Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

What Else I Learned While Visiting London: Part Two

Don’t you just hate it when a stereotype proves to be accurate? Just go to London, where the weather will suck, where the prices are ridiculous and where you will spend your vacation in gridlock.

On this trip, I’ve been suffering a non-stop kaleidoscope of hail, snow, sleet and rain, in a rapid, unpredictable succession of squalls and outbursts. The sun only seems to make its rare bait & switch appearances in order to entice you out of doors only to dump its precipitation on you.

London isn’t just expensive when one is translating from pathetic dollars to robust pounds (2 to 1). It’s downright pretentious how much things cost here, in any currency. In fact, prices in pounds echo the same numerical amount as prices in dollars in the States. So if a greeting card there is $2.25, here it is £2.25. Skip the global economy – London’s expensive in and of itself in any context.

The transportation system is mired in gridlock. Despite all the changes the ‘re-elected” Mayor Ken Livingstone made (he was once the radical, daring head of the Greater London Council from 1981-86 when it was abolished)  – charging congestion fees for cars entering the center of the city, making the buses cheap and more frequent, raising the price of the Tube (wanna ride? Get a trust fund), using double buses attached by accordion connections instead of double-deckers (supposedly it’s about replacing old stock with more accessible buses) – despite all that, it’s impossible to get around. The buses are in a gridlock, only now there’re more of them not going anywhere.

Liz
Here’s one anecdote. I’m on my way to meet the lovely Liz Woodcraft – barrister, award-winning author and celebrated wit. Although she texts me that she is held up in court, I set out to the National Portrait Gallery, one of my favorite free destinations in London, right above Trafalgar Square.

I miss my bus because of the dithering of a Post Office clerk when I pop in for a stamp, but shortly after getting drenched by an unexpected shower-burst, another arrives. I sit in my favorite seat – upstairs in the front – and we crawl at an imbecilic pace through road works and traffic jams. It is useless to stress out so I become immersed in my book of Lillian Hellman essays.

“Out,” a deep voice growls. “End.”

It’s the conductor and I’m startled when I look up to see that I’m the last one left on the bus. “But this bus goes to Trafalgar Square,” I protest, looking out at unfamiliar turf.

“Not today. I was told to stop short.”

“But where am I?”

“Five minutes walk up this road and you’ll be in the Square.”

Anyone who has spent time in Britain knows that “a five-minute walk” translates into American English as, “I was raised rambling across the Yorkshire moors on my way to the pub. I eat miles for breakfast.” In short, a five-minute walk could be, and turned out to be, a rushed 25-minute walk for me.

As I enter the Portrait Gallery panting, I get a call from Liz that she is on her way, nearly there. The photography show I had been longing to see since I was back in Boston turns out to cost ten bloody pounds ($20) and because of the delays, I have little time. We chose instead to check out a (free) exhibit “Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings” and then rise to the café on top of the Gallery that overlooks the roofs and cupolas of the surrounding buildings. Finally, I have my second scone – I don’t realize that it will be my last.

I swore that I would not gain weight on this trip. Remembering all those fad diets where you only eat one foodstuff: rice or spinach or potatoes, I determined to lose weight by only eating scones (with clotted cream and jam). Unfortunately they don’t seem to be as ubiquitous as in former days and I end up eating well instead.

Pragna and Raju
It’s become a precious tradition that I dine with my friends Pragna and Raju and their daughters on my London visits. Like so many people, they talk about the post-9/11 impact on their work. Pragna is one of the founders 20 years ago of Southall Black Sisters, a remarkable organization of feminists committed to the human rights of women and to supporting Asian and Afro-Caribbean women facing violence.

Raju has a law firm that is famous for confronting police brutality and working around prison issues.

Both of these activists regret the backlash since 9/11 and the attacks in London that have taken race equality issues off the political table. The special needs of ethnic and racial minorities are no longer recognized and services to those communities are being eliminated under the expectation that everyone can use the same sources. Issues of access around language and culture no longer count – although religion is increasingly privileged, they explain. This strengthens those already in power (religious leaders) in the minority communities – never a good development for women.

Instead of the usual talk about multiculturalism, Pragna says, it’s all about “cohesion.” In short, assimilation. It is “difference” which has caused all of Britain’s woes, insist the white majority, some of whom claim to have been neglected too long. Immigrants must prove that they are loyal to “British values” – whatever those are, and American concepts of patriotism, like a pledge of allegiance in schools, are being imported.

With the disbanding of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commission (for women), minority and women’s groups are being widely de-funded. Instead the new Commission for Integration and Cohesion is throwing money at religious groups, often the most conservative elements of the community, and in the process, Pragna explains, “destroying secular spaces in Black and minority communities.”

Social issues are now being addressed from a religious perspective instead of a broader ethnic (or feminist) approach. Legal aid, once a pillar of British justice, is being heavily eroded, Raju tells me. Fewer people can qualify and less is being paid to Legal Aid lawyers, most of whom can no longer afford to take such cases.

Rayah
I also meet up with my political buddy Rayah who, after a productive academic career, has now founded an immigrant day center, following a random meeting on the street with an immigrant woman in dire straits. Rayah and I stroll in the very old Abney Cemetery before hiding from the elements in a modern Turkish restaurant where I eat a delicious mango salad.

Lynne
Every time I visit London, my “English Friend” Lynne treats me to some sumptuous repast and this year we dine on lamb. Because nearly all of my London friends are “something” – immigrants, Jews, Scots, Irish, people of color – other than the white English rose, Lynne celebrates being the exception. I met her during rehearsals for the first all-women tango performance in 1991 when, mesmerized, I watched her strip off layers of mysterious black lace and velvet undergarments only to replace them with parallel layers in white. My admiration and her delight in being admired turned out to be a solid foundation for a long-term friendship.

Lynne is thriving as a European consultant around mental health issues and policies and as one of those stylish women with quite a unique flair. In the mid 90s Lynne bought a fix-me-up house in the working class neighborhood of Finsbury Park – prices today are stratospheric like everywhere else in London – where she immersed herself in the local community. However, the legacy of 9/11 has touched Finsbury Park, too.

Things have changed, she told me, since the large local Mosque, built with Saudi Arabian royal money, began to be led by the Egyptian cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. The imam’s message of anti-Semitism and jihad attracted all the kooks and bad guys. After al-Masri’s arrest in 2004 for stirring up racial hatred, among other nefarious past-times, the Mosque came under the control of more mainstream Muslim leaders. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to seven years in jail.

As a result the neighborhood has become more polarized and tense and Lynne mourns the loss of its earlier sense of delight among the varied communities that shared the area. They are “still struggling to celebrate the diversity of the human spirit,” she adds.

As I was writing the first draft of this posting, Lynne sent a comment to my previous blog, in which I reported on the earlier part of my trip – thinking that somehow I was leaving her out. Her wry objection, reflecting the highest standards of civilized English literature, is worth reprinting:

Well, you meet her at the bus stop. You escort her safely through the mean streets of Camden. You secure the best table - naturally. You wine and dine her on the finest charcoal grilled lamb chops this side of Beirut; you treat her to a side order of quail. You dazzle her with your political analysis. You tell her all the gossip: the inside stories on the candidates for Mayor of London and what's happened to the more elusive of her ex lovers. In short, you show her the kind of good time this wonderful, chaotic, maddening London of ours can sometimes, by a small miracle, deliver. And what happens? Do you feature in her travelogue? Is there a picture of you in my gorgeous hat, adorning the by-line? Eat worms Sue Katz!

Pink Jukebox
My final fun in London is a return to the Sunday lessons and tea dances that will have been running 20 years in 2009. Partner dancing in a context in which I was permitted to lead and in which I could dance with girls and boys alike had been a life-long dream. These classes were one of the biggest attractions when I was considering the move to Britain.

The Pink dance scene became my main home, my main social experience and my main source of endorphins. Becoming a strong ballroom and latin dance leader was one of my dearest goals and turned out to be a most reliable tool of seduction.

Dancing with Mary and Mike and my teacher Ralf - all incomparably graceful - only proved how rusty I am since moving to Boston where I don’t have regular partners or venues. In dance, if you don’t use it, you unfortunately lose a lot of it and it’s a good thing that anticipated hot sex and overwork on my return to the States, after my visit to Zurich, will keep my mind off my deprivation.

Next stop: Zurich.

What I Learned While Visiting London: Part One

Wednesday
By my third day in London, I had already inadvertently dipped my sleeve in an English tart. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My Swiss Air flight to London, after a stopover delay in Zurich, to which I’m returning in two weeks, has lots of empty seats and I look for somewhere to get comfortable. But virtually all the empty middle rows of four have been colonized by men – really row after row – and when I locate an empty double-seat side row I am torn between relief and a seething disdain for colonialism

B—picks me up at London City Airport and as soon as we hit the car-park, I am blasted with the smoke of people outside having a cigarette. I inhale deeply with a deadly but sweet nostalgia. In the stop-and-go cab-ride back to his house, I get a hint that London traffic mayhem continues to be the norm.

Thursday
I sleep 11 hours, nearly double my usual, thanks to Melatonin and a glorious featherbed. I connect my computer instantly to my hosts’ wireless and drink my morning tea over my email before setting out early afternoon. My first bus driver and I have a good ole chat as he’s just returned from Boston where his Aunt is ill. He doesn’t like to read books because he always guesses the endings. This literary topic arises when, to my astonishment, we pass the tottering Marxist gay-friendly bookstore Houseman’s which is still open. I have never known it not to be imminently going bankrupt and I hop off to buy greeting cards and to find out about their (still-precarious) situation. I wonder if independent bookstores in the UK are going the way of the ones in America – being gobbled or garroted by the chains.

I have to admit, to my mortification, that I brought three generous suitcases for my three weeks away in unreliable weather. This required convoluted negotiations with the airlines as European baggage allowances have shrunk in direct proportion to the cost of “petrol,” or more accurately to the height of oil profits. Although I have suitable garb for most eventualities, and despite checking the weather online most mornings, I consistently find myself in a shiver or sweat.

London is divided into 32 boroughs and I am staying on both sides of the tracks of one of them – Islington. The main drag Upper Street is a contagion of fancy restaurants, upscale home goods and boutiques with the kind of clothes that look like raw linen on their intended buyers and would hang like un-pasteurized burlap on me.

With B-- and P--, I am in an area called Barnsbury which is part old-money and part trendy. Their home is a rather unique 80s post-modern townhouse very close to the street from which Tony Blair moved to 10 Downing St. One of four modern townhouses, they are constructed with numerous high windows, rooms with interesting little annexes and cul-de-sacs and walls at odd angels so that one’s views do not abuse the privacy of the gardens of the surrounding villas. This design neutralized problems gaining planning permission. There is a lovely patio garden where B-- and P—‘s handsome cat reigns. This is the first time I’m seeing the guys since their civil partnership (legal in the United Kingdom since 2004) and I’m treated to a viewing of their elegant wedding photo album.

Next week I will be moving to the home of my friend Nicky in a housing association estate, also in Islington. This is not quite “project” housing, but the local authorities (councils) have spent the last decades getting out of the subsidized and special-needs housing markets and these non-profits have tried to pick up the slack. Several of my friends have lower-cost rentals or shared ownership arrangements with housing authorities. Nicky’s lovely one-bedroom apartment has the most perfect location imaginable. She has painted the walls, ripped up the carpet and laid oak flooring in preparation for my arrival.

Saturday

I make a pit-stop to exchange a gift on Oxford Street, the shopping street of London that would elsewhere serve as “downtown,” and it is a nightmare. As crowded as a how-many-students-fit-in-a-phone booth contest, I remember that the last time I roamed here – possibly 15 years ago, I got my wallet lifted from my bag.

I’m on my way to the 67th birthday party of my dear friend Sue O’Sullivan – activist, writer, editor. These transatlantic birthday visitations are a bit of a habit. For Sue’s 60th, seven years ago, I flew to London with our mutual friend, the lovely Victoria, and quite recently Sue flew over to help put together my own 60th in Boston.

The venue, the University Women’s Club, is one of those (formerly) posh aristocratic buildings near Park Lane that is going slightly to seed. At the event, I see people I haven’t seen in years. Everyone is curious about the USA presidential campaign, which is being followed closely by people around the world, especially those whose lives have been bruised by the USA’s post-9/11 policies of political and economic vengeance. This group of women is particularly interested in the feminist debates around the Barack/Hillary choice.

The buffet dinner is sumptuous and in my excitement at the spread of desserts, I reach for the apricot tart, only to have the sleeve of my best silk jacket trail across the berry tart. A catering worker whisks away my jacket and miraculously returns it unblemished. I give the toast to Sue, which I sum up in my final line: “You remain a gorgeous trend-setter and a committed activist year after year – so I’m worried that you’re in a rut.”

Although no one drives inside London anymore except on Sunday due to untoward congestion, onerous parking restrictions and charges to bring a vehicle into the inner city – Sue’s friends have parked their car around the corner from a tube station from whence they can drop me off. The only problem is that none of the three of us is able to read the A-Z (that reference map book in every car and backpack covering even the smallest roads in London.) Our bifocals aren’t strong enough.

Eventually we find the tiny road where I am staying, but wait. Something steps out from the entranceway at the home of my friends. At first I figure it must be the cat, but in fact it is a fox. I’m nearly a blithering idiot at the thought that I might well have faced the fox on foot alone in the dark, had they not driven me, but I’ve since been told that they’re common urban foxes, dining on garbage everywhere, harmless.

Sunday

I’ve been waiting for this day ever since four members of the team I managed in the British volunteer charity where I worked for eight or nine years decided to meet up at the Tate Modern, one of my favorite museums. Despite 13 years since we were all last together, they brave every form of transport, in a country where the privatization of transportation has made a mash out of movement. Sarah arrives from Dublin. She has grown the community non-profit she runs into a productive empire, without appearing to age a day with her warm auburn coloring and easy delighted laugh, echoing my own pleasure at our reunion. She has the special ability to be both curious and informed.

Sarah has two children and sometimes she meets up with Jules, who likewise has two. In addition to other part-time work, Julia has just qualified as a Samaritan – the rigorously trained advisor in a phone help-line organization for people who are depressed or considering suicide. Jules lives in East Anglia and is one of the most straight-forward, no-bullshit people I’ve had the luck to know. She embodies the very best of English clarity and charity.

Jo from Suffolk and London and the Gambia has over the years become something of a senior expert on drug misuse programs. She took two trains and a bus or two and then walked, like me, over the stormy windy Millennium Bridge that connects St Paul’s Cathedral and the magnificent Tate Modern gallery. Jo has a magical personality so that everyone longs to be around her. Jo was my keeper of boundaries – not until I was promoted out of the Region would she socialize with me, but once I was no longer her manager, we became forever-friends.

She is very close to Christine – we call her CC – who is the tall, lithe athlete among us. In fact, she has just torn knee ligaments in a skiing accident. Christine was my right-hand in my old job – she kept me functional and sane with her ability to plan long-term and to prepare short-term. It was hard to imagine ever working without her. She’s working in education now and living in Sheffield. She mesmerizes us with her story of a Croatian holiday swimming among islands.

We sit in the members’ lounge overlooking the Thames and in the end, we never “do” the marvelous Tate Gallery because we just eat lunch and talk right through afternoon tea and scones. The combination of these delicious scones and these fine women is intoxicating. We talk about the state of the charity sector, the American primary campaigns and exchange old work gossip. This is a good day. To top it off, when the rest hustle back to their planes and trains, CC and I grab a quick peek at the exhibition (The Moment Art Changed Forever) of the Dada founders DuChamp, ManRay and Picabia. It is splendid.

Look for Part Two soon.

What I Learned on the Road to Bristol and Wales

If you’re wondering at my uncharacteristic silence, I am in Europe. This is my Spring vacation, built around an astounding party-to-be in Zurich, which I hope to discuss at a later date, and beginning in London, where I spent the 90s.

Mid-holiday, I am taking a road trip with my friend Nicky. At just over 40 years and 6’ in height, with an inherited tendency to care lovingly for her nearests and dearests, of whom I am one, she is the perfect road trip partner. Nicky and I have been close mates since the 90s and I’ve seen her through a series of interests and employments – from a degree in African studies from the respected SOAS, University of London, through becoming a certified carpenter and on to her present occupation managing a law office.

We’re off in her mature Volvo to visit my old friend Zak and her same-sex partner we’ll call Riko in Bristol, a city about 2 ½ hours due west from London. Zak was one of my few sustained martial arts / self-defense students when I was fresh to Britain. In fact, she has made a nearly 20-year career out my course aimed at preparing women to teach other women self-defense. She now works full-time for the local authority (i.e., the city government) with young women, often the most marginalized, around self-defense. She herself has trained dozens of other trainers and is a high-level black belt. Zak was so devoted to the martial arts that in 1990 she came to train in my gym in Israel after her course finished (she was the only one of 12 UK students to stomach me to the end) when I returned there for a year to wrap up my life before moving to London.

She and Riko, from Japan, went through hell trying to live together in the same country due to discriminatory visa restrictions, and they eventually jumped through so many hoops and around so many obstacles that they achieved a recognized status, ironically just before gay civil partnerships were finally instituted in England.

The city of Bristol is about the 3rd largest in England with a population of 600,000. It built its original wealth on slavery and the streets today still provide an eerie echo of those days: Black Boy Hill and White Ladies Road. In fact, just last year Bristol celebrated 200 years since abolition.

Today 15% of the population is what they call here Black Minority Ethnics (BME), which roughly equals the American phrase “people of color.” However, in schools 26% of children are BME, while only 3% of the teachers.

Like many former industrial and shipping towns, a lot has changed. It used to be all about wool, sugar, ship-building, cigarettes, Cadbury chocolates and the car industry. Today the docks are gone and there’s an over-build of riverside apartments and people are working in tourism, banking and computers. Unfortunately, the levels of both the grossly rich and the very poor have intensified. Zak brags, though, that Bristol has the greatest number of alternative medicine providers and counselors in all of the UK.

Immigration is a changed dynamic in Great Britain. There are 27 member states in the European Union whose populations can freely cross borders for work.  In just 2006/07, there were over 600.000 immigrants to Britain from Poland (the respected Polish publication Politykan puts it at over a million) – street signs turned up in dual languages, banks opened Polish-speaking facilities. Ironically, now that the Polish economy is stronger than the British, this year it is down to 36,000. When one thinks about the raucous anti-immigration hysteria against the 73,000 Asians who immigrated over a 5-year period in the 70s, one despairs at the racism.

Riko has been through the immigration process, including the increasingly draconian examination that includes questions few Brits could answer: What year did women get the right to divorce? What do you have to do to become a Parliamentary Whip? What’s the population of the Commonwealth? Yeah, if you don’t know these answers you must be a terrorist.

We all actually sit up half the night talking – something I haven’t done for years – and it is gloriously comfortable in their home. Like everyone else I have met up with in Britain, they are very informed about the American election campaign and long for an insider interpretation. When I get an email from home telling me about Obama’s speech on race, we watch it, in four parts, on YouTube.

Riko tells me about the Japanese town called Obama City, 300 miles NW of Tokyo, which is smitten with the Obamas; the municipality has sent them chopsticks in lieu of votes. Not to be outdone, most of the 180 employees of a transportation vehicle factory in Fukuoka City, 560 miles south of Tokyo, support Hillary as she has the same name as one of their “compact but durable” products.

The next morning we set out for the Bristol Ferry, an on and off tour, that takes us to the downtown market area. At this mixture of stalls and shops, food and trinkets, we buy purple broccoli from a 4th generation farmer who poses proudly with his produce for a photo and then eat local meat pies for lunch. We’re back on the ferry in time for Zak to get to work and Nicky and I set off for the second leg of the journey, Zak's home-baked cookies tucked away with some fruit.

We’re headed for mid-Wales where Nicky’s very cool mum lives with her husband and 94-year-old Aunt. Although Wales is part of the UK, following political devolution it gained its own Welsh Assembly, which controls education (Welsh language is key to the curriculum), social services and the all-important pub opening hours. Did you ever hear about the nationalist rebels who used to burn out vacation homes English people had bought in Wales? Times have changed. Today the main (and mainstreamed) nationalist political party Plaid Cymry, founded in 1925, is in a coalition government with the Labour Party in the Welsh Assembly. Their nationalist vision now involves a Wales within the European Union.

Wales traditionally has more sheep than people, but the foot-in-mouth problem decimated many family farms. The mining industry is almost gone and there are a lot of problems with poverty, drugs and alcohol. Tourism, though, is an economic mainstay. Strangely enough, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other evangelicals are challenging the hegemony of the Welsh protestant church.

To get there, we pass over the Severn Bridge from England to Wales, a bridge so mammoth that they start painting one end and when they get to the other, they begin again. We pass Merthyr Tydfil where infamously in 1966 a colliery tip – what we’d call a slag heap – turned into an avalanche and buried a schoolhouse and much of the town – killing 145 folks.

When we get to Carmarthen we know we’re getting close to Nicky’s mum. It was the first town in Wales, built as a walled city by the Romans as they came up the Towy estuary. We arrive at last to Nicky’s mother’s spacious modern house with a view out the back up two sloping fields to a rise. The moon is full, the stars are bright and there’s no doubt we’re in the country.

The next day, we tour around some very old towns. I’m taken by a 11th Century Norman church tower in Llandysul Parish, so we park and explore the building (begun in the 6th Century) and the cemetery (mostly early 19th Century). I convince Nicky to snap a photo of the two of us by holding out her long arm and pointing the camera our way, but she can only get in the tower behind us if we kneel on the wet church path and I wonder if this is agitating my dead Jewish grandmother.

There is a nasty stink which I misidentify as manure until Nicky explains about silage. The Welsh farmers cut and store wet green grass and although the piles putrefy and release a strong-smelling liquid, they also hold their nutrients as winter feed for the cows.

I know I’ve had a very touristy look at Wales, where the “f” is a “v” and the “ff” is an “f” and the ubiquitous Welsh chapels are symmetrical and unimposing with a lovely simplicity.  But as Nicky and I cross the Severn Bridge back into England and note that the traffic into Wales for the long Easter weekend is backed up for miles, we are agreed that our timing is impeccable, not the least because we somehow escaped the usual drenchings and were enlivened by the rare exhilaration of actual sunshine on more than one occasion.

We return to London and barely get up the stairs before a terrifying hail storm explodes, covering the balconies and lawns around us in ugly, bumpy white. Welcome to Spring in Britain.

Can You Stand Some Good (Sex) News??

I’ve had the odd experience recently of reading seven positive stories about sexuality from around the world. Isn’t good news a rare commodity? Read about what French women are up to, the cyber voice of gay bloggers in Africa and the Middle East, the German dating site for people with disabilities, apologies in Sydney, the new journalistic awards for sex work, queer adoption rights in Israel and then view a sexy European video clip.

FRENCH WOMEN SHOW GROWING LIBIDO
More partners, more positions, younger, older – French women are passing men on the horny-o-meter according to Time.com. In their article, “More Sex Please, We’re French,” they report on a large sexuality study commissioned by France’s National Research Agency on AIDS. There are many fascinating comparative statistics demonstrating the increased passion, not the least, “Fully 90% of women over the age of 50 say they remain sexually active, a big jump from 50% in 1970.”

GAYS GO CYBER IN AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Bloggers are coming out in African and Middle Eastern countries that outlaw homosexuality (with punishments from flogging to hanging), we hear from Yahoo. By carefully hiding their own identities, gays from Sudan, Kenya, Morocco, Bahrain and other countries are defying the farcical myth (most recently promoted by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that there are no queers in these societies.

Some of the bloggers monitor repression against gays in their countries and some write diaries of their love-lives. Only in South Africa, where sexuality is protected by the constitution, are bloggers able to be open about their identities and where active chat-rooms and matching sites can flourish. Go South Africa!

GERMAN DATING AGENCY BRIDGES BARRIERS
In 1998 a patient of Bernd Zemella, a Hamburg psychologist with particular interest in sexuality, wanted some lovin,’ we read. Recognizing the difficulty for people with physical and mental disabilities in finding romantic partners, Zemella began a database which has resulted in over 50 couples getting together. It is administered by volunteers and health professionals who are committed to the idea that disability should not be a bar to intimacy. Together with introductions, the agency also provides practical info (how to unhook a bra) and safety lessons – all of it free. Men outnumber women by 3/1 among the 500 Hamburgians presently listed (19 other German cities now have their own agencies), a result of parents’ fear, Zamella says, of their girls getting pregnant – despite the fact that none of the 50 couples have had children. Go Schatzkiste Partnervermittlung (the name of the group)!

SYDNEY CLERGY TAKE AN APOLGY MARCH
So far, 30 Australian clergy have apologized for the homophobia in their churches (Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal and Uniting), according to the Sydney Morning Herald. To demonstrate that they’re getting with the program, they’re going to march in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Mike Hercock says of his campaign to get “100 Revs” to march, "Church has been a hostile place for a number of people, including the homosexual community. It's really trying to get away from the ideology of throwing rocks." Rumors that they’re going to wear sequined clergy collars and form a samba troupe are highly exaggerated.

THE SEXIES: AWARDING BRAVE JOURNALISTS
Who am I to complain? If it weren’t for the wretchedly poor media coverage of all things sexual, what would I write about? Now one of my favorite organizations is getting involved in promoting sex-positive journalism. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), together with their partner the Center for Sex and Culture, are bestowing awards called the Sexies for serious journalism that takes a fair and accurate approach to investigating a sexual topic (sexual health/ freedom/ science/ etc). This will be a prize to be treasured, if the quality of judges is any standard – Dan Savage, the fearless sex columnist, and Marty Klein, the principled sex therapist and author, to name just two. As I know only too well, those journalists on sexual topics who can get past prudish or right-wing editors and publishers to break into mainstream publications are to be congratulated – because it ain’t easy. Go Sexies!

MORE QUEER RIGHTS IN ISRAEL
The Israeli government has removed all legal restrictions on adoptions by lesbian and gay people, says Yahoo. This expands the 2005 decision to permit gays to adopt their partner’s biological children; now they will have access to the services of the national Child Welfare Service. Despite the influence of fundamentalist religious political parties on Israeli civil life, the legal situation there for gays has long been better than in the States. For example, gays serve openly (well, in a legal sense) in the armed forces, common law marriage is recognized and there are anti-discrimination laws. The queer community in Israel is highly active, from an annual Pride event to the simply fabulous Black Laundry protest group (“No Pride in Occupation”) to lobbying organizations.

THE EUROPEAN UNION GETS JIGGY
Finally, to promote the European film industry, the European Union has spent 44 seconds of celluloid (click below) showing 18 couples carrying on, according to Ananova.com.

The lovers – fat, thin, straight, gay – are all humping and cumming – but a trembling egg yoke sitting on a piece of toast is for me one of the hottest images. There is even some toilet sex, before it wraps up with an idea that’s hard to argue with: “Let’s All Come Together.” Disney, can you match it?

International Women’s Day – Then, Now, Here, There

It’s annoying that International Women’s Day (March 8) gets a mere whisper compared to the retail shout-out that Mothers’ Day receives in this country. Although I’m not a big holiday/ritual/ceremony kinda girl (no, you can’t ignore my birthdays), I do think this particular annual event is special, so I try to celebrate each year.

Let’s start with some history.

In February, 1909, following a march for labor rights by many thousands of women workers the year before, the Socialist Party of America declared International Women’s Day (IWD) in the United States. The next year, at the Second International, in Copenhagen, women from 11 countries adopted the Day in the hopes of furthering women’s suffrage.

In 1911, over a million women and men marked the Day around the world, but only a week later the crime known as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire took the lives of over 140 women in the rag trade – mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants – and the struggle against sweatshop conditions became forever associated with IWD.

Russian women imprinted their own radicalism on IWD in 1917 when their strike for “bread and peace” over the death of two million Russian soldiers led to the abdication of the Czar and governmental embrace of women’s voting rights.

Soon the UN adopted International Women’s Day and in 1975, in recognition of the second wave of feminism, held a global International Women’s Year. This meant that, just like the men, we could gather from around the world, compromise bitterly after difficult debate (say, over the inclusion of queers or abortion rights), make resolutions that no one is entirely happy with and be unable to get our governments to put any resources into meeting the goals, anyway. Wow, finally we’ve got a seat at the table of world-level frustration.

While there’s hardly even an official murmur in the States over IWD, there is a website that lists an exhilarating range of world locations and activities – giving the sense that International Women’s Day is not as moribund elsewhere as it seems to be here. This website keeps a tally of events (and provides the photos I’ve used in this posting), including the following.

In Saudi Arabia, they’re holding a two-day workshop on integrating women into the economy. A domestic violence group in Albania offers an event they call a Manifestation. Likewise, Tanzania’s having a mother-daughter fundraiser for their domestic violence organization, while the funder in Fiji goes towards building a scholarship fund for “young women studying Automotive and Electrical Engineering at the Fiji Institute of Technology” – the event has the charming name of Women in Celebration of You. In Lebanon they’ll be looking at women’s health. Icelanders are planning to talk about women’s world-wide friendships and about children’s rights, while the Kenyan’s are having a musical festival and handing out prestigious awards.

So what are you doing? I’m going to an annual tea with 90 other women in the afternoon and in the evening to a screening of the as-yet-unfinished film, “Left on Pearl”, about the 1971 takeover that started on IWD of a Harvard University building by the vibrant Boston women’s movement. I was there, so I was interviewed for the film. I’m going to celebrate old victories, because lately it feels like those are the only ones we have.

Two Groovy Little Films from the Middle East

Caramel is a light-hearted Lebanese film built around a gaggle of girlfriends who run a beauty parlor in Beirut. The film follows the hiccups in each of their love lives – whether it’s mistreatment at the hands of a married man, fear of ageing, finding a lesbian lover or meeting a first love late in life. Their mutual support society is warm and witty and the city of Beirut is more like an atmospheric set, providing a local flavor, than an active player. Caramel (which is used in the salon to remove unwanted hair) is sweet.

   

The Band’s Visit (Bikur HaTizmoret) is a moving little comedy about an old-fashioned Ceremonial Orchestra attached to the Egyptian police that arrives in Israel to perform at the opening of an Arab Cultural Center. When they end up very much in the wrong place, they find themselves dependent on the good graces of local townspeople – with whom they turn out to have much in common: the Israeli town is a forgotten shithole in the desert and the Band is a dinosaur about to lose its funding. Political reality simmers around the edges, but human connection takes a poignant center stage.