freedom

The FBI in the Palm of Your Hands

With the release of iPhone 5 and its clear success, Apple is making great strides to entrench itself as the most widely used smartphone. What is surprising is that iPhone sales have been strong since release despite the fact that a few weeks prior, it was reported that the FBI may be tracking iPhone users.

According to various news outlets, 12 million iPhone and iPad device identifiers were swiped from an FBI computer by hackers associating themselves with the group Anonymous. Luckily for consumers the hack was meant to expose the tracking that was going on and not to compromise any individual accounts. To further credit this attack, the hackers posted one million unique identification numbers that were verified by a third party.

This begs the question, why is the FBI monitoring and tracking people via their iPhones? On what grounds is this legal? What starts to make things even stranger is the fact that almost a month after this story broke the FBI stated that Android phones, iPhone’s competition, are prone to malware and viruses. Why did the FBI specifically single out Android phones? This statement does give more credibility to the claims made by Anonymous. If the FBI had managed to hack iPhones or make a deal with Apple, it would be in their best interest to get everyone using an iPhone.

This doesn’t mean that people should rid themselves of their iPhones, but it does mean that a critical eye must be placed on the FBI and their actions. Monitoring what people spend their time doing is a step in the wrong direction; a step further from freedom. How can a person be free when their every move is scrutinized? How can someone express themselves when there is the possibility that every word they say, every action the take, can be twisted and used against them? The very technology that is suppose to allow us a new degree of freedom, bring us all closer together, can end up destroying the very foundations of liberty.

One can expect that the reasoning behind this blatant breach of constitutional rights will be to protect the country from terrorists or any other vague evil out there. How much more freedom will be lost to ensure our safety? The FBI has stayed quiet about this hack and the public seems to have grown apathetic. Benjamin Franklin said it best “they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

What is Family?

(Tabién en español)

A particularly important idea that really answers the question, “What is family?” is that a family is what we make it.

Yes, the nuclear family with a mother, father, and two children may sill be considered the norm, but in reality, non-traditional families are a rising majority. a subject that I began to learn more about during a few of the panels at Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit. Speakers such as Diana Adams and Anita Wagner Illig explained to their audience that there are many other groups that can be considered family, even if their family format is not exactly mainstream: a single mother and her children; a lesbian couple, a sperm donor who wishes to take an active role in the child’s life, and the child; a gay couple, their child, and a surrogate mother; one parent, a child, and grandparents; and, polyamorous groups such as a married couple and their other partners. These may not be the individuals that people normally associate first with the word “family,” but that doesn’t make their love and devotion for each other any less real. They are all important example of what a family really is.

Creative Commons: Gay Ray

Creative Commons: Gay Ray

Fortunately, a wider view of family is starting to become more common throughout society. LGBT and polyamorous groups are now able to adopt children and California has even proposed a bill that could allow for the possibility of legally recognizing 3-parent families. Though the term “family” was undefined, UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 16) gave us the right to family since 1948, which doesn’t itself define what a family is.

Article 16.

  • (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
  • (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
  • (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State

(The Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

It is a fairly recent development that this idea has reached beyond that of the nuclear family, which, again, no longer describes the majority of families in this country. Now that this definition gives LGBT families legal recognition, there is hope that in the future, we will be able to share this same right freely with all non-traditional families.

Creative Commons: Eric Ward

Editor’s Note: On September 22, 2012, at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit, Woodhull’s Executive Director Ricci Levy announced the official launch of it’s newest campaign, The Family Matters Project, “Woodhull recognizes the diversity of family in the United States and our goal is to protect our fundamental human right to family by eliminating discrimination based on family structure and relationship choices.” Summit attendees were among the first to contribute by filling out cards describing why family means to them that will appear as part of this national campaign.. 

Rape Victim Faces Criminal Charges for Tweeting Names of Attackers

Creative Commons: Matthais M.

No matter how you look at it, there’s something wrong when a rape victim is threatened with fines and jail time for speaking out about her horrible experience. Not only had Savannah Dietrich  endured the hardship brought upon her by attackers, but she now faces a $500 fine and up to 6 months in jail. She showed great courage in breaking her silence but she violated a court order that demanded she not speak out.

A brave and defiant Savannah Dietrich explained her outrage, “So many of my rights have been taken away by these boys. I’m at the point, that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it. If they really feel it’s necessary to throw me in jail for talking about what happened to me as opposed to throwing these boys in jail for what they did to me, then I don’t understand justice.” (PoliticusUSA.com)

Not only is this indignation completely called for, but it also brings about a vital government responsibility to both Dietrich and all people who are victims of any crime: the justice system should be there to protect us. In this case, however, that is clearly not happening. Not only is Dietrich’s free speech being violated, the court order doesn’t help her recover by speaking out which further victimizes her, only helping her attackers by keeping their names out of the public view. Something is seriously wrong when our courts are helping those who perpetrate violent sex crimes to keep their names clear, even in a juvenile court.

The Sexual Freedom Project: Sex and Gender

(También en Español)
The following essay was submitted to us by Jamor:

Many people often view sex as scientific, or fact: babies are born male or female, and they behave as men or women. I view sex as the core of deeply rooted systems of oppression all over the world. I say this because sex is so closely connected to gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, and even class. A key intersection point among all of these cultural identifiers is sex and the binary most people operate under. We have been told that those born outside of the male-female binary are somehow inferior, or alternative. And we have been told that those who do not perform their gender, making it align with the “correct” sex, are confused. Women have limited control of their own bodies in some places in the world. Our sex is at the core of our identity. Freedom to express one’s sexual identity, whatever that may mean for an individual, is so important because if we can free each other at the core, other forms of oppression will fall as well.

Let us know what you think. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts on these topics. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

Image by Crimsone, used with permission.

Religion: Real and Fake

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Society suffers from a severe misunderstanding of the nature and role of religion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ongoing arguments about the “separation of church and state.” Blame the Puritans.

The basic idea in the U.S. Constitution is one of freedom FROM religion, expressed as “freedom of religion.” The tenets of any religion may not be imposed on its citizens who disagree. This concept is fundamental to the unalienable human right to absolute privacy of person, and pillar of sexual freedom and the bedrock of all other freedoms.

The pilgrims who came to Plymouth imagined that they could impose their concept of the divine will upon everyone who opposed them, that the free exercise of their religion meant forcing the world into compliance with their beliefs, a severe misdirection victimizing all sincere people. A few years later, Puritan fanaticism swept England herself into a great civil war. Such foolishness has characterized many fanatical conflicts throughout history, and can be seen today in the demands and schemes of theocratic groups worldwide, including today’s America.

A real religion is world religion. One could say there are as many religions in the world as there are people. Even atheists and agnostics objectify “god” and choose to exclude these hobbled, uninspired notions. World religion is superstition- and mythology-free and an immediately accessible and consistent guide to living in tune with the rhythms of cosmic destiny. This vitology—our urge to persist—gives each person a vision of immortality, an unending, improving, and harmonizing ecology of living.

Our faith is one of loving—desiring to do good to one another. This perpetual cycle of love shared is powered by all kinds of love, especially including the erotic, and it gives us a unified power for progress the world has yet to see. Our inherent and inherited capability for sexual pleasure and orgasm (erotic joy) is the living and loving communion that matures us individually to the service of Love and its destiny, and unites us as a team in shared fellowship—a loving siblinghood.

Editor’s note: This is one of a series of position papers Dan Massey and I are creating and will soon index on our home page. They briefly explore the evolution of our points of view about a range of issues related to sex, gender, and racial freedom. Your feedback is always welcome.

 

 

The Sexual Freedom Project: It Doesn’t Have To Be A Rigid Thing

(También en Español)

Basking in a park, this young woman shares her ideas about the differences between gender and sex, and how sexual freedom can vary in different environments. She says gender as a continuum, with extremes and many ambiguities in between.

How does locale affect the experience of sexual freedom? What do you think about a continuum for gender as a new way of thinking beyond the binary?

We want to hear what you’re thinking. Send us a video, write us an essay, put your thoughts in a poem, song, or piece of art. To thank you for participating we’ll send you one of our fabulous VenusPlusX t-shirts.

Video by Tiye Massey.

Why Privileged Elites Cynically Oppose Erotic Freedom

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

También en español In my last post Who Are You Calling an Anarchist? we examined the important distinction between anarchy, as a legitimate and proven approach to governmental organization, and terrorism, a deliberate technique of chaotic social disorganization, that social elites deliberately and falsely equate to the wholly legitimate practice of anarchy. Now we can examine the tools of hierarchical governmental violence directed against its citizens, recognizing that the chief of these tools, invisible to the oppressed, is sexual repression through false religions, failed ideas of government, and corrupt concepts of commerce. In short, we will show how every aspect of organized human endeavor is corrupted at its origin by the universal practice of sexual and erotic repression, revealing the results throughout all phases of human society today to be worthless superstition reinforced by ignorance and compelled by violence.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

It would take volumes to discuss the sorry history of erotic freedom in the United States, one of the most oppressive of all modern human societies. Let us examine but one chain of events in the 19th century that became the foundation of organized anti-sexism throughout the 20th to see how great social failures come to celebrated as great triumphs for freedom when, in fact, they were nothing of the sort. The historically erased heroes of this story are Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Clafin. The villains of this piece are names our warped US history celebrates as great social leaders of the 19th century—Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others deluded by visions of power which had displaced genuine human ideals in their consciousness and behavior. Although the actual disgrace occurred at the hands of men like Karl Marx and Anthony Comstock, the Americans who claimed to speak for equality but who opposed Woodhull were simply fascist butchers of reality, empowered by elites, who fought for false and appallingly limited visions of freedom and equality.

The cause of anarchy is linked closely to issues of sexual freedom, for without erotic freedom, anarchy cannot be a stable system of government. Nowhere in US history is the violent suppression of sexual freedom more evident than in the story of the brave social reformer Victoria Woodhull. The International Workingmen’s Association (IWA), later identified by triumphant Marxists as their First International, was founded in 1864 as an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialistcommunist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class and class struggle. The leadership eventually polarized around Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, representing communists and anarchists respectively. Finally, in 1872, Marx succeeded in expelling his rival anarchists, including Woodhull, from the organization.

Victoria and her sister Tennessee were born into the Clafin family of Homer, Ohio,which included a fair number of carnival workers and professional psychics. Vicky and “Tennie” were trained by their parents in techniques of cold reading. Tennie also mastered psychic reading using techniques based on “frontier wisdom,” a persistent form of neo-paganism that pervaded otherwise nominally Christian communities, of which the early followers of Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith may have been the most notable. Vicky married and divorced an abusive drunkard named Woodhull and thus acquired her surname in history. The sisters traveled across the country plying their trade for the entertainment and seduction of the masses.

Settling in New York, they established a psychic salon and Cornelius Vanderbilt became their sponsor through Tennie’s psychoerotic healing skills. Building on their own success as Wall Street brokers, using Vanderbilt money, they led their entire community into active participation in the IWA. In fact, they became the major proponents in the United States for socialist reformation of the government. They published an extremely liberal journal for six years, advocated the legalization of prostitution, and were the first to publish the Communist Manifesto in English in the United States. They differed strongly from Marx, however, as they advocated free love and other sociosexual changes that were abhorrent to Marx, an emotionally constipated Victorian era German prude obsessed with personal power. The anarchists, led by Bakunin, were friendly to the American perspective; however, after Vicky ran for President of the United States, Marx considered this essentially confirmatory act of established government to be so abhorrent to the emerging international socialist cause that he unilaterally dismissed ALL Americans from further participation in the IWA, declaring them to be anarchists and unacceptable as supporters of the International (which they were, if you think about it). But the persecution of Vicky did not stop there.

Up to her Presidential nomination, Vicky had been arguably the leader and primary spokesperson for female rights and liberties. Vicky bitterly resented Beecher’s refusal to endorse her nomination and carried out her threat to make public his extramarital affair, which she, as a free love advocate, thought ought to be public anyway. Although these interpersonal disagreements disrupted the inner circle of emerging feminism, a few years later she was, essentially, expelled from the suffragist movement she had helped found because of her advocacy for sexual freedom. Stowe, Stanton, Anthony, and others came to believe that getting the vote for women was the important issue and that fighting for sexual freedom (which they had supported in the past) would turn public opinion against them.

Arrest of Woodhull and Clafin

Government opportunists, led by Anthony Comstock, then Postmaster General, seized the magazine and imprisoned the sisters for distributing obscene material in the mail. None would rise to their defense. Vicky was also a spiritualist leader and became entangled in a dispute with some sexually repressed bigots who joined the group and drove her from her position by distorting the meaning of her advocacy for free love. Once free of legal entanglements, the sisters moved to England and resumed their trade in lectures and publications. Vicky married a wealthy banker who supported her cause. Tennie married a Portugese nobleman, the First Viscount of Montserrat, of whom Queen Victoria created the Baron Cook. “Very good family.”

Blake’s Take on British Sexual Repression

What was it about free love that created such a major issue for this broad spectrum of individual attitudes from Karl Marx to Henry Ward Beecher to Susan B. Anthony to Anthony Comstock? The common factor is certainly not socialism or capitalism or women’s rights or social purity. Although all these legacy ideas apply to parts of the spectrum, there are too many exceptions to each classification. You can guess what my answer is—erotophobia—that deeply seated, invisible but all-pervading, blind, screaming, and insanely raging fear to embrace the one thing in your material life that can actually save you from meaninglessness and give power and value to your life experience.

Erotic experience is the simplest inspiration of awareness of transcendent love that erases all conscious objection. Personal and shared erotic experience demands trust and rejects violence. Anarchy requires that there exist no need for government violence against citizens. The balance required for successful and stable anarchy can only be maintained when society is pervaded by the atmosphere of mutual love and trust between all people.

As I have explained in an earlier post, Becoming and Being an Avatar—Uploading Salvation, it is our total rejection of the false myths foisted upon us by religion, society, government, and commerce that free us to find true salvation—freedom from indecision about the loving and true behavior that enables us to participate in the reality called the Kingdom of Heaven.

In a very real sense, universal sexual freedom similarly offers salvation to society—removal of fear and violence as the determinative factors in social development and human progress. Such freedom will, in time, empower true anarchy—the final and ideal form of human government.

The most basic way of achieving and maintaining such love and trust begins and ends with the physically erotic. Certainly people can establish matured bonds of love, trust, and affection without erotic engagement, but those who choose to begin their interpersonal engagement with this ideal, and are sincere in their approach, may look forward to enjoying the realization of the intellectual and spiritual potential that will grow from such engagement if desired.

Erotic engagement is the first real step from the purely material-physical-sensory into the domain of spirit. The joy one experiences is indeed a gift from the cosmic source that leads us onward to higher levels of inspiration. By denying the legitimacy of this first step on the “highway to heaven” the historic oppressors of society would make it virtually impossible for most people to ever engage the path of love and truth, the path of light, their own personal pursuit of happiness, which is unacceptable to the oppressors because it this is the only true path to personal and societal freedom which necessarily dilutes the power of the elite. By trapping humanity in such darkness, religions, governments, and commerce have conspired to destroy all human hope of progress by harnessing human effort for the advantage of a greedy few.

Thus we see that erotic freedom, the foundation of all freedoms, is also the most direct entry for modern humans to the pathways of love, truth, goodness, and beauty. Free love, pan-eroticism, and collective social reversion—the continuing experience of comprehensive personal joy, apart from social and economic duty—are keys to human activity celebrating truth, the active gift of love. And this unity of experience eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of all people, and leads to the kind of social network that eventually stabilizes the most desirable form of anarchy.

 

Who Are You Calling an Anarchist?

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También en español “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe– ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which we will have.”

—Henry David Thoreau, American Anarchist

Gunpowder Plot Conspirators

Remember, remember the 5th of November…an appropriate date to consider current events in the Occupy movement in relation to traditional concepts of minimalist governance. Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators, though opposed to the reigning government, were not anarchists. They were terrorists, who would have created chaos had they succeeded in blowing up Parliament and killing King James I in 1605. Those who benefit from the status quo encourage public fear of true anarchy by calling it “chaos,” a concept quite opposed to anarchy.

Anarchy is an approach to the organization of society without permanently established titular leadership. Mon-archy is rule by one person. Tetr-archy is rule by a group of four. An-archy is rule by no person. Many political philosophers, acting as water-carriers for depraved elites, have pretended that social chaos will be the final result of anarchic government; however, history shows that anarchy can be highly effective and anything but chaotic. Unfortunately, such successes are never celebrated by the established elites, including those who report and write history, because they disprove the fallacious principles on which command-oriented society is based. Invariably some conspiracy of challenged elites steps in and violates all principles of human decency and constitutional law to suppress such groups, as we see now happening in many Occupy locations.

Guy Fawkes was no anarchist. The purpose of the Gunpowder Plot was to bring the Roman Catholic church back into control of the English monarchy. That would have been a step backwards into rigid and brutally authoritarian control of every element of English society. Guy Fawkes is more akin to today’s false religionists of fundamentalism who today work to make the United States into a mock-christian theocracy. Fawkes was a simple terrorist, bent on creating as much chaos as possible without rational purpose or valued outcome.

How times and popular images have changed. Once a kind of post-Halloween bogeyman to be hanged and burned in effigy on the fifth night after All Hallows’ Eve, “the old guy” gradually became a more popular and sympathetic image in the public mind. Children’s books were written. The Fawkes legend grew in the direction of his being a positive rebel against the ruling elites, and now the Occupy movement uses a modern caricature of his image to represent the 99%.

At the same time the idea of social chaos was conflated in the public mind with social organization based on anarchist principles—the most basic of which is that government is precluded from using violence against its own citizens. Such would surely be a far cry from the massive ongoing, and allegedly Federally facilitated, conspiracy of urban police to terrorize citizens exercizing their right of protest.

Anarchists, not Terrorists

Anarchy is a viable and effective form of government to the extent that citizens freely embrace principles of mutual respect, freedom of expression, and social equality. Not all people are equal in intellect, knowledge, social capacity, and leadership ability. Anarchy does not attempt to suppress the contributions of such people, but integrates them into the larger fabric of society, helping good ideas succeed. But this will not work well in a world where people refuse to work together across class and social lines to address real challenges and refuse to acknowledge a social duty to provide protection to the most vulnerable.

The problem is basically lack of love between people—of mutual trust. When people refuse to love others, but mistrust them or even abuse them for personal gain or for the egotistical satisfaction of a failed self-image, there must be some means of conflict resolution. Conventionally this is done by appeal to a higher authority. Some may appeal to their idea of god; however, those who seek a defined and prompt material or legal remedy will probably appeal to human governmental power. In a functional anarchy, this appeal would come before the local, voluntary, communal “administration” governed by group wisdom. There is no need for oppressive human governmental power in a society founded on love and mutual trust as opposed to greed and mutual fear. Government as it exists today promotes government interference, itself producing litigatable or regulatable conflicts, and creating more job opportunities for those who relish imposing arbitrary groupthink nonsense on their fellow humans.

The ideal state, in which the collective community is dynamically self-governing, does not require rigid administrative, judicial, or legislative compartments. When the collective is required to react it develops any governmental structures needed using methods appropriate to specific situations. Such structures persist only until task is done. They work to find as complete as possible solutions to real problems and shun cowardly incrementalism when larger change is required. They are the antithesis in organization and function of the myriad agencies of traditional human governments, including many of the United States.

A Vision of New Harmony

This vision of a perfected human society is what is actually meant by anarchy. Anarchy has long been viewed as the ideal form of government by those who oppose coercive aspects of social regulation. Although a few anarchist societies have flourished, they have invariably been violently suppressed by all other political groups—capitalist, fascist, catholic, communist, protestant, socialist, christianist, republican, islamist, democratic, imperialist, etc., all of which depend on physical and psychological violence directed against their own constituents to maintain their power and privilege.

There is no component of our society that does not fear the rise of successful anarchy. And this is the cause of the systematic suppression of erotic freedom by elites, for erotic freedom is the key to the final expression and realization of a truly anarchic society.

In our next post, we will explore in depth how sexual freedom is becoming the true foundation of a new social system based on liberty, justice, freedom, and equality for all who will embrace love, live truth, do good, and make beauty.

 

The Sexual Freedom Project: Make Your Voice Heard

The Sexual Freedom Project is a series that will highlight your original and creative efforts around addressing the question, “What does sexual freedom mean to you?” It will feature your videos, stories, poetry and artwork exploring the role sexual freedom plays in your life today, how the media covers sexuality, gender, and popular culture, or anything else that comes to mind when you think of sexual freedom. Send us your personal take on these questions, or on any of the other varied topics covered by VenusPlusX.

We will also feature works created by the VenusPlusX staff, including video interviews filmed on the street, in parks, restaurants, over the Internet, and anywhere sexual freedom is being discussed.

To thank you for the submission of your original video, story, poem or artwork that we feature on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt. It’s easy! For instance, you can use your videocamera, phone, or computer to make a 1-2 minute video sharing your thoughts. You could also write a short story or an essay in response to a post you read here on the site, write a poem, or create a piece of art. We look forward to your creativity!

Jack and Adrianna model our fabulous t-shirts

VenusPlusX’s soft cotton t-shirts feature the Statue of Freedom, Columbia, as it appears atop the U.S. Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C., a deeply embedded, gender-nonconforming American icon that inspires us to work harder for universal equality and sexual freedom.

For more information on how to submit your videos and stories, click here or contact us directly at columbia@venusplusx.org.

Be a part of the conversation, let your voice be heard and shared all over the world, and make us your digital platform of choice — a place where your views can have great impact. After all, isn’t expressing yourself what freedom is all about?


Why sexual freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms

(También en Español)
Our sexual pleasure response is completely individual. When we feel it, those precious moments, we experience unbridled exhilaration that is at the same time indescribable by mere words, even in great art or poetry.

There is only one way to replicate this experience of unrestrained freedom and that is to recreate — re-create increasing favorable circumstances to plug in at a healthy pace. Although sexual pleasure exists by definition in a time and space all one’s own an imperative to share it and enhance it with others is built in. Studies have demonstrated over and over again the irrefutable benefits to mental health, prosperity, and longevity of a life regularly punctuated with the desired number and rate of pleasurable encounters. This inviting pressure brings people into relationship, the midwife of personal growth.

These cumulative states of sexual pleasure, those knowings of  at-one-ment in the universe, can be mutually acknowledged as both a singular experience and the bodily guarantee of true pluralism. It is the one authentic human experience that virtually all other humans agree exists, and no other experience comes close to this criteria. Pluralism leads inevitably to democracy and the extension to more and more people their birthright to pursue sexual freedom and all other freedoms that emanate from this mutual acknowledgement of each other’s immutable bodily freedom in the form of sexual pleasure.

Our own sovereign portal to experience physical pleasure and love in infinitely inexhaustible manifestations makes possible a mutuality of individual autonomy that is expressed as true pluralism and the quest for universal equal rights for each person without qualification. Everyone shares that inner experience of freedom to the same extent everyone else does and is why civilizations progress in making all freedoms universally felt in society.

This inner experience of sexual pleasure is what joins together each and every person on earth, an organic unity all of us can recognize and agree is important, even a type of magic, that makes our world better day by day.

Party on.

Creative Commons images by: rileyroxx, DavidSpinks, and Lori_NY