Keepin' on the Sunny Side

New York MoMA - April 2009

Political mud slinging and grid lock, unemployment still high, banks still playing shenanigans, another former child star died too young as an adult, the great easy rider, Dennis Hopper, died, and the oil disaster in the gulf is wiping out an ecosystem.  It is getting hard to find anything to smile about, but that is what I need to do right now or I will just go deeper into that black hole.

Good things -

• My vertigo is gone
• Work is moving along
• My big art project is moving along.
• My yard's bark chipping is almost done
• My niece graduated from college
• I got a new 27" iMac which is much better to use for photo editing than my dimming 15" Macbook Pro
• I gave blood
• The moon is really pretty tonight
• Palomar is playing on my iTunes
• I just watched episodes of Justified and Californication  and recommend them both
• I am getting ready for my New York trip by arranging work with a model there 
• My wife and I are doing well
• My truck is busy being a truck by hauling bark chip and other yard stuff
• My 10+ year old dogs still love to play fetch and brawl with each other
• Some friends got new jobs, including one who could  not come out as lesbian at her old one in fear of losing her job
• A friend who has bad back pain was able to get some cortisone shots today
• There is fresh snow in the Sierras and one or two resorts are going to reopen for the weekend

Sometimes I have to just turn off the radio, computer, tv, and stop reading the news for a little while.  It gets to be too much too fast.  I don't want to disconnect from the world, just take a break and enjoy the things that are good.

I plan to write more about Dennis Hopper later.  He was a  big role model for me.

She Still Works Hard

Porn and Drugs, part 2- last one, I promise... for now.

The greatest challenge of addressing the topic of pornography is the lack of definition. After an email exchange with Dr. L about life, art, and our recent pornography posts, I found another instance where drugs and porn are similar and may help with the difficulty of defining the term. It all comes down to our reaction to the subject. Some of us process the subject one way while others go in different directions.

In our emails and blogs, we discussed the definition, or lack of definition, of "pornography." The good Dr. made a great point in her email,

"It is meaningless to me. If no one knows what something means, then it doesn't exist."

How can something exist that can not be defined?

Think about a word of something physical like "pencil." According to Wikipedia,

A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use. Pencils create marks via physical abrasion, leaving behind a trail of solid core material that adheres to a sheet of paper or other surface. They are noticeably distinct from pens, which dispense liquid or gel ink that stain the light color of the paper.

That pretty much sums up a pencil. How about something more challenging like "love". According to Wikipedia,

Love is any of a number of emotions related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. 

Love then can be defined from different cultural views, physiological reasons.  It was broken down into different types of love by the Greeks. These types were:

• agape - divine, unconditional love, eros - passionate, sensual, longing
• philia - a practical love with loyalty to the family, community, and those around you
• storge - natural affection and caring, like parent to child
• xenia - love through hospitality.

Even though "love" is much more abstract than "pencil", it still has a definition that most can understand and agree on. Pornography doesn't have that going for it.

Drugs and Metabolism - a connection to porn

I am amazed how our body works with things to either hurt or help us. Our body stores fat in the belly to keep organs warm and maintain a fuel supply near them when food is scarce. It also causes health issues when we store too much fat there.

The body metabolizes things differently and can change things ingested or breathed in into completely different things. We breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Our body changed it.

In a more complex example, our body ingests a drug and changes it into a different compound. Capecitabine is a colorectal and breast cancer treatment taken orally via a tablet. When some patients take capecitabine, it is changed in the body to a substance called 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). For some patients, 5-FU stops cancer cells from growing and decreases tumor size.

This is amazing.  The drug is taken and the body decides how to digest it and interpret it into something different. Not all patients have the same response. This means it is up to the individual patient's body to decide what happens when the product is taken.

"I can't define obscenity, but I know it when I see it."

This is where I see the relationship of drugs and metabolism to pornography. Pornography is defined by the individual in how his or her mind digests it. Depending on her/his beliefs, experiences, desires, likes/dislikes, exposure, education, and many other factors, the viewer interprets and defines the material differently. With the definition being unique to each individual, it is impossible to create a communal definition of pornography. 

End note - I want to leave this poor beaten dead horse alone.  Being related to a pheonix though, the porno horse will rise again and I am sure I will write about it then.

Porn and Drugs

Classic Modern Leila

Dr. L over at What We Saw Today wrote about pornography again.  She discusses how the vague boundaries of porn makes it so hard to discuss and define.  All of this makes me think porn and drugs are related, but not in the way you may think.

I've written about pornography a bit too.  I've stated that I believe porn can be art, but not all porn is art.  I've made what most would consider porn.  I've viewed porn.  I am not going to define the boundaries between art, porn and erotica since all three can blend a bit for me.  While the content of the pornography varies and can be defended or blamed, I am not writing about content now.  I want to focus on porn usage.  My belief about porn usage is similar to that of drugs.  Neither are good or bad, it is the intention of the use that is "good" or "bad."

Along the way to getting my psychology degree I had to take both Use and Abuse of Drugs and Human Sexuality.  Both were great classes.  Both came with warnings and caveats.  Both courses were held in the largest auditorium on campus, seating 499 people.  Both classes were full. 

Follow the Arc

In the sex class, we were told on the first day that we could not bring friends, family or any other guest to the class unless they were registered.  The professors (one a behavioral biologist covering the physiology of sex, the other a social anthropologist, covering the cultural, historic, and other contextual aspects of sexuality) told us that we would become used to talking about sex openly and seeing explicit imagery in the class.  If we brought anybody from the outside, they would not  be "desensitized" to the this content and may become distressed.  What a titillating hook!  That made me want to attend class even more.  It was a great class where I learned more about human sexuality than the rest of life could teach me.  We always joked that the lectures were good, but the labs were the best!

The drugs course was a tough class.  We had to learn about the different classifications, uses, and outcomes of using drugs.  Twenty-one years later, I think I've forgotten most of that stuff, which is funny since I work for a drug company.  The main lesson I learned was something the professor stated on the first overhead transparency (pre-Power Point days).

Drugs are neither good or bad, it is how we use them that are good or bad.

The Blessed Ludivica Albertoni 1 - Classic Porn?

All pharmaceutical companies have to monitor the safety of their products.  Every drug has side effects and issues.  By tracking each adverse event and determining the risk/benefit of the product in a process called pharmacovigilance, we strive to give the patients and their health care providers the best information to make needed decisions.

Risk/benefit is a very gray area.    Here is a fictional, but common scenario, I have cancer that will kill me in 5 months.  If I take drug X, it has shown to increase survival rates by up to three years.  The major side effects are nausea and joint pain.  There is a toxicity issue that if taken more than five years, the drug will cause serious and permanent kidney and liver damage that is probably fatal.  Those are pretty bad risks, but the probability that I would live past five years is almost nil making the kidney and liver damage issue moot.  As for the nausea and joint pain, I have to decide if the quality of life issues caused by those side effects are worth it to live another few years.   The risk/benefit equation tips toward benefit.

The Blessed Ludivica Albertoni 2 - Detail

Now lets take the same scenario, but make the disease psoriasis.  Psoriasis is a severe disease, but not fatal.  The risk/benefit equation tips toward risk and the drug should not be given.

If we look at risk/benefit for illegal drugs or drugs that can be used for illegal purposes, it gets complicated.  Marijuana has both risks and benefits.  For cancer and AIDS patients, it can help them survive and lessen the symptoms.  For the pot smokers just wanting a great afternoon of watching Threes Company and toking a bowl, the equation is different.  When we look at E, ruffies, heroin, cocaine, crack, vicodin, huffing glue, meth, the risk/benefit equation heavily tilts toward risk.


Good/Bad, Risk/Benefit as related to porn usage.

In Dr. L's post, she mentions that serial killer Ted Bundy blamed porn as the cause of his crimes.  Whether his statement is true and how true it is, his usage suggests a bad use for porn.  I doubt that porn made him do it, but I can't rule out that it had an influence.  With his case, my assessment is bad use, heavy risk.

Many men in committed relationships view porn.  For some it is just a quick tension release and doesn't affect relations with their partners and family.  It is similar to enjoying a beer after a day's work and relaxing.  In that case I would assess it as good use, good benefits.

Stirred 2 (still baffled why you would need wifi at a brothel)

Many men in committed relationships view porn for hours, masturbating with it daily or even more frequently.  They would rather do that than have sex with their significant others.  There could be many reasons they are not seeking their partner (partner is not interested or is unable to have sex, emotional issues, etc.).  If this use of porn is leading to problems and addictions, I assess it as bad use, risky.

Those are enough scenarios, you can look at how it can help couples explore and have more fun or how it leads people into riskier activities in search of the next hot stimulating thing.  All of them are on that good/bad, risk/benefit scale.

So, which is it for you?  Do you abstain from using it?  Are you a recovering addict?  Are you a recreational user?  Do you use it to improve a healthy sex life?


Side not that is barely related to the topic.
My city of 135K+ souls has only two bookstores, both "adult" and neither really have any books in them.  We have Pier One Imports, Best Buy, Home Depot, Petco, Costco, Target, Walmart, Olive Garden, and sales lots for every major car manufacturer, except Ford.  Makes me wonder what our community really thinks is important to consume.  Literature is not on the list.

Work Cited

WTF?

I  had an experience in the last week that feels like the burning pain of bleach going through my veins(hyperbole practice).  Somebody took something of mine manipulated it, and grew it into something more.  Usually I am happy about that as it is part of creating for the world and the evolution of thought.  We want our creations to grow beyond what we initially planned, with one caveat - citation or credit.

In my life as a scientist/teacher/student, I've written the most boring, dry articles about important stuff.  One key point my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Romaine, taught us during book reports was writing the bibliography of my sources.  In college, Dr. Haddad drilled into our heads (appropriate for a behaviorist professor) the APA Style for citing sources.  Twenty-two years later, I still know where to place every period and comma.  It came in handy when I wrote my master's thesis.

It is crucial to cite sources and material in art and criticism as well.  If I am writing a critique on Diane Arbus and read an article on how her depression affected her subject matter, I had better cite that source.   I believe the same is true when art is appropriated for new purposes.

Some of Shepard Fairey's troubles for his famous Hope image of President Obama stem from appropriating an AP image as the basis of his this piece without citing the source of the original image.  He went on to selling the image on merchandise and making lots of money from it.

There

I am a big fan of appropriating art and growing it past the original piece.  In 2004, my friend Scott Tellington over at photosig.com took the image of Leila and Hana above and a few others and told me he wanted to play with them.  As long he didn't do anything to malign the image and gave me credit, I was happy to let him do it.   He made the combined image below.  Even though he went in a direction I would not have gone, I am happy with his work and the credit for the source image.

The Petals of the Passion Flower

In yesterday's post, I uploaded a video featuring a song I appropriated by Lucinda Williams, Just in Time.  This song has a very sensual erotic sound and lyrics that I felt matched the photos I paired with it.  At the end of the song, I cited her as the source of the music.  Since I do not plan to make money from that video I feel it is fair to use it in that way.  If Ms. Williams, or her representatives, don't like it, I will work with them to a mutually satisfactory conclusion.  That is just being respectful to another artist.

Another time I appropriated another artist's work are my photos of the projection of Salvador Dali's Dream Inspired By A Bee Flying Around A Pomegranate A Second Before Waking Up on art model, Candace Nirvana.  Whenever I display this image, I mention Dali's title or provide a link to my blog post introducing this series to give him credit for his role in my piece.  I hope Dali would approve of my appropriation of his beautiful piece.


I admit to not always citing my sources in this blog, especially for images I posted in the beginning of it.  I tried to put "source unknown" if I could not find the photographer/artist/author/creator's information.  In hindsight, I am going to review this policy to see if I should err on the side of caution and remove them until I can find the source.Dali and Nirvana 4

Now, back to why am I feeling like a victim of theft.  To the artist who appropriated something of mine, knowing it was mine, and evolved/refined it much further,  I am not upset by your appropriation and use.  It is actually a very good piece of work.  Just give me credit for the seed that bloomed for you.

Legs - A celebration - and a new (to me) way to publish my photos

Piernas (Andrea on the hood of my old truck)

 Last Friday I saw a great photo essay by Magnum Photos on the theme of Legs at slate.com.    I remembered Joe making a movie using images of Dr. L and another model and knew I wanted to experiment. This inspired me to try and make a movie out of my photos as well.  Along the way of creating the movie, I discovered a few challenges and some rewards as well.

I went through all my digital or scanned photos and chose some that I believe the legs are the key ingredient to the image.  After some editing and post production work in Lightroom, I was ready to make a movie.

At first I used the online movie-making service at animoto.com.  While this service is free for 30 second videos, longer videos cost a little bit.  I opted to get the one year membership and made a few movies.  It is a very easy tool.  You upload the photos, choose background music from their free library, set a few parameters and then their program does all the work.  In the end you get a slick video with little work.  The downsides are the music selection is limited, you can not put in custom text/credit screens, and their is very little customization.  The video at the very bottom was my first attempt.

After playing in that, I used iMovie on my Mac.  It allows for much more customization and editing.  I could also choose any song from my iTunes library, which I did.   After a good bit of time of editing and putting in transitions and text screens, I made the movie you see here.

I thought loading it would be the easy part.  First I tried blogger's video upload.  While convenient, the output player was way too small.  I then created a youtube account and uploaded it there with very tight privacy settings (unsearchable and not published publicly).  I have a few concerns about posting this video there, but I doubt I will keep it there for long.

This is my second attempt at making this type of video.  I see room for improvement, but I am happy with it as a beginner's effort.  Any feedback is welcome.  So, without further ado, here it is - Piernas Bonitas (Nice Legs).

vimeo version

Piernas Bonitas from Karl B on Vimeo.

blogger version

Piernas - Candace

Palin - the flash in the pan. Some thoughts on her "celebrity", pregnancy in red and blue states and gratuitious dirty pictures.

Leila 1 - 052010

Part 1
Stephen first introduced the subject of the "conservative feminist" through citing a quote by Sarah Palin.  Dr. L.  took that and wrote a great post discussing the history of the possible blending of conservative values and feminism and then went on about the limitations of some of the beliefs.  Even if you do not read my post, PLEASE read both of theirs. 

Leila 2 - 052010

I cringe when I hear Sarah Palin speak much like I did with our last President.  She is dumber than George W. Bush and even more outspoken.   She hides behind her smarmy wink and "true American gal" persona as she spreads lies and overly-simple statements about complex issues.  Sadly though, she is gaining traction in the ignorant section of the conservative base (as an aside, both parties have ignorant sections of their party that believe the overly simplistic and bombastic messages that fire up their emotions, yet lack the truth and proof to back it up.)

I will not comment on resigned Gov. Palin's statements on "conservative feminism."  Dr. L stated things far better than I can on the topic.  Palin has a right to say them and she may even have an interesting point or two.  What I want to comment on is how she is now the darling of the conservative movement.

Up until Palin was picked as McCain's running mate, Ann Coulter was the darling of the conservatives.  Her abrasive attack dog style wowed her popularity base.  Too bad they often missed her lies because so many loved her sentiment (and probably her physical appearance as well.)  One thing I've always believed about her was that she was mean.  She made it very personal when she attacked someone.  The only time I saw justice was when she was called out on her ignorance and tendency to overstate things.  Below is a great video of her and Al Frankin in a conversation at the Connecticut Forum.   Her expression right after Frankin mentions the holocaust shows she knew she lost the moment.



Palin took Coulter's crown as the Queen of the GOP.  Her influence is much different.  She is not as openly abrasive or caustic as Coulter.  Her mean edge is veiled under a good ol' girl "ah-shucks" persona.  Coulter tried to carry an intellectual persona while Palin mocks intellectual thought.

Leila3 052010

I believe Palin is more dangerous because of her two-sided push.  She not only attacks liberals on their progressive agenda, but also on their intellect.  Her message basically is, "They think they are smarter than us, but they don't understand us real Americans."  This scares me because she is fueling a class war based on intellect.  Scary stuff.

There is one good thing about Palin's growing celebrity.  She is getting so much exposure as a commentator, pundit, and "expert."  Palin is sharing her opinions on everything, including the melding of conservatism and feminism.  With all of this stuff being recorded, she is killing her chances of running for President due to all the contradictory statements she has made.  She will be buried in a debate when any opponent can dig up evidence of her ignorant contradictions to her own statements.  By becoming the conservative darling and reaping the rewards of her celebrity, she probably killed her chances for high-level public office in the future.

Part 2

I've read Dr. L's, Stephen's, Z's and many others opinions about defining pornography.  I've written a bit about it myself sharing that I've created stuff I might even label as porn.   One thing that pisses me off though, why do ignorant people get to define my intent of my images and what I like?

I am tired of the conservative side getting to frame the issues and the progressives always being on the defensive.  Fuck, I thought we decisively won the last election, but we sure don't act like it.

Leila 3b - 052010

There have only been two times since the new administration came in that I felt the progressives framed the issues.  Pelosi and Obama took charge and framed the issue in the last months of the health care legislation battle and got the thing passed.  It is not a perfect piece of legislation, but much better than the prior systems.  The second was when progressive lawmakers made banking officials and conservatives squirm during the recent financial reform battles.  Thanks to the shenanigans of Goldman Sachs, AIG, and other big institutions, they made it even easier to point out the need for more discipline.  As a lady on the bus told me yesterday, "Any game, whether football, life, or the banks, needs lines to set the boundaries and referees to keep an eye on the game.  Without them, it would stop being an organized system and go into chaos."

It is time we frame the argument.  Instead of defending our art, culture, and lives, why don't we ask the Palins/Coulters, "Why are you ashamed of your bodies?  Why should we be ashamed of enjoying and seeking sex?  Why are you ruining it for everyone?  What are you trying to teach your children?  Sex is the devil's toy??  Does all that moral teaching of the dangers of sex work?"



On NPR, I heard a story that blue states tend to have people getting married at an older age (late twenties and older), having children at an older age, and staying married longer and in higher numbers than red states.  (Please listen to the story) Red states tend to socialize their children that sex is bad and avoid giving realistic education in general, and sex especially, to them.  That is part of the reason young adults in red states tend to get pregnant much younger (under 25), getting married before they have defined who they are as adults, and then divorcing when they discover they married the wrong person for the wrong reasons.  I wont even get into how many of these divorces are caused by people who got married too young and finally accepted they were gay as they grew older.  I wonder if Bristol Palin would have learned something living in a blue state?

How can the red states defend this track record of crappy "family values" of unwed mothers, early marriage and divorces?  The blue states are the ones truly supporting family values by educating their kids better in both sex and all other subjects, teaching them to enjoy life, be careful, find out who you are, establish yourself as an adult and then maybe get married and have kids.  Who cares if your spouse is the same sex or not.  At least you are more likely to stay together.

I offer up this deal to all of Palin's  uptight followers.  I promise I will not judge your plain vanilla, under-the- blankets, in-the-dark, without-foreplay sex if you don't judge my sexual interests, fetishes, kinks, and practices either.  The funny thing is though, I know most of you do the same "dirty" things too.  The difference is I enjoy mine without guilt.  Can you say the same thing?

Leila and Hanna - Triptych of the same image 052010

Now, a note on a few risque photos.  Some may define them as porn, but I put them here for both artistic and prurient pleasures.  I am not ashamed of enjoying such images in both artistic and erotic ways.  Why should I be, Ann and (resigned) Gov. Palin?

NOTE - On Leila3b, a enlargement of Leila3, I love the four or so pubic hairs that are rebelling out of the top of her panties.  It brings back memories of the rich posts from last year cherishing the beauty of pubic hair.  It is damn sexy.

Owning Up - Part 2

I just reread my post... a bit cryptic if you didn't know what I was thinking. I was reading an article about Shakespeare and came upon the quote I cited yesterday.  It got me to thinking about my work, my personal life, and the bigger world around me.

At one time, accountability was an expectation at my work.  We were encouraged to be accountable for our responsibilities.  If we succeeded, we were rewarded.  If we failed, we took ownership and worked to fix it, teach others what went wrong, and ensure it didn't happen again.  By taking accountability, we succeeded in being responsible employees.  Failure, while not being rewarded, was an avenue to enlightenment and growth.  With that philosophy, the company grew into a major success which led to its being acquired by a huge corporation last year. 

The new big company does not embrace accountability. No one will raise their hand and say, "That is mine, I am accountable for getting it done right."  Instead, everyone runs around with excuses.  Sadly, those of us from the old company are getting sucked into this system of finger pointing bureaucracy.

In my personal life, I see people who do the same thing.  They go around saying, "If only..."  So much of that is bullshit and I've done it too.  Parts of my backyard are still an overgrown mess, if only I had more time to...  That is BS.  I just need to do it.  I am too fat, if only I had more time to...  That is BS.  I can find time.

So many of us just pass the buck on why our lives suck.  I can legitimately blame a few things, but in the end, it is me.

In the big world, conservatives blame liberals, liberals blame conservatives.  All the groups I listed in yesterday's post point blame at others.  Yes, groups are oppressed, discriminated against, and held back.  Some of the finger pointing and blame is justified, but much is self-imposed limitations and crappy excuses for their own failures.

Dr. L,  I admired your post about nude art as a political statement.  You aren't just pointing fingers and saying, "no fair."  You are doing something about it. 

It is funny how finding a simple bit of art, literature, music, or other artistic creation can crystallize something that has bothered me for a while.  That line from King Lear did it for me and that is why I went off on this rant.

Owning Up - Part 1

Montana Evening - 050910-1

This is the excellent foppery of the world: that when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!   

King Lear (Act One Scene 2) - William Shakespeare

Funny how so many of us can't take responsibility for our own actions and messes resulting from them.  We always have to blame it on the poor scapegoat.

"...when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars..."

The German Parliament even has a fictitious member they created to blame all unpopular decisions on.  His name is Jakob Maria Mierscheid.  Accountability is not worth much anymore I guess. 

Montana Evening - 050910-2

Men do it, women do it.  Gays and straights do it.  All ethnicities do it.  All religions have people of the cloth who do it.  Republicans do it as well as the Democrats do it.  Rich and poor people do it.  The banks are doing it, but the loan borrowers also do it too.  I've done it and am sure I will do it again.  I am also certain everybody else has blamed everything but themselves for something they did or did not do.

Maybe it is a survival instinct, but it is like the boy who falsely cried "wolf" too many times.  Your credibility drops a little at first when you do it and goes into a death spiral if you continue doing it.

Busy, busy, busy and bubble think.

Candace - 050510

Book club, upcoming photo class to NYC, yard work, helping others move, and life. 

Here is a great article about "bubble think" from Slate.  I recommend reading it.  I am guilty of it and need to branch out my information exposure.  This goes for art as well.  Even if I don't like something, I need to start spending more time looking at it to determine why I feel that way and articulate better than, "It sucks."  My first will be Diane Arbus's work.  Never liked it.  Now I need to figure out why.  It will make me a better photographer.


Enjoy the article.

Photo note - never get tired of finding more gems from my work with Candace.  This is a simple one, maybe even cliche, but I am happy with it.  The focus could be a little better though.

Generation Scold*

Candace - 050210 - desat

My body is a stiff wreck after helping a friend and her partner move ten blocks in SF yesterday.  So much for the yard work I will need to do.  I may be lucky to get a few flowers planted though.

During my Sunday morning ritual at a coffee shop, I did some reading at Slate titled Bring Back Boobquake by Hanna Rosin and the backlash against it by some feminists.  That article linked to another titled Generation Scold* by Jessica Grose  In it, the author presented the notion that the generation known as the "millennials" heap scorn upon those who are bit too sexually promiscuous for their tastes.  This open scorn of anyone is a shift in gender definition that may help equalize the perceptions of sex, but also take the adventure out of it.

Candace - 050210 - BW

In many cultures, the man who gets the most girls is seen as a stud by his peers and playboy, at worst, by everyone else.  Hooking up with as many women was lauded as a alpha male virtue.  The opposite was true about the perception of women.  If a woman had many sexual partners, she was a "slut" or worse.  Being sexually promiscious held negative attributes for women.  This was the big double standard of sexuality, men became heroes, women became tramps.  

With the maturing of the millenials, this is changing.  Both the male and female with multiple partners are seen as sluts and are looked down upon as part of the hyper-sexuality running through our culture.  As the story states, this generation grew up and were disgusted by the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal as well as other influences that formed these beliefs.  This shift may lead the end of the double standard, but at what cost?

This makes me wonder if the taboo of sexuality and openness of enjoying the sensual gifts we have is going to shrivel.  Will both genders suffer for this?  I do not hold anyone who is sexually open up higher or down lower in my perception of them.  They are who they are.  I may judge how they treat the people they are with and admonish them for hurting people with sex, but just having multiple lovers is not a plus or minus for me.  My hope is that they are happy with who they are, what they are doing and are careful.

Photo note - experimentation with a close up crop of big image of Candace.  I like her eyes in these and I like how she looks like she is laying down in the cropped versions.  The original is below.

Candace 050210