sex and sexuality

Bad Taste and Good Sense by Tom Jennings

Going Through the Motions

On the 27th June, 1969 as part of its policy of raiding and closing Gay Bars, the New York Police arrived at the Stonewall Inn to rough up the customers and make a few arrests. New York’s finest encountered black and white drag queens, gay men and lesbians, sick of police brutality, and who on being physically provoked fought back.

Anarchist views on sex can range from the idea that ‘anything goes’ between consenting adults, to the more traditional approaches of what constitutes free love between individuals. One thing these diverse opinions do have in common, however, is the idea of sexual freedom and the opposition to sexual exploitation. Nevertheless, being pro sexual freedom and anti sexual exploitation is open to wide interpretation and can encompass diverse, and sometimes conflicting, analyses from one anarchist to the next.

For two years Mistress Venus was a professional dominatrix in central London. She’s also an anarchist communist. So, we at Organise! thought we’d take the opportunity to ask her a few questions about this.

Anarchism, heterosexism and secular religions

Harassment is: Any number of acts or comments which make you feel physically or sexually unsafe or uncomfortable. They can be made by people you have known for years or by perfect strangers.

Basic Advice
If you are the victim of harassment, take the following steps:

Be safe

In July 2005 the Kerr Haslam Inquiry reported its findings to the Minster of Health. Unlike of the Shipman inquiry or the inquiry into the deaths of babies in Bristol, this report has not made the headlines.

This article comes from Black Flag #207, which came out in 1995. It starts witha couple of quotes and then goes on to address some of the issues relevant at the time (many of which are of course still relevant now.)

Quote....

Chen Guangcheng, a peasant blind since birth who taught himself the law initially to fight for disabled rights, last year began exposing official abuse of the one-child policy. The abuse included making women have abortions, sometimes as late as seven or eight months into their pregnancies, then making them undergo sterilisation.

Last week, GMB member Irene Everett won the first ever unfair dismissal case for a sex worker, against Essex-based Datapro Service Limited. She had worked on their live adult chat lines for eight years. The GMB, following its merger with the International Union of Sex Workers in 2002, has been trying to organise in the UK, and this was their first victory.

THE popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition.

OUR REFORMERS have suddenly made a great discovery--the white slave traffic. The papers are full of these "unheard-of conditions," and lawmakers are already planning a new set of laws to check the horror.

WAR, GLOBALIZATION AND REPRODUCTION
Silvia Federici

'Towards a Gay Communism' was originally the last chapter of Mario Mieli's book 'Homosexuality & Liberation "” Elements of a gay critique', first published in Italy as 'Elementi di critica omosessuale' [Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1977]. An English translation of the entire book was made by David Fernbach [London: Gay Men's Press, 1980]. The same year this chapter was reprinted as a pamphlet [London: pirate productions, 1980]

Alex Comfort (February 10, 1920 - March 26, 2000) was a British physician, anarchist, poet, novelist, anti-nuke activist, sexologist, etc...

A psychiatry lecturer at Stanford, Comfort was most famous for writing the many-times bestselling book, The Joy of Sex.