Jack Elfrink Dot Com

So what do potato chips have to do with the bdsm?

In upstate new york, just before the civil war, a diner at a resort restraunt did something that no customer at any food service establishement should ever do. He pissed off the cook.

I remember back in the days when I was slinging hash for a living we had this once customer that came in every single wensday at exactly 6PM and ordered an extra rare steak. And every time, week after week, he would always send it back to the kitchen saying it was overcooked. Didnt matter how rare we tried to make it, he sent it back to the kitchen just as a matter of pride. Well, one week we in the kitchen got fed up with this, took a RAW steak, grabbed a magic marker and drew grill lines on it, and sent it out.

Cooks dont spit in your food when they are pissed at you. Instead they take delight in giving you exactly what you ordered. But in the most exagerated way posible. Thats what happened in upstate new york before the cicil war. A customer was complaining that the potatoes au gratin was too soggy. So the cook, George Crum, made up a special batch just for that customer that were sliced so thin and cooked to such a crisp that they couldent be picked up by a fork. Much to his suprise, the customer loved them.

Its reductio ad absurdum. Presenting an example that is so outlandishly over the top that there is no way it could ever be taken seriously. But the risk in using such an argument is that there going to be someone out there who will love it no matter how ridiculous an offering you make to them.

A book version of this trick was published in 1969. Naked Came the Stranger was designed and executed to be the absoulte worse work of lititure to ever see print. Each chapter was writen by a difrent auther who all atempted to one-up each other by writing the crappiest prose imaginable. The only saving grace was that it would be filled with lots of raunchy sex. As expected, it recived high praze from critics who aplauded its bold direction and inovative themes. ….. Theory holds that the Gor novles were writen with the same intent. People were willing to swallow anything just so long as it was anti-feminist.

A few days ago I was lurking in a chatroom when some self proclaimed ‘true slave’ barged in and droped the chalange that anyone who didnt obey her master TOTALY was just a poser wannabe. Well, the other folks in the chatroom didnt take kindly to this. “Oh yeah” they all snapped “well if your master wanted to cut your arm off would you let him?” The intent was to present a situation so extreme that nobody could ever posiably be in suport of it. Demonstrate the absurd by being absurd. But what they didnt realise was that to people who are devoted to their cause, there is no such thing as too extreme. Just like the customer who loved the food that the cook thought no sane person would ever eat, the ‘true slave’ praised eveyones coments and pointed ot that amputation at the whim of the owner is EXACTLY the concept of true slavery that they held in such high regards.

In retrospect I should have seen it comming.

I had written before about the ‘PROTECT Our Children Act’. It had all sorts of dangerous stuff in the bill, from spying on internet trafic to re-criminilizing ‘fake’ porn even after a 2002 supreme court ruling said soing such a thing was unconstitutional. All sexual-rights orgnizations I knew of were suspiciously sielent on the issue.

I had hinted that the reason for the silence was because of partisan politics. After all, the bill was sponsered by the democratic vice presidental canadate Joe Biden, cosponcered by presidental canadite Obama and almost canidate Hillary Clinton. It was promoted and publisised on the Oprah winfrey show. I found it doubtful that any sexual-rights group would ever dare to point out how a democrat was trampling on sexual freedom.

But the real sticking point for me was the process. Pass a law that you know ahead of time is going to get ruled unconstitutional. That way you can claim in your campain adds that you voted to ‘proted the children’ and yet still never change the status quo. Advocacy groups wouldent block it while its going through congress, only object to it as unconstitutional as soon as it passes into law. Well, the bill was signed into law on monday so now I suspected advocacy geroups would start in with their atacks.

Unfortunatly the law is STILL being ignored because another law passed at the same time, the ‘Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008′, is getting all the press and is pusing the ‘PROTECT Our Children Act’ out of the headlines. This other one is just as stupid. Creats the same issue with government spying on internet trafdic. Creats a national database of emails that sexual predators have to regester all theri emails with.

Of corse this assumes that people on the sexual predators list will coroperate and not just go create some new free email address once the one they are using gets flaged. Also there is nothing from stoping a malicious predator for turning in someone elses email other than his own. If you wind up on the bad side of some child rapist, they can turn your address in claiming they are regestering their address. And once your name is on the list good luck ever corecting the false accuzation.

The bill was sponsered by democrat Sen. Charles Schumer and its co-sponsers included John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Voting on the bill resulted in 228 democrats voting in favor and zero voting againt (4 democrats withheld voting).  But to be fair, republicans voted 198-0 in favor of it also. Schumer even gave a press statement and a speach barging about his work.

So why is it that two bills, both writen by democrats, both creating spying on internet trafic, both with other unconstititunal parts, and both claiming they are doing it to ‘proterct the children’ wind up with one being ignored and yet the other being (finaly) questioned by advocacy groups.

Isnt it obvious?

From Wired >>>>> “…..authored by Senator John McCain and signed by President Bush…..”

So a big ‘Yippie’ for the Center for Democracy and Technologyfor finaly voicing concerns over this law. But a big ‘fuck you’ for everyone else trying to spin it into a donkey v. elephant thing. Both presidental canadates were cosponsers alongside Shumer. Both political parties voted unanimously in favor. Both sponsered their own companion bill that was just as stupid. But blame does not go toward both.

I have taken insults before abotu my support of civial unions. I just consider it a logical outgrowth of the seperation of church and state. The legal ‘goodie bag’ that is passed out to couples for signing a legal contract should not be confused with a sacrements of a church. As a friend pointed out to me once, marriage is a rite, not a right.

But for way too many people, government is santa claus. Passing out presentsto married couples and if you dont get your present from santa also then gosh durn it thats discrimination and should be stoped. But in the eagerness to grab a ‘fair share’ of tax benifits, insurance plans, and joint property ownership benifits, the whole concept of a church being seperate from the government and not having to be forced into practices againt their faith seems to be getting shreded.

My argument goes somethign as folows. Get the government out of the mariage business totaly. If a straight couple goes before a judge and gets a legal document, stop calling that mariage and start calling that civial union. After that, if a church chooses to preform a religious cermony, they can do so as their faith dictates (some churches will preform a cermony for gay couples, some churches only for straight couples, some none at all). The counterargument I get againt this usualy runs something like ‘Hatemonger! Biggot! Homophobe! Why do you hate gay people so much?’ To be folowed quickly by ‘we tried seperate but equal once before and it didnt work’.

The smear is obvious. By even daring to suggest that civial mariage is a difrent thing than religious mariage, I am somehow condoning if not outright supporting segeration. The comeback of ‘we tried seperate but equal and it didnt work’ is a direct refrence to Brown v. Board of Education and is ment to suggest that anyone who is againt the merger of civial and religious is not only homophobic, but is a racist as well. But this is ridiculus to even suggest. Its not like gay people are going to be rounded up and sent to a seperate school.

….. oops ….

Ok, so gays being rounded up and sent to a seperate school is exactly what is being suggested this week in chicago. If it was the political right who was suggesting this there would be riots in the streets. But since it comes from the chicago democratic left its cool. Heck, even the name of the school just reeks of leftist politics. The whole thing is being justifed under the idea that it would be a ‘gay friendly’ school and would support and encourage sexual expression. But even gay rights advocates are calling it a bad idea.

But what realy shocked me was that it isnt the first. New york ciry is already seperating out gay people and sending them to a difrent school. And it has been since 2002. Oposition to the event came in the form of a quote by Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long who said ‘Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong. There’s no reason these children should be treated separately’

Think about that for a second. The evil, prudish, victorian minded, neocon, christian right is saying ‘gay people are no difrent than anyone else’ and the openminded, progresive thinking, non-violence suporting, tolerant left is suggesting gays should be sent to a seperate school.

Fuck do I ever hate politics.

From time I see people floating the theory that such-and-such group needs to be formed in order to bring the entire BDSM community together in one big happy family. I wrote this over a year ago to use as a standard copy/paste in response to that. I place it here just so I can have a reference to it when needed. Feel free to use it yourself to copy/paste anyone suggesting a call for community unity.

—–

Regarding the call for ‘unity’ and togetherness in the BDSM community. It will never work. This is why it will never work …..

[-] D/s is only what some of us want, not what all of us want.
[X] Living 24/7 is only what some of us want, not what all of us want.
[X] ‘High Protocol’ is only what some of us want, not what all of us want.
[X] ‘Real life’ non-cyber is only what some of us want, not what all of us want.
[X] The ones making the rules for the group have no accountability.
[X] Admission to the group is unrealistically high.
[-] Admission to the group is unrealistically low.
[-] Violates the confidentiality of people who wish to keep their sex life private.
[-] Mandates the confidentiality of people are open and expressive about their sexuality.
[-] It would be easy to fake your way into having others believe you are part of the group.
[-] Nobody would want to join this.
[-] Everyone would join and then the distinction would be meaningless.
[X] The only people who would want to join are the ones who are tryign to prove how ‘real’ they are.
[-] The only people who would want to join are the ones who are looking for fast and easy sex.
[-] The only people who would want to join are the ones who only want to do what is trendy and what everyone else is doing.
[X] Anyone who actually is held in high regard by the BDSM community would never be convinced to join.
[-] It would make it to easy for a jilted ex-lover to ruin another’s reputation.
[-] We don’t actually live in the police state that it is assumed we do.
[-] We don’t actually live in the puritanical society it is assumed we do.
[X] BDSM is not actualy deeper or stronger or on a higher level compared to anyone else.
[X] The ‘crisis’ to the BDSM community is not very large or very dangerous and therefore dosen’t need fixed.
[-] It excludes and devalues switches.
[X] It excludes and devalues fetishists.
[X] It excludes and devalues furries (but who dosen’t?)
[X] It excludes and devalues ‘bedroom’ kinksters.
[X] It excludes and devalues swingers or other people with multiple partners.
[X] It excludes and devalues vanilia people who support BDSM legal rights.
[-] Predators could easily exploit the system.
[-] It would only work for two weeks and then we would be back to the same problem.
[-] Would requires the ‘posers and wannabes’ to corporate with your idea.
[-] Would require every single person in the BDSM community to adopt this all at the same time.
[-] Doesn’t account for variation in small local communities.
[-] Dosen’t account for variation between nations, regions, or cultures.
[X] Dosen’t account for the fact that people can and do go by multiple different names.
[-] Doesn’t account for the fact that people can be asshats.
[X] Assumes that all people think the old ways are the best ways.
[-] Assumes that all people think that things must change with the changing times.
[-] It would only cause some other group to instantly spring up claiming they were the true voice of the community.
[-] This would be censorship and censorship sucks.
[-] People don’t like being told what is or is not the ‘right’ thing to do sexually, even if the person saying it is someone on the inside.
[-] It might make a few people feel all warm and happy inside, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

It should be pointed out that this is not the first time such an idea has been proposed. It didn’t work then so its unlikely to work now.

A twist on the old ‘boy who cried wolf’ story ……

Once uppon a time in a small far away vilage there lived a group of people. This group lived in total fear that one day a wolf woudl come into their vilage and destroy everything. As such they stationed watchmen all around the borders of the vilage.

One day, one of the watchmen saw a pile of leaves move in the wind out of the corner of his eye. He totaly freaked out. Went running to the town square screaming about how the evil wolf was here and we were now all surely to be destroyed. Everyone in the town began running around screaming and flailing their arms over their head in total panic.

While this mayhem was going on in the town square, one of the other watchmen saw a opossom cross through one of their fields. He also ran to the town square screaming ahow this is the worst most dangerous wolf attack in all of history.

Another watchman ran into the square. He hadent actualy seen anything at all, but her know that ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance’ so he just wanted to make sure that the warnings of wolvs were heard loud and clear. She he also began showting that the largest most masive and well orgnized pack of wolvs that the wolld has ever seen was due any second now and would destroy us all.

Then there was one little boy still out at the edges of town. The danm up above in the hills had burst and now a masive flood was headed their way. So he rushes to the town square. Unfortunatly for the boy, so obssesed were his parents and teachers about a wolf atack that they had never actualy taught him the word ‘flood’.

‘Hey everyone’ he screams ‘there is danger headed this way. Its a ….. um …. a …. dang, what do you call it ….. well, its big and its scarey and its making these god awful roaring noises. And its headed this way’

The vilagers all naturaly assume its a wolf. They ready their muskets and rifles and all promply drown in the flood.

~sigh~

More and more news reports are comming out about the max hardcore trial. Over and over each of them is repeating the pre-memorized and well rehersed speaches about ‘miller test’. Each of them is repeating the fears that our first adnment rights are being trampled on. They had been repeating this ‘freedom of speach’ line over and over and over so many times that now its the only warning they appear capapible of wording.

And the flood of fourth adnment right to privacy violations crashes through and drowns them all.

The Max Hardcore website is offline. Closed down by the government. This is a very troubling and disturbing thing, but NOT for the reasons everyone is saying.

To understand the root of the issue, you have to realise that the Max Hardcore trial was a mail fraud trial and not a obscenity trial. The website closer notice points out that the relevant sections of the law are 18 United States Code 1461 and 1465. the first deals with using the post office and the second is interstate transportation. It was the use of the post office that was the heart of the issue, not wether or not the items were obscene.

The first question that pops to mind is if charges of misusing the US post office to conduct interstate commerce even still apply in todays world. Back when the law was originaly writen it might have been reasonable to say that since a branch of the US government was the only way to mail stuff, then the US government had the right to say what went through thier system. But now that you can FedEx stuff anywhere you want, do those olden days rules still have any weight?

But the real big question is the issue of secondary libality. You see, it wasent actualy Max Hardcore or Max World Entertainment that did the mailing. They were the manafacturer but not the distribuitor. The people who actualy put the videos into boxes and sent them through the mail was a company called JKG, Inc. Max World Entertainment outsourced the distribution process to that company so that it could focus more on production.

Now think about this for a moment. Say it was some other ‘iligeal’ item besides porn. For example, what if a convince store clerk sells cigerates to someone under the age of 18 (selling cigerates is not againt the law, but selling them to a minor is). However, instead of the store clerk being charges with a crime, the CEO of philip moris gets taken to court. Or another example. What if a gun dealer sold a assault weapon to someone without conducting a background check or doing a 3 day waiting period (selling guns is not againt the law, but sellign them without the proper paperwork is). However, instead of the dealer being charged with a crime, the CEO of Smith and Wesson gets taken to court. ….. That is what happened here. The person giving it to the customer was the one who broke the law, but it was the manafacturer who wound up in court.

Such a situation raises very serious concerns about the freedom to operate a business. Its especialy troublsom for me seeing as I am a retailer. Several products I sell, I dont actualy make myself. Now I am known for being willing to engage in a bit of civial disobediance in order to stand up for what I feel is right. I do this with the confidence that if shit ever hits the fan nobody will be harmed besides myself. Im a grown up and Im willing to take the conciquences of my actions. But with manafactures now being legaly libal for the ~crimes~ of the distrributer Im a bit more hesitant to do this. I dont mind me taking the heat for my actions, but if I know my suppliers might take the heat instead, I would be less likely to rise up in disobeadence againt a law I think is unfair.

But I say all this knowing that Im the only person in all of existance to actualy be worried abotu the mail fraud charges. To everyone else this is just miller-test junior. In their eyes, the key issue is nitpicking the semantics of what the word ‘obscene’ is and gettign worked into a tizzy about how those evil fundementalist christians are trying to force their uptight and prudish views of sex onto everyone else.

Heck, even the Max Hardcore lawers themselves want to make this into an obscenity trial. Their primary defence argument was that the max hardcore videws were not realy porn, but rather political satire againt the feminist movement. And as such it should be granted the same freedom of speach rights as other political protests since its not realy techinalky ‘onscene’ material.

I dont think anyone would buy that line of shit. Of cortse MaxHardcore videos were obscene. Thats what was so great about them. They were pervy, kinky, filthy, gloriously obscene. Trying to claim it wasent obscene and was instead ‘political speach’ is an insult not only to porn but to political satarists as well. But thats the line everyone keeps chanting. Miller test. Comunity standards. Vague and overly broad. Baddly writen law. Come hell or high water people were going to paint this so that it looked as if it were a case of right wing religious zealots trying to shut down anything and everyting having to do with sex.

Charges wernt pressed by the FBI ‘pon squad’. They were charged by the US Post office. That right therte should clue folks in to the fact of the real dangers involved here. But no. Instead of paying attention to the real dangers, folks are going to push with all their might untill this case squeeses into the ‘christians hate sex’ template.

Just an update from an eairler post where I attempted to rickroll the reader.

Like any good rick roll, it tricked the reader itno thinking the link was something it wasent. In this case, iligeal child porn. However, I have since found out that the link is now dead. I am sure this is just because youtube got sick of people sucking up bandwidth, or at the very least was because of some copyright violation. But secretly I like to think that enough people who were searching for iligal child porn clicked through that it set off the automatic ‘inaproperite content’ trigger.

You may remember back in 2002 the supreme court struck down as uinconstitutional a ban on ‘virtual child pornography’. The reasoning was, that since no real children were being harmed, then a law to ‘protect the children’ was kind of pointless when directed at computer generated fake images.

The case was Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition and pulled out all the usual panic atacks. Vague and overly broad. Free speach. Pushing us toward a police state. Damn those evil christians pushing their morality off onto everyone else. Ya know, the standard arguments.

Spicificly, in the text was the folowing …..

(6) computers and computer imaging technology can be used to–
(A) alter sexually explicit photographs, films, and videos in su
ch a way as to make it virtually impossible for unsuspecting viewers to iden
tify individuals, or to determine if the offending material was produ
ced using children;
(B) produce visual depictions of child sexual activity designed
to satisfy the preferences of individual child molesters, pedophiles, and pornography collectors; and
(C) alter innocent pictures of children to create visual depicti
ons of those children engaging in sexual conduct;

Ok, enough with the history lesson. Along comes Senate Bill 1738 that has the folowing a crime…..

Title III, SEC. 305(a)(3) ….. knowingly creates, alters, adapts, or modifies a visual depiction of an identifiable minor, as defined in section 2256(9), so that it depicts child pornography as defined in section 2256(8), …..

Yep. Even though the supreme court ruled that ‘virtual’ child porn cant be made againt the law, politicians are making a law againt it again anyway. Ad a sprinkling on top of Section 105 legalizing the ability of police to spy on internet trafic and ya got what by all accounts shoudl be an absoulte riot by sexual-freedom groups.

So who are the prudish victorian minded religious zealots that are behind the atack on our freedoms this time? Sorry to disapoint, but its Oprah. And for an added dash of irony, its being cosponcered by Joe Biden. And ya gotta admire them for calling it the ‘Protect Our Children Act’. Might as well call it the ‘cute adoriable little kittens bill’.

Its being blocked by republican Tom Coburn. So horray for the neocons? Right? Well not so fast. Accoring to his website, the reason he is blocking it has nothign to do with the supreme court having ruled it unconstitutional already once before. Nor any concern about added police power to spy on web trafic. He is blocking it because he suports Sennate Bill 3344 instead. And that creats this little gem.

Title I, SEC. 133(a)(3) …..in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly modifies, with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of an identifiable minor so that the depiction becomes child pornography, …..

Yep, BOTH bills are tryign to ban virtiual child porn. The only reason each party is blocking the oposite bill is because they want to claim ’success’ in passing their own. Each bill says the same thing as the other bill, the only difrence is what party authred it.

So why are both the elephants and the donkies both trying to write a law that has already been declared unconstitutional? The paranoid side of me almost believes they are WANTING the things they write to be declaired unconstitutional so that there will be no change in the status quo. While still being able to use ‘I voted to protect the children’ in their campain ads.

Shocking! Its shocking I tell you! The new ‘voter signup’ ad campain featuring Jessica Alba is creating a lot of contreversy. Its got bondage in it for crying out loud. And we all know how close minded people can be toward anything having to do with BDSM. Oh woe is us. We are so oppressed.

We know because all the news reports say its contreversal. Controversy and shocking and outraged. People are realy getting themselves worked up into a frency over this one! Only problem is, none of these news reports says who exactly is getting so offended by these ads.

Well, the ads are targeted toward youth. Jesica Alba herself seemed to be implying that the goal was to shock youth when she said ‘People respond to things that are shocking’. As if this will grab people attention and lure them in to recive the deeper message. But it seems unlikely that youths wodl be shocked by something like this. To put into prespective, the people voting for the first time in this election were in kindergarden when rotten.com first went online. People who grew up on Tom Green, Marilyn Manson, and the victoria secrets fation show are probably going to be bored by this ad.

So it must be someone else who is so shocked by the ad. And we all know what that meens. That meens the christian right. There the ones who are all a bunch of close minded prudes who hate anything sexual. They are the ones ‘at war’ againt the BDSM comunity. ….. Or are they?

Well lets start with the usual suspects. Concerned Women for America dosent have anything about it. Focus on the Family comes up empty also. American Family Association dosent have anythign condoming the Jessica Alba ad, but does have a ‘regester to vote’ link on their front page.

Hummmmm? Well maybee its not the radical right that is so offended. Maybee its the radical left. The ones who think that bondage in media promotes ‘violence against women’. Well, the National Organization for Women dosent mention the ad. Feminist Majority Foundation says nothing.

Seems like the only one saying that the ad is stiring up contreversy is Jesica Albas publicist.

The ad just dosent seem to be stiring up the contreversy that was hoped for. Partily because the age we live in dosent consider bondage all that shocking. And partily because the ad is kind of lame. Compare it to the ad for The Roling Stones from 30 years ago and ask what immage is more shocking?

1999 was the lanuch of the goatse website. Quickly it became a part of internet culture. Then in 2004 it went offline.

So what happened? Why did it go away? Heavy handed enforcement by a police state? Prudish close minded zealots intimidating them into closure? Actualy I would argue that it wasent the actions of any indvidual group[ or person, but rather a sign of the times.

In 1999, sex with everyting on the internet. Napster came out that year and people quickly learned that it could be used to swap porn just as easily as it could be used to swap pirated music. Pay sites fuled the introduction of using the internet to shop. And in among it all was shock websites. Tricking you into clicking a picture of somethign amazingly sexual. from Lemon party to tubgirl to the ever clasic goatse.

But what is the internet now? All web2.0 apps have lost their sex appeal. Youtube came first before any of its sex-related peers, and is much larger than all of them put together. If anything would be sex based you woudl think it would be video sharing. But its not. Blogs. Video blogs.  Wikipedia. Though sex certinaly exists in these web aplications, thats not its driving force.

Politics is. The entire blogsphere is run by political rantings. The 9/11 truth movement. The ron paul revolution. Even wikipedia generats more contrversy on wether it has liberial bias or consertive bias than the contreversy abotu its sexual content.

This has all been seen before. History repeats itself. Sexual revolutions cycle through about every 70-80 years. And if you look back to the hypersexed flapper era of the 1920, they eventualy got sexual burnout as the political implications of the new progresive party hit durring the great depresion. Talking about sex was old and tired. Talking about politics was the new hot issue.

And thats what happened to goatse. Its back online once again, but the sex aspect of its gone.