I have been trying my very hardest to ignore the various fascist blowhards currently preening themselves through the Republican primary season. Let them twerk the dialogue so far that it is entirely subsumed by their draconian views on social issues – yes, it's bruising our souls to hear them tackle reproductive health, but in an era of our country's history when soaring unemployment rates look to be our new normal, every breath conservatives spend on their outdated ideas of sexuality takes them one vote away from ever taking the White House. Read more »

The only other time I had been to a live sex show was in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. The thing was crude – even amid the slew of debauchery that makes up tourist Amsterdam. Mostly, that was because of the concrete venue, Eurotrash techno, and slimy men masturbating and jeering behind me. But the Saturday night debut of Cum and Glitter at an underground venue in the Mission was an entirely different experience. Hosted by the elegant and welcoming Ginger Murry of Whore Magazine, the show is the brainchild of Ava Solanas and Maxine Holloway, who started the new monthly event as an expressive outlet for the sex worker community. Read more »

Dixie De La Tour wants you to talk about sex, for the sake of San Francisco's reputation. “I am still baffled at how a city as cosmopolitan as SF could not realize that perverts tell the very best stories,” says the host of Bawdy Storytelling. That's why she started the pervy monthly event that gathers up our city's sex-positive to share their most tawdry tales of love and lust. Recent Bawdy themes have included cheap sex, public sex, cockblocking, and December's “Dick in a Box” night (holiday sex!) Usually held at the Mission's Blue Macaw, the five-year anniversary edition of Bawdy will occupy the stage of the Verdi Club on Sat/18.

We asked De La Tour to recount five of her favorites Bawdy stories in honor of the event's milestone, which she did happily, including this scene-setting by way of introduction: Read more »

(Insert “saddle friction” joke here.) At the risk of sounding like an episode of Portlandia, we are stoked for the Bike Smut Film Festival, which rides in for its second SF showing in two weeks – the first took place at Bayview's Cyclecide Swearhouse last weekend – on Fri/3. 

Bike smut: people having sex on bikes, sex with bikes, sex with bikes watching – surely there will be bike couplings in there somewhere (a handlebar penetrating a spoke, well greased). This incarnation of the fresh-from-touring-Europe show has an Oregon Trail theme. Yes, we know you loved that game in elementary school. You know who else did? Everyone. Read more »

Thankful. I am thankful for San Francisco sex. Just got back from the AVN awards in Vegas this weekend and couldn't get over the fake boobs (literally -- mountainous cleavage), rubber ducky-esque lips, and rote couplings that took over the Hard Rock Hotel for the better part of the week. Don't get me wrong, the weekend was all kinds of wonderful and there were buffets and penthouse hot tubs filled with Tina Horn, Princess Donna, and Akira Raine -- salacious tweeting and rumors of Robin Leach and deep red carpet conversations about being forced to wear condoms. But for me, SF. Read more »

In a culture where pain equates to pleasure and sexual power is deliberately manipulated for ecstatic highs, how far is too far? Kitty Stryker and Maggie Mayhem are two local activists who are confronting rape and abuse within the BDSM community. The two are gearing up to take a workshop they've prepared on the subject called "Safe/Ward" on the road. You can support their educational tour at a Center for Sex and Culture fundraising event on Tue/24. Read more »

I had to share this link, because I think it just might be the first time I've heard of a reality TV series improving the lives of the subjects it covers. And the fact that those subjects are six UK transsexuals makes it all the more a. inspiring b. heartwarming and c. affirmative that perhaps the 1990s most salient contribution to popular culture can indeed be used for good.

The show, aired on England's Channel Four, was called My Transexual Summer, and it followed its protagonists through their transition process. Although Ralph Fox, the author of the Original Plumbing blog post I linked to above, sounds a little disappointed in the binary way in which gender was dealt with on the show, he did mention that “The thing I most love is how it’s been a minimum effort, maximum result situation.” People in his life that he probably wouldn't have had the talk with were able to learn about his world in a positive way. Read more »

It's been a minute since we've assembled the week's sex events in this column. That's our bad – we've been busy (mind yer business). But we're back this week! And thank goodness because the week of Christmas and the beginning of Channukah has to be the least-happening week for sex events of the year. Which is why we're including the following list of DIY sex events. 

1.Sperm donation. It is very, very chic now to give away for free what you once you were paid lots of money for. Just ask this guy. It's very 99 percent. Read more »

The mayoral elections are over. San Francisco politicos have long since rolled out of rumpled election night beds, kissed their partners for the first time in months, and tossed those worn-down precinct-walkers out for something a little more comfortable. Now our eyes turn to the presidential election, which despite Ed Lee's mustache is decidedly less sexy (blame it on the overexposure, c'mon Republican ladies and gentlemen can you leave nothing to our imagination?) 

And now Herman Cain's lawyers are telling sexual harassment victims to “think twice” before coming forward to accuse their inspirational speaker-cum-client? Sound like they need to attend the first sex-positive get-together on our list... read on. Read more »

It's easy to see how photographer Michael Rosen gets people to take their clothes off. He listens, he's mild-mannered, and he makes great art of the occasion – what more could you want in a voyeur? Rosen has been taking erotic photos since 1977, images of all genders, all sexualities, all the slutty, falling-apart-at-the seams of human sexuality. His new show opens on Fri/4.

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