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So I was watching MTV yesterday, looking out for brand new clips, and I came across two. Dannii Minogue and The Presets might not have a lot in common, apart from a strong affinity for beats and the pop genre, but they both seemed to have homoerotic themes.

I noticed Dannii Minogue's very colourful 'Touch Me Like That' as the title came on, and decided to have a look. It's pretty much your typical pop video from a female artist, with the female constantly sexualised, assuming all sorts of poses in various costumes, with heavy make-up and featuring back-up dancers with whom she sometimes interacts. However, the back-up dancers were all bikini-clad females who were moving their hands all over each other's bodies! At one point Dannii stands with them and they place their hands on her torso or breasts, thereby becoming part of the lesbian extravaganza.


Here Dannii is represented as taking pleasure in the girls' touch by touching her own breast


It appears it's getting less unusual for a mainstream pop act to incorporate non-heteroesexual antics into their video clips, and Dannii and her Public Relations team clearly expect big returns from this video.

Next up I saw the gay group The Presets attached to a new title, 'This Boy's In Love'. Here two very toned and good-looking men are shown attacking each other in slow motion in milk, or some milky substance. The lead singer's high tones ring out over the spectacle, announcing "this boy's in lo-o-o-o-ove." A possible interpretation is that the two men are fighting over the same person, but the slow motion and drops of milk clinging to their backs seems to emphasise the sexuality of their interaction. It reminded me a bit of the fight scenes in Brokeback Mountain (a movie I try not to remember).




The Presets had very dark themes and design in their previous single, 'My People' too, with the light in these being so weak as to just illuminate the musicians and other subject matter. I guess this shows that you don't have to be wrapped in neon and embracing of the electronic light to endorse gay themes...

It's all relatively homoerotic... So which artist will be next to perpetuate this theme, and to what extent do these clips represent homoeroticism in a positive light?
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It's amazing how an area not encroached upon by people due to its role as a barrier between Western and Eastern Europe has come to contain amazing wildlife species, and is in the process of bring protected as a Nature Reserve!

From The Independent:

Wildlife set for final victory along the Iron Curtain

By Allan Hall in Berlin
Friday, 23 May 2008



The Iron Curtain was synonymous with death and oppression. It was festooned with mines, tripwires that triggered automatic guns, barbed wire, watchtowers, vicious dogs and guards who were paid bonuses to shoot human prey.

But this no-man's-land of old was also home to an astonishing variety of wildlife that flourished where the barrier separating communist east from capitalist west stood.If plans stay on course and the political will is backed with financial resources, the Iron Curtain trail could become one of the longest nature reserves on earth.

"Turning a death belt into a lifebelt is an incredible way to honour peace and unity," said Liana Geidezis, wildlife biologist and project manager for Bund, one of Germany's leading conservation groups. "The finished product will be the most important environmental symbol of the 21st century."

For 45 years, the Iron Curtain was a militarised zone from the northern tip of Scandinavia to southern Albania and Bulgaria, isolating communist-bloc nations from neutral and Nato-aligned countries.

In Germany, one segment bisected the nation, with a separate section, the Berlin Wall, dividing the capital. The frontier – 30 to 1,000 yards wide – was called the "inner German border" in the parlance of the politburo and was erected on farmland, marsh, woods, heath and fields.

The inner German border was 879 miles long and when the state which created it imploded in 1989 its other residents stayed put. Rare birds, insects, mammals and flowers thrived in a mosaic of parks, nature reserves and organic farms. The German segment is only one part of the project – the former barrier goes on for hundreds of miles through Hungary, parts of Austria and the Czech Republic – to forge the Iron Curtain into a permanent nature zone of extraordinary diversity and richness.

Species under pressure from urban sprawl found sanctuary here. Heron colonies, otters, the black stork and the lady's slipper orchid can be found. Rare moss grows on the concrete stumps that once housed automatic guns, bats nest in the remains of bunkers and watchtowers and rare egrets, warblers and other species delight nature lovers from around the world.

The former border is part of a European green belt 4,200 miles long. If the European Union gets its way, the entire interlinking nature reserves will stretch for 4,250 miles, starting at the Arctic Sea, running along Finland's border with Russia, through the Baltic states and Poland to Germany, then skirt Austria's border with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary before following the Danube to the Black Sea.

The project is partly inspired by the Boston Freedom Trail in the US, which commemorates the American War of Independence.

But little has been done to give the area legal protection. In Hungary there are reports of bulldozers moving into some areas and in Germany environmental groups want the federal government to hand over responsibility for the land to the 16 states which are responsible for the environment and nature.

A tentative deal has been reached recently but it must be ratified and the details have not been released.

Not all of the green belt is wilderness, but only one-third is designated as a nature conservation area. Bund is fighting to stop encroaching development wherever it can: for example, the expansion of a border crossing between Bavaria and the Czech Republic which they say is superfluous.

On Monday, the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity starts in Bonn. Bund's president, Hubert Weiger, told the German magazine Der Spiegel that Germany will find it "difficult to explain"why it is still wrangling over the details of protecting such a vital area.
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From Cnn.com, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/05/22/military.gays/index.html:

Court: Gay officer can pursue lawsuit against military

An Air Force major who was dismissed for being a homosexual can continue her legal fight against the military, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals let stand the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, which bars the military from discharging gay or lesbian service members as long as they do not reveal their sexual orientation.

Yet the appeals court said the government may only "intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals" to "advance an important governmental interest," such as maintaining troop readiness or improving morale.

The decision came in the case of Maj. Margaret Witt, who was discharged after a career of nearly 20 years on the grounds that she had a six-year relationship with another woman, a civilian.

Witt welcomed the decision.

"I am thrilled by the court's recognition that I can't be discharged without proving that I was harmful to morale," she said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state, which sued the Air Force on Witt's behalf in 2006.

"I am proud of my career and want to continue doing my job," said Witt, a flight nurse who according to the appeals court "was an outstanding Air Force officer" who received numerous commendations and medals.

"Wounded people never asked me about my sexual orientation," Witt said in the statement. "They were just glad to see me there."

Witt joined the Air Force in 1987 and had risen to the rank of major when a colleague contacted her in 2004 to say he had been assigned to investigate allegations that she was a homosexual, according to the court ruling.

The Air Force gave Witt an honorable discharge in July 2007 as a result of her having a relationship with another woman from 1997 to 2003.

At the time of the investigation, Witt served as a flight nurse and operating room nurse at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, Washington.

"The military has provided no evidence that her sexual orientation or conduct has caused a problem in the performance of her duties," the ACLU said when it announced the lawsuit in 2006.

A federal judge dismissed her lawsuit, but the appeals court revived it Wednesday.

----------------------------- ----------------------------- ----------------

I can't believe that people are still dismissed on the basis of sexual orientation... it seems so far away from my world, but it's not. I hope Barack Obama does something about military tolerance for homosexuality if/when he gets into office.
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Ron Gregg takes a look at some typical and atypical offerings to the web through YouTube, what this says about youth GLBTIQ culture, with a focus on the positive: he believes that young people are getting more liberated and taking part in transnational bonding processes which see less 'queer' people as isolated and unhappy with their sexuality. In my opinion, video uploads offer an intricate text, where audio and visuals combine to create what can often be come to be regarded as an immersive text for viewers who are looking to connect to someone intensely. These texts can be liberating (and, of course, confining) in ways that haven't been explored in a lot of detail in many sites of academic enquiry. Find out how popular culture is affecting you by reading Ron's analysis here. I was curious about the vid still he represented of Chris Crocker's 'What is "Normal"?' and found it a nice few minutes' watch. I also found his 'No one is "straight"' clip intelligent and entertaining. I may write about these texts in later posts.
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In a decision which has surprised many, the California Supreme Court, consisting of seven judges, six of which are Republicans, has given the green light to gay marriage across the state! Cali joins Massachussetts in being two of the fifty states to allow same-sex couples to legally wed.


[ Click here to read more ]
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Endearments are used in a wide variety of contexts: in intimate relationships, workplace rituals, even to put someone down. Reporter Peggy Agar complained when Senator Barack Obama deferred his reply to one of her questions by saying "Hold on, sweetie," but it is not known why she found the phrase offensive. Did she think that he was being sexist, or acting overly acquanited with her? Was he being inappropriately sexually suggestive?


[ Click here to read more ]
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Remember how the city of San Francisco allowed same-sex couples to wed, despite the laws that banned such activity in the state? There are several lawsuits being put forth to the Supreme Court in relation to the overruling of the marriages.

I am not going to get too enthusiastic about this, as this would be the first time the justices have had to deal with a same-sex marriage case


[ Click here to read more ]
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If you were to look up the word 'relativity' (or perhaps its root, 'relative') in five dictionaries you would get five different definitions... my own perceptions of 'realitivity' are undeniably unique to me, and I have never thought about it the same way twice as my mind is forever changing. Such is the beauty of perception and language... who do you want to be today? Perhaps you speak another language, in which case your understanding of 'relativity' is informed by a culturo-lingual conditions which are necessarily only accessible to you.
Isn't it wonderful that the use of the word 'relative' is always relative?
Is 'fixity' a less interesting word than 'relativity'? It's usage is just as affected by context and there are similarly as many meanings of it as there are individuals, but instead of aiding the process of appreciation of this phenomenon it emphasises traditional notions of the unchanging, non-fluid and inflexible. I personally prefer to use words which help me articulate my attraction to the wonders of constantly re-evaluating my perception. This is my 'power vocabulary', the lingual tools I use to enhance my self-empowerment


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Welcome to Relativity Watch

May 7th 2008 15:51
This site is a response to the increasing rapidity with which people in the popular media embrace the idea that everything is relative... I hope to analyse discourses which emphasise the fluidity of knowledge, that change is the only constant, and make new and complicated connections between aspects of the (post)modern world. I will be focusing on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and 'queer' (GLBTIQ) issues in particular, examining the way these contribute to my notion of relativity as refreshed by my consumption of mass media texts.

The way we use language is very important, and should be paid a great deal of attention. More so than is being done now. I often find it rewarding to consider the multiple contexts that are available to me at any one time conerning any particular topic, and find that "it's all relative" - there's no certainty in the world, and the desire to search for some is a fearful practice passed on from one generation to another


[ Click here to read more ]
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9 Posts dating from May 2008
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