History repeats itself
Bookworm on May 28 2008 at 8:32 am | Filed under: San Francisco, Sex
Masturbation has been a staple of R or X-rated humor for a long time. Other than that, being a solo activity, it hasn’t had much of a public life — or so I thought until this morning. In keeping with the posts I did about the Bacchanal that San Francisco’s venerable Bay to Breakers race has become (here, here and here), Danny Lemieux sent me a link to a post article about one of San Francisco’s other bids for most debauched City in the Western world. This time, it’s about San Francisco’s annual Masturbate-a-thon:
May 23, 2008
Your Hand-y Guide to Sunday’s Masturbate-a-Thon
(By Joe Kukura)We just got off the phone with Carol Queen, who is gripped in preparations for this Sunday’s seventh annual Masturbate-a-Thon – where good folks publicly drop trousers and raise money by seeing who can masturbate the longest, climax most often, and ejaculate the furthest. Things are really coming together for Sunday’s proceedings, with your hosts Nina Hartley and SF Boylesque, and live performances by Madison Young, Tom Orr, Sadie Lune, and loads of other local erotica superstars.
The Masturbate-a-Thon is a stand-up cause, raising money for the Center for Sex and Culture’s public library and ongoing curriculum of classes and seminars. “We don’t get any big foundation funding or government grants, so we do rely on our community,” says Dr. Queen, who along with her right-hand man Dr. Robert Lawrence have set up separate male-only, female-only, and mixed-gender areas as well as a live stream of the event for those wishing to catch the webcast. This may not be the most traditional method of fundraising – just looking at some previous years’ world records kinda makes our crotch sore — but as Dr. Queen says, “We’ll try to continue to be as subversive as we can.”
Masturbate-a-Thon // Sunday, May 25 3 p.m. // Center for Sex and Culture (1519 Mission St.) // $20 SFist: Your Hand-y Guide to Sunday’s Masturbate-a-Thon
At Flopping Aces, Marc sums up the problem with this narcissistic little event:
How can anyone bring up children in this type of environment?
It just shows you the dangers in having liberals and leftists running any city and even the country. Moderates, conservatives and the right should be extremely alarmed and concerned about these kinds of unsavory behaviors allowed by out of control left wing politicians.
The situation is actually a little more extreme even than Marc thought. You see, it’s not just San Francisco that promotes these kinds of affairs (although SF can boast that the event started within its borders). Masturbate-a-thons have been held in North American in Wisconsin, Boston and Toronto, and they’ve now spread to Europe, with London hosting the European event.
Much as San Francisco likes to think that it discovered sex (a belief that highlights how adolescent the City is), there is, in fact, nothing new under the sun: sex has existed before, bizarre sex has existed before, exhibitionistic sex has existed before, and group sexual events have existed before. The only thing that’s different is that the modern Left, with San Francisco leading the way, is the first society since ancient Rome that has taken this behavior out of the (appropriate) privacy of the home and club, and plunked it down in the public eye. Not only is this unacceptable for those of us who cling to traditional mores, it should put us in mind of Rome. As you probably recall, when Rome gave itself over to hedonism, its decline and fall were suddenly writ large on the pages of history.
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5 Responses to “History repeats itself”
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Never mind how the Muslims the world over must be assessing this glimpse of Western Society…it makes me want to go on my own societal jihad.
Take my children there? Forget it. I, for one, will work hard to avoid spending another dime of my money in S.F., much as I love that city for what it used to be. Perhaps it should be walled off and used as a museum to celebrate the logical end-game of Liberal/Leftism. For the Midwest, Detroit could be turned into a similar museum. East Coast - maybe Philly.
Fortunately, there are a lot of still-nice communities surrounding the city.
Weird things happen when civilizations reach too high while high.
Usually they tend to fall down. The more highly civilized they are, the longer it takes them to fall and the harder the hitting the ground becomes.
— but as Dr. Queen says, “We’ll try to continue to be as subversive as we can.”
It’s infuriating to think that tax dollars go to support an arts community that seeks solely to accomplish what Dr. Queen is accomplishing here: To be as subversive as they possibly can.
Beauty, grace, elegance, vision, awe… no, none of these matter for art. They are all mere trifles. What is solely important about art is to be as subversive as you possibly can.
And the ENTIRE arts community of a city is devoted to this one single principle.
I am sure I am exaggerating; and perhaps no taxpayer money is associated with this particular … exercise. (Giggle, snort, giggle! I was as punny as the author was! Gee, where’s my right-hand man when I need one? I can see Beavis and Butthead watching this telethon right now.)
But I get so frustrated when I think that we are required to SUPPORT crap like this. Tolerate, well, ok. Let these nasty, smirking adult children have their fun. But to actually have to SUPPORT them with funding… Perhaps more of this will lead us back to solely private funding for all manner of the arts, because it’s unconscionable. Denying them public funding would go a long way to wiping the smirks off their faces.
Pretty amazing. I feel sad to realize I will never be able to return to the beautiful city by the bay where I spent one wonderful year between college and marriage. Your revealing posts of this nature over the past year have demonstrated that the lunatics have inherited the asylum with little protest offered up by the rest of the citizens. San Francisco is no longer a fitting place for children or for decent adults.
At least I can still watch “Vertigo” for the backgrounds.
What would Herb Caen have thought?