sex

Oh dad, poor dad

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I have a bit of a problem. It’s not a huge one, but I’d like to get past it. A long time ago (maybe 15 years ago or more), I had a dream that my dad was molesting me. Now, I love my dad, and I have nothing but respect for him. I know he would never do anything like that to me. But right after the dream I started to feel uncomfortable around him. If I sat next to him on the couch, I’d sit at the other end and keep a pillow between us. If he went to hug me, I’d want to pull away. I would especially hate it when he’d kiss my cheek. On my wedding day (I’m divorced now — that’s another story), he kissed me on my mouth so as not to mess my makeup, he said. I pulled away and tried to make the kiss land on my cheek. I know he didn’t mean anything by it, but it bothered me. The situation has gotten a little better over the years, but I’m still bothered if he sits too close to me or tries to hug me.

It’s a problem because my dad is a very affectionate person by nature. All my life I’ve always been a daddy’s girl (my mom died when I was young). Now that I’m an adult, he and I are like good friends. I want it to stay that way, but I need to get over this dislike of being touched. What can I do?

Love,

In Dreams

Dear Dreams:

Wow. I don’t get to say this often, but I don’t believe I’ve heard this one before. There’s a similar phenomenon — the friend or coworker sex dream, usually starring someone completely inappropriate or out-of-the-question — that does come up pretty often. Unlike your supercreepy version, of course, the coworker sex dream is at least kind of funny, although it can have oddly lingering effects: you find yourself glancing speculatively at the dream object, against all common sense, or blushing furiously when said coworker brushes your shoulder in the corridor on the way to the break room.

Yours, though, is more like a dream I had when I was five or so, in which my grandmother (in real life, batty and irritating but harmless) was trying to poison me. I gave her a wide berth for weeks, and I distinctly remember refusing food she offered (not a bad idea in general, come to think of it, with that particular grandma). But lady, 15 years of feeling weird about your poor old dad? That’s plenty, already. Good god, let it go.

I know, I know, you want to. If giving yourself a stern talking-to before a visit with dad — reminding yourself that nothing bad ever happened between you and therefore nothing bad will happen if you let him hug you — doesn’t work and neither does deep breathing or stiff drinking, it’s time to call in the pros. I’m pretty sure a short course of cognitive-behavioral therapy would be of use to you. CBT (this abbreviation always startles me, since I doubt very much you’d be interested in cock and ball torture) is based on the belief that the way we think determines the way we feel: change the thoughts and you change the feelings. You seem like a good candidate, given that what’s going on with you is 100 percent internal and that nothing your father has done or could do could affect things in the slightest. You really do need to change the way you think, don’t you think?

If CBT sounds too, I dunno, therapy-y to you, you might consider hypnotherapy, guided relaxation-meditation, or even EMDR, which I spent half a column making fun of just a few weeks back (3/7/07). It doesn’t matter, really. They all work OK. Just do something. This is a really stupid way to be broken, so get it fixed.

There is one word of caution I don’t feel like including here but suppose I must: be very sure of whom you’re talking to before you tell a therapist that you feel creeped out at the slightest physical contact with your father. Recovered memory may no longer be the "it" diagnosis (serious memory research having put the kibosh on that hogwash), but a therapist would not have to be an ’80s-style witch-hunting hysteric to wonder if there might be anything going on here besides a 15-year-old dream with no more basis in reality than the one I had about my grammy in the basement with a sandwich. I believe you that nothing bad happened, but when you add in the early widowerhood and all, you’ve got to admit that there are people who would hear this story and look at you funny. Just don’t be shocked if they do.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea Nemerson has spent the last 14 years as a sex educator and an instructor of sex educators. In her previous life she was a prop designer. And she just gave birth to twins, so she’s one bad mother of a sex adviser. Visit www.altsexcolumn.com to view her previous columns.

No hidin’ SECA

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P>› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW Each SECA Art Award exhibition, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s biennial and only official nod to Bay Area artists, is cause to revisit the curious, contested idea of place in contemporary art. In his introduction to the 2006 SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) Award catalog, SFMOMA director Neal Benezra describes the exhibition as a "lens focusing on the best that the San Francisco Bay Area has to offer." That’s a tough order that the curators, Janet Bishop and Tara McDowell, with input from the SECA group, bestowed on five artists, Sarah Cain, Kota Ezawa, Amy Franceschini, Mitzi Pederson, and Leslie Shows. Do they — should they — illuminate a sense of regionality, what critic Lucy Lippard dubs "a state of mind rather than a place on the map"?

Any way you enter the third floor of SFMOMA, you’re faced with SECA artists. From the stairs you’ll see large collage paintings by Shows, landscapes that appear chemically ravaged. Via the elevator, you immediately encounter Pederson’s 2005 sculpture of gray cinder-block fragments stacked like a low-slung house of cards. On the floor at the entry to the gallery proper, there’s Cain’s small pile of leaves painted black and subdued rainbow shades. These three artists share a similar practice of transforming humble materials into something almost magical and begin to articulate an aesthetic — or state of mind — that, to various degrees, is emphatically handmade and poetic. The inclusion of the more widely exhibited Ezawa, who makes computer-rendered, cartoonlike still and video images, and Franceschini, known for digital graphics and ecoconscious public projects, however, subverts the idea of a thematic thread.

The 2004 SECA exhibition focused on artists who worked primarily in drawing in very different ways, a strategy that gave the show a sense of structure and created a dialogue between works. The current group feels more fractured; the whole seems less than the sum of its parts.

Shows and Pederson complement each other most effectively. With extensive use of meticulously collaged printed matter and paint, Shows creates sweeping, epic images of landscapes that seem to have gone through geologic shifts and been layered with kaleidoscopic chemicals. The show also includes a new series of smaller, text-based works in which she’s carefully shredded texts, unlikely selections such as Edwin Abbott’s mathematical fantasy Flatland, and ripped pieces of canvas bookbinding, fusing them into ambiguous wholes.

Her muted, earthy color schemes merge well with Pederson’s cinder blocks, which are dusted with slate-colored glitter and resemble glam-rock geodes. Her other pieces, positioned near Cain’s, employ featherweight materials, such as wood veneer and fluttering strips of tinted cellophane, to explore physical tension and tentative presence — the work is emphatically fragile and deceptively offhand.

There’s an improvisatory feel to Cain’s work that doesn’t quite flower in this setting. She scores with a wonderful site-specific installation: a tree branch dynamically merges with the wall and architecture, using the floor, shadow, and abstract spray-paint squiggles. Titled We Push Ourselves into the Mountain Until We Explode into the Sky, the piece embraces its earthy-spiritual vibes but seems anything but hokey. Her framed paintings on paper, which also contain natural elements and metallic sequins and threads, are less consistently assured and sometimes overwrought. Next to the tree, these seem trapped under glass.

You could ascribe a similar feeling to the presentation of Franceschini’s off-site project to resurrect San Francisco’s official Victory Garden program of the 1940s. The piece makes real sense in food activist Northern California during wartime. The project also exemplifies a strain of socially based art that’s thriving in SF galleries and art schools. This sort of practice, however, unfolds in streets, gardens, and ephemeral interactions and consistently engenders the challenge to create effective gallery presentations. At SFMOMA, Franceschini presents historical civic documents, spiffy new charts, prototype gardening and seed bank gear, and a video of a planting party. While these communicate the gist of this vital idea, the display feels stranded here: it may have been better served with a component that unfolded more directly in the gallery or in an exhibition with contextualizing, like-minded projects.

Bringing an animated Colorforms effect to the notorious Pamela Anderson–Tommy Lee bootleg sex tape, Ezawa wisely expands his artistic purview. In earlier pieces, including the History of Photography Remix series, examples of which are seen here, iconic images and media events become broad, deadpan cartoons. Instant recognition of the material has been key. In his new double-screen piece, Two Stolen Honeymoons Are Better Than One, a well-known but less widely seen piece of media — the aforementioned home video — pushes Ezawa’s work into more ambiguous territory, that strange zone in which celebrities, albeit naked ones with supersize body parts, seem as banal as the rest of us. Doubled to two screens and tinted in divergent hues, the scenario enters the subconscious with the kind of off-color lens that just might be in the Bay Area atmosphere — or perhaps just in this artist’s eye. *

SECA ART AWARD EXHIBITION

Through April 22

Mon.–Tues. and Fri.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 11 a.m.–8:45 p.m.; $7–$12.50 (free first Tues.)

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

>

Stand up for immigrants, Mr. Newsom

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OPINION President George W. Bush’s war on immigration is wreaking havoc on San Francisco’s immigrant community. Across the Bay Area and in San Francisco, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have been carrying out raids at homes and workplaces, near schools, and, in broad daylight, on the streets. Hundreds of immigrants have been deported, devastating families, separating parents from United States–born children, and leaving entire neighborhoods in a state of fear.

There are few other neighborhoods that feel the ICE war more than the Mission District, the Latino heart and soul of San Francisco. So it was especially painful to sit through a two-hour town hall meeting orchestrated by Mayor Gavin Newsom on March 26 at César Chávez Elementary School in the Mission. Never once did he acknowledge vocal community members’ concerns over ICE sweeps and civil rights abuses. Instead, as predicted, he kept to the script, selecting two dozen questions out of 70 that were submitted by more than 250 attendees. Despite the loud chants, luchadores dressed in capes and masks, and bold visuals that called for a stop to the ICE raids, the mayor continued to talk and talk and talk some more about the health care access initiative.

Health care access is an important issue — residents and workers throughout the city appreciate the mayor’s efforts and welcome any relief for the thousands of uninsured, low-income, and undocumented residents of San Francisco. But right now the streets of the city are hot, and immigrant families are scared to leave their homes, send their kids to school, go to work, or even seek medical care at General Hospital for fear of being swept up, displaced, and deported.

Fortunately, there are some protections in the city. In 1989 the immigrant-rights movement, with the support of elected officials, established the sanctuary ordinance, which bars city officials, the Police Department, and other city agencies from cooperating with federal immigration officials. But in light of the most recent aggression, the time has come for our mayor and our elected officials to do more.

In 2004, in a rightful act of civil disobedience, a defiant Newsom stood up for justice by marrying same-sex couples, a landmark event in US civil rights history. It’s time for the mayor to once again stand up for justice by supporting the immigrants who make great contributions to this city and the nation.

Mayor Newsom, show us that your stance on civil rights has no limits and is inclusive of immigrant workers and families. Show us that you were not just currying favor or seeking votes but are truly committed to all civil rights issues.

Join with us:

• March with the immigrant community to protest the ICE raids.

• Convene a meeting with ICE officials, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, and community members.

• Increase city resources for legal and educational services that help immigrants get on the pathway to legalization.

• Support the current day-laborer center and use day laborers’ input in the future expansion and creation of worker centers.

• Support the immigrant-led planning process in the Mission District, which calls for more affordable housing and jobs. *

Oscar M. Grande

Oscar M. Grande is a community organizer with PODER, People Organized to Demand Employment Rights.

FEAST: 9 reasons to eat your way through the East Bay

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The East Bay’s feisty radicals, Neurosis fans, hyphy heads, agro hippies, torrid potters, gimlet-eyed gardeners, 924 Gilman suburbo gutter punks, Oakland First–ers, Black Panther vets, passionate nesters, and working-class heroes understand: there’s plenty there to lure SF-oodies over the bridge — construction shutdowns and late-night lane narrowing be damned. Many culinary establishments fall in line with the gospel according to Alice Waters, but still others, such as those overseen by burgeoning eatery empire–builders Haig and Cindy Krikorian (owners of Sea Salt, Lalime’s, Fonda, and T-Rex), are charting new paths in regional cooking and making good food that comforts one’s soul and boosts one’s morale, using sustainable ingredients. But food is so much more than sustenance — why stop there? Farther off the path of nutritional wisdom are other, less-posh grub spots that are no less beloved, for the homier glories of butterfat and chicken gizzards — they make the journey east that much more mouthwatering. (Kimberly Chun)

ART’S CRAB SHAK


Don’t be deterred by the deliberate misspelling and the forbiddingly windowless ’50s- and ’60s-era exterior: Art knows his crab, man. On Sunday afternoons Baptists in all their bright-hued finery pile into this classic, cork-walled and Naugahyde booth–lined joint to don plastic bibs and chaw massive buckets of Dungeness crab swimming in butter and button mushrooms, along with platters of fried okra, hush puppies, and garlic noodles. Through the garlicky butter haze, you can make out one of several strategically positioned TVs across the room, blaring the Raiders game as grizzled regulars down Johnny Walker Reds. Hot buttered soul ‘n’ seafood Americano, as only Oaktown can do it.

4031 Broadway, Oakl. (510) 654-2864

CESAR


Serving up a selection of cured meats, cheeses, cut pâtés, and fine spirits such as a delightful artisanal pear cider by Eric Bordelet, César displays a refreshingly light-handed touch with its tapas, including a petite potted salt cod and potato cazuela, and artichoke hearts and shrimp dotted with caviar.

1515 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 883-0222; 4039 Piedmont, Oakl. (510) 985-1200. www.barcesar.com

DONA TOMAS


Tangy, succulent threads of slow-roasted carnitas to die for meet their match in the sweetest li’l sangria cocktail to waltz through the Prado with a song in its heart and sex on its hips. Chefs Thomas Schnetz and Dona Savitsky, authors of the popular Doña Tomás: Discovering Authentic Mexican Cooking (Ten Speed, $29.95), know good food, made with locally grown organic produce and sustainably raised meat.

5004 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 450-0522, www.donatomas.com

FENTONS CREAMERY AND RESTAURANT


Even a 2001 fire couldn’t keep this resurrected 112-year-old East Bay institution down — thanks to eye-popping, hefty ice cream sundaes built on innovative flavors such as pomegranate and what tastes like the most fantastically fatty cookies and cream around.

4226 Piedmont, Oakl. (510) 658-8500, www.fentonscreamery.com

HOME OF CHICKEN AND WAFFLES


This former Roscoe’s franchise continues to fly the flag in the most unlikely of locales (the ground floor of a Jack London Square motor inn) for the archetypal salty ‘n’ sticky-sweet soul food combo. Belly up to smothered chicken, greens, black-eyed peas, and mac ‘n’ cheese with a waffle chaser beneath a cheery folk-art mural depicting the owner’s family and the menu’s infinite variations. And riddle me this, Roscoe: where else can you field a side of giblets, sock-it-to-me cake, grits, and candied yams?

444 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510) 836-4446, www.hcwchickenandwaffles.com

MAMA’S ROYAL CAFE


Mama said knock you out with an awesome breakfast in the epicenter of artsy Oakland. You’ll want to brave the morning mob at Mama’s Royal Cafe for its Niman Ranch corned brisket, hashed into submission with potatoes, onions, bell peppers, and carrots, or its chorizo, green onion, and egg scramble. There’s even more to digest on the walls: submissions to the café’s annual napkin art contest.

4012 Broadway, Oakl. (510) 547-7600, www.mamasroyalcafeoakland.com

SEA SALT


Fresh sustainable seafood — as raw or as cooked as you like it. Some swear by the BLT with trout, the Kumamotos, and the littleneck clams. I prefer to scarf the crusty, hearty barbecue eel bahn mi with a side of house-made potato chips; the steamed Prince Edward Island mussels smothered in lemongrass, garlic, and cilantro; and the grilled squid perched atop Italian butter beans and lapped with almond basil pesto.

2512 San Pablo, Berk. (510) 883-1720, www.seasaltrestaurant.com

VIKS CHAAT CORNER


Remember to look up once in a while and wipe the ghee off your chin at this highly addictive, barnlike bastion of dirt-cheap, utterly delish Indian street food, snacks, and sweets. Succumb to the sizable crusty samosa cholle (studded with peas and draped with garbanzo chutney), the bhatura cholle (a gargantuan puffed puri accompanied by curry, onions, and mango pickle), the pav bhaji (Bombay-style spiced vegetables), and the piping hot salty fried fish kebabs (burn your greedy digits dipping them in onions and mint tamarind chutney). The pink, white, and yellow sweets — watch out for cream-filled pink chandrakala and sugar-steeped baby donuts — will finish you off.

724 Allston, Berk. (510) 644-4412, www.vikdistributors.com

ZACHARY’S CHICAGO PIZZA


Little Star, Pauline’s, and Delfina are all aces, if you like that kind of fine Cali dining, but for true deep-dish that rivals the Windy City’s, Zachary’s is the only way to go. Quichelike texture, density, and heft aside — it’s the rich, toothsome, and tomato-intense sauce that’s so boss.

5801 College, Oakl. (510) 655-6385; 1853 Solano, Berk. (510) 525-5950; 3110 Crow Canyon, San Ramon. (925) 244-1222. www.zacharys.com *

Work, work, work

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

When last we visited Polyland, I was congratuutf8g myself for doing a necessary public service: warning would-be polyamorists they would fail unless they happened to belong to that select group born with not only the desire but the ability to share. If I gave short shrift to the fact that polyamory takes hard work on top of natural inclination, plus the luck to find similarly inclined partners, I apologize. I’m continually amused, however, by the way the poly partisans who’ve been writing me (very eloquently, I must say) insist hard work is the one secret to successful multiple relationships, or, for that matter, any relationship. " How would I say it?" Happypoly asked in "PSA" (12/21/05). "Poly works for those committed to the hard personal work needed to make it work…. Of course, the same could be said of all other forms of relationships."

Seeing this attitude espoused everywhere has not managed to convince me that it’s true, merely that it is, apparently, what people want to hear. Of course a good relationship requires attention and occasional maintenance — what living creature does not? — but the constant harping on work, work, work makes me tired and suspicious. I may be lazy (OK, I am lazy), but I maintain that you can tell you have a good relationship when it pretty much runs itself. "Oh, we work on our relationship constantly!" does not make me think, "Oh, good for you guys!" It makes me think, "Oh, bro-ther."

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

It seems everything you say about those trying to be polyamorous can also be said about those trying to be monogamous. How many people do you know who got that right the first time? How many people do you know who really know how to do relationships at all? The poly people I know seem to be good at it because, well, they had to get good at doing relationships. I’ve personally seen more problems with expectations based on the monogamous template we’ve picked up from social cues around us than with jealousy. Part of getting good at this is learning to undo all we’ve learned and finding out what’s really in our hearts. Whether polyamorous or monogamous, we could all benefit from finding an unselfish love.

Love,

Poly up North

Dear North:

All nicely put. I guess we part company where we successfully undo all our lifelong social programming. Even if I believed that those templates were acquired, as opposed to inborn (I actually believe it’s some and some, of course), I don’t know what it would take to convince me that such programming could be successfully unlearned by more than a talented and lucky few. I’m glad you brought up selfish and unselfish monogamy, though. That’s a distinction that needed to be made.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I come down somewhere between your position and that of Happypoly on the question of who is well-suited to a poly life. I agree that the majority of poly people experience significant challenges in their relationships, especially at first. Of course, this doesn’t mean that their relationships ultimately fail. In my experience and observation, the following factors most positively influence the odds for success:

1. General attitude of goodwill and a generosity of spirit

2. Willingness to be honest, especially when the news is likely to hurt

3. Independent spirit

4. Strong personal desire for a poly life

5. Reasonably good emotional intelligence and self-esteem

6. Reading poly literature and discussing it with partners

Likely the poly relationships that you’ve seen crash and burn were insufficiently supplied with one or more of these components.

Love,

Poly out East

Dear East:

It all sounds so nice. I have no doubt, actually, that these factors do indeed play a role in the success or failure of people’s poly endeavors. I can’t help but be reminded, though, of a friend’s research into what actually motivates people to have high-risk, unprotected sex. It was assumed for the first 20 years or so of safer-sex education that people weren’t using condoms because A) they didn’t know how HIV spreads or B) they didn’t have access to condoms. It turned out, of course, that some 99 to 100 percent of the people having high-risk unprotected sex know how to avoid contracting HIV and have access to supplies. They have their own reasons (denial, peer pressure, desire, and so on) for choosing not to use condoms, and there is no chance of affecting their behavior without taking these very real concerns into account. This may seem a far-fetched and unfair comparison, I know, but I like to keep in mind that we shouldn’t assume what makes people tick is what ought to make them tick. People is weird.

Love,

Andrea

This column originally ran Jan. 11, 2006. Alt.sex will return with new installments March 28.

Will Newsom have a legacy?

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Over the past four years Mayor Gavin Newsom has enjoyed high poll ratings, but he has been unable to deliver any signature piece of legislation. His most celebrated actions were symbolic: marrying same-sex couples and walking the picket line with the striking hotel workers.

With only months to go before he is up for reelection, Newsom is hoping free wi-fi will be that signature bill. But unless he quickly changes his tactics, his legislation will go up in flames.

From the moment Newsom announced his wi-fi vision, the supervisors have been asking for input into the deal. At every meeting, the mayor’s representatives have dodged or stalled. The Board of Supervisors asked Newsom’s negotiators not to present it with a take-it-or-leave-it deal; the mayor’s staffers did just that. So it’s no surprise that the board seems hesitant to give the contract the benefit of the doubt. Newsom has responded by lambasting the board as "obstructionist" rather than by working with the supervisors to address their concerns.

Although there are good points to the proposal, there are also problems.

• Service will be slow.

• There’s no enforceable guarantee the network will cover the parts of the city that need it the most.

• The contract is effectively a monopoly, and it’s long. We’re likely to be stuck with this contract for 16 years.

• Penetration into apartment buildings and above second floors will be virtually nonexistent without the purchase of expensive extra equipment.

These are all legitimate public policy reasons to question the mayor’s proposal. But instead of working with the supervisors, he trashes them to every group and editorial board that will listen.

The board is exploring another possibility that the mayor should look at instead of his current effort: municipal wi-fi. Although the mayor has rejected that avenue, there are strong public-policy reasons for pursuing such a strategy.

Unfortunately, the people who will suffer the most from the mayor’s refusal to deal with the board are those who need a city network the most: schoolkids who can’t get online to do their homework; unemployed folks looking for a job; non-English speakers seeking city information; and anyone who needs free training or support.

Wi-fi, of course, is only one of the issues on which Newsom has given the board the finger. His repeated veto of foot patrols showed more loyalty to the Police Officers Association than to the needs of residents of high-crime areas. His continued refusal to consider a Saturday road closure trial in Golden Gate Park doesn’t serve anyone other than a few wealthy donors. The voters even went so far as to pass Proposition I, which demanded that Newsom meet with the board. The mayor has responded with highly managed events at which the supervisors cannot appear as a group.

Instead of trying to ram through a flawed wi-fi deal, the real legacy Newsom could create — one that would truly benefit us all — is that of a strong working relationship with the Board of Supervisors. *

Sasha Magee

Sasha Magee is a San Francisco activist who writes at LeftinSF.com.

Candlelight vigil for murdered Nicaraguan immigrant

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By G.W. Schulz

indiana1.jpg
Friday vigil for Ruby Ordenana, aka Ruby Rodriguez

Supporters of the strangulated Nicaraguan immigrant and transgendered sex worker Ruby Ordenana held a candlelight vigil for her on Friday at Indiana and Cesar Chavez streets in Potrero Hill where her body was found stripped of clothing March 16.

Police were finally able to identify her last Thursday and are still trying to figure out what happened. Another transgendered sex worker was found beaten and raped in the same area last summer, so people are reasonably enough a little freaked out. Just 27 years old, Ordenana faced all manner of obstacles already, even in San Francisco, without having to face the threat of a violent assault.

We haven’t found any updates on the investigation so far, but good sam bloggers should keep posting the SFPD’s homicide division phone number for witnesses to call with information: 415-553-1145.

Some clown called into the Chronicle complaining about the paper’s respect for Ordenana’s MTF gender identity. What’s it to you, pal? Your crime blotter has to be politically sterilized, too? He even suggested such reporting was to blame for the Chron’s declining circulation. Uh, yeah. And by extension, perhaps, the city’s homicide rate could somehow be directly linked to the Chron‘s declining circulation. That probably has more to do with industry factors and the Chron‘s dorky lifestyle coverage, e.g. the lackluster sex column. Just my guess, goober.

Douchebags in Fall Out Boy might get sued again for ripping off yet another band

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By G.W. Schulz

falloutboy1.jpg

It’s tough to come up with your own musical concepts and ideas when your schedule is loaded with photo sessions and magazine interviews inquiring about your sex life on behalf of thousands of barely legal teenage girls.

How does Fall Out Boy have time to write music these days? They’re everywhere ‘cept behind their instruments. They’re on the cover of Rolling Stone. They’re on the cover of Spin. Shit, the New Yorker even ran a piece on them, dutifully highlighting in the photo that one guy who insists on liberally applying mascara and not wearing a shirt. You’re no Iggy Pop, douchebag. Who is their publicist fellating to get all this good press, by the way? Do people still buy this trash? Most of all, why is Microsoft Word telling me not to use “fellatio” as a verb, or even “douchbag” as a noun? Perhaps the new Word version in Microsoft Vista will list “Fall Out Boy” among the alternatives for “douchebags.”

Anyway, it looks like Nicholas Hans of the now-defunct Knives Out is considering legal action against Fall Out Douche for ripping off the image that appeared on a shirt Knives Out was selling a few years ago in 2001 while on tour.

Trojan war

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I’m in my first sexual relationship. There’s been a lot of lovely hand- and mouth-action, but no penis-vagina intercourse because I can’t maintain an erection with a condom on. She really wants genital intercourse; she’s very experienced and always had her best orgasms that way. She also says she’s never heard of this problem before — and my self-proclaimed sex expert friends concur. Am I really that unique in experiencing a complete loss of stimulation with a condom? And assuming that we don’t get married, my sex life looks pretty bleak if I can’t use condoms. Any ideas?

Love,

Can’t Feel a Thing

Dear Thing:

Well, sure. Don’t listen to your self-proclaimed sex expert friends, for one thing. I’m a self-proclaimed sex expert myself, and I’ve heard of your problem before. Of course I have. You may be an extreme case, but no, you’re not unique.

It’s true that this weird bit of wiring of yours is capable of dooming you to a life of sexual frustration or sexual diseases, depending. So, in escautf8g order of inconvenience, I offer some technical solutions: a small amount of lube inside the condom, thinner condoms, polyurethane (plastic) condoms, those odd big-head condoms which are supposed to flap and rub around your business end in a lubricious manner, or — I hesitate even to suggest this but it’s actually not that bad an idea — the female condom.

If you really can’t feel a damned thing through an ordinary rubber rubber, I have limited faith in the ability of a drop of lube or a different brand of condom to make the earth move for you, but it’s easy enough to try and shrug in a world-weary manner if it doesn’t work. The plastic options are a much better bet. They’re harder to find, though, so there’d be no running out to the corner store with your pants half fastened; you’d have to plan ahead. The Avanti polyurethane condom had a bad rap for a while but has been tested extensively and is actually just as safe as anything else. They really are a better aesthetic experience all round: they are thin and quick to transmit body heat; they don’t taste like a mouthful of steel-belted radial; and they’re safe to use with baby oil or WD-40 or whatever greases your boat. It’s not like you’d never know it’s there, mind you — it’s a condom, and they all suck — but there’s a chance you’d be able to find your dick in the dark while wearing one, which appears to be more than we can say about the latex ones.

I find myself hoping very hard that the Avanti works for you, because I really don’t want to have to recommend the female condom. It’s expensive, more elusive yet than plastic condoms, and, frankly, ridiculous. It’s as long as your forearm, resembles a jellyfish, makes a horrid sloshy crinkling noise (the Avanti does this too but more discreetly), and although it looks OK while your lady friend is supine, turn her prone or stand her up, and it will hang low and wobble to and fro and make you both giggle, if you’re inclined that way, or cry, if you’re not. It’s a terrible product, in short, except for one aspect, which is surely worthy of notice: it works. You’ll probably hate it, but then again, if it’s a choice between knowing that your penis is inside a vagina and "Vagina? What vagina?" maybe you won’t.

Try the other things first, though. None of them resemble an aquarium exhibit that happened to lodge itself, unbidden, up your girlfriend’s hoo-ha, and that’s always a plus if you ask me.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I had sex with a girl one time who has a regular other partner. We did it once using a condom, and I pulled out with the condom on, prior to ejacuutf8g away from her. Her other friend doesn’t use a condom and withdraws. She called me to say she was pregnant, and I freaked. She didn’t understand why, since she is certain it must be the other friend’s child because of their methods and regularity. I don’t ever want to have sex again, obviously, but do I have a reason to worry here? All of a sudden she is pregnant, and I just happened to be in the picture around the same time? I’m scared to death.

Love,

Shaking in My Tracks

Dear Tracks:

You’re only terrified because there has been in recent years, if not a literal conspiracy, then certainly a strong and concerted effort to hide the fact that condoms actually work pretty well. They do, and if you come in the condom while it isn’t even inside her, then it works really extraordinarily well. You have been misinformed! Now shake off the shackles of ignorance, and don’t ever let me hear you say you "don’t ever want to have sex again." Of course you do; just use a condom. Oh, and buy that other guy a beer and a subscription to Real Dad magazine. This is so not your problem.

Love,

Andrea

It’s time again for San Francisco Sex Information’s Spring Sex Educator Training. Sixty hours, all good stuff, no filler. Find out more and apply at www.sfsi.org.

Dance dance revolution

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"If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution" is a club-friendly sentiment traditionally attributed to estimable anarchist Emma Goldman. But even if she didn’t put it in quite those words, the message is clear: changing the world doesn’t have to be a grim slog. Why struggle at all if it doesn’t result in a world we can actually enjoy? That’s where these benefit-hosting, rabble-rousing, community-oriented bars, clubs, cultural centers, and performance spaces come in. Like the spoonful of sugar that masks the medicine, a nice pour and a few choice tunes can turn earnest liberation into ecstatic celebration.

DANCING QUEENS


Billing itself as "your dive," El Rio defines "you" as a crowd of anarchists, trannies, feminists, retro-cool kids, and heat-seeking salseros as diverse as you’re likely to find congregating around one shuffleboard table. Whether featuring a rawkin’ Gender Pirates benefit show or a rare screening of The Fall of the I-Hotel as part of radical film series Televising the Revolution, El Rio encourages an intimacy and camaraderie among its dance floor–loving patrons less frequently found these days in an increasingly class-divided Mission.

3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE SANITIZED


Although it’s really an aboveground Mission storefront, Balazo 18 has a great "in the basement" underground vibe, and within its gritty labyrinth, upstart idealists lurk like scruffy Minotaurs. The low overhead and inclusive ambience has proven fertile ground for local activist functions such as the recent Clarion Alley Mural Project fundraiser and December 2006’s Free Josh Wolf event (freedom still pending). The dance floor’s generous size attracts top-notch local bands and sweaty, freedom-seeking legions who love to dance till they drop.

2183 Mission, SF. (415) 255-7227, www.balazogallery.com

STARRY-EYED IDEALISM


Applause for the Make-Out Room‘s green-minded stance against unnecessary plastic drink straws (it doesn’t serve ’em), its championing of literary causes (Steven Elliott’s "Progressive Reading" series, Charlie Anders’s "Writers with Drinks"), and its calendar of benefit shows for agendas as diverse as animal sanctuary, tenants rights, and free speech. Plus, not only are the (strawless) drinks reasonably priced, but the wacked-out every–day–is–New Year’s Eve disco ball and silver star decor hastens their effect.

3225 22nd St., SF. (415) 647-2888, www.makeoutroom.com

STOP IN THE NAME OF ART


The Rickshaw Stop hosts progressive literary luminaries by the library-load, raising the roof and the funds for programs such as the 61-year-old San Francisco Writer’s Workshop and the reading series "Inside Storytelling." Other beneficiaries of the Rickshaw’s pro-arts programming include SF Indiefest and Bitch magazine, and the club calendar is filled with queer dance parties, record release shows, and even an upcoming "Pipsqueak a Go Go" dance party for l’il kiddies with the Devilettes and the Time Outs. If teaching a roomful of preschoolers the Monkey isn’t an act of die-hard, give-something-back merrymaking martyrdom, well …

155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS


A dancer- and activist-run performance incubator, CounterPULSE hosts a diverse collection of cutting-edge artistes ranging from queer Butoh dancers to crusading sexologists to mobility-impaired aerialists. It’s also home to the interactive history project Shaping San Francisco and a lively weekly contact jam. But it’s the plucky, DIY joie de vivre that pervades its fundraising events — featuring such entertainment as queer cabaret, big burlesque, and an abundance of booty-shaking — that keeps our toes tapping and our progressive groove moving. Best of all, the "no one turned away for lack of funds" policy ensures that even the most broke-ass idealist can get down.

1310 Mission, SF. (415) 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org

MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS


Sometimes a dance club, sometimes an art gallery — and sometimes not quite either — 111 Minna Gallery is pretty much guaranteed to always be a good time. Funds have been raised here on behalf of groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the West Memphis Three, and Hurricane Relief as a plethora of local and big-name artists and music makers — from Hey Willpower to Henry Rollins — have shown their stuff on the charmingly makeshift stage and the well-worn walls.

111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com

THE HUMAN LAUGH-IN


It’s true — the revolutionary life can’t just be one big dance party. Sometimes it’s an uptown comedy club adventure instead. Cobb’s Comedy Club consistently books the big names on the comedy circuit — and it also showcases some side-splitting altruism, such as last month’s THC Comedy Medical Marijuana benefit tour and the annual "Stand Up for Justice" events sponsored by Death Penalty Focus. Even selfless philanthropy can be a laughing matter.

915 Columbus, SF. (415) 928-4320, www.cobbscomedyclub.com

OLD FAITHFUL


The headless guardian angel of cavernous, city-funded cultural center SomArts has been a silent witness to countless community-involved installations and festivals, such as the "Radical Performance" series, a Day of the Dead art exhibit, the annual "Open Studios Exhibition," and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. And plenty of fundraising celebrations have been hosted beneath its soaring rafters on behalf of organizations such as the Coalition on Homelessness, Survival Research Labs, and the Center for Sex and Culture. We’ve got to admit — nothing cries "community" like a space where you can drink absinthe and build misfit toys one night, dance to live salsa the next, and attend a sober seminar on pirate radio the following afternoon.

934 Brannan, SF. (415) 552-2131, www.somarts.org

STORMING THE CASTLE


Even if the Edinburgh Castle were run by community-hating misanthropes, we’d come here for the craic and perhaps a wistful fondle of the Ballantine caber mounted on the wall. But general manager Alan Black has helped foster a scene of emerging and established writers, unsigned bands, and Robbie Burns lovers in the lively heart of the upper TL. The unpretentious, unflappable venue also hosts benefits for causes such as breast cancer research and refugee relocation. And the Tuesday night pub quiz, twice-monthly mod-Mersybeat dance nights, and annual swearing competition keep us coming back for more (except maybe the haggis).

950 Geary, SF. (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com

SHAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT


Turning martini shaking into charitable moneymaking, Elixir has been the go-to drinks dispensary for fundraisers of all varieties since it launched its unique Charity Guest Bartending program. The concept is simple: the organizers of a fundraising effort sign up in advance, beg or bully a hundred of their best buddies to show up early and stay late, get a crash course in mixology, and raise bucks behind the bar of this green-certified Mission District saloon (the second-oldest operating bar in San Francisco). Did we mention it’s green certified? Just checking. Barkeep, another round.

3200 16th St., SF. (415) 552-1633, www.elixirsf.com

SPACE IS THE PLACE


A 2006 Best of the Bay winner, CELLspace has weathered the usual warehouse-space storms of permit woes and facility upgrading, and yet it continues to expand its programming and fan base into some very far-flung realms. From roller disco to b-boy battling, hip-hop to punk rock, art classes to aerial performances, the CELL has been providing an urban refuge for at-risk youth, aging hipsters, and community builders since 1996. Though we mourn the loss of the Bike Kitchen, which moved to its new SoMa digs, we’re glad to see the return of the Sunday-morning Mission Village Market — now indoors!

2050 Bryant, SF. (415) 648-7562, www.cellspace.org

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Attack of the killer Ts

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

"Ironic T-shirts — where the lameness of my T-shirt is in inverse proportion to my hipness!" comedian Patton Oswalt shouted at a recent sold-out Noise Pop show, pointing out in particular one special Salinas lass in a skull-and-hearts T. "I’m so cool I can defeat my own T-shirt!"

You know T-shirts have arrived — and by now may even be taking the last BART train to Fremont — when they’ve crept into the routines of comics desperate to warm up a 6 p.m. crowd. Is there anything more appropriate for every occasion, barring the most obscenely uptight cotillion? Be it basic formal and fiendish black, all-purpose "what are you rebelling against?" white, or any hue in the spectrum between. Be it worn on the chest, sleeve, or belly. Be it decorated with words and pictures so promo, pomo, and porno, with bands and teams, mugs and slugs of the sheer truth, alliances and affiliations, affirmations or fighting words — there’s no place like the homely T-shirt. Provided you have the right cut, cult, or message, you can throw it on and rock that bod with just jeans and trendoid footwear — consider yourself done.

Ts are our wearable tabula rasa, once underwear suitable only for soldier boys circa World War II, later campus and business iron-on throwaways in the ’50s, and even later rock band promos ready to be gracefully defaced with pins and zippers during the punk years (and now we’re back to white Ts for gangstas dodging crippling colors). Remember when the only T-shirt sizes available were L and XL? Remember when the sole women’s Ts around were toddler ready, fit for showing off every chub roll acquired from here to the nearest bakery? Whether you break them down between screen prints and iron-ons or between skate-beach-BMX, rock–metal–punk–pop–hip-hop, and TV-film-cartoon-advertising specimens, as Lisa Kidner and Sam Knee do in their 2006 book, Vintage T-Shirts (Collins Design, $19.95) — there’s an unsnooty, democratic beauty to a T.

Long after those faux–feed store and John Deere–logoed T-shirts have evaporated and aeons after the not-so-ironically offensive faux-Asian biz T-shirts have been yanked from Abercrombie and Fitch, we can still fall for a few artfully decorated scraps of tissue-thin jersey — and not just those by newbie local hotshot T designers such as Turk+Taylor (www.turkandtaylor.com) or My Trick Pony (www.mytrickpony.com). Only a few months ago I was bewitched into purchasing a $9 Flying V–bedecked shirt with a factory-frayed neck and sleeves at Le Target, of all places — the ideal block-rockin’ New Year’s Eve outfit with a black chiffon tiered skirt and boots. Why did I fall? It never fails to get compliments and fits like a teenage dream, and I can always make room for another music T in my collection, which encompasses an ’80s Sex Pistols reproduction purchased from the back pages of Creem, a boxy Poison pachyderm rewarded after a gig loading out for the hair metal combo, and a Scottish-slurred "Where am I and what the fuck’s going on?" Arab Strap T.

Lucky us, living at ground zero of the rock-T explosion: in 1968, the late Bill Graham began printing shirts regularly for the first time, an effort that distinguished him from fan club and individual band merchandising designs, according to Erica Easley, who cowrote Rock Tease: The Golden Years of Rock T-Shirts (Abrams Image, $19.95). Bill Graham Presents still sells vintage articles and reproductions on its Wolfgang’s Vault site (www.wolfgangsvault.com), though if you want the real thing, you might have to settle for the Doobie Brothers and Exodus rather than the Stones and Hendrix.

A buyer for one of the largest buy-sell-trade clothing stores on the West Coast, Red Light Clothing Exchange in Portland, Ore., Easley can pinpoint the beginning of the recent rock-T trend to the late ’90s when designers began buying vintage shirts and modifying them with grommets, trim, and patchwork. "They were able to do that because they were so cheap," she explains, citing Lara Flynn Boyle as one of the first celebs to sport a T (Bob Seger) on the red carpet, and attributes the longevity and cultural relevance of the rock-T trend to the resurgence of new bands such as the White Stripes.

American Apparel’s sexy softcore ads and no-logo trendy styling haven’t hurt either, while street artists have taken to embellishing Ts as they might a skateboard, and fashionistas continue to layer short-sleeve with long-sleeve Ts in what Easley calls the "Spicoli surfer look." To her eye, the urban art trend "raises all sorts of sociological questions. It’s from the street and supposedly authentic and tends to be pricey — it’s not what a street rat can really afford. There’s the price of a shirt and who’s wearing it and who’s supposed to be wearing it — you’re buying into a lifestyle." Personally, she’d "love to see a resurgence of do-it-yourself T-shirts, writing on T-shirts making personal statements."

Easley confesses the overall rock-T trend is waning. "It was such a fashion fad and so oversaturated. The sense of exclusivity that made it really hard at any other part of this decade to find T-shirts is gone," says the writer, who got into collecting by way of a Mötley Crüe obsession. "But I think long term it has been great for rock T-shirts and put them into the collectible realm."

Steven Scott, the manager of Aardvark’s Odd Ark (1501 Haight, SF; 415-621-3141), agrees that the trend for music Ts seems to be ebbing, while morphing from a ’70s to an ’80s focus. The store’s personal best: a Michael Jackson "Thriller" T, which sold for $125. "You can’t get that for it now," Scott says. "But [the appeal] is like San Francisco rents — they never go down, and landlords keep hoping people will come back."

T-SHIRTS, WEAR EVER

When shopping for a vintage T — or really any T — Rock Tease coauthor Erica Easley says, "It’s all about the image. I don’t care about the band, even though I’m always excited about a good Alice Cooper T. It’s all about a strong image, colors, and, personally, a shirt where I don’t have a sense of computer-generated graphics."

When looking for oldies, do, however, beware of fakes. "The colors won’t be correct, the green is too bright, or the cut wasn’t being produced at that point," Easley warns.

AARDVARK’S ODD ARK


Ringers, jerseys, worn-soft garb adorned with Firesign radios and corny sayings: Aardvark’s re-creates the thrifter’s thrill of discovery with a jam-packed rack of oldies.

1501 Haight, SF. (415) 621-3141

AMERICAN APPAREL


The most fashion-conscious print-free Ts around, regardless of how you feel about the jailbaity marketing campaigns. Gotta love me some blouson and dress-length styles.

2174 Union, SF. (415) 440-3220; 1615 Haight, SF. (415) 431-4028; 2301 Telegraph, Berk. (510) 981-1641. www.americanapparel.net

BANG-ON


Customize your own cool: this international chain provides the iron-ons, puffy wood-panel lettering, and brightly fierce ’80s accessories. Where else can you get spanking new-old "Cheer up, emo kid," Mr. Snuffleupagus, Roxy Music, and Johnny Wadd Ts in one fell, freshly ironed swoop?

1603 Haight, SF. (415) 255-8446, www.bang-on.ca

FTC URBAN LIFESTYLE STORE


Get your Ipath Bigfoot and Western Edition Mingus shirts right here, along with oodles of other contenders.

1632 Haight, SF. (415) 626-0663, www.ftcskate.com

GIANT ROBOT


The large-livin’ API groundbreakers still peddle locals Barry McGee and Mark Gonzales as well as Daniel Johnston shirts and the ever-popular Geoff McFetridge 2K "I’m Rocking on Your Dime" T.

618 Shrader, SF. (415) 876-4773. www.gr-sf.com

HELD OVER


A rail of vintage Ts beckons, from a ’70s-era "Natural Gas" number to a Morrissey You Are the Quarry lovely.

1542 Haight, SF. (415) 864-0818

PARK LIFE


Marcel Dzama’s frail ye olde comic critters, Ferris Plock’s sketchy characters, Neckface’s doom metal demons, and Clare Rojas’s folkloric scenes populate Park Life.

220 Clement, SF. (415) 386-7275, www.parklifestore.com

STATIC


Joining the Gucci knockoffs, denim, and ’70s leather are soft-as-my-55-year-old-uncle’s-midriff surfer shirts.

1764 Haight, SF. (415) 422-0046

SUPER7 STORE


Poppy yet pretty in-house screens by, for instance, store co-owner Dora Drimalas coexist with Bawana Spoons, Spicy Brown, Hedorah, and Gama-Go Ts.

1628 Post, SF. (415) 409-4700, super7store.com

TRUE


Urban outfits cry "Brother, please" for a Zoo York T sporting a Ruthless Records’ NWA single, Parish’s pop art Popsicles, Akomplice abstractions, or Free Gold Watches’ splashy ’80s evocations. Ladies, check Ts by Tens, Palis, Heavy Rotation, and Blood Is the New Black, as well as Mama T’s pseudo-airbrushed ghetto sweetness.

True Men, 1415 Haight, SF. (415) 626-2882; True Women, 1427 Haight, SF. (415) 626-2331; True, 1335 S. Main, Walnut Creek. (925) 280-6747. www.trueclothing.net

UPPER PLAYGROUND


The hella loyal cult that follows this pioneer of urban styles can stock up on all the Muni and Miles UP and Fifty24SF Ts it can stand now that the shop has split in two for men and women — with fresh Jeremy Fish, Sam Flores, and Estevan Oriol for all.

220 Fillmore, SF. (415) 252-0144, www.upperplayground.com

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SFIAAFF: These monsters are real

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"Even though it’s difficult to be human, let’s not turn into monsters." This is said as a reprimand to Gyung-soo (Kim Sang-kyung), a mildly successful stage actor, by one of his colleagues early in South Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s Turning Gate (2002). Gyung-soo repeats the words twice more in the film — first to make amends with his old friend Sung-woo after a liquor-soaked spat and then over the phone in a failed attempt to shame the woman, Myung-sook (Ye Ji-won), who eventually leaves him for Sung-woo.

Yes, it’s difficult to be human, especially in a Hong film, given that his characters’ attempts to satiate their own emotional needs often devolve into cruel and childish displays of selfishness. With each repetition Gyung-soo seems to be reassuring himself that he understands the significance of his friend’s words, but with each successive film, Hong seems to suggest that maybe no one really does understand.

Hong writes in his director’s statement for his most recent feature, Woman on the Beach (2006), "Repetition is a great framework and basis for filmmaking. On the other hand, if repetition is part of a person’s behavior, we can take that as an indication of obsession. I wanted to see through repetition, but also to reduce repetition." Like Sung-woo in Turning Gate or Woody Allen throughout his messily imbricated career, Hong’s films grapple with the question of seeing through repetition: can we ever do something over as an intervention rather than a symptom? It is the problem many of the characters in Hong’s films — particularly the men — struggle with, stumble over, deny, and often by movie’s end, are unexpectedly forced to confront.

Indeed, Hong’s entire oeuvre seems like evidence of a repetition compulsion to tell variations of the same story. It’s a tale that goes something like this: an unexpected reunion between two middle-aged buddies gradually sours when old insecurities and jealousies are played out in a pathetic rivalry over a woman, resulting in innumerably consumed bottles of soju (real), some of the most spectacularly uncomfortable sex scenes ever committed to film (fake), and damaged egos all around.

In The Power of Kangwon Province (1998) we revisit the popular vacation locale twice in two subtly interlocking narratives told from the perspectives of a college professor and his student who recently ended their affair. Later in the aforementioned Turning Gate, Gyung-soo falls in love with a stranger on a train, though he’s clearly trying to regain his crushed pride after Myung-sook uses and drops him. Woman Is the Future of Man (2004) focuses on two old friends reuniting to see the woman they both once loved. It’s a meeting that leaves all parties disappointed. In 2005’s Tale of Cinema (Hong at his most meta) a sad-sack filmmaker attempts to re-create the courtship portrayed in his rival director’s film — which he claims was inspired by events from his own life — with its lead actress to predictably lukewarm effect.

Watching Hong’s films back-to-back is a bit like experiencing one of the protracted drinking jags his characters frequently undertake. You emerge bleary-eyed with a hangover from the desperation and ugliness you’ve witnessed. Exactly what happened and who got fucked (over) remain a blur, but the mundane conversations and chance encounters that incrementally and elliptically contributed to the general unpleasantness are strangely crystal clear. Such a viewing binge sets into relief the careful orchestration behind the happenstance realism often attributed to Hong’s matter-of-fact style of filmmaking. The conversations no longer seem mundane, encounters are only chance for the characters involved but not for the viewer, and the deadpan humor of many of the films’ situations becomes more apparent, as does Hong’s subtle skewering of romantic comedy and buddy movie clichés (such maudlin scores!).

What then can we make of all the women who are both objects of and obstacles to the men’s internal returns? While it’s tempting to read Woman Is the Future of Man‘s title as a neon arrow pointing toward the way out, Woman on the Beach suggests a necessary detour through another popular excursion destination: Shinduri Beach. Gray and lifeless in the off-season, this small town on Korea’s west coast serves as the natural backdrop (much like the breathtaking scenery of Mount Odae in Power) for two overlapping love triangles, which in typical Hong fashion form as quickly as they dissolve and neatly bisect the narrative.

Film director and lech Joong-rae (Kim Seung-woo) is trying to hammer out a new script but seems more interested in putting the moves on the headstrong girlfriend, Moon-sook (Ko Hyeon-gang), of his friend Chang-wook (Kim Tae-woo). Chang-wook, clearly aware that he has been dishonored, drives back to Seoul with Moon-sook. Two days later Joong-rae randomly interviews (and later sleeps with) a woman named Sun-hee (Song Seon-mi), whom he repeatedly compares to Moon-sook. Sun-hee eventually crosses paths with the woman she resembles, despite her and Joong-rae’s slapstick precautionary measures to avoid such an encounter. The women’s claws are soon retracted as the soju hits their bloodstreams, and Moon-sook calls it like it is: "Two women shouldn’t be fighting dirty over a man. It’s boring. This is why hell is boring."

Not all of Hong’s characters are such astute, self-critical observers. Their rapacious appetites — for sex and booze (often in combination); for love (often hastily declared while drunkenly having sex); for recognition from their peers and families; in short, for a balm to ease the atrophying routine of middle age — brings to mind another Korean monster currently stalking theaters, whose own indiscriminate satisfaction of its needs also invariably damages those closest to it.

At the same time, to call them monsters, however loutishly or cruelly they treat each other, would be to resolutely condemn them. Hong’s meticulous direction and his actors’ extremely nuanced (even when under the influence) performances refrain from going so far. Much in the same way that a competitive skater or gymnast repeatedly watches footage of their falls to pinpoint the exact moment and cause of mechanical error, Hong’s films let us see up close, again and again, the ways in which the veracity of our needs and desires causes us to fumble our relationships — with lovers, with friends, with strangers — regardless of our intentions. In the words of Aaliyah, "If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again." Hong is willing to grant his characters, however confused or outright pathetic, at least that much. *

RETROSPECTIVE: HONG SANG-SOO

March 16–25

For schedule, call or see Web site

(415) 865-1588

www.asianamericanfilmfestival.org

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Blow pop

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

Can we, may we, talk about blow jobs? I don’t mean the semiotics and social history of blow jobs — those are cool, but were well addressed by Christopher Hitchens last year in Vanity Fair, in which he made an amusing if not entirely convincing case for the blow job as the quintessential American sex act. May we speak, then, not of symbolic blow jobs, but the kind we actually give and receive?

A few weeks back I was laying out my secret plan for getting your sex life back after having a baby and breastfeeding (or while still breastfeeding, for the ambitious) and ended with the postscript "A blow job wouldn’t hurt" (2/28/07). I thought it was funny but have since had several exchanges and conversations about the blow job and whether or not it could, in certain situations, hurt. Well, yes, of course it could, but we weren’t talking about that kind of blow job; perhaps I ought to have been clearer. I should, for instance, have made pretty damned sure that nobody could interpret "A blow job wouldn’t hurt" to mean "Oh, throw the poor old dog a bone; maybe that way he’ll shut up and let you sleep." Just because that sentiment happens to represent the antithesis of everything I believe about how we should speak of and, indeed, treat our partners, doesn’t mean nobody thought that’s what I was saying. If you thought so: hell no, and sorry.

If there’s a flaw in my postbaby sex-life-saving program, it’s that it can only work in the context of an essentially solid, loving relationship. I do have advice for people in the sort of relationship where "maybe he’ll leave me alone now" sex is common and expected, but it’s all pretty similar in that it tends to involve suitcases and real estate and the occasional plane ticket out of town.

Here’s what I really meant: sexual contact — surprise! — is good for your relationship. It makes you feel closer and cuddlier and more, you know, coupley. And if you’ve read that column (or anything else) about oxytocin and prolactin, you’ll recognize that there’s a strong biochemical aspect to this. There are reasons why a decent sex life is considered one of the most crucial components of a good marriage, and it’s not just because people like to have orgasms. Vibrators and weird Japanese comic books can produce orgasms, but they don’t make you feel all bondy and melty — or if they do, you have a problem. So, even if you’re postpartum and don’t have your sex drive back yet and feel yucky about your body and unsure whose breasts those are anymore, you can still get some of those good bondy melty prairie vole–ish feelings going between you and your mate. You can do it even if you don’t want him to touch you much, because it’s likely you still love him and think he’s hot and can still enjoy touching him. With your tongue, if you want. It’s really that simple.

The blow job may not be magic, but I have more faith in it as a postpartum marital aid than I ever could in that standby of lazy self-help writers: the weekend away. The weekend away is like New Year’s Eve in its inability ever to live up to the promise of funfunfun, so why bother? Plus, the good sea air and a continental breakfast, while lovely, are probably not enough to get your hormones back in order. Nursing mothers can’t exactly waltz off for a long weekend away anyway, and not many even want to.

I don’t really believe in any of the self-help fixes when it really comes down to it. Cleaning lady? Great, send her on over, but it won’t fix your sex life. Pampering, time alone, romantic dinners? Yes, please, but it won’t fix your sex life. The nongestating partner may be equally exhausted and distracted, but his libido will be fundamentally unchanged. (This is all very heterocentric by necessity, but it could apply to lesbian couples too, as long as one of them actually carried the child. Don’t write to me about adoptive or male breastfeeding. Seriously, I mean it.) As soon as he gets a good night’s sleep, he’ll be good to go.

Postpartum women cannot be so easily cajoled back into the fold, and you don’t want to give anyone false hope and high expectations just to have them go flat like those postpartum beers which might, sadly, fail to taste anything near as good as you imagined they would back while you were stuck with ginger ale all those months. (Not that I’m bitter.)

What does work, as I said, is sticking together; telling the truth instead of skulking, hiding, and pretending nothing’s changed ("I just don’t feel that sexy yet, hon, sorry," or "I don’t think I’ve got all my feeling back yet. That’s why I’m not coming"); sharing information (it’s hormonal!); and being patient. Oh, and, of course, the occasional blow job.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea Nemerson has spent the last 14 years as a sex educator and an instructor of sex educators. In her previous life she was a prop designer. And she just gave birth to twins, so she’s one bad mother of a sex adviser. Visit www.altsexcolumn.com to view her previous columns.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I am not taking sides yet in the Carole Migden–Mark Leno race; the election is still a blessed 14 months away. But I think that at this point I can stake out a clear position against calling one of the candidates a "kiddie porn king."

I wish this were a joke, but it’s not. A former aide to Migden, Michael Colbruno, who (like most of the rest of the known world) has a blog, posted an item earlier this month headlined "Kiddie Porn King in Senate Race."

Colbruno clearly supports his former boss, who is defending her State Senate seat against Assemblymember Leno. That’s fine. But attacking Leno as a kiddie porn king is the exact sort of nasty, sleazy, Karl Rove–style stuff that ought to have no place in a San Francisco campaign.

Let me lay out the background here, since it’s a case study in how political smears are created.

About a year ago Republicans in the state legislature started work on a bill that was aimed at cracking down on child molesters. It wound up on the ballot as Proposition 83, a draconian law that, among other things, would have barred any registered sex offender from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park and required them to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for life.

Leno and Migden both opposed it.

But in the meantime, while the bill was being debated, Leno, chair of the Public Safety Committee, tried to offer a less heinous alternative. His measure was called AB 50, and while it tightened laws on sex crimes, it didn’t include the bracelets or the 2,000-foot residency requirement (which many law-enforcement types said were ineffective and unworkable).

During discussions on the bill, Leno tells me, Assemblymember Todd Spitzer, an Orange County Republican, approached Leno with an offer. "He told me that if I would accept several amendments, he’d support my bill," Leno says.

One Spitzer amendment would have tightened the laws on child pornography. At the time, possession of kiddie porn was a misdemeanor on the first offense; Spitzer’s proposal would have made it a felony if the offender possessed more than 100 pieces.

Sure, said Leno. No problem. (Spitzer, by the way, confirmed this account to me.)

That, in retrospect, was a mistake; in fact, I could argue that Leno was set up by the GOP. Because shortly afterward, the right-wing media blew up. Leno was accused of supporting the child-porn lobby; according to the likes of Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Leno was arguing that 99 pieces of kiddie porn were just fine. (The federal felony standard, by the way, is 75. Leno’s bill was amended — with his support — to 25, then one.)

Let’s remember: Leno’s bill actually tightened the existing law. I have two kids, and I’m not about to defend the peddlers of underage smut, but I really don’t think AB 50 made Leno a kiddie porn king.

I shudder to think about this becoming a campaign issue; I can already see the hit pieces (or whisper campaigns) circuutf8g in Marin and Sonoma counties, the more conservative parts of the district. Mark Leno, kiddie porn. Hard to turn that around.

Paul Hefner, a spokesperson for Migden’s campaign, told me she doesn’t approve of the post and wants to see a positive race. Good for her. But I suspect that if she were as offended as I am, she would call Colbruno and tell him to take that shit down. Now.

UPDATE: After ppress time for the print edition, Migden’s office informed me that the senator had asked Colbruno to take the post down. Colbruno told me he would do so. That was the right outcome; now let’s hope we don’t ever have to go through all of this again*

Snake oil

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

Thanks for answering my question about performance anxiety ["Spectator Pumps," 2/21/07]. We solved the problem on our own. My girlfriend recognized that it was a confidence issue, so she went to the local sex shop and purchased an herbal male performance pill. We were both skeptical, but it actually worked within an hour. We proceeded to have awesome marathon sex. I had random boners for the next 48 hours.

My confidence was back pretty much instantaneously. We’ve had a healthy sexual relationship since then. We get a pill every now and again for kicks, but they are thankfully mostly unnecessary.

Love,

The "Mind-Blowing Sex, Not the Good Kind" Guy

Dear Good Guy:

I am simultaneously happy that you’re happy and terribly sad that I ever read your follow-up letter. Why couldn’t you have solved your problem with therapy or toys or pharmaceuticals or threesomes or gender reassignment surgery or anything, really, other than Dr. Woody’s Hygienic Vega-Vital Specific Elixir? Now I have to burst your bubble, and you have no idea how much I don’t want to do that.

Actually, you got past whatever was blocking you and now know you’re capable of having mind-blowing sex, the good kind, not only with those bull-pucky pills but, more important, without them. You may be immune to bubble-bursting of any sort, which is great, however you got there. They’re just, ugh, fake sex pills. I can’t help imagining those creepy late-night pseudoceutical ads with the happy, happy wife with the unhinged jaw like an adder’s — and shuddering.

I have a story that is vaguely apropos if you’ll just bear with me. Until fairly recently, I was plagued by crippling phlebotophobia — merely thinking of blood draws turned me clammy and faint, and having one, well, I don’t know what having one would have done, since I never let those needle monkeys get within a hundred yards of me. Since I wouldn’t get a blood test, I couldn’t get any serious medical care, which was fine with me but irritating to my partner, who preferred to think I’d make a good-faith effort not to drop dead on him without warning. So I resolved to do something about it, and since a couple therapist friends had been taking EMDR training, I decided to do that.

EMDR stands for eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing, a hypnosislike process that is supposed to heal posttraumatic stress and be useful for treating phobias, although there is no scientific basis for those claims. There are studies suggesting it works as well as any other therapy, but then there are also studies demonstrating that all therapy modes, semiscience and pseudoscience alike, work about equally well. The most likely explanation? Doing something helps. It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something, the more formal the something, the better. Paying for the something also helps, if you ask me, since most people believe, deep down, that something for nothing is worth what you paid for it.

I knew all this but was determined to do EMDR (it seemed preferable to talk therapy, because I hate talking about stuff). I tried not to think about it too much. I also took my copy of Skeptic magazine with the cover story called "EMDR: Just a Big Fat Fraud?" or close enough, and buried it under a pile of old shopping circulars for the duration. I knew what it would say, you see, and I knew it was true: EMDR is bunk. It was the bunk that seemed most convenient at the time, though, so I willed myself to let it work. It worked OK (I’ve had umpteen blood tests since), although I’m fairly convinced that slipping $150 through a slot in the therapist’s door every Wednesday at 3 p.m. would have worked equally well. Just do something.

"Just do something" also explains why some patients report an immediate improvement when they start antidepressants, even though the real effects may take as long as two weeks to kick in. There is also, more directly apropos here, the Viagra effect, whereby a filled prescription for magic beans reliably produces enormous, um, beanstalks, whether or not you ever open the bottle. You pointed out yourself that expecting to have disappointing, dysfunctional sex nearly guarantees that you will have it, so it shouldn’t surprise you that merely knowing there’s help available if you need it can be enough to break the cycle. If not taking a pill can fix you right up, it shouldn’t be news that taking one, even a pharmacologically inert one, can work even better.

There is one strange addendum to that, though, if you’ll stick with me: your snake oil pills may contain something besides snake oil, chalk, and blue dye number 26, and guess what that something might be? Consumer protection agencies both here and abroad have tested some alleged herbal supplements and found them to be adulterated with … sildenafil citrate. That’s Viagra to you, bub. You might be better off just getting the real thing. At least that way you’d know the dosage you’re not taking.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea Nemerson has spent the last 14 years as a sex educator and an instructor of sex educators. In her previous life she was a prop designer. And she just gave birth to twins, so she’s one bad mother of a sex adviser. Visit www.altsexcolumn.com to view her previous columns.

It’s on

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Invoking the spirit of George Moscone and Harvey Milk "so that we may be worthy of their powerful legacy," Assemblymember Mark Leno announced his candidacy March 2 for the State Senate seat now held by Carole Migden, setting off a high-profile fight between the two for the Democratic Party nomination next year.

"Welcome to democracy in action. Welcome to people power," Leno told the large crowd that gathered under the warm noontime sun at Yerba Buena Gardens, adjacent to the Martin Luther King Memorial and Moscone Center with its rooftop array of solar panels, which Leno said he will work to bring to more buildings.

MCing the event was Assessor Phil Ting, who praised Leno’s efforts to legalize same-sex marriage and said, "That’s the kind of leadership and integrity we deserve in San Francisco." District Attorney Kamala Harris then told the crowd, "I stand here in strong and unequivocal support for Mark Leno."

Among the other local notables on hand to support Leno were Fiona Ma, Susan Leal, Laura Spanjian, Julian Davis, Kim-Shree Maufas, Hydra Mendoza, Norman Yee, Lawrence Wong, Donna Sachet, Theresa Sparks, James Hormel, Natalie Berg, Bob Twomey, Jose Medina, August Longo, Linda Richardson, Calvin Welch, Jordanna Thigpen, Leah Shahum, Tom Radulovich, David Wall, Tim Gaskin, Esperanza Macias, and Espanola Jackson.

Notably absent were all the members of the Board of Supervisors, but it’s still very early in a campaign that is bound to be heated. (Steven T. Jones)

The honeymoon is over

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Update: That alert bunch over at the SFist has raised questions about whether the photo that we published this week of Mayor Gavin Newsom (wearing a pink honeymoon kimono) and his alleged stalker Han Shin was real or altered — and we’re kinda curious about that ourselves. As we acknowledged in the paper, we got it from a source who got it directly from Shin, so we can’t verify its authenticity. But maybe you can? Is is a real photo? Or if not, which are the fake parts? Are they really together? Is Newsom really wearing a pink honeymoon over a Reelect Bevan Dufty T-shit over what looks like a business shirt?
No matter what the conclusions, we’re still glad that we published the photo, which is either real or was faked and being passed around by Shin. Either way, weird stuff. Post your thoughts below.

The Honeymoon is over
By Tim Redmond

Poor Gavin Newsom: it’s tough to be a globe-trotting, movie star–dating celebrity mayor with a lingering sex scandal … and now a stalker. But not just any stalker — Han Shin, assuming the above photo is real (we got it from a trusted source who said he got it directly from Shin), once got the mayor to pose with him in a pink honeymoon kimono.

Shin, according to police accounts, has a troubled history: the San Francisco Chronicle reported that he allegedly threatened to kill his 76-year-old mother, who said that her son was dangerous whenever he stopped taking his medication.

Shin is also accused of shining a laser into a prosecutor’s eye during a court hearing. He was arrested by San Ramon police Feb. 28 for allegedly burglarizing the home of a man officers believe he had been in a relationship with and repeatedly trying to run over the guy’s roommate with his car.

Shin told the Chron that only the cops think he’s crazy and that he’s stopped taking his meds. He says he wears purple latex gloves because purple is the color of divinity and royalty. The city got a restraining order against him after he showed up in the lobby of Newsom’s apartment building.

The man apparently has a thing for Newsom: a Bay Area Reporter story this week says that "reports have also noted that Shin has attempted to flirt with the mayor and was seen photographing Newsom from the waist down at a recent public meeting the mayor held in the Bayview."

He kind of likes Sup. Bevan Dufty too: the supervisor says he met Shin last year when he was running for reelection and the man gave him a raspberry kimono — perhaps similar to the one Newsom is wearing in this photo. Again, the BAR: "Asked if Shin identified as gay, Dufty said, ‘He is like a cross between Liberace and Hello Kitty. He is out of his gourd.’ "

Interestingly, in the photo we were given, Newsom is wearing a Dufty campaign T-shirt under his kimono.

SATURDAY

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March 3

MUSIC

Steve Porter

A porterhouse is a choice cut of meat, but to nutritionists it’s a fatty, cholesterol-filled food best eaten sparingly within a balanced diet. For DJ-producer Steve Porter, it’s his diverse and energetic style, best showcased on his new 57-track club album, Porterhouse Volume 2 (EQ Recordings), which fans previously savored on 2006’s mix LP Porterhouse and 2005’s Homegrown (both Fade Records). What makes Porter house popular is that it is no mono diet. (Joshua Rotter)

With DJs Eli Wilkie and Friz-B
8 p.m., $15
Ruby Skye
420 Mason, SF
(415) 693-0777
www.rubyskye.com

VISUAL ART

“Vivienne Westwood: 36 Years in Fashion”

Vivienne Westwood, the iconoclastic British fashion designer, could have been speaking of her own when she remarked, “You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes.” Indeed, her work has shaped the very culture whose conventions she set out to subvert. In 1970, Let It Rock, her first clothing store, opened in London, and it wasn’t long before her outrageous and provocative designs found their way onto the backs of punk bands such as the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols. (Nathan Baker)

Through June 10
9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m., museum admission plus $5 surcharge
De Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Golden Gate Park, SF
(415) 750-3614
www.famsf.org

Pinkos, painters, and pansies

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› marke@sfbg.com

REVIEW Los Angeles has lately become quite a hot spot for queer studies scholars, their investigations slipping out of the Hollywood Babylon mode of starstruck speculation and into the lives of everyday Angelenos. In the wake of Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons’s well-received 2006 volume, Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians (Basic Books), comes Daniel Hurewitz’s Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics, an ambitious, fascinating attempt to show how Communists, postsurrealist artists, civil rights activists, and pre-gay "fairies" converged in the crucible of early 20th-century Silver Lake — then called Edendale — to create the modern notion of identity, in particular queer identity.

Bohemian Los Angeles is bookended by two extraordinary characters who made their home in Edendale: lauded vaudeville female impersonator Julian Eltinge and gay-rights giant Harry Hay. Both of these men had sex with other men, but they couldn’t have been more distant in their conception of their own identity. The idea of gayness, or the notion of a true inner self that relied on sexuality to achieve its public expression, was as alien to Eltinge and his time (the 1910s) as Grand Theft Auto. Despite the expensive stage gowns and fellatio, the otherwise macho Eltinge was enraged by the showy "cissies," dandies, and fairies who claimed to have "woman’s blood in them" and made up much of his fan base. For him and other prominent male-on-males, homosexuality was a private act that needed no community or publicity to ensure its satisfaction. Hay, who came to prominence 40 years later as the first official gay activist, was a different fish entirely. His Mattachine Society insisted that homosexuality was an underlying impulse knitting everyone who was "that way" into a kinship with a shared cause: civil rights.

Hurewitz’s project is to trace how Eltinge’s view gave way to Hay’s, how activity was transformed into identity and gay pride was born. To do this, he recounts the history of Edendale as one of transformative communities, paying close attention to the artists who gathered around guru Jack Zeitlin in the late 1920s and began exploring the idea of an inner essence that could be communicated through the arts. He looks at members of the Communist Party of Los Angeles who experimented in communal living in Edendale in the 1930s and, in the wake of World War II’s Zoot Suit Riots and Japanese internments, agitated for a notion of civil rights based on ethnic identity. And he tracks the growth of homosexual networks in LA, the prototypes of a community based on sexual desire.

All of these bohemian groups, Hurewitz argues, laid the groundwork for Hay’s and others’ ultimate politicization, their embrace of a sexual inner essence worthy of public declaration. A further inspiration was the steep uptick in homosexual arrests in the 1920s, as the city’s politicos seized on the notion of "degeneracy" as a moral-panic strategy. (One of Hurewitz’s fabulous insights is that the idea of degeneracy was once embraced by some homosexual men as a way to divorce their actions from their character.)

Many gays today feel exhausted by identity politics yet trapped in a ghetto of conformist sexual expression. Refreshingly, this sharply written, well-researched history brings to light some of the magically diverse, willfully perverse, and politically immersed foundations of who we are now. *

BOHEMIAN LOS ANGELES AND THE MAKING OF MODERN POLITICS

By Daniel Hurewitz

University of California Press

377 pages

$29.95

>

Can’t explain

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER What’s the difference between the Who and other boomer–classic rock combos hauling their bones out on the road these days? The fact that onstage at the cozy Reno Event Center on Feb. 23, midway through the kickoff for his group’s cockeyed US tour, Pete Townshend interrupted his own between-song hawk for the Who’s generally ignored recent album, Endless Wire (Universal), with a defiant disclaimer that went roughly like this: "We don’t care if you do buy it. Roger and I will soon be gone, and you won’t need to see us or buy anything because soon we’ll be dead. But now we’re here, and this is what we’re doing right now."

Then the black-clad Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey, drummer Zak Starkey, guitarist Simon Townshend, keyboardist John Bundrick, and bassist Pino Palladino launched into Endless Wire‘s "Wire and Glass: A Mini-Opera," which Pete Townshend ironically referred to as his band’s "Green Day moment." The centerpiece of "Wire and Glass" ‘s pocket rock opera, "We Got a Hit," rang with nostalgia and evoked, of all things, "Substitute," and Townshend sounded like both the angry young pop star he once was and the cranky old curmudgeon who would just as soon grumble "fuggit" than flog product.

And in the process Townshend sounded realer than most of the fossils buttressed by pricey pyrotechnics found in the last Stones tour. Is this an accomplishment? Perhaps, because Townshend was always one of the more ambitious and artful rockers of his g-g-g-generation and one of the most bare-faced and vulnerable (tellingly, the Who’s official site these days is the man’s own homespun blog at www.petetownshend-whohe.blogspot.com). Also, I don’t know about the old hippies who came out of the woods for the Who that night, but when you’re accustomed to the spectacle, dancers, rotating sets, and multiple costume changes that dramatize the majority of today’s arena pop shows — from Justin Timberlake to the Dixie Chicks — a straight-forward band performance is downright refreshing.

But I wasn’t sure what to expect when I fiddled around, making my way up to Reno, Nev. — home of the proudly gooberish National Bowling Stadium, hicks-run-amok comedy Reno 911!: Miami, and the neon-poisoned Last Days of Disco décor of kitschy-cute Peppermill Casino. Why start your tour in Reno, bypassing the Bay Area with a date in Fresno? Bad memories of Vegas, the site of bassist John Entwistle’s death during their 2002 tour kickoff? I’d never seen them live before: Keith Moon–era Who was way before my time; the late Entwistle epoch, too much for my music store–clerk blood. So it was the Daltrey-Townshend Who for me — along with a mix of gleeful, graying long-haired boomers in top hats and polo shirts, indeterminate Gen Xers, and a handful of youngsters — all much more male than a Stones, Robert Plant, or even Sex Pistols reunion show. Perusing the Ed Harris look-alikes, I’d venture there’s still something about Townshend — and maybe Daltrey’s ready-for-a-brawl manly rasp — that always spoke most directly to the smart art-nerd boys, at least in my high school. The Who always seemed to mirror men more acutely than women, despite those tributary pictures of Lily. Even now they work "Real Good Looking Boy" into the set, accompanied by an onscreen montage of Daltrey’s inspiration, Elvis Presley, and Townshend’s awkward intro: "It’s about being a little kid and looking at a big boy and having the courage to admire him as good-looking without any weirdness going on. Not that it is weird!"

But what’s vaguely weird is the fact that a once proudly forward-looking band such as the Who would sprinkle their set so liberally with favorites such as "The Seeker," "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere," "Baba O’Riley," and "Behind Blue Eyes," almost reluctantly putting forth new songs such as "Fragments," "A Man in a Purple Dress," "Black Widow’s Eyes," and those in "Wire and Glass," which cannibalize melodies, devices, and arpeggioed synth lines of songs such as "Who Are You" and baldly lift the curtain on a kind of nostalgia with tunes such as "Mirror Door," which hails sentimental, uncool icons like Doris Day. Even their opening song, "I Can’t Explain," was accompanied by target symbols, band insignia and posters, old photos of the band in Union Jack garb, and The Who Sell Out imagery — the latter once primo examples of pop art exploded, literally, in a rock ‘n’ roll context. The effect was powerful but somewhat of a disservice: the band itself is still hard-hitting enough to deliver its songs with absolute conviction, without the crutch of yesterday’s reminders, filled out by Ringo Starr’s competent though far from unhinged son Zak Starkey’s drum work; a husky-voiced but valiant Daltrey, who mastered his mic-swinging rotary-blade moves by the time the encore rolled around; and Townshend, windmilling and leaping, though with less athleticism than he might have had in the past.

Two hours into the show, all doubters were probably ready to push aside memories of the Who’s dead rhythm section, ravaged vocal chords, kiddie-porn controversy, unsmashed guitars, and a commercially stillborn album — and stand up for the "Pinball Wizard" encore. Though you wonder what it means when you’re in your late 50s and still singing "Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss" or "It’s only teenage wasteland. They’re all wasted!" and doing it, as Pete Townshend shouted jubilantly, "out in the fields of Nevada." The song remains the same, but now the band’s tone can’t help but have shifted. Perhaps you sound put out to pasture, a bit bitterer than you did as the angry know-it-all who was almost too smart for Top of the Pops. Or maybe a bit like Mr. Wilson, shaking his fist at Dennis the Menace and growling, "They’re all wasted!" You might sound more wise than nihilistic — can you explain how inspired you once were? *

Sour milk

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I’m still breast-feeding my third baby, and my libido is completely gone. I don’t even think about sex. My ob-gyn seemed to think it’s related to breast-feeding. That was months ago, and I still feel the same. I feel bad for my husband. I know he is starting to take it personally.

Love,

Shut-Down Mom

Dear Mom:

I have to admit I’ve been letting your question sit here in my "good question!" file for months. As a newish mother myself, I can’t easily write about this without taking it a bit personally too. I generally try to avoid getting all me-me-me unless it’s particularly amusing, but sometimes it can’t be helped.

Of course it seems related to breast-feeding. It is deeply and inextricably connected to breast-feeding, a process involving sex- and sexuality-related hormones, intimate touch, and boobs. So really, how could it not affect your sex life? Not to say that postpartum libido issues (I hesitate to call them problems since they are so natural, normal, and expected if generally unwelcome) are purely hormonal. You may be a big bag of hormones, but you’re a specific, unique sack of hormones living a unique and specific life. You have a husband, and you have rather a lot of children. There’s a lot more going on than the mere release or reception of this molecule or that.

I’ve read a ton on this subject, if not before I had these kids, then certainly since. And while most of what you see out there is common sense or nonsense, there are a few bits and bobs you may not have heard. Not everyone knows, for instance, that we all release the milk-making hormone prolactin after orgasm, producing a sensation of satiety. Even fewer people will have heard about the researchers who recently measured prolactin levels in laboratory subjects who masturbated to orgasm or had penis-vagina sex to the same end. The screwers released 400 percent more prolactin than the wankers did, possibly explaining why most people find partnered sex more satisfying than masturbation. Much work remains to be done (what about other kinds of sex with a partner? What about homo sex?), but if we in the Lactation Nation are already walking around with high levels of prolactin, which of course we are, we may already be feeling the sort of satiety that other, less milky people have to have partnered sex in order to achieve. We don’t want sex because we feel like we just had some, and the drive to go get some more is suppressed. That’s one theory, anyway.

Breast-feeding also releases oxytocin, that busy hormone with jobs ranging from stimuutf8g uterine contractions and causing your husband to start snoring so soon after sex to making prairie voles (and perhaps everyone else) bond to a partner and stick around to raise the children together. The oxytocin released at orgasm is responsible for the aaaaahhhh feeling you get as you nestle back into your beloved’s arms. It creates similar warm fuzzies at the mere touch of the right person (good hugs release oxytocin, while unwanted or merely social hugs do not). Oxytocin, of course, is released as your baby nurses, but also by just cuddling with her (or in some cases thinking about her). Again, the sensations of calm, happy, shmoopy-pie satiety, while delightful, are not exactly conducive to going out and gettin’ you some.

Add to all this the fact that your usual sex drivers, estrogen and testosterone, are at an all-time low, and the chemical basis of the "just don’t wanna" that can last as long as you keep up the nursing becomes obvious. Add to that the sleep deprivation, the ambivalent (to put it mildly, also inaccurately) feelings that many of us harbor about the changes our bodies have gone through, and the vaginal dryness, and there ya go. Death of sex. For a while. Do not despair.

Here’s my big secret program, which I hope to make some bucks selling to desperate couples: Do not feel guilty. Guilt kills sex. Do not hide or contrive to fall asleep before or after your husband, and do not lie or make excuses. All of these set up a familiar but deadly teenagerish dynamic where you own the sex but won’t be doling much, if any, out. Meanwhile, your husband is skulking around like a starving mongrel trying get whatever scraps you might drop in an unwary moment. Yuck and ew. You are grown-up partners, and you’re on the same side. Do not forget this.

Face your husband, clear-eyed. Remind him that it’s hormonal. Remind him that it will end. Encourage him to keep offering, since your proposition circuits are down at the moment. And — really important — if it doesn’t sound unappealing, take him up on it sometimes. Just because you didn’t crave it doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. Eventually, you’ll even want it, as long as you don’t have a bunch of stupid fights about it first.

Love,

Andrea

PS A blow job wouldn’t hurt.

Andrea Nemerson has spent the last 14 years as a sex educator and an instructor of sex educators. In her previous life she was a prop designer. And she just gave birth to twins, so she’s one bad mother of a sex adviser. Visit www.altsexcolumn.com to view her previous columns.

Newsom needs to come clean

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EDITORIAL It’s no surprise that Mayor Gavin Newsom doesn’t want to answer any more questions about his affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk. The polls suggest that most of the voters have either forgiven him or never really cared in the first place, so it’s in his interest to move on and try to keep this from becoming a campaign issue.

And if it were just about sex, that would be fine with us too.

But from the start this sordid episode had some bad elements that are every bit a matter of public interest. Rippey-Tourk wasn’t just the wife of one of Newsom’s friends; she was an employee of the city, and in a not so indirect way, Newsom was her boss. And with the evidence that has surfaced that Rippey-Tourk was paid $21,755 for work she didn’t do, including paid leave for the time she was in rehab (something other city employees don’t get), there are real questions that the mayor needs to answer.

Let’s run down the situation, as far as we can establish it:

• Rippey-Tourk and Newsom had an affair in 2005. That year she had 7 1/2 weeks of unpaid leave — a benefit that is not part of the standard package offered to city employees and not in any union contract.

• In May 2006, Rippey-Tourk went into substance abuse rehab and was out of work until July. She was still listed on the city payroll until Sept. 1, when she was cut a check for $10,155. Ultimately, she was paid for 13 1/2 weeks (or 67 1/2 days) of unpaid leave. She was entitled to 10 vacation days and 13 sick days. That leaves 44 1/2 days that she didn’t work and technically shouldn’t have been paid for.

• The Mayor’s Office says other city employees donated their unused vacation and sick time to her. It’s perfectly legal under city policy for employees to donate their paid time to a colleague who has to take a leave for a catastrophic, life-threatening illness. But alcohol and drug rehab don’t typically fall into that category.

• The law says the Department of Public Health must certify that a city employee faces an actual life-threatening illness before the catastrophic leave policy comes into play. And the employee’s supervisor has to sign off on the decision.

So somebody at the DPH must have approved a leave for a worker who almost certainly didn’t qualify, and Rippey-Tourk’s immediate supervisor at the time, then–chief of staff Steve Kava, had to have gone along.

It doesn’t take much speculation to figure out what likely went on here: Newsom had his chief of staff give an employee who had slept with the mayor a benefit that other city employees don’t get, and the director of public health, who (more or less) reports to the mayor, went along with it. And a bunch of city money was involved.

So far nobody at City Hall will answer questions about how this happened, saying that it’s a matter of employee privacy. We agree that Rippey-Tourk (the real victim in all this) has been through plenty, and the public has no business examining her medical records. But the mayor has made a nasty mess of the situation, and he can’t be allowed to just skate away without explaining whether his office in effect paid hush money out of the public till to someone he had treated shabbily — and who had strong legal grounds to sue the city and deeply embarrass the mayor in an election year.

If Newsom would show up at a Board of Supervisors meeting, the way he’s supposed to, and answer questions, the public might glean a bit more information. But he’s refusing — and while the City Attorney’s Office is conducting a confidential investigation, that’s not good enough.

The supervisors should launch their own investigation — and they need to demand to see the key documents, talk to the key players (starting with Newsom, Kava, and Public Health Director Mitch Katz), and determine if the mayor violated city law and then tried to cover it up. The budget analyst, Harvey Rose, should be directed to investigate the use of city money here — and whether this practice is going on anywhere else in the city. It won’t be easy — but the supervisors have the legal authority to issue subpoenas, and while that power is rarely used, this might be an occasion that justifies it.

The cover-up is almost always worse than the crime — and if Newsom and his senior aides won’t tell the truth about what happened, there is going to be serious fallout. *

Will they have to cancel Easter?

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By Tim Redmond

About 20 years ago, a group of crazed anarchists put out a parody of a major national newspaper with a banner headline that read:

EASTER CANCELLED! CHRIST’S BODY FOUND!

I can’t quote the exact language of the story, since that was way back when, but it read just like a standard New York Times report, except that it focused on how several major world religions had been thrown into chaos by the news that Jesus’s bady had been found — something that undermined one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity, the ressurection of Christ.

To a Catholic-school kid like me, it was funny largely because the Roman Catholic Church was, and is, so utterly paranoid about any historical evidence that might cast doubt on any of the scared rules of the church. (Most biblical historians, for example, agree that Jesus never said anything about priests being celebate or women being unable to serve as priests; that comes from medieval popes, who were not always a savory bunch.)

So I loved the Da Vinci Code, and I loved Cross Bones, just as I’ve always loved discussions about the historic arcania of Jesus, the Holy Family and the Popes. And now I love this.

I’ve already read a few books and articles that get into the Jesus Cave — the idea that archeologists have found bodies in a cave that may be Jesus, Mary Magdelene and their son (think about it: If Jesus had a son, presumably — immaculate-conception powers aside — he had sex, which would means this whole celebate priest thing would be utterly bogus).

But this documentary is getting a fair amount of blog press; my fave is the argument that James Cameron wasn’t satisfied with sinking the Titanic; he now wants to sink Christianity

Go team.

PS: My colleague Cheryl Eddy worries that if Easter is cancelled, she’ll have to stock up quicly on Peeps.

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