Published: Condom education in the military

…if you’re going to spread the fruits of your genital love, be smart about it.

February 14th, 2013 one of the military publications I read, The Herald Union, printed a half page article on sexual responsiblity (page 15) and health through the use of condoms. I was floored! Like, holy cow wow, really? I’d never see this in the American South because of the region’s ultra conservative perspectives about sex. (and yet I’m moving back so go figure) I’m thrilled that the military took steps in educating (and/or reminding) soldiers about condoms. Sure, the men and women who serve our country probably already know about condoms but like good manners, a reminder doesn’t hurt.  It’s just smart and why be anything less when you don’t have to be?

Below is a photo of the comment I made which made it into print! (page 2) I’m a bit ear to ear smiles on it and very grateful the editor choose to publish it along with an opposing comment. These two different perspectives on the same topic are as diverse as can be.  Yet, I feel it’s important to stress that Planned Parenthood is not – and I repeat “is not”- an abortion clinic but a place women go to plan their parenthood options - opposed to just getting knocked up and claiming God wanted them to have babies. Pregnancy must be created more responsibly than that.

Planned parenthood also provides basic healthcare to women who cannot afford it.  If they cannot afford to care for their own healthcare, how are they going to afford the cost of parenthood?  Planned parenthood shouldn’t even be considered a “controversial organization” as healthcare for women shouldn’t sit on a controversial throne!  Try the banks, Congress, auto industry, pharmecutical companies, and the producers of chemicals which go into our foods.  Now those are are controversial organizations, not Planned Parenthood.  Take a look at the extensive services PP offers, including a section on men’s sexual health. That’s excellent and deserves extra noting.

I, of course, did an oversell on the article’s positivity. This is because 1) I mean every word and 2) if you’re going to spread the fruits of your genital love, be smart about it. If you’re going to be chaste, keep the condom education out of your life but not out of the lives of men and women who serve our country in order that anyone may enjoy the freedom to state an uneducated opinion and create controversy where none logically need not be.

Be smart and use condoms. Be smarter and use other forms of birth control with it.  Then have great sex and enjoy.

The link to Herald Union is in the text.

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Photo: Mermen as studs (kind of)

When walking through Wiesbaden, one never knows what kind of crazy stuff will be seen!  Take a look at these hot mermen ornaments.  Are they fantastic or what?!  Not sure where they’d be fantastic exactly cuz not at my house, but I’m sure they’d hang quite well in someone’s place… South Beach or San Francisco comes to mind.

Merman stud #1

Merman stud #2

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Philosophy: Discipline and the sex drive

Did you hear about the 9 year old girl who gave birth in Mexico? Crazy and so unfortunate.

I can’t help but go back to sexual philosophy as it triggers that part of my mind… and society and the absolute power the sexual drive has over people while various institutions try to mold and control it, make it into something which appeases their own fears. In the Mexico case the perpetrator is suspected of being a 17 year old, hardly an age where self control sits. For these young men (boys, really, in my mind), a penis is the disco stick while sex is the John Travolta moves. So, I wonder why this is so, this lacking self control when it comes to sex for many people because it’s not just a young male problem.

Discipline is the mighty key to pretty much everything. Of course, this is also among the hardest to practice and everyone reading this, as me, is equal enough in the sense that we struggle with some kind of discipline in our lives. Society makes sex complicated because it is so attached to the man-made morality created by religious teachings.

If you control the sexuality of another, you control their very core. We are sexual beings first and foremost. We are not born to live to learn lessons or to appease God. We are here to reproduce, evolve. Everything else just gives us purpose for our purposelessness. The cause which brings us purpose becomes our loyalty and so we create meaning where there was only potential at its essential form.

Going back to 9 year old mothers… remember too that centuries ago it was acceptable to rape a teen girl and impregnate her and claim her as wife property. In our day and age we understand its ill-effects and so we’ve evolved through the very nature of our humanity, our progression and the lessons learned along the way so we can make them better (hopefully) for future generations. So in essence, we’ve done exactly what we needed to do: reproduce and evolve (cliff notes). Everything else is a time filler (novel).

Morality is complex. Love is complex. Sex is not. It is very sad children must deal with any horrors but let’s not forget about the many 13-20-something year old girls in all sectors of culture, social and economic status who get knocked up and made to give life in exchange for theirs. We might as well throw the girls into the volcano, yet we find ways to cope, to accept and even to justify such action because after all, we create worship in the very potential of giving new life a chance even if the sacrifice is depriving females healthier, more sound options.

The sexual drive is incredibly strong. You know this. The only force that can stop it is discipline.  The more aware we become of our conscious mind, the more potential there is at becoming disciplined and then we create self control. We often react to another’s lack of it; however, self-control is a gift. If you didn’t get that gift, you have to work for it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

However, the good news is that the best solutions begin with the self. You have to know your weakness in order to create a strength instead, or the weakness becomes the standard. As a humanity our greatest weakness is a standard lower than what can in reality be achieved because humanity in general lacks its own self-control. But, as long as we practice various methods to discipline intentionally, consciously and authentically, we will get there and evolve.

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Model Feature: Lenka’s first shot

I’ve been editing photos for deadlines all day but I have to take a short moment to show you a recent photo shoot I had with Lenka.  She’s got a great personality, lots of smiles but in front of the camera it’s sexy bombshell.  A good model is like a good actress: she knows how to turn it on when the in the spotlight.

As life’s surprises would have it, this picture was the first I took of Lenka.  Rare that the first is the favorite.

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Model Feature: Helena’s Girl Power

On Sunday I had a photo shoot with a couple of Czech models, Helena (below) one of them.  She’s another bright woman who used her sexuality to her advantage.  Oksana was the first I introduced to you here.

Helena owns a very successful European modeling agency and very soon will post her new blog about the modeling industry and her life.  I’ll bring that to you as soon as I have the link. I’m very excited about it because it won’t be written in Czech as I expected but instead it’ll be written in English and German.  This means I can read it and so can you!

Helena is an awesome woman with whom I’ve worked with in the past.  She’s among the best in her class. As a wife to a French photographer and a long-time model herself, Helena exercises everyday to keep herself fit – “Ten minutes! Ten minutes a day is all you need” – and pinches her nostrils if she must when drinking one of her green concoctions from the juice bar. “It has so many nutrients that are good for you,” she said.

While she’s found adjustment to having a three-year old challenging, Helena keeps focused on balance … while also running her own agency and pursuing a degree in psychology.  Girl power.

Love this photo.  Very corporate sexy, don’t you think?

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Breast Cancer, Art and Awareness

In the U.S., today marks the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness month. One in 8 women develop breast cancer. Chances are you know someone right now dealing with it. If you walk into an American store in October, virtually everything is pink or has upon it a pink ribbon. Women have done this; they’ve created such huge impact on breast cancer awareness wherein, the entire damn country turns pink! (One must stop to wonder why the hell men are running the world but that’s another post.)

Two years ago I had the greatest pleasure of working with a group of women in Savannah, Georgia to create The Art Cure project. Its basis was to collaborate with local organizations to bring art into the local breast cancer awareness efforts. My intent wasn’t specifically for the organizational benefits by charitable dollars raised through the art action of the survivors’ artworks created for this event, but for the survivors’ and patients’ themselves for whom the artistic process could offer so much more than yet another fundraiser, respectfully. Art was introduced as a coping and emotional expressionistic mechanism.

Sure, there’s a lot of events out there to raise awareness, but I wondered at that time, how many existed which focused on providing benefits to the patients and survivors through means that provided teaching something they could hold on through various times in life. For some of these women, their first introduction to art has brought a new avenue of expression, understanding and learning about oneself and/or breast cancer.

Conception to completion took three months and at our end we raised about $2300, all of which went to two organizations in Savannah. I specifically contacted Susan G. Komen for the Cure® and the Young Survival Coalition, local chapters, and requested the funds stay within the community.

This is important: I don’t much care for charitable organizations but my time is my heart when I can reach people themselves. That’s where the differences stick. That’s where the memories, imprints and deep etchings are created. There’s a permanence there I like better than a check.

So, I salute the wonderful women of The Art Cure. I created The Art Cure Diaries to document their artistic process. In spirit, they’ve helped me along quite a bit over the course of my international relocation and discovery of an autoimmune disease myself. Funny how life works. Give a heart somewhere, find a hand to help out of quicksand when you need it. That’s the exchange in life. Karma maybe. Each time I draw or paint, I think of my experience with The Art Cure ladies, my good friend who inspired the project and I give thanks. If they survived cancer, well… we can all survive life, then.

xoxo,

Tatiana

Help support breast cancer awareness. Buy The Art Cure Diaries for $3.99 now and I’ll donate $1 from each sale to charity.

This month, $1.00 from each sale of The Art Cure Diaries Ipad version book goes to the community which helped make it all happen. Purchase your copy here right now and make a small difference. They add up.

View the official website which has The Art Cure’s full history, survivors’ stories and artwork. Pass it on to others touched by breast cancer.

**I’ll have the Kindle and print versions out shortly. Contact me if you need further information.

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Feminism: Throat Choking Eroticism

This controversial Vogue cover - once again, I would like to repeat – is ART, just like Lady Gaga, where I wrote about her controversial cover. It is NOT about glorifying violence as an act of love like anti-violence groups cry. This association is such ignornace and is so based on fear and agenda. It is ART and it is expressing eroticism as a form of photographic art. And, what is art supposed to do? Arouse. It’s supposed to provoke, evoke, wake lazy humans out of their pathetic sleep! It is meant to ruffle your feathers because that’s what sex, eroticism and magazines do well.

There is no love here. I can’t say it was even slightly intended. There may actually be little love in the domain of the erotic because love and eroticism do not always have to be in the same domain. Sex is sex. Love is love. Sex is better with love. Sex is fucking hot with a little deviance and that deviance is subjective and so this is little different than our pornography versus “erotica” arguments. Some like raw, others need romance.

There is no pain here and all I see, at worst here, is a male hand moving to your left, ripping off this overly expensive blouse and letting loose in pure erotic, raw desire. Look at that male model face! Of course, this fantasy is unconvincing when you look at Stephanie Seymour, the female “victim” model. She looks bored, not only with the message, the photo shoot, the outfit and the pretty sexy dude behind her but also with the entire erotic concept. If anything, I notice his eroticism first and would consider trading places with Stephanie since her facial expression is kind of empty (which may in fact be part of the message but as an erotica photographer, I don’t think so). The unconcerned look from the female makes the entire photo an erotic fantasy attempt with dry vagina outcome. (Don’t get upset at my use of the word vagina. Naomi Wolf is trying to give it respect again. I haven’t yet determined an opinion on her view on the topic.)

If no one has ever brought you to ecstasy holding your throat in the act of sexual eroticism, or you’ve never considered such an act attractive in any form, this picture would only be viewed narrowly and so it’s natural for most people to feel frightened or threatened by this photo but to me, it speaks on a completely different level than it seems to speak to other women. I just see the eroticism not the violence. … eroticism has many thin lines where balance and flexibity are vital.

One of the problems here is that a case of such “art” as expressed in this magazine cover, which is so clearly meant erotically, is that with soooo much other violence on the planet (ie. local/world news, video games, media frenzied nastiness), it hardly seems violent. And, it is so typical as to pick something like this to cry over. I feel like anti-anything groups just sift through the daily news for something to cry about. It’s sooo easy to cry violence and unfairness and abuse when it comes to eroticism but that’s precisely because of the thin lines contined therein. One can’t be “fat” with prejudice, fear or arrogance and expect to walk the thin lines without falling. And, in the reality of the matrix, there are no nets.

I can see why victims of domestic violence may find it offensive but really, even deeper than an artistic expression, this is another brilliant stab at grabbing attention thus increasing brand name value. On this level, bravo – again to another fashion magazine who stretches far and wide, low and deep to get people to react in a world which seems more and more full of unconscious drones.

I like the photo. I wish she was more sensual but, on its own, it adds various interpretive qualities and that, in my professional opinion, is valuable. Deeply valuble and its what makes it a great photograph.

It’s erotic on a level where eroticsm can show its thin lines without actually entering into such domains. Get it? That’s the brilliance with art.

Eroticism can only be subjective but because the female model looks bored, the full scope of the photograph’s erotic nature is lost. But, it leaves an open door to an erotic imagination and THAT is part of what magazines intend to do, what art intends to do, and what human desire demands is done. Narrow minds overpopulate the planet.

** for the record, I do not support violence, especially against women and children. I totally hate video games and many of today’s films simply because of their violent nature. However, in the domain of sexuality and eroticism, rules can bend and in the world of art intended to be erotic, the rules must bend. In the world of marketing and money, there are only rules to break. Reality is harsh, isn’t it? Kind of like violence.

***update: ‘narrow minds’ may be the right word but I decided one dimensional characters better suits. For some, of course, this means the same thing and they are quite similar.

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Politics: Looking at America’s freedom through expat eyes

Life has granted me some good fortune whilst the slips and slides.  One such was meeting the editor of The Legal Satyricon, Marc J. Randazza.  As far as “freedom fighters” go aka First Amendment attornies, he’s on the frontline to guarantee America’s First Amendment rights, and always tries (to my knowledge anyway ) to stay faithful, true and honest to the visions of our forefounders.  For this reason, and many more, I feel really lucky to know him, his family and to have been asked to write for his straight up and honest blog through the years.

My international audience sometimes doesn’t realize why America is still a great country despite its capitalistic and political ends (I sometimes forget!) but, as I’ve written before,  people like Randazza just make me rethink the whole American dream into something worthy in itself; to visualize it in its authenticity and not by what it’s become as a result of human error and lacking education or reasoning awarness.

There’s a spirit of dreamers along the roads of America and I’ve never known how not to be a dreamer myself.  Individuals can achieve almost anything when freedom is guaranteed as this lifts them to action from a place of goodness rather than fear. For so long Americans took their freedom for granted and now in our post 9-11 era, much has changed.

I’ve stayed away from politics this American election season because my health can’t handle the stupidity.  I’ll vote but since I know who I’m voting for, I’m not into the game this time.  I was so disappointed with the Republicans’ display of sexism on Hillary Clinton, then using gender with former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, as a carrot for female voters, and I was pretty saddened by the stone throwing onto Obama as though being the first American black president doesn’t make him especially susceptible to stress and ridicule.  For some, very sadly, his color makes him incapable.  For others, a vagina does that trick.

Politics could be changed but we, the people, are fed the same crap every election and yet we cheer for hope of change.  This isn’t just a past Obama slogan.  This is exactly what every election aims to do, to reignite hope collectively into believing – manifesting - a reality that a new candidate will do better because of changes he impliments. We want change but yet, do we seem to be exhibiting behavior that we, on average, want the government to make the changes?  Then, a year or two in, we complain politicians are liars.  As though we not need change ourselves at all!

Despite this public display of idiocy, the reality of freedom is always a fine line of give and take with constant need of vigilance.  And remember, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert H. Jackson stated in 1950,

It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

I’m not quite sure the last time Congress listened to the people but one day they’ll be forced to because in the United States, it’s only because of the spirit of the People, that anything great has been achieved.  I loose sight of that greatness but people like Marc Randazza manage to ignite my patriotic passions.

As a global citizen like Anastasia Ashman, it’s hard to go home and not have been changed by each experience as an expat.  On top of it, I’m first generation immigrant so it’s heart-tearing to “take sides” when you love both, America & Europe.  It’s not a choice of which is better though.  It’s a choice of existing within a specific envirnoment which directly affects your experiences and who you become for various periods of your life.  I thrive on this adventure and must have accessibility to such freedom.  It is not for everyone… and not accesible in all lands.

Through the years my maturity has taught that each domain has its sacrafices and rewards and so my expat life satisfies my various tastes… and it’s because of America’s offer of “equal opportunity to all” that I’m even living a dreamy life.  For the opportunity to explore past the horizon, I must always be grateful, as we all must be if we are to evovle into a more  equal and loving species.  (Is this possible?)

Anyway… here’s an article Marc J. Randazza wrote for CNN about the Chick-fil-A protest to homosexuality.  Happy to share it!  Hope it expands a horizon for you.

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Marriage & affairs

My current debate with Dr. Nick attempts to answer “Can a marriage survive an affair?Join the debate here. It’s already very interesting.

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Gaga Strikes a Vogue

photo & article source, click image

Lady Gaga is in the news again and this time for a strikingly unrealistic Photoshop job by Vogue.

Realize that Vogue is about fashion art and Lady Gaga is a fashion/art-as-human-being kind of girl .  She’s supposed to be an unreal icon.  Soooo, without controversy you have to fight harder to get noticed.  It’s just politics and perfectly smart marketing.  It runs on the edge of right and wrong and that sells these days.  Beauty, sex specifically applied to the fears adults have for our “little girls” is exactly what sells the hysteria to go along with the artistic expression of what is ultimately a weird woman and fashion.  How much more “to real life” do you want to make Lady Gaga?

Vogue is a capitalistic venture and while it has a responsibility to its readers, its first responsibility is to its advertisers.  Those who complain will no doubt be the “save the children” activist groups and “save my daughter  from illusions mothers” and of course, the fashion industry party crashers and quite a few feminists but they won’t, I’m sure, see the art.  They rarely do.  They take art as a literal transcription to an imagined future where all girls may quite possibly be horribly affected by the artistic expressions of a woman who knows nothing but weirdness and controversy.  Yawn. The fashion industry has media eating out of its hands, like young men when introduced to seduction of the right kind.

The clear discriminating point is stating that something unreal is real and by publicising that it’s a Photoshop job, it’s automatically a given that it’s not real so let’s get over the drama.

Lady Gaga isn’t ever supposed to represent actual women.  She is an act for women (and men).  Please, let’s not confuse the two.  If this is expressed to young girls and women, they’ll get it.  Besides, with a “real life” photo like that, wouldn’t you want a Photoshop version to appear on Vogue?

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