Finding The Perfect Sex Toy Gift
Posted on July 3, 2008
Filed Under Gadgets, Gay/Lesbian, Novelty, Sex, Shopping, Women | Leave a Comment
Looking for a romantic gift kit or a sexy surprise for your partner? Sex toys make great gifts at any time of year: anniversaries, birthdays, and even weddings. There is always an occasion to give the gift of pleasure.
The ladies over at Sex Toys at Babeland, have some great suggestions for that special naughty surprise.
Vibrators: For a first toy, they generally recommend something simple and inexpensive with variable speeds. Try a best-seller like the Babeland Bullet, the Orchid G, or the Blueberry Buzz.
A Tasty Treat: The Babeland Body Kit and Chocolate Body Sauce make you or your lover into a yummy dessert. The dulce de leche flavored Babeland Lickable Oil is absolutely delicious!
Sensual Massage: There are lots of options for massage oils these days—traditional massage oil, spray oil, and soy massage candles. The soy massage candles are made of skin-safe soy wax. Simply light the candle and let the wax liquify, then drizzle the warm oil on your partner’s body for a warming massage.
A Luxurious Sex Toy: When you want to give the very best, the Elastomer Rabbit Habit makes a classic and romantic gift for her. The firm curve of the stainless steel Pure Wand (formerly Jupiter Wand) is a dream come true for G-spot and the SaSi programmable vibrator makes tech geeks swoon.
Something not too intimidating: A Babeland Gift Card is a perfect choice if you want to give a fun gift, but you’re not exactly sure what to buy.
ENJOY!
India Celebrates Ground breaking Pride Event
Posted on July 3, 2008
Filed Under Gay/Lesbian, International | Leave a Comment
For a city of 14 million people, a gathering of a couple of hundred may seem minuscule. But for Delhi’s gay community, the turnout at their first-ever Queer Pride this past weekend was beyond belief. Over 500 marchers carrying rainbow-colored flags and “Queer Dilliwalla” banners marched to bhangra beats, breaking into Bollywood-style pelvic thrusts and bust-heaving from time to time.
Sunday’s march was a landmark, especially for a city long accustomed to sexual repression, and now grappling with a newfound permissiveness brought about by economic liberalization, and aided in no small measure by satellite TV and the Internet. Other metro cities like Kolkata and Bangalore have been holding Queer Pride marches for a couple of years now, but this was the first in Delhi, considered more conservative than some of its metro sisters. Unlike the mostly university-educated, urban crowd that marched in Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore’s marches attract people from all classes as well as rural areas. (read more)
Tila Tequila Gets Shot down
Posted on July 2, 2008
Filed Under Entertainment, Gay/Lesbian, Television, Women | Leave a Comment
Last night, on the finale of MTV’s A Shot at Love 2, host and bisexual bachelorette Tila Tequila missed her shot at love when she chose and was rejected by lesbian lover Kristy. Tila was down to two contestants, potential boyfriend Bo and Kristy.
However, after a steamy makeout session with Kristy in the hot tub, Tila was surprised when Kristy rejected her final key. “You love that I’m honest and that I’m true to my feelings and true about who I am,” Kristy told a teary Tila. “If I take this key, I’m not being true.” Whatev!
“Why would you do that now?” Tila asked. “Why would you put me through all this process… I feel humiliated.”
Alas, little Tila Tequila still hasn’t found her “true love,” so we’re probably looking at a ANOTHER season of MTV’s A Shot at Love. Gee Whiz.
New Music from Three Fierce Ladies
Posted on July 2, 2008
Filed Under Arts/Culture, Entertainment, Music, Women | Leave a Comment
At just 23, Delta Goodrem is already one of Australia’s most successful and highest-selling female artists. Now she’s ready to take on the world. Her first international album Delta is set for release in June 2008 on Decca. The first single “In This Life,” became a No.1 hit in Australia, effortlessly seducing radio with its life-affirming chorus and wall-to-wall melodic rush. Check it out!
Armed with a voice that weaves seamlessly between being fierce and vulnerable, L.P. can captivate an audience with a single note, and turn a crowd of strangers into rabid fans with just one song. With alternately howling and forlorn rough-edged vocals delivering bracingly open lyrics, L.P. has invited comparisons to, Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, Gwen Stefani, Chrissie Hynde, and Amy Lee of Evanescence and worked with go-to rocker Linda Perry and Cracker’s David Lowery. On her third and forthcoming album, L.P. prepares to expand that fan base hardcore.
Beyonce’s lesser-known little sister, 21-year-old Solange Knowles, has a new album out, SolAngel and The Hadley St. Dreams. Solange described her CD as Motown soul updated with bits of electronica. Listen up!
Happy Gay Pride!
Posted on June 27, 2008
Filed Under Gay/Lesbian, Humor, Women | Leave a Comment
Lesbian laughter with Margaret Cho. Have a great Weekend. ENJOY!
Is This Model Too Fat?
Posted on June 26, 2008
Filed Under Advertising, Fashion, Women | 1 Comment
24-year old beauty and Victoria’s Secret model Karolina Kurkova is being flogged by fashion critics over her appearance in recent days at Sao Paulo Fashion Week, especially after a runway appearance in a bikini. One Brazilian paper blasted her back fat and with cellulite.
The impetus for the stories were two still photos taken at the Cia Maritima fashion show at the end of last week. As you can see, she does not look like shes 100 lbs, and as a result of that she has been called too fat.
Meanwhile in Spain, there has been a ban on “skinny” models walking in shows, instituted by fashion show organizers in Madrid after model Ana Carolina Reston, 21, died of anorexia during a South America show in 2006. The model had reportedly consumed nothing but salad and diet soda for three weeks and died of heart failure.
Designers and advertisers continue to glamorize the rail thin mannequin. The thinner the frame, the better to display their designs. Basically hangers for their clothes, and young girls and women continue to buy into this idea that skinny is the ideal.
I think Kurkova looks GREAT! What’s wrong with a little flesh on your butt and some creases on your back. That’s what we really look like and that’s ok. No extreme diets, no retouching, we need to accept our bodies and love ourselves just the way we are.
Great Summer Wines Under $20
Posted on June 25, 2008
Filed Under Food/Drink, Recipe | Leave a Comment
When the weather gets steamy, fire up that grill and pour some of these summer wines to calm down, cool off and chill out.
To choose a wine to pair with something off the grill, consider two things: First, how hearty is the food, and second, what’s the dominant flavor? For lighter foods—white fish, vegetables, chicken breasts—pick a lighter wine. For heartier foods—sausages, burgers, steaks—choose a more robust wine. (Both reds and whites can be light, medium or full-bodied.)
What follows is a selection of great wines, all available for $20 or less, to go with grilled foods of all kinds. But don’t take these wine and food combinations as gospel. They’re really designed more as suggestions or jumping-off points for experimentation. Enjoy!
2006 Montes Limited Selection Sauvignon Blanc ($14)
Montes, one of Chile’s best Sauvignon Blanc producers, makes this crisp, citrusy reserve bottling with grapes from the Leyda valley, close to the Pacific Ocean. Great with fish and lighter foods.
2004 Errazuriz Wild Ferment Chardonnay ($20)
This elegant and complex Chardonnay has lush citrus fruit aromas, buttery and smoky with toasty vanilla notes from the ten months of aging in French oak. This is a rich, mouth-filling wine balanced by bright natural acidity, crisp with a long, lingering finish.
2006 Susana Balbo Crios Rosé of Malbec ($19)
This stunner hails from the scenic Mendoza valley and was carefully crafted from Malbec grapes by one of the first female wine makers in Argentina. Think ripe strawberries and cherries–fruity without the sweetness. Goes well with both grilled meats and lighter fare like fish and chicken.
2005 2 Up Shiraz ($14)
This twist-off Australian Shiraz has robust flavors of ripe and overripe red raspberry, blackberry and blueberry with hints of earth, spice and vanilla for complexity. Great with burgers, steaks and heavier foods. Also, works with fine cheeses.
Or you can always make a Red Wine Sangria!
Serves: 6 – 8
Ingredients:
1 bottle dry red wine (such as Rioja, Zinfindel, or Merlot)
1 shot of brandy
¼ cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
2 Tbsp sugar
½ orange, sliced
½ lemon, sliced
1 peach, sliced
2 cinnamon sticks
Sparkling water
Ice
Preparation:
1. Juice one to two oranges until you have ¼ cup of juice.
2. Add juice to a carafe or pitcher along with brandy and sugar and stir.
3. Add the sliced fruit and cinnamon sticks.
4. Pour in the entire bottle of wine.
5. Cover pitcher or carafe with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to drink (this can be made up to one day ahead). If you want to serve immediately, just move on to step 6.
6. Place ice into a glass and then pour in some sangria. Be sure to add as much fruit as you’d like.
7. Add a splash of sparkling water and serve.
sangria recipe from Denise Santoro Lincoln
Smoking Gun
Posted on June 24, 2008
Filed Under Arts/Culture, Entertainment, Events, Music, NYC, Women | Leave a Comment
Pistolera is a NYC-based band that defines the latin alt-folklorico genre. Drawing from traditional styles of Mexican music and fusing it with pop-rock sensibility, the electrifying quartet features Spanish lyric songs of vocalist and guitarist Sandra Lilia Velasquez, the driving accordion melodies of Maria Elena and the unbeatable rhythm section of bassist Inca B. Satz and drummer Ani Cordero.
Since the release of their debut album “Siempre Hay Salida” in 2006, the band has been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, Billboard Magazine, The New Yorker, Latina Magazine and NPR. Pistolera has also been very vocal about immigrant rights and their contribution to this country. They performed last May at the Union Square Rally in NYC in support of immigrant rights and justice for all human beings.
Their sophomore album ” En Este Camino” will be released nationwide on August 5. Pistolera will play Central Park’s Summerstage on August 9th. Make sure you catch this fiery funky band!
Sculptor Helps Identify Juarez Murders
Posted on June 23, 2008
Filed Under International, Justice, Women | Leave a Comment
For more than a decade, the cities of Chihuahua and Juarez, near the US-Mexico border, have been killing fields for young women, the site of over 400 unsolved femicides. Despite the horrific nature of these crimes, authorities at all levels exhibit indifference, and there is strong evidence that some officials may be involved. Impunity and corruption has permitted the criminals, whoever they are, to continue committing these acts, knowing there will be no consequences. A significant number of victims work in the maquiladora sector - sweatshops that produce for export, with 90% destined for the United States. The maquiladoras employ mainly young women, at poverty level wages. In combination with lax environmental regulations and low tariffs under the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the maquiladoras are amassing tremendous wealth. Yet despite the crime wave, they offer almost no protection for their workers. High profile government campaigns such as Ponte Vista (Be Aware), a self defense program, and supplying women with whistles have been ineffective and are carried out mainly for public relations purposes.
The tragic saga of the dead in Juárez—directly across the river from El Paso, Texas—has been covered by those who care. Amnesty International called the murders intolerable and condemned the Mexican government for ignoring them; other human-rights groups have leveled similar criticisms over the years.
In 2003, Frank Bender, a Philadelphia forensic sculptor was asked to help the police in Juarez. For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, the Mexican police on the case ask him to help identify some of the feminicidios. Bender, through breathtakingly realistic sculptures, reconstructs the faces of unknown murder victims whose appearances are certain to have changed over years. Bender worked for days in a Juárez hotel room with crumbling skulls, facing down death threats and an infection from the bad water as he tried to create identifiable likenesses of the dead women.
Of all the cases he covers, Bender is especially obsessed with the murders of the estimated 400 women in Juarez. One of the unidentified victims, Bender nicknamed “The Girl with the Crooked Nose,” which since became the title for Ted Botha’s book on Bender’s forensic work. The book, looks at the crimes from a different perspective. Described as a nonfiction thriller, the book views the murders through the eyes of Frank Bender.
After more than a decade, the only things that are clear are that the murders aren’t going to stop anytime soon. Take action and visit Amnesty International today, sign a petition to Mexican president Felipe Calderon urging him to take action.
Marc Jacobs’s New Campaign
Posted on June 23, 2008
Filed Under Advertising, Fashion, Gay/Lesbian, Women | 1 Comment
Posted by Nina Schloesser
Male model Cole Mohr wears a dress (and carries a handbag) in the Marc by Marc Jacobs fall 2008 ad campaign, shot by Juergen Teller. The Jacobs-Teller collaboration, which began in 1997, is known for having produced some of fashion’s most memorable advertising. The inspiration for this season’s ads may have come from Filipino blogger BryanBoy, whose personal wardrobe includes handbags and minidresses (and in whose honor Marc Jacobs christened a bag from his fall 2008 line “the BB”). BryanBoy jubilantly affirms on his blog, “I’m so gay I sweat glitter!”, but the decision to showcase male femininity in the new Marc by Marc ads argues that its appeal is expected to far exceed the confines of the gay world. In fact, the ads, which will run for both the menswear and womenswear lines, are largely meant to sell the bow-fronted dress worn by Mohr, along with many others of its brand, to women.
The ads fit in perfectly with the Jacobs-Teller tradition of irreverent advertising that creates cool by appearing to scorn it. More importantly, in my opinion, these photographs are beautiful enough to sell anything. Take Jacobs’s clothes, Teller’s eye, and Mohr’s scruffy angular beauty, and how can you go wrong? Though the ads are already making waves, they are hardly without precedent. Fashion has long recognized male femininity as a stylistic, sexual, and creative force, one that can be mined for art, for love, and for money. In a celebrated recent example, downtown personage Andre J. appeared alongside supermodel Carolyn Murphy on the November 2007 cover of Vogue Paris, in a blue Burberry trench, heels, and a beard. Andre J., known for his legs, is now offering catwalk-strutting lessons to women.
With the Village Voice announcing “the triumph of the lipsticks,” and claiming that “glamorous” lesbians have conquered Manhattan, my question is this: when will female masculinity of the unabashed sort (as unabashed as the femininity of BryanBoy and Andre J.) be regarded as glamorous? Which is to say, quite frankly, when will a butch image be able to sell clothes, sell sex, sell itself?
I argue that the image of female masculinity is as subversive, as enthralling, as mysterious–in short, as powerful as the image of male femininity. Fashion has harnessed its power, flirting with female masculinity without ever quite embracing it. The legendary couturier Yves Saint Laurent famously put feminine women in pants. Photographers as powerful as Steven Meisel and Mario Testino have loved the faces of women with masculine or androgynous features, from Erin O’Connor and Hannelore Knuts to Omahyra Mota. When, then, will the beautiful “Jax,” a butch photographed often by Del LaGrace Volcano, join, say, Tyson Ballou on the cover of L’Uomo Vogue? When will she, or another masculine woman like her, be photographed for a Tom Ford campaign in such a way that straight men everywhere will flock to the store to buy her suit?
Cathy Horyn, fashion critic for the New York Times, has said that “the irony in fashion is that it loves change but it can’t actually change anything. It can only reflect a change in the air. But what changes fashion?” The answer, I think, is ourselves. To put a butch on the cover of Vogue, let us prize and defend our conviction that the experience of gazing upon her is beautiful not just for us, but for real.
