Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthy, and blogs politics and culture at The Daily Dish. Sometimes I send him notes. Sometimes he publishes them. Yesterday I sent him this:

To: Andrew Sullivan
From: Tony Comstock
Subject: Clitoral Anatomy

Since you continue to be fascinated with the clitoris and use it in various of your arguements, perhaps you should do a little wood-shedding on clitoral anatomy. Your information is sorely out of date:

http://news.bbe.co.uk/hi/health/5013866.stm

HTH

Here’s today’s Daily Dish clitoris post:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/06/clitoris-envy.html 

A straight man setting a gay man straight on clitoral anatomy. No wonder Peggy refers to Sullivan as “Your boyfriend, Andie.”

Last Summer, while Peggy was on her way back from the Second Annual Feminist Porn Award, I started working on a post tentatively entitled “What Do Pornography and Feminism Have In Common, Part 3″.

I started writing it because I was genuinely surprised that MATT AND KHYM received an award. The previous year we had already had our turn at the podium for a heterosexual title, so felt sure if we were going to get an award for anything, it was going to be for DAMON AND HUNTER.

I stopped writing because I didn’t want to seem like an ingrate, and I really didn’t know where I was going to go with the post, other than to say that the criteria for “feminist porn” at The Feminist Porn Awards pretty much disqualified all of the erotic work that my wife and most of her women friends enjoy.

I started in on it again because of things I read on Petra Joy’s Blog, Erika Lust’s Blog, and Audacia Ray’s Blog about blowjobs, pornography, and feminism.

It was a long post, quoting liberally from the chapter “Seeing Around the Edge of the Frame” in Walter Murch’s book IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE. But once again I’ve shelved it.

Again I can’t explain exactly why, except to say that there’s nothing wrong with talking about why or how a filmmaker makes the films they make, but intentions and agendas only go so far.

If you’re a writer, the words have to make it onto the page; if you’re a painter, the paint has to make it onto the canvas; and if you’re a filmmaker, you’ve got to put it on the screen.

As far as blowjobs go, my understanding of feminism is that one of its central tenents is that a woman should be free to enjoy anything a man is free to enjoy. With that in mind, here are Damon and Hunter, talking about sucking dicks:

From DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER

“Adult sexual conduct is not illegal and it is in fact constitutionally protected. See, e.g., Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). The regulation of visual depictions of adult sexual activity is not based on its intrinsic relation to illegal conduct.”

That’s from the Sixth Circuit Court’s ruling 2257 regulations unconstitutional, and gets to the heart of why I am fascinated by, and passionate about making sexual imagery.

Some few years ago I directed a film about Hutu refugees in Eastern Zaire. The imagery from the camps themselves was appalling enough: emaciated men, women, and children dying as the camera rolled; bodies being stacked into the bed of trucks like cordwood. But also included was footage from the Hutu genocidal slaughter of their Tutsi countrymen (carried out largely by machete,) including footage of a man being murdered by decapitation and the desecration of corpses.

I thought long and hard about what shots I would and would not include this film. I wanted my audience to vividly understand the horrors that had played out, but I did not want to them to withdraw, to down emotionally. I wanted them to stay with the film, through to the end, and hoped that they would find meaning in what I chose to show them. I thought a lot about the line between enough and too much. But never, not even for a moment, did I think about whether or not the footage I chose to include was prosecutable.

By contrast, nothing I show in the films I make about sex is awful. In fact, it’s all quite wonderful! People who desire each other giving and receiving pleasure in the most intimate and delicious ways! Yet in choosing to document and then distributed these consensual, loving, pleasurable, and entirely legal acts, some how through the magical powers of the camera, I may be committing a crime. Depending on where my films are watched, and by whom, what I do may not be protected by the First Amendment, what I do may be considered obscene, what I do may be against the law.

“The regulation of visual depictions of adult sexual activity is not based on its intrinsic relation to illegal conduct.” That’s what the Sixth Circuit Court says. I don’t see how that squares with Miller v. California. I’d like to find out, but I don’t want to lose my house or go to jail.

It’s four in the morning here and I just finished a long chat with a representative of the OFLC.

“Ashley and Kisha” has not been classified, which meant that the OFLC could have given it a festival exemption to play at MUFF.

But OFLC refused to give it a festival exemption on the basis that my previous three films were classified X.

I asked why Destricted, which features work by Larry Clark, who’s previous film was refused classification, was given a festival exemption to play the same night as Ashley and Kisha, across town at ACMI, a and they could not answer.

I asked why Destricted, which features brutally mercenary depictions of the most loveless anal sex, was given a festival exemption and they could not answer.

Their suggestion was that we submit “Ashley and Kisha” for rush classification, in the hopes that we would receive a R classification.

But…

When I asked why 9 Songs, which feature actors performing cunelingus, felatio, ejaculation, and penetration was given an R, while our films which depict actual lovers are given an X, they could not answer.

When I asked why Shortbus, which features, among other things, an actor masturbating and then ejaculating on his face was given an R, while our film, which explore sexual pleasure inside the context of committed real-life loving relationships, they could not answer.

When I asked why numerous videos from the Sinclair Institute, which feature various sex acts performed by paid models, and presented under the guise of education are given R , while our film, which are held in the libraries of The Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana, Planned Parenthood, The Gay Mens Health Crisis, The San Francisco Sex Information Hotline and many other health and education organizations are given an X, they could not answer.

They have told me the process is subjective and imperfect; yet this process has a “perfect” track record of marginalizing our films.

Now they would ask that we once again submit our work to this subjective and imperfect process, pay $1,000 for the privilege of doing so, against the hope that the fifth time’s the charm.

I may be a fool, but I’m not that kind of fool.

Writing about “Ashley and Kisha” Megan Spencer said, “The sweetest thing - Kisha & Ashley is one of the sweetest love stories you’re ever likely to see committed to film. The Comstocks once again put their perfect documentary formula to good use - true love and real sex - on screen; what’s not to like?!”

True love and real sex, what’s not to like indeed?

Obviously the OFLC has no problem with real sex. It has granted its R classification to 9 Songs, Shortbus, and many other videos containing real sex. It has granted a festival exemption to Destricted, which contains real sex.

One can only conclude that the problem the OFLC has is with true love, and what a pity that is; for this film, for the people who wanted to see it, and for Australia.

About goddamn time! From Yahoo:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cosmetic procedures billed as “vaginal rejuvenation,” “designer vaginoplasty” or even “revirgination” are not medically necessary and are not guaranteed to be safe, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautioned on Friday.

“Many women don’t realize that the appearance of external genitals varies significantly from woman to woman,” Berenson said in a statement.(Emphasis mine.)

ACOG noted that a growing number of doctors are offering the procedures.

“There are always risks associated with a surgical procedure,” Berenson said. “It’s important that women understand the potential risks of these procedures and that there is no scientific evidence regarding their benefits.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070831/hl_nm/surgery_vaginal_dc_1

British art and culture critic Bryan Appleyard is trying to say something about fame and the internet and “Web 2.0″, but since he gets nearly all of the technical details wrong, it’s hard to tell what point he’s making, other than that he doesn’t like a lot of what he sees on the online.

Of course no curmudgeonly rant about the vapidity of the internet would be complete without a mention of sex and porn. So who’s Bryan’s target? Violet Blue! Writes Bryan:

“In Web 1.0, human nature expressed itself primarily through lust and greed. Everybody was trying – and failing – to find new ways of making money, and delivering pornography was the main purpose of the web. Both are still present in Web 2.0, but they have changed. Making money, through online gambling and advertising focused on individual users, for example, exploits the new levels of interactivity. Pornography is now delivered with streaming video and, frequently, high levels of interactivity. In addition, there are now porn social-networking sites. You can post your home-made porn on one site and join in the fun as a voyeur on another. And there are endless sites offering the full 2.0 sex experience. Violet Blue calls herself a “pro-blogger, podcaster, vlogger and femmebot”. She’s written “ultimate guides” to cunnilingus and fellatio and, of course, The Smart Girl’s Guide to the G-Spot. Her site is a sex shop and supermarket of self-promotion – lust and recognition all in one super-refined techno-package. As one leading British thinker put it, “How come the highest technology is always used for the lowest purposes?” (Emphasis mine.)

I can’t tell you who Bryan’s “leading British thinker” is. The quote only returns Bryan’s diatribe on Google, and it’s not in any of the quotation books I have either. Pity, because I’d like to see the context of the quote, and make my own judgement as to whether this “leading British thinker” believes the enjoyment of sex is “the lowest purpose.” Obviously Bryan does, which I suppose explains why he is so sardonic about his advancing age.

None of us are as young as we used to be, Bryan.

Unlike Bryan’s blog, Violet’s doesn’t even allow user comments, which are the sin non qua for Web 2.0. Nor is there any other aspect of user-interactivity on Tinynibbles.com, and there’s even less adverting than on TinyNibbles.com than there is on Bryan’s site.

Bryan, why such a hard-on for Ms. Blue?

Blowfish is where I discovered sex didn’t suck. Or rather Blowfish is where I discovered that the sex business didn’t have to suck. It was in their online catalog that I first found things like Vixen Creations Dildos or the work of Jullian Snelling and started to wonder why there weren’t sex videos that were equally well made.

Blowfish was also the first American retailer to buy our first film, MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, so I’m always anxious to hear what they think of our films. It’s not that I think they’d hate anything we’d produced, but I hold Blowfish in extra high esteem, and I want them to be extra charmed with what we offer them. You can imagine the sigh of relief when I read this in the Blowfish weekly newsletter:

“We like Tony Comstock’s movies. He specializes in documentaries that all follow the same basic pattern: a long interview with a couple, mostly about their sex life but also about the origin of their romance, followed by a long sex scene. The end result is strangely intimate — having heard so much about their lives, it’s quite moving to watch these people have sex. In a field where sleaze and vulgarity are pretty much part of the atmosphere, Comstock’s films provide a welcome touch of class, and they’re often as much about love as lust.“Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit is Comstock’s first film devoted to a lesbian couple, and they’re wonderful subjects, funny and sweet and willing to laugh at themselves. (The fact that they’re totally gorgeous is a bonus.) Their story has the satisfying contours of a romantic comedy: Ashley the openly gay student athlete pursues straight college girl Kisha, who turns out to be not quite as straight as she’d always assumed. There’s even a cute meet, when Kisha barges into the bathroom at a party where Ashley is making out with her ex-girlfriend; Ashley confessed that, though she slept with her ex that night, she was really thinking about the glimpse she got of Kisha’s ass in the bathroom.

During his promotion of his film SHORTBUS one of the things John Cameron Mitchell said was, “We tried to de-eroticize the sex to see what kind of emotions and ideas are left over when the haze of eroticism is waved away…by the end if you’re thinking only about the sex, then you have a problem.”

Peggy and I watched SHORTBUS together, in bed, on a Friday night, after the kids were fast asleep, and I guess we don’t have a problem, because by the end of the movie we were not thinking about sex so much that we didn’t even have sex ourselves. Mitchell had so successfully “de-eroticized” the sex that SHORTBUS effectively squelched my usually rampant libido.

The problem that I do have is with the idea that arousal, that sexual desire, that erotic pleasure is some sort of haze that keeps us from seeing our better selves. This idea utterly pervades the discussion of sexual art – from The United States v. Ulysses, to Sir Quintin of the BBFC, to Mitchell’s strange pride that although “all the orgasms and all the semen in SHORTBUS were real…no one in the audience got a hard-on” – artists and audiences both are obliged to deny and devalue the the erotic, to say (true or not) that their interest in sex lies elsewhere.

Fine. Whatever. Not me.

I love exploring the erotic. I love hearing what turns people on, I love seeing what turns people on, I love seeing what people do when they are turned on. I love the idea that sex can be restorative, curative, and connective. I love that getting hard or wet or whatever is a part of falling in love, and being in love, and staying in love. And I love making films about it.

I love when people watch my films and laugh and cry and sigh, and most of all, I love when people watch my films and get turned on. I love hearing about the gushy wanks and lusty tumbles these films inspire. I love hearing about how, after watching our films, lovers trip down memory lane, recounting their own “hardcore love stories”, and then add another chapter right there and then!

Does that make me a romantic, or a recovering romantic or a delusional romantic? Yes, and I’m proud to be one, and proud and delighted to see another one of our films at Blowfish.com!

Today is the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the case that decided once and for all that the state had no compelling interest in preventing a man and a woman of differing races from marrying one another, and that to do so would be in violation of their constitutional rights. From Wikipedia:

The plaintiffs, Mildred Jeter (a black woman) and Richard Perry Loving (a white man), were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June of 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade a state law banning marriages between any white person and a non-white person.

The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and in 1963 began a series of lawsuits seeking to overcome their conviction on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court.

Even today, many regard the consentual sexual habits of adults as the ligitimate pervue of the state. There are laws affecting where erotic films can be sold, and laws that prohibit the sale of devices intended to provide sexual pleasure. Whether or not gay men and lesbian women will have access to the same legal concecration of their sexual unions remains an open and divisive question.

None the less, there is no doubt that we are sexually more free than we were 40 years ago.

So drink a toast to the Lovings. Say thanks for their courage and their steadfastness. Because of their willingness to fight, we are all a little more free to love!

“[W]hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.” – Judge John M. Woolsey, 1933“We think that Ulysses is a book of originality and sincerity of treatment and that it has not the effect of promoting lust. Accordingly it does not fall within the statute, even though it justly may offend many.” – Augustus Noble Hand, Second Ciruit Court of Appeals, 1934

No surprise, parasites of all stripe have attached themselves to the killings at Viginia Tech. If you feel like your blood pressure needs a boost, read Judith Reisman’s explanation “Cho’s Erototoxic Addiction”. For my money, this is her most dizzyingly offensive line:

“Sit him at the Internet every night, angrily lusting after naked young blondes who provoke his loins.”

Blonde-bashing, gynophobia, and erotophobia, all in one tidy sentence. And speaking of money, like most parasites, Reisman sees dollars signs at Virgina Tech:

“Meanwhile, a major lawsuit waits in the wings if Virginia Tech has been a pornographic/erototoxic tolerant environment.”

Porn addiction is real, and it’s dangerous, and there’s no telling what hideous, depraved, selfish act it will drive Ms. Reisman to next.