MAYA
let me be your mirror
A SOLO PHOTO EXHIBIT BY YUNICE KANG
9/8/11 – 9/14/11
OPENING RECEPTION
9/8/11
7-10PM
FRONTRUNNER GALLERY
59 Franklin Street (between Broadway & Lafyette)
New York, NY 10013
From the category archives:
Passions
I hope you’re all enjoying a relaxing start to the week! To kick (pun intended) things off right, let’s celebrate “Manly Monday” again, weekly festivities of everything with a dick. If you haven’t already heard, soccer beauty David Beckham is preemptively warning his newborn daughter Harper Seven Beckham‘s would-be suitors he is NOT going to put up with any shit!
About her future dating life, he says boys should know she has “three brothers that will take her, three brothers that will eat with her and three brothers that will bring her back home to a dad waiting for her.” See? That’s a DILF! (via The Frisky)
By now, you’ve probably heard that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a mandate requiring New York City’s public schools to teach age-appropriate sex education. In theory, according to the Wall Street Journal, students will receive their first sex ed dose in middle-school (ages 10 – 13) and they’ll receive a second semester in high-school (ages 13 – 17). New York City high schools have passed out condoms for more than 20 years. The New York Times explains, “in the new sex-education classes, teachers will describe how to use them, and why.” This is a fantastic idea–especially considering how many NYC teens are having sex. Statistics below are for New York State. If you’d like to know the statistics for your area, click here.
Sexually Experienced by Grade |
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|---|---|---|
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Statistic
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New York
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United States
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Grade 9th, 2009
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26.4%
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31.6%
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Grade 10th, 2009
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37.2%
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40.9%
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Grade 11th, 2009
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46.1%
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53%
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Grade 12th, 2009
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61.8%
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62.3%
|
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance–United States, 2009. Surveillance Summaries (2010). MMWR 2010;59 (No. SS-5). http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss5905.pdf [June 2010]
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Teaching kids to use condoms so that, if they choose to have sex, they’ll be less likely to get (someone) pregnant, contract HIV, or spread sexually transmitted infections like Gonorrhea or Chlamydia should hardly be controversial. Nevertheless, Time magazine writes, “Sex education has become the most hotly debated topic in American elementary education.” Critics believe education belongs in the home or at church, they warn. You know what’s really fucking sad about that article? It was written in 1969! It often still holds true. So, thank the sweet little baby Jesus for Michael Bloomberg understanding that New York City needs a sex education initiative. Let’s talk about some of the mandate’s limitations and discuss how it could be made stronger.
Sex Ed Won’t Be “Required”
Despite descriptions of it in the media, the new mandate doesn’t make comprehensive sex education mandatory. Just like under the city’s previous sex ed curriculum–which primarily focused on HIV/AIDS–parents will have the ability to opt their child out of specific lessons. If a mandate is an order that someone do something, it’s not really effective if they don’t have to do it.
Teachers May Not Be Equipped to Teach Sex Ed
I work in the sex industry; That is, for a living, I write about sex & relationships, and I also teach and manage sex education programs for teens and adults (bio). Technically, throughout the U.S. and the rest of the world, my lusciously diverse industry includes everyone who provides sex-related products and services. Podcast hosts who talk about sex. Dominatrix. Sex education teachers. Church & Dwight Company employees. (Yep, the folks that peddle ARM & HAMMER baking soda also bring you “America’s #1″ Trojan brand condoms.) Pickup artist book authors. Gynecologists. Burlesque dancers. Certified sex therapists. Columnists like Dan Savage. Dungeon owners. Would you trust everyone who works in my field to teach your kid about sex education? How about people who don’t even work in the field? Often, the responsibility for teaching America’s teens about sex falls into health and P.E. teachers’ laps. As The Nation notes, while Bloomberg’s sex education mandate includes teacher training, “one essential element [is] missing: a program monitoring system, i.e., accountability.” Read: Sex, Lies and Michael Bloomberg.
The Public May Not Understand Why Pubic Matters
To ensure the mandate’s success, Bloomberg may need to do a better job at increasing awareness of how sex education is linked to public health as well as economic issues. In short, letting people know NYC students need sex ed is awesome, but it also helps if they know why. Decreased access to sex education is linked to increased poverty, decreased levels of health/wellbeing and increased abortion rates. Also, Teen and unplanned pregnancies cost U.S. tax payers $11 billion annually.
Don’t Forget to <3 the Internet!
One of my favorite things about my job is that I regularly have opportunities to speak about sex & technology to conference, teen and university audiences. At present, I have a South by Southwest proposal up for consideration: Sex, Dating and Privacy Online Post-Weinergate. Please vote for me! Fellow panelists include the amazing Feministing Executive Editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay (Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life), the incredibly prolific writer and lover of big guys Rachel Kramer Bussel, and the talented Forbes Web Celeb / one of Wired’s Faces of Innovation Violet Blue. Among other things, we’ll tell you 5 things you need to know about balancing the public/private divide (that you can only learn from people who write about sex professionally). Here’s that link again if you’d like to vote: Sex, Dating and Privacy Online Post-Weinergate. Now, back to sex education in NYC.
New York Daily News interviewed a mother named Yvonne McDowell whose 14-year-old son James is entering 9th grade in the Bronx. “I would prefer for my son to get [sex education] from the school than for him to get it from the street or from peers or from TV or social media,” she said. Truth is, even though NYC schools will follow Bloomberg’s sexy mandate, students will still go online to learn about one of the world’s oldest activities. In fact, ISIS conducted a study about this last year. When they asked teen and young respondents, “How do you learn about [birth control, menstruation, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases]?” 89% replied “online.” That tops doctors, family, friends and, of course, school workshops. Given this, sex education mandates targeting middle and high school students should combine sexual and reproductive health education with digital media literacy.
That’s all, my friends! I hope this roundup helped explain Bloomberg’s new sex education mandate. As always, if you have any questions or you’d like to contribute to the conversation, please feel free to use the comments section below.
If Marilyn Monroe was an Arab woman she might be Baya Benmahmoud, says filmmaker Michel Leclerc. “For Baya,” he continues, “nudity is totally unimportant: she acts the same way naked as she does in clothes – she doesn’t make it sexual.” The New York Times calls her “a walking wardrobe malfunction, who is so absent-minded that her breasts are repeatedly falling out of her shirt.” Romantic comedy THE NAMES OF LOVE features flesh, witty dialogue, and a steamy interethnic romance between a young Arab woman who likes to be naked and a middle-aged Jewish man who likes to indulge her.
Be ye not fooled! It’s smarter than your average opposites-attract flick. More about the film from its website: Amid the bubbly amour [...] and moments of sheer madness, filmmaker Michel Leclerc injects satirical riffs on such hot-button sociopolitical issues as Arab-Jewish relations, anti-Semitism, immigration, and racial and cultural identity.
“In France,” says Leclerc, “the question of origin is complicated and obsessive.” His co-writer on the screenplay shares the female lead’s namesake, Baya, and also has an Algerian parent. Is the fictional Baya the filmmaker’s Baya? Admitting THE NAMES OF LOVE is highly autobiographical, Leclerc fesses, “it was in telling each other stories about our families that, despite our differences, we recognized similarities when it came to certain neuroses and obsessions of our parents.” In closing credits, the screenwriting pair dedicate THE NAMES OF LOVE to their parents. I saw the flick with my friend Rachel because I’m addicted to sexy romantic comedies. Here’s our quickie 120-second review:
Additional film reviews are available from Roger Ebert and local outlets like The New York Jewish Week, The New Jersey Jewish Standard, Salon and The New York Times.
When the New York Times called independent television “a colorful circus parade of often self-indulgent, occasionally incomprehensible entertainment,” I knew I belonged there ;) First, let me back up a bit. To those of you who saw the cryptic password-protected post on my site the other day, ugh, sorry about that! When I temporarily uploaded files to FUNKY BROWN CHICK®, I didn’t know e-subscribers would be sent the private post. So, although I’m not making the official announcement until next month, it probably makes sense to explain what’s going on … I have a new television show. And a web series. The Late Sex Show with Twanna Hines and FourPlay.
Premiering Spring 2011, The Late Sex Show with Twanna Hines (or LATE SEX WITH TWANNA for short) is a late-night television series airing Fridays at 2:00 a.m. ET on MNN — the independent television network that serves up Democracy Now!, GritTV, GayUSA and others.
The tagline: Do you like to watch? It’s been more than a year in the making. As a creative person, New York is a hard city if you’re single, paying your way and aren’t propped up by benefactors (i.e. parents, lovers, spouses, etc.) who take care of your bills. I’ve been doing it for nearly six years. And, I’m so inspired by people like Baratunde, Rach, Dacia and others who successfully blend full-time employment with various creative endeavors. Baratunde is a comedian and political commentator who — along with sharing the good news about his TV show throughout India and Eastern Europe — is the fulltime Director of Digital for The Onion. Rach works fulltime as Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations AND she edits smart books about sex AND she runs a cupcake blog that’s been mentioned in the New York Times AND she does way too many other things to count. Ditto for Dacia. She’s a fulltime International Women’s Health Coalition employee who also consults for the Global Network of Sex Work Projects and leads annual media training workshops with Sex Work Awareness.
I don’t think being well rounded requires being distracted from earning a decent living. On the contrary, I genuinely believe following our passions feeds our souls — which, in the long run, makes us happier people at work, in friendships and within relationships. I remember the first time I dated a guy who asked about my hobbies and wanted to know what I did for fun. At the time, I felt awkward answering him because I wasn’t doing anything special with my time. It was college. I basically read Kant and drank booze. Granted, I still read and drink (not usually at the same time), but I do other things as well. For example, starting this Spring for exactly one precious night a week, I’ll appear on television screens across Manhattan to talk about sexual & reproductive health / rights. Expect it to be lighthearted, upbeat, educational and fun. I’ll keep you guys posted on the developments. Speaking of new things … I’m equally, if not more, excited to share the good news about FourPlay!!!!! Writing a post about it now & I’ll include one of the mini-episodes. Stay tuned!
Hello, lovers! So much has happened since you and I last spoke. Most of it’s private, hence I was light on posting. If you crave heavier FUNKY BROWN CHICK® doses, you can usually find me online somewhere on any given day — whether uploading Facebook photos with JohnJude at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week – New York 2011 or posting a YouTube video taking clothes off and putting them back on. Link up to stay in touch. To those of you who have already reached out and/or connected elsewhere, I see your mentions, likes, comments, retweets, emails, etc. Sincerest gratitude for your support.
In 2005, I started writing about sex and healthy relationships on FUNKY BROWN CHICK® because I wanted to create a space where anyone could feel free to share frank, intelligent, adult conversations. Marriage. Loneliness. Bisexual men. Male genital mutilation. Intersex children. Interracial dating. Any time anyone stumbles upon something I’ve written that inspires them or makes them think differently, that makes me happy. Over the past (nearly) six years, I’ve enjoyed crafting 1,000+ posts. And, I look forward to sharing even more in the days, weeks and years to come.
Speaking of coming, I recently saw Liz Canner’s film, ORGASM INC. Big pharma has been itching to get inside women’s panties for ages. Four years ago, I wrote about Procter & Gamble’s horny hustle. See: Intrinsa Wants to Make Women Horny. A former porn editor for pill-pusher for Vivus, ORGASM INC director Canner shows various Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) “treatments” — including Intrinsa, surgically inserting crap against your spine, slashing ladybits and gulping experimental hormones. Though some of the movie’s graphics are a bit choppy and distracting, ORGASM INC still delivers an important, thought-provoking exploration of sex and medicine. See it.
I’m kind of a film nut, so I watch more movies than most. That said, I’ve not yet seen KING’S SPEECH, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT or TRUE GRIT. If you’ve seen any of them, share your thoughts. Feel free to leave other movie suggestions — or your mini film review of ORGASM INC if you’ve already seen it — in the comments section.
First, an update. I’m ridiculously grateful. In recent weeks, new creative opportunities came my way — hence, the light blogging as I got everything sorted out. Expect exciting announcements in early 2011. In the meantime, on with our regularly scheduled program at FUNKY BROWN CHICK®. I recently saw director Darren Aronofsky’s flick BLACK SWAN starring Natalie Portman. If you’ve not yet seen it, here’s the trailer. As others have noted, it’s basically an arthouse version of Showgirls — but better. Waaaaay better. The film’s plot cleverly mirrors the ballet’s storyline. Nina (Natalie Portman) is a frigid ballerina in Manhattan who dances the lead role in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Her rival, Lily (Mila Kunis), vies to take her spot. Porny/Showgirls infusions include a Natalie Portman who CANNOT STOP MASTURBATING. Plus, there’s a girl-on-girl action shot when the Baywatch chick (Kunis) goes down on Nina. Current.com calls them frenemies with benefits.
The script contains several winning quotes. When Nina (Portman) replaces Beth (Winona Ryder) as head dancer and pilfers her dressing room, Ryder — previously arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue — indignantly lips the line: You stole my stuff?! Another great one? The sexy Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), points to uptight Nina and asks a male ballerina, Would you fuck that girl? When he doesn’t answer, Thomas’ heavy French accents drips: Exactly. No one would. Speaking of Vincent Cassels — because BLACK SWAN convinced me I soooo need to look at his face more often — I recently streamed IRREVERSIBLE on Netflix. Um, big mistake. That movie was so gratuitously and destructively violent I actually watched YouTube clips of dolphins and a kitty & a furry little puppy licking each other to get it out of my head. Fuck, man. Seriously. It’s intense. In any case … Back to BLACK SWAN.
Seeing Nina and Lily’s relationship on the screen, I thought about how women interact in friendships compared to men. A frenemy, according to Wikipedia, is “an enemy disguised as a friend” or “a partner who is simultaneously a competitor and rival.” Jumping off the screen and going elsewhere in Hollywood, it’s been alleged Eva Longoria is divorcing Tony Parker due to his sexting relationship with Erin Barry –wife of Tony’s former NBA teammate. That sucks because Eva & Erin were girlfriends, and Tony & Brent were dude friends. Here’s a photo of the smiling foursome paling around before all this shit went down. My thoughts? (1) I read too much celebrity gossip news. (2) Question: Are women more likely to be competitive with each other than men are — à la Natalie Portman & Mila Kunis in BLACK SWAN? Or, does competition among women simply manifest itself differently? Let’s chew on that in the comments section.
