Coinciding with the ALA (American Library Association) “Banned Books Week”, a group of Miami librarians paid an extremely educational visit to the World Erotic Art Museum. The Examiner explains:

“…this is exactly the type of facility that librarians should visit, says Ellen Book, president of the Dade County Library Association.

“Whenever books, music, DVDs or art is banned or challenged in a library, it is the librarians who become involved, so we need to learn all we can,” said Book, who is the librarian association’s president

Which is why Book and her colleagues were in Miami Beach last Friday, listening raptly as Naomi Wilzig, owner of the museum, which is known popularly as  WEAM, filled them in on the controversial history of erotic art, along with her five-year struggle to publicly show it.

“I went to Las Vegas, to New York City and to St. Petersburg, Fla., but I was turned away. In New York, there was a space available on the top of a 20-story building, but I was turned down because they told me that someone visiting the first floor might object,” Wilzig said.

Even after winning approval from the City of Miami Beach for her current Washington Avenue location, landlord after landlord refused to rent to her. Finally, she found the museum’s current roomy second-floor location, but she has to battle to get even a small part of the foot traffic she would ordinarily reap if WEAM were housed on the ground floor, she said.

During the tour, Wilzig told the group of some of the controversies involved in some of the pieces, which range from ancient times to today. She also showed the librarians her 250-volume research library…”

Full article here.

Find out more about the World Erotic Art Museum here.

Today, an inquest found that TV presenter Kristian Digby suffered “death by misadventure” as a result of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone bad. Meanwhile in Canada, a court case ponders whether a person can consent, in advance, to the consequences of breath-play. Here’s part of the article from the Ottawa Citizen:

‘…The Ontario Crown is bringing the appeal to the Supreme Court after the province’s appeal court ruled earlier this year that a man, identified only as J.A., was not committing sexual assault when he and his on-again, off-again partner of seven years engaged in “erotic asphyxiation” one night in May 2007…

…The case reaches the Supreme Court more than a decade after it ruled that there is no such thing as implied consent.

In written legal arguments, J.A.’s lawyer invokes the words of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who in 1968 famously declared that “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation … what is done in private between adults doesn’t concern the Criminal Code.”

The woman took her complaint to Ottawa police two months after the alleged assault, when she was seeking custody of the couple’s toddler.

At trial, she testified that she agreed to be choked unconscious to “spice up” their sex life. After being knocked out for about three minutes, she came to and discovered J.A. had inserted a dildo in her anus, an act she said she had not agreed to in advance. She later recanted her testimony.

J.A. was originally sentenced to 18 months after an Ottawa judge said it was against the law to have sex with an unconscious person.

Restoring his conviction would effectively render “every touching of a sexual nature that occurs while a person is sleeping or unconscious a criminal act, notwithstanding the consent of the supposed victim,” J.A.’s lawyer, Howard Krongold, argues in his court submission…’

Full article here.

Here’s a snippet from a great Indy article by Sarah Boyes on the shallow and superficial nature of morality and female role models in the 21st Century:

‘…Imposing “better” role models on society is seen as a quick fix to correct the “wrong” dreams of schoolchildren and “uncouth” behaviour of grown women. Both are seen as private people with personal problems rather than potentially public individuals who could achieve great things. The notion women might become more liberated and flourish through living their lives the way they choose runs counter to a culture which doesn’t always recognise genuine achievement, intelligence and a desire to be more free.

In this way, the discussion stays frustratingly at the level of appearance, as if dressing and behaving in a more ‘correct’ manner is all that’s needed. This both refuses to address the often complex relationship between personal appearance and deeper moral beliefs, whilst simultaneously serving to fetishise how women look and dress. The discussion takes the form of a faux-choice between burqas, bikinis or flat brown shoes: “conservative and religious”, “fun and sexually liberated” or “middle-class and sensible”…’

Full article here.