybody can learn to use these tools!

And most importantly, the panelists:

• Lux Nightmare (sex educator, activist, and editor of Boinkology.com)
• Rachel Kramer Bussel (blogger, editor of many erotic anthologies, and Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations)
• Chris Hall (co-founder of this site and author of Literate Perversions among other things)
• Violet Blue (sex columnist, author of many books on sex, blogger and vlogger and podcaster extraordinaire)

So, unless you want us to don pink catsuits with shiny black boots and long black latex gloves, and start flying from sea to shining sea using our sex-destigmatization ray guns, go over and vote for our panel at SXSW Interactive.

On second thought, why don’t you vote for our panel anyway. We can discuss the superhero costumes later!

(And RC, I hope you’re ready for company in Austin!)

Violet Blue’s Sexual Privacy Online

Lisa Vandever’s The Porn Police: Know the rules

Cory Silverberg’s The Future of Sex in Interactive Narrative and also When No means 01001: Sexual Ethics and Interactivity

George DeMet’s Content Management System Roundup

Erin Denny’s Sex, Trees and Gun Control: Cause-related movement building
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(Note: This post is also published on SexInThePublicSquare.org)

Technorati Tags: Chris Hall, culture, Elizabeth Wood, Lux Nightmare, pink ghetto, Rachel Kramer Bussel, sex, technology, Violet Blue