The L Word serenade by Rebecca Drysdale (explicit content)

Life through a lens

Annie Leibovitz spent her childhood and youth in different states of the USA. During this time she experienced her first significant encounter with photography by way of her family's  photo albums. Her earliest role models among prominent photographers were Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jacques-Henri Lartigue. In 1970 Annie Leibovitz began her studies of fine arts and photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. In the same year she submitted a portfolio to the art director of Rolling Stone magazine, Robert Ingsbury, and scored her first success. Jann Wenner, publisher of the magazine, took the young photographer with him to New York, where she was to take pictures during an interview with John Lennon. Within one month her Lennon portraits were published on the cover of Rolling Stone. In 1973 Annie Leibovitz became chief photographer of this magazine until she switched  to Vanity Fair in 1983.

Retro review: All Over Me (1998)

''All Over Me,'' a confident first feature directed by Alex Sichel and written by her sister Sylvia, observes the teen-age angst of best girlfriends being driven apart by stirrings of sexual identity. Big, ungainly Claude (Alison Folland) must deal with the attraction she feels for Ellen (Tara Subkoff), a druggy flirt who also has a boyfriend vying for her affections.
The boyfriend (Cole Hauser) is a benighted macho type and homophobe. Hell's Kitchen is the gritty backdrop for the story, in which Claude works at a pizza restaurant and rollerblades home to the apartment she shares with her pathetically man-crazy mother. Enter Luke (Pat Briggs), a self-assured gay musician, who encourages Claude to actually explore her feelings and perceptions of herself and the world that she lives in. Claude's life is falling apart as those around her continue to destroy themselves in an orgy of drug abuse that eventually leads to murder.

Honey, what you're selling I ain't buying

It's no secret that certain men, despite knowing that one is a lesbian, will try to chat lesbians up no matter what; this comes from the precious male ego, too sensitive to acknowledge and accept that two women can be in a relationship and not need a man. Even men realise that they have a complex when it comes to their egos, after all Axe was called Ego for a number of years before its name change a few years ago. Now, it doesn't matter whether you're a lesbian or straight; the world is still dominated by men, these men of power are unwilling to give women a foot in the door as they know that some of these ambitious and educated women may just be on their way to a position of even greater power than their own. If you need proof that the aforementioned is true, then look no further than Hollywood where the majority of leading roles are still being given to men and as Dame Helen Mirren has famously said in a speech at the Hollywood Reporter's Sherry Lansing Leadership Award in 2010, "I resent in my life the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of some very brilliant female ones ... However, with all due respect to you many brilliant and successful women in this room ... really not too much has changed in the canon of Hollywood filmmaking that continues to worship at the altar of the 18 to 25-year-old male and his penis". In South Africa many lesbians face the harsh reality of men, their egos and refusal to believe that women don't need men for companionship, love, relationships or sex and that despite what some believe, that lesbianism is not a disease. Lesbians in South Africa face beatings and "corrective" rape despite constitutional guarantees of protection. Lesbians and transsexuals are routinely raped, tortured and subjected to other forms of violence and humiliation. A recent Action Aid report reiterates accounts that lesbians in South Africa have repeatedly given of being raped by men to “cure” them of lesbianism.You can read more about South African lesbians being exposed to curative rape in a short article about the issue: Lesbians exposed to curative rape

New York may have new hope for gay marriage

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has made a bold move, which could create new efforts for marriage equality, by hiring Eric Bottcher to the brand new cabinet position of Special Assistant for Community Affairs. Out and proud Bottcher previously served as NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s LGBT community liaison.  He obviously has plenty of public relations experience, but will he be able to renew the fight for marriage equality for gays and lesbians?  We shall see.

Gay Rights faces an uphill battle in Pa

Gay rights faces an uphill battle in PA

Efforts to pass a law to protect the gay community from discrimination are likely to go nowhere with the Republicans taking over the House and governorship.

It gets better if you're gay or bi or something inbetween

                                                                         

                                                                                     "It Gets Better" by Rebecca Drysdale is an amazing song written in support of the "It Gets Better Campaign" and in response to bullying and the increase in LGBTI youth suicides related to bullying in schools. 

"But when they call you weirdos, fags, and rejects, flamers, gays and hags, baby dykes and homotikes. Lesbos, homos, and queer bags. It might seem like it's hopeless and will never be ok, but listen to the ones who care - believe them when they say: IT GETS BETTER!".

Sex and sensibility

Diane Victor's scenes of fleshy excess and her theatrical renderings of sex and perversion are about more than simple moralizing - they are expressions of unbridled fascination and delight.

                                                               -  Michael Smith

Diane Victor, Strip (detail),
1999, pastel and charcoal

The perversity of South African sexuality is not limited to media-friendly lifestyle niches, although the polished and aestheticised depictions of kink that sex-up CSI and GQ are a far cry from the deviance that manifests itself in our society. Even a cursory knowledge of our nation's carnal exploits will render the realisation that we are deeply and multifariously messed up. A grocery list of exemplar sexual atrocities would usually appear about now, but I'll spare you this. Diane Victor, on the other hand, doesn't do sparing. In all senses of the word, her work has long been synonymous with excess. From the thickets of intensely laboured etching or charcoal line in sprawling compositions, to the viscerality of flesh ("human meat," as she calls it", to caricatures of theatrical sex play and perversion, Victor often seems akin to artists like Matthew Barney and Paul McCarthy in her commitment to surplus. In Strip, Victor explores the interstice between carnal and medical interests in bodies, to unnerving effect. This work was downloaded and printed by thousands of undergrad Feminist Art 101 devotees for its obvious nod to the problematising of flesh-as-sexual-spectacle. Sex play, as opposed to actual sex, seems to recur with regularity in Victor's images; think corsets, restraints, and men on all fours playing pony.



It gets better

LGBTIQ adolescents may be even more likely to commit or attempt suicide than are straight teens, however, being LGBTIQ itself is not a risk factor for suicide; rather the negative treatment that many LGBTI teens endure can lead to suicidal feelings. The GLBT suicide prevention organization, the Trevor Project explains that, "Sexual orientation and gender identity alone are not risk factors for suicide. However, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth face many social factors that put them at higher risk for self-destructive behaviors, including suicide." According to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. In addition, the San Francisco State University Chavez Center Institute has found that LGBTQ youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.

Degas and Renoir give masterclass on ageing

Degas and Renoir

Negative perceptions of ageing and older people are being challenged through the works of famous artists at an exhibition that opened on Thursday, 13 January 2011. The show aims to celebrate and explore age and the ageing process. It includes works by Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henry Moore and Maggi Hambling, as well as newly commissioned pieces by three contemporary artists.

LGBT Studies, Queer Theory and Sexualities



Work by Robert Mapplethorpe


Between the time of Sappho and the birth of Natalie Clifford Barney lies a 'lesbian silence' of twenty-four centuries.
                                       - Bertha Harris, Our
                                         Right to Love (1978)

Gender studies differs from Feminism in as far as Feminism is concerned with the social construction of women's identity whereas gender studies is concerned with the social construction of all gender identities and experiences - whether man, woman, transgendered, gender-blended, queer, ambiguous or something entirely else.

Not a conventional anything





Christ of St. John of the Cross

   For the past thousand years the crucifixion has dominated Christian art, an icon of suffering and a promise of salvation. Even in the increasingly secular society of the 20th century, the crucifixion gave rise to one unforgettable image - "Christ of St. John of the Cross".