Monday, August 30, 2010

Breaking Taboo Stories for August 30, 2010

Catch me today on BREAKING TABOO at 4pm PST / 7pm EST with guests Actor Steve Gelder, Comedian Johnny Dam, and the Unholy Reverend Jeff Brunk on http://www.NewDissidentRadio.com. For more details on guests visit http://www.lakotaphillips.com/BreakingTaboo.html

Lead Story - The Beauty Sacrifice
Throughout history and in all cultures, ideal beauty is something that has had to be shaped, forced, even torturously crafted in order to be achieved. Brutal sacrifices are made in the name of beauty. What is beautiful in one culture may be considered monstrous in another. It is all as subjective as art. Only a bit more painful in some cases.

Reshaping the body to fit fashionable concepts of beauty has included wearing corsets which moulded the body and if worn constantly changed the arrangement of the body's internal organs and rib cage. Can you say vapors? Foot binding or Lotus Feet were considered the height of beauty for a thousand years in China, with the practice only ending in the 20th century. Young girls and women would have their toes broken and their feet bound to produce the tiniest feet possible.

In the Kayan tribe they measure a woman’s beauty according to the brass rings wore around the neck. This ritual starts as early as the age of 5 and their neck is transformed by the systematic adding of heavy rings. The elongated neck is a result of the pressure the rings put on their shoulders and chest. As the shoulders are  reshaped and pushed down, the elongated neck appearance is achieved.

In Mauritania a beautiful woman has curves…BIG, BIG curves. Through force-feeding  young girls are fattened up. The practice of gavage is now forbidden, but the appeal of biggest is better hasn’t changed.

Polynesian women are considered to be beautiful if they wear traditional tattoos on their lips and on their chins. Among the Mursi and Surma tribes of Africa, Lip Plates are not only status symbols but also signs of great beauty.

In Western societies the means of achieving beauty are often extreme as well. From plastic surgery, boobage enhancements, butt enlargements, butt reductions, liposuction, botox, bizarre diets to sometimes odd exercise crazes. What ever nature has not given, the knife can solve. We tend to look upon the other cultures and what women have done throughout history with an incredulous eye but really, how are we any different?  

The irony is that women go through all that pain and torture and reconstructing to achieve an ideal that has a very, very short shelf life in most cases. Even anti-beauty movements such as the punk or goth cultures evolve into their own tortured ideals of beauty with elaborate piercings and tattoos.

Aside from the conscious or subconscious hunt for a mate and peer/societal pressures to be “beautiful” there are also the psychological associations that have been ingrained in us since children. Beauty is often associated with goodness. From children's stories like Cinderella to films such as James Bond, the "goodies" are beautiful while the "badies" are "ugly" or different in some way.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/3798150-beauty-ideals-around-the-world

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Global Xenophobia - Real or Hyperbole?
In France aggressive measures are being taken to remove the Roma (gypsies) from the country. 700 Roma are expected to be removed by the end of August with 300 illegal Roma camps demolished over the next three months. In Arizona a legal battle is raging over a law passed by the state giving police the right to demand individuals show identification in order to detect illegal immigrants from Mexico, something that opponents say has resulted in racial profiling. In Australia, political candidates are using harsher rejection of immigration as their platforms.

Then there is the hotbed of Muslim resentment and outright hatred that is revolving around the 9/11 proposed Mosque – cultural center – whatever you want to call it. Taxi cab drivers are stabbed for being Muslim (and you cannot convince me that the public hysteria over the topic isn’t core to that stabbing), latino hate crimes that the media report are on the rise, and of course you have continued black/white hostilities all across the globe. Let’s toss in the anti-gay parties for the hell of it because it relates to fear of what is different and we seem to be devolving into a global culture defined by what we hate, not by what we achieve or enjoy.

According to one article when people are economically insecure they tend to be more susceptible to the concept that less immigration will mean more prosperity.

Another viewpoint is that xenophobia rises from the resentment of "cultural apartheid" on the part of immigrants, as well as a sense a sense of cultural and economic entitlement that some natural citizens feel immigrants not only demand but receive. The “us and them” complex that creates an enormous divide.  

But is this all a real increase in racism and bigotry, or is it just a heightened awareness of what already existed due to media attention? Personally, I agree that times of economic stress create a need in the general population to find a scape goat to vent frustration on. The frustration was always there though – it wasn’t born out of thin air. It just becomes more vocal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-rising-global-tide-of-xenophobia-2057128.html

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Douche Bag Island – Giving the Big O Up for Jesus
Christians now have their own sex shops, not only that, but they’re “sin-free” and biblical. Since I belong the Church of Kota with a whopping membership of one, I generally tend to give a respectful nod to the beliefs of others so long as they don’t try to save me from myself. But this shit is funny. And funny trumps respect any damn day of the week. Kinky for Christ is becoming big business as online “we’re not porn” shops are growing in popularity. One proprietor consults with the Big J via prayer and confessed that the holy dude has surprised her, resulting in the shop’s kinkier “weekend adventure” and velcro section. Who knew.

Another shop says “we provide a safe non-pornographic place to shop for all your Christian sex toys while keeping Jesus Christ at the center of it all.”

The whole using Christianity to make a buck aspect aside – because face it – Christianity is big money and always has been it comes (no pun intended) down to two questions.
1.       Don’t Christians deserve fun, kinky sex too? (Never mind that they could actually slink anonymously into an online porn shop like the rest of us do and no one except maybe the baby jesus would be any wiser)
2.       What DOES a jesus approved dildo look like? (That is just wrong on so many levels - LOL!)

And for some really scary and really funny comments on the original news story: http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/2008/02/the_joy_of_christian_sex_1.html

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ALSO Weekly PIMPAGE:

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

DAMage Report - Arts Day: Gogh, Gogh, Gone

Catch Arts Day on the DAMage Report - pm PST / 5pm EST on NewDissidentRadio.com - live streaming so you can tune in anywhere in the world!

On Saturday a Van Gogh painting was stolen from a Cairo museum. Then it was reportedly found. And now.... it’s lost again.  Even the recovery is being fumbled like an episode in a comedic sitcom.

The theft of the $55 million Vincent van Gogh painting in Cairo has the art world casting an incredulous eye at Egyptian museums. Only seven out of 43 security cameras were functioning and none of the alarms attached to the museum’s paintings was working. Apparently the security hasn't been working since 2006. The Van Gogh "Poppy Flowers" is one of 304 oil paintings and 50 sculptures in a collection valued at over $1.2 billion.  The robbers climbed on a sofa and cut the picture out of its frame with a box cutter. This same Van Gogh painting was stolen in 1978 and recovered two years later in Kuwait. Egypt may have a little difficulty now in convincing Western museums to return what it considers pilfered works. 

Lots of finger pointing included the deputy culture minister being arrested, along with four guards the guards who were accused of “negligence and failing to carry out their employment duties." Nine other officials from the culture ministry were  prevented from traveling from the country. It seems that if the security hasn't been working since 2006 that there is a long line of people who fell asleep on the security desk.

Monday, August 23, 2010

BREAKING Taboo Stories for Monday Aug. 23



Tune on today at 4pm PST / 7pm EST on NewDissidentRadio.com
Guests today are the Smutketeers!
Check out the Erotica Pimp, Artist of the Week, Novel Review and Guest bios on Lakotaphillips.com/BreakingTaboo.html
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Breaking Taboo – Lead Story: BDSM - what you didn't know, probably don't wanna know, but are going to learn the truth about anyway.
Words like domination, submission, bondage and the acronym BDSM evokes images of dungeons, screaming women (and men) being brutally whipped and sexually ravaged by leather clad men (and wom
en). While no doubt that kind of painful extreme goes on in some hardcore playrooms, it really doesn’t represent the true picture of what BDSM play or lifestyle is. And by the way – play and lifestyle are two very different things in the kink-loving culture.

The acronym BDSM is derived from the words bondage, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism. There are more misconceptions about BDSM than probably any other area of human psychological and sexual relationships. So we’re gonna de-myth that sucker for you with the help of Eden Bradley who is a well known erotica author and been in the BDSM lifestyle for 25 years.
MYTH: BDSM is abuse.
FACT: BDSM is Safe, Sane and CONSENSUAL…..Abuse is NEVER consensual.
MYTH: BDSM is all about pain.
FACT: Pain isn't enjoyable to all people and you don't have to enjoy pain to be into BDSM. It’s about enjoyment, stimulation, pleasure, and most of all, trust. It is never done with the intent to harm and never done in anger. Many practitioners prefer dress up, bondage, mild spankings and control.
MYTH: People in BDSM are into pain and like to hurt each other.
FACT: Part of the allure of BDSM is the appearance of danger. Pain is perceived differently from person to person. A light flogging may be too intense for one person, while a heavy flogging may be perfect for someone else.
MYTH: People who engage in BDSM were all abused as children.
FACT: There is no documented proof that BDSM activities come from childhood abuse. Sweeping generalizations tend to further stigmatize our diverse needs.
MYTH: Only gay men practice BDSM.
FACT: It has nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender identity.
MYTH: The Dominant partner is a control freak.
FACT: In BDSM, the submissive willingly gives up the control to the Dominant, who takes that control, combines it with his own energy and redirects it back to the sub. Ultimately submissives have the final say. They can submit or not.
MYTH: The submissive partner is weak.
FACT: The majority of submissives involved in BDSM are strong, self-sufficient individuals, who have intense and high-powered occupations. It is very common to find lawyers, doctors, CEO’s and politicians who practice the submissive role.
MYTH: BDSM is all about sex.
FACT: There are some who practice BDSM who do not experience any sexual arousal. Being in the scene doesn't mean you are automatically going to get laid.
MYTH: BDSMers are all people who live on the fringes of society.
FACT: There are very prominent people into BDSM, from all walks of life, all over the world.

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Breaking Taboo -Story 2: The Erotica Sex-revolution

How has erotica changed how women view themselves and their sexuality?
One of the quickest growing markets in the publishing industry has been the erotic romance genre. One of the reasons it’s so popular is because it is diverse – covering all other genres of fiction fr
om suspense to paranormal to sci-fi to western and historical and even the kinkier BDSM and ménage ala however many the author can fit into the plot.
Face it – we like the steamy hot sex. And other fiction is having to follow the trend of more explicit and sensual scenarios in their stories in order to satisfy the readers. The myth that women don’t like sex is being systematically crushed as the female gender slip into our FMPs and saunter out into the naughty night, looking for some satisfaction. The “good girls don’t” adage has changed to “good girls don’t get caught” and even more so to “good girls DO and do it often.”

What is causing this change in sexual attitudes in women? There are numerous contributing factors, one of them being the fiction we read. Women reading about other women embracing and exploring their sexual needs is allowing a large number of us to toss aside inhibitions (okay – for some more like stealthy sneaking past our inhibitions) as we explore what it means to be a sexually aware creature.

“Exactly why erotic literature has become so popular now is a matter of speculation, though it doesn't seem entirely coincidental that the creators were mostly raised in the era of Madonna videos on MTV, open discussion of sex during the initial HIV scare, and the mainstreaming of porn. Much of the new erotica is simply porn moved to the printed page, only smarter and largely aimed at women.”
Interesting to note is that men are starting to read erotica too. Trust me – this promises to be a beautiful thing for women everywhere.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36835812/ns/health-sexual_health/


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Douche Bag Island – Fear of Furry Fucking 
(Props to John C. McDonnell for the segment name)

An angry group of Iowa parents went on the warpath after a group of students were shown sex acts simulated on stuffed animals.  The instructor who is with Planned Parenthood teaches several classes each month in schools and other settings o
n topics relating to human sexuality such as sexually transmitted infections, contraception, healthy relationships, reproductive anatomy.
One parent said what had been most upsetting was how the instructor used stuffed animals to simulate sexual acts. And what would she have preferred? Seriously? Were they afraid their 14 year old kids would start humping the teddies? I hate to break it to them but at least half if not more of that class was already sexually active on some level. Even more shocking for the protesting parents - the class learned how to do self-exams for women and the instructor demonstrated with a (GASP) anatomically correct male sex organ how to use a condom. Because putting a condom on an unanatomically correct penis would have been more fun than the school system could handle.
One parent whined: “I do not understand why any adult with a classroom of children would show them sexual positions,”
Um – m’am - It’s call sex education – something your child is apparently NOT going to get at home.
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/06/23/2010-06-23_parents_furious_after_students_shown_inappropriate_sex_acts_simulated_on_stuffed.html

Coming up next week on Douche Bag Island – Sin-free Sex Toys. Jesus Approved Kink. I’m Serious.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Stuff - new paintings and monday's show

Heads up the Breaking Taboo guests on Monday will be the Infamous Smutketeers. :D We're all about the smut on monday so fasten your seat belts - it's gonna be one hellah wild ride. 4pm PST on NewDissidentRadio.com

New Paintings:
Still trying to get hands right. Not something that comes easy but i'm practicing... "The Lost Inner Child"












This one is called "Love Isn't Simple Black and White". I was thinking in terms of greys and the complexity of relationships but from comments i've received on this one it can be viewed at a multitude of levels, including racial integration and spirituality. Kinda cool. I love other people's reactions to drawings and paintings i do.













This one is part of the series of portraits i'm trying to do. Ken Meyer, Jr. is a well known artist and illustrator and had sent in his picture when i put out a call for male images to work on from friends. It took several weeks to finish this one in photoshop. He had made a request for tones of purples, so i tried to work that palette into the portrait. It doesn't look just like him, so obviously i need to keep working on portraiture but i'm pretty happy with it.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Debut of Breaking Taboo - Tonight!

Lakota Phillip hosts Breaking Taboo at 4pm PST/7pm EST following the DAMage Report. Special Guest, actor John C. McDonnell will be joined by Johnny Dam and Lora Somoza. 

Visit newdissidentradio.com to listen live. 

Call in by phone or skype: NDradio or 323-284-5532. 


Breaking Taboo Lead Story - Engineering the perfect baby while preventing lesbianism?

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia, (CAH), is a condition that causes overproduction of male hormones in the womb and girls who are affected tend to have slightly enlarged genitals, though internal sex organs are normal. In boys, the condition leads to early signs of puberty, such as deep voice, body hair and enlarged penis by age 2 or 3.

Parents of babies with enlarged clitorises have been, for the most part, resorting to cosmetic surgery to correct the defect in their less than perfect offspring. As one parent noted in an online testimonial, the defect had to be fixed to avoid uncomfortable questions from relatives and daycare workers. Umm… right.

But WAIT! Clit surgery is no longer the only option! Now pregnant women can take a highly experimental drug that is not FDA approved and not only correct the potentially unsightly uber-clit, but also head off any potential for lesbian leanings.

Working with several collaborators, Maria New has written a series of scientific papers suggesting a strong connection between CAH and lesbianism. CAH, they write, is also associated with a disinterest in mothering, as well as "masculine behavior" in girls. Enter dexamethasone. It's a steroid that New and some of her colleagues believe can prevent some of the outward signs of CAH in girls - specifically, there is a small amount of evidence that it can prevent ambiguous genitals. Carriers of the gene mutation that causes this form of hyperplasia have roughly a 12.5% chance of having a daughter with the condition. The hormone treatment as to be started as soon as possible, before the gender of the child is determined, for it to have an effect on genital development. Remember that the fetus is highly susceptible in its development to any and all chemicals it is exposed to. 

With the breaking news on this topic Maria New has spoken up this week, saying that she is NOT attempting to prevent lesbianism. However, given her research areas of interest and statements on her findings, I find that hard to believe.
“In a paper published earlier this year New and her colleagues reported on data from 685 pregnancies in which the condition was diagnosed prenatally, acknowledging the potential effects of the treatment for reducing traditionally masculine behavior in girls. Prenatally treated girls were more likely to be shy, they wrote, while untreated girls were "more aggressive." Moreover, the authors said, failure to provide prenatal therapy seems to lead to traditionally masculine gender-related preferences in childhood play, peer association and career and leisure choices.”

Alice Dreger points out “it seems reasonable to try to prevent a child from suffering discrimination. But an approach like prenatal dex for homosexuality prevention positions gay and lesbian people as the problem to be cured, where we ought to see that it's our society that's suffering from a disease. The medical establishment has long recognized that gay and lesbian people are not inherently diseased.”

This movement to create perfect babies that conform to a subjective idea of what is normal is not just alarming, it is dangerous.
This also brings up a few questions:
1. Since when do doctors get to determine what normal female behavior is?
2. Unless you’re a therapist, what the hell do you care what the sexual preferences of others is?
3. You can’t get consent from a baby for their sexuality to be fucked with.
What gives the parents and the doctors the right to take this choice away from what will one day be an adult woman with a shitload of issues?


Breaking Taboo Story #3 - Clit Chop Shop in U.S.


Our sick society...

Study in 1997 --> 168,000 girls & women in the U.S. had or were at risk to have clitoroplasty. Poppas CUTS OFF parts of the perfectly healthy, albeit-larger-than-we'd-like clitoris, the only organ in either sex whose only known function is sexual pleasure. "Post-op visits with the doctor and his VIBRATOR do the girls no good -- what can the doctor do if a girl reports no sensation? reassemble her clit?"

The head of the pediatric urology department at Cornell University's New York Presbyterian Hospital -- ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country -- has been operating on young girls who suffer (in his and the parent's opinion) from oversized clitorises.

In order to relieve these girls from what seems like little more than a cosmestic issue, the doctor cuts out parts of the clitoris' shaft, saving the glans, or tip, for reattachment. The horrors of clitoroplasties aside, this particular brand of FGM adds an extra layer of psychological damage: Poppas used a vibrator to test little girls' clitoral sensation. Q-tips and finger stimulation were also used but don't worry - parents were always present while the children were "stimulated".

The equivalent to this is for a male to have an inch of his penis shaft cut off and the tip of his cock sewn back on. Hmmm... I wonder...Do you think there would be any psychological and physiological repercussions from THAT?

REF: http://www.alternet.org/story/147254/after_cutting_little_girls'_clitorises,_ivy_league_doctor_tests_handiwork_with_a_vibrator?page=1

Breaking Taboo - Frankenburgers

Zombie Cows For Dinner Tonight
Once all the steaks are gauged for their desirability, the dead cow carcasses from which the flesh was cut to produce the steaks are harvested for their DNA.
This DNA is then used to clone new cows who are fed, raised and slaughtered to see how their flesh steaks taste. This cycle is repeated through multiple generations in order to "evolve" cow clones with great-tasting flesh.”
There is something inherently distasteful about cloning our food sources for most of us.  Even if you have no issues with cloning for food, the idea of pulling DNA from something dead to create something living is probably going to give you the willies. Why?
Personally, I think it’s intuitive. We know that as soon as a body dies that all manner of decomposition, cellular collapse, bacteria breeding, etc. occurs. The natural mechanisms in place to keep a living creature healthy are no longer functioning. It’s why a dead body rots.
Granted that is simplifying the process of decomposition and doesn’t take into account a whole lot of scientific facts that probably mean something to someone somewhere. To me, I see a rotting corpse being used to create a living creature that may end up on my dinner plate.
Dig up a little of that DNA and Frankenstein it in the lab and voila – we have duplication of life. But do we really know what we have? It is the lack of real knowledge that should concern people. Statements from the FSA and FDA saying it can’t produce evidence that cloned meat is harmful should be alarming. Use of words in studies such as “appears to be safe” should send up red flags. In a relatively new area of scientific manipulation – saying “we can’t find anything wrong so it must be safe” is clearly decision making based on “acceptable ignorance”. The scary part is that these decisions make the population the guineas pigs.
The meat and dairy industries are big business, cranking out the yummy slab of meat for your Big Mac as quickly and cheaply as they can because, hey – gotta stay ahead of the game and can’t let the Brits or the Japanese get an edge on us. It comes down to greed, competition, and to hell with the consequences. (BP anyone?) And by the way – you won’t know if you’re eating cloned meat because they don’t have to label it as such. Think about this as well - cloned animals tend to be less "healthy." So of course the farmers want to plug them full of antibiotics and hormones to ensure their investment doesn't keel over before its time. There are growing concerns of the long-term effects that these pharmaceutically fed animals are having on the immune systems of humans. Resistance to antibiotics is just one of the possible "side effects" that are being noted.
Whether you are for or against cloning, being collateral damage to industries that are always trying to make the most bucks with the least amount of overhead should make you sit up and take notice.  Think about it – they don’t really care if the beef you eat today gives you cancer tomorrow. No one has proven it can, so it doesn’t matter. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Additional resources:

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Latest painting and getting ready to kick off Breaking Taboo this monday

Just finished this one. really happy with her. She's called :Late Night Geisha." No symbolic meaning - just played with colors, eye work and fine detailing.













Breaking Taboo airs Monday night at 4pm PST/7pm EST and can be linked to listen via NewDissidentRadio.com. You can also find it and call in via Skyppe by adding NDradio.
Special guest will be actor and comedian  John C. McDonnell. Hope y'all will join me for my new show. <3

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Posting for Peter to see how it was drawn

Latest Painting - Portrait of Lauri Ylonen ( performing w/Rasmus)

and detail:

i'm seeing some real improvement in my art (i think) - so the past year of intense practice is paying off.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Trailer for New Dissident Radio

Thanks Steve Gelder for making this! Was so cool to see my name in lights. :P