<\/p>\n
Field Trip to the Forum<\/b><\/p>\n
A couple weeks back my partner and I decided to check out the Forum, the relatively new swingers place in San Jose that advertises regularly in the Spectator<\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019d been getting their refreshingly down-to-earth and intelligent mailings for some time, and we\u2019d been looking for some new sexual arenas to explore.\u00a0 As it turns out, it was their Anniversary celebration, marking a year since they had first opened their doors.<\/p>\n Forum owner and manager Deena Luce was glad to show us around the place before the other guests arrived, and to talk with us about her philosophy of running a sexual gathering place.\u00a0 Yes, she actually has a philosophy of sorts — a vision of what she\u2019s doing and how she wants to do it, focused mostly on an open kind of friendly honesty combined with particular attention to creating an environment that\u2019s supportive and friendly to women guests.\u00a0 In a way, the Forum is the Femme Productions of the local swinging scene:\u00a0 sexual exploration from a specifically woman\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n The Forum is located in a lovely sprawling house on the southern side of San Jose, not far from the intersection of U.S. 101 and the new extension of route 85 that connects Mountain View and Gilroy.\u00a0 The facilities include a large living room for socializing (with a small dance floor and a large-screen television showing Andrew Blake videos), a kitchen spread with light food and soft drinks (guests are welcome to bring their own alcoholic beverages), a hot tub, and an outdoor pool.\u00a0 Play spaces include a room for couples who want to be alone, a small group room, and a lovely larger couples only room (“The Arena”) complete with fireplace, that features comfortable space on a number of different levels giving a nice sense of both separation and togetherness to people playing side by side.\u00a0 Each play room has its own immaculate bathroom (one with sunken tub), as well as a good supply of condoms and lube.\u00a0 The rooms all are welcoming and attractive, something that Deena emphasizes as especially important to her sense of what she\u2019s trying to do.<\/p>\n “When I say that I want my space to be particularly friendly to women,” she explains, “I mean that I want it to be visually attractive, clean, and generally appealing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want people to have to wonder what they\u2019re sitting on or in.\u00a0 I want the place to feel comfortable and homey.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the thing that most struck us about the Forum was exactly that sense of it being easy-going, relaxed, low key, unpretentious, and unintimidating.\u00a0 The night we were there, there were some 50 couples present.\u00a0 Attendance was undoubtedly boosted by the fact it was a well-publicized anniversary affair (with specially lowered prices), but also dampened (literally) by the fact that it was pouring rain all night.\u00a0 (Deena says that a typical Saturday night party involves 30 to 50 couples, with Friday night parties being much smaller and cozier.)\u00a0 People ranged from young couples in their early 20s to older people in their 50s and 60s, with most probably in their 30s.\u00a0 Throughout the evening there was the usual mix of curiosity and shyness, of sexual activity and non-sexual socializing, of playing and watching.\u00a0 One thing that was absent was a sense of free-floating, restless male sexual hunger, that all-too-common factor that so often undermines women\u2019s comfort levels at swing parties.\u00a0 Nothing like having a dozen driven guys hungry to attach themselves to any sexual activity going on, whether they\u2019re welcome or not, to keep people from being able to fully relax and enjoy themselves.<\/p>\n Some of this may be the result of Deena\u2019s care in screening new people who want to come to her parties.\u00a0 If she gets a sense of somebody who\u2019s going to be “one of the antisocial types” — that is, someone who doesn\u2019t understand how to be respectful and considerate in a group sexual context — she doesn\u2019t invite them to participate.\u00a0 Likewise, she says, with people who attend parties without telling their mates what they are doing.\u00a0 “I don\u2019t have any desire to support that kind of thing,” Deena says matter-of-factly.\u00a0 “They can find somewhere else to go play.”<\/p>\n The upshot was that we had a delightful time with various people during the evening, some of whom we knew from other Bay Area parties and some of whom we met for the first time.\u00a0 The progress of energy during the evening was gradual rather than hop-to-it, as people took their time settling in, getting comfortable, and meeting each other.\u00a0 When a group of us started playing in the Arena relatively early on in the sexual course of things, we drew quite a crowd of onlookers, which was (I think for all of us) an added treat.\u00a0 Nothing like watching your energy affect a ring of 30 or 40 people to heighten a sexual experience, and it was noteworthy that despite the fact that the room was crammed full of curious eyes and humming bodies, we felt no sense of pushiness or the kind of lurid intrusion that can turn a friendly show into a boundary-maintaining tug-of-war.\u00a0 All through the evening, the energy of the group as a whole — both socially and sexually — felt decidedly friendly and open-hearted, which we both welcomed enthusiastically.<\/p>\n Beyond that, many of the characteristics of broader swing culture carried over to the Forum.\u00a0 We saw some play between women, but not between men, and nothing at all in the direction of s\/m, or even light bondage or dominance-submission games.\u00a0 Although there were condoms in all the rooms, we were the only people who seemed to be using them, and we were glad we had brought our own gloves.\u00a0 (We did score some saran wrap from Deena when we needed it, having forgotten to bring our own.)<\/p>\n When I asked Deena about how she handled safe sex, she said she felt it was important for her to provide condoms (and places to dispose of them, once used).\u00a0 Beyond that, she felt it was up to people to decide for themselves what they thought was safe and what not.<\/p>\n “I assume that people are responsible adults and know what they\u2019re doing,” she said.\u00a0 “It\u2019s really not my job to tell people what I think they should do, although if I see someone doing something that I consider particularly unsafe, like unprotected anal intercourse, I might go over and suggest to them that they really should put on a condom.”<\/p>\n Swinger culture seems to have settled into the groove of believing that if you avoid unprotected, receptive anal intercourse (and, possibly, intercourse during menstruation), you\u2019re safe enough for practical purposes.\u00a0 While this is more risky than I personally feel comfortable with, the truth is that there has been no outbreak of AIDS among the millions of swingers nationwide.\u00a0 The fact that swingers are so often virulently homophobic may have something to do with this, but one has to wonder why there isn\u2019t more of a problem among the many communities of people who play with multiple partners as regularly and cavalierly as many swingers do.<\/p>\n My own experience is that swingers generally are pretty good about taking simple, common sense precautions against disease, like washing hands and bodies between partners, and not going to parties if you\u2019re contagious yourself.\u00a0 There are, after all, any number of nasty organisms that can be passed around, bugs that are much more easily transmitted than HIV.\u00a0 To my knowledge, none of the more common STD\u2019s has ever become epidemic in the far-blown swinging subculture.\u00a0 Strange, but true.<\/p>\n Anyone thinking about attending a swingers party for the first time, however, should remember that, even if you find your way to a relatively human and “woman-friendly” place like the Forum, you really cannot take anything for granted in terms of how other people will relate to the issue of safe sex.\u00a0 Be sure to make clear to new partners what you do and don\u2019t require, in terms of who puts what fingers, toes, mouths, cocks, cunts, and toys where.\u00a0 And be sure to clarify your decisions, both to yourself and to others, before<\/em> you leave your rational faculties behind in the pursuit of passion.<\/p>\n The Forum hosts parties for couples only on Friday and Saturday nights, often with special events attached, or with themes of one sort or another.\u00a0 A special “Sweethearts Ball” is scheduled for Saturday, February 11th, for example, featuring a Valentine lingerie fashion show and a “live love act” by one of the Forum\u2019s regularly attending couples.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sleep over party, so couples are welcome to bring sleeping bags, spend the night, chip in for coffee and breakfast, and hang out (and presumably play) together the next day as well.\u00a0 Check the Spectator calendar section for other Forum events, prices, and numbers to call for information and reservations.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n On Our Backs<\/em>: Chapter Two<\/b><\/p>\n Fans and supporters of On Our Backs<\/em> will be glad to know that the 10-year-old magazine of “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian” is back in business after a brief pause (the November-December issue was skipped) while the business passed from founder Debi Sundahl to a new publisher and new editor last October.<\/p>\n On October 27, Melissa Murphy, president and co-founder of the Erotic Video Educational Fund and marketing director of OOB<\/em> for close to four years, bought Blush Productions, the parent corporation of On Our Backs<\/em>, from Debi Sundahl.\u00a0 Sundahl, along with Myrna Elena, founded On Our Backs<\/em> in 1984, when “lesbian sex magazine” was still thought to be a contradiction in terms.\u00a0 For ten years, On Our Backs<\/em> defined new erotic territory in the lesbian community, publishing photos, fiction, news and views that encouraged lesbians to honor the full range and power of their sexual desires, often sparking harsh and derisive criticism from others in the lesbian community.<\/p>\n Sundahl felt it was time to move on to other things, as they say, wanting to focus her time and energy on Fatale Videos (the video arm of Blush Productions), and on her writing.\u00a0 She offered to sell the business to Murphy at a price Murphy says she simply “couldn\u2019t refuse.”\u00a0 For Murphy, it was an opportunity to take on the role of refining the On Our Backs<\/em> mission of encouraging full sexual expression for lesbians.\u00a0 For Sundahl, there was the comfort of knowing that her baby of the past ten years was safe in the hands of someone with experience in the topsy-turvy world of alternative sex magazine publishing, and someone who was specifically familiar with the magazine\u2019s own tumultuous dynamics and history.\u00a0 “I was honored that my work of ten years meant that someone would want to take it and keep it alive,” Sundahl told me.\u00a0 “The various projects had become too much for me to manage, taking too big a chunk out of time I wanted to spend doing creative work.”<\/p>\n Murphy promptly moved the magazine\u2019s offices to a space subleased from the new gay sex magazines, Steam and Wild, for whom she is also marketing director.\u00a0 She enjoys being in close association with other publishers who are committed to producing magazines that offer intelligent and progressive encouragement of free sexual expression.\u00a0 She put together a trimmed-back staff of two full-time and four part-time people, all old OOB<\/em> staffers, with the exception of the new editor of On Our Backs<\/em>, Bayla Travis.<\/p>\n “I didn\u2019t want to see On Our Backs<\/em> die,” Murphy explained on the phone.\u00a0 “And the response of the community has been terrific.\u00a0 Old contributors are right there, offering quality work, input, and support.”\u00a0 Murphy had worked with Travis at E.V.E. and knew from the start that Travis was the woman she wanted for her new editor.\u00a0 “I was convinced that she had the energy, vision, and writing capabilities to be editor of the magazine.\u00a0 As negotiations proceeded, I told Bayla that if I bought the magazine I would want her to be editor.\u00a0 She was excited at the possibility.”<\/p>\n Travis is a playwright (author of The Dyke and the Porn Star<\/em> and of a pilot for the PBS show In the Life<\/em>), and former assistant to the executive producer of The Cosby Show<\/em>.\u00a0 “We want a magazine that reflects the full spectrum of dyke sex in all its complexity,” she says.\u00a0 “We want to talk about both the problems of defining what lesbian sex is, and the joys of experiencing it.”\u00a0 One of her goals is to encourage readers — indeed everyone — to be “more bold in our sexual explorations, to look at what really turns us on, not what we think should<\/em> turn us on.”<\/p>\n She intends to continue the On Our Backs<\/em> tradition of being outspokenly controversial.\u00a0 “We want to be provocative, both intellectually and sexually,” she says.\u00a0 “We\u2019re not trying to publish material that will bother people, but there\u2019s always a risk of criticism if you follow your passion.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know exactly where the magazine will go; right now I\u2019m just following a hunch.\u00a0 But if we publish things that don\u2019t work for readers, we\u2019ll find that out and we\u2019ll change.\u00a0 We definitely want feedback as we move ahead.”<\/p>\n The first issue of the new era is certainly not short on controversy.\u00a0 The cover and one of the main photo essays depict two women in nun\u2019s habit passionately engrossed in each other.\u00a0 A lengthy article and second photo essay focuses on female-to-male transsexuals and their impact on, and fascination to, the lesbian community.\u00a0 Images of FTM transsexuals by photographer Loren Cameron place a naked penis — albeit a surgically created penis — in the magazine for only the second time in its history.\u00a0 (The first was, in an advertisement, brought a strong and predictable wave of protest from readers and supporters alike.)<\/p>\n “We\u2019re not wishy-washy on the dyke thing,” Travis insists.\u00a0 “Dykes rule.\u00a0 Loving women is an amazingly powerful thing.\u00a0 But that\u2019s no reason why we shouldn\u2019t publish something that deals with gender, something that we know is of interest to the lesbian community.”<\/p>\n With regard to the striking “Sisterhood is Powerful” nun photos by Chloe Atkins, Travis says that this fantasy is one that has “always turned me on, ever since I saw the scene in Su Friedrich\u2019s film, Damned If You Don\u2019t<\/em>, in which a lesbian seduces a nun.\u00a0 “It\u2019s a very id thing,” says Travis, “not something rational and thought out.\u00a0 But that\u2019s where our sexuality comes from anyway, so it\u2019s a metaphor for where the whole magazine is going.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking about people following their erotic instincts, rather than limiting ourselves to some program in our heads of who we are supposed to be.”<\/p>\n Publisher Murphy agrees.\u00a0 She believes that On Our Backs<\/em> is an important resource for the lesbian community precisely because it is a lesbian sex<\/em> magazine, and a magazine that refuses to reduce sex to a simplified set of rules and perspectives.\u00a0 She wants On Our Backs<\/em> to “refocus on sex,” rather than become distracted by more general issues of lesbian culture and lifestyle.\u00a0 “Sexual stories are complicated stories,” she says.\u00a0 “They need to be addressed as such.”<\/p>\n Travis and Murphy work together to define the evolving editorial direction of the new On Our Backs<\/em>.\u00a0 For now, Murphy says, she maintains what she calls a “veto role” with regard to what goes and what doesn\u2019t in the magazine.\u00a0 She expects the magazine to grow as it gets its new feet on the ground, and gradually to expand.\u00a0 The January\/February issue has a respectable print run of 15,000 copies, but Murphy says that OOB<\/em> distributors have already asked this to increase to 18,000 copies next time around.\u00a0 Murphy hopes the magazine will be able to expand from six to eight issues per year, and to switch from newsprint to glossy paper, though neither of these changes is financially feasible at the present time.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m not a trust fund baby,” she notes.\u00a0 “I need the magazine to support itself financially.”\u00a0 By building circulation through distributors and subscribers, and by bringing in cash revenue from marketing the subscribers list and expanding the mail order department, Murphy hopes to be able to increase both the frequency and quality of the magazine within a year.<\/p>\n In addition to its staff of six, On Our Backs<\/em> has contracted with contributing editors Cherry Smyth in London and Riki Anne Wilchins in New York to broaden the magazine\u2019s base of information beyond the Bay Area.\u00a0 They expect to add an additional regular contributor from Berlin shortly.\u00a0 Regular features include “Body Watch” (Marcia Munson), “The Wet Spot” (Staci Haines), “Ask Fairy Butch,” “Toys for Twats” (Kim Airs), “Sex & Love & Cute Girls,” (gossip from J. Stark), “The Naked Eye” (Judith Halberstam), book reviews, sex tips, features, fiction, and pictorials.<\/p>\n Both Murphy and Travis are riding high on the strong wave of enthusiasm they have received from staff and contributors, excitement that they feel is an expression of how strongly people in general care about the magazine.\u00a0 “We are part of the community and we want to stay part of the community,” Travis notes.\u00a0 “It\u2019s going to be exciting to see where we go from here.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile ex-editor\/publisher Sundahl is taking a brief sabbatical, and looking forward to devoting herself to marketing Fatale Video\u2019s eleven existing titles, and working on a new video that will be directed toward heterosexual women — an audience that has interested Sundahl for some time.\u00a0 “I believe strongly in the future of women\u2019s erotica,” she says, “erotica by and for women, regardless of their sexual orientation.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n February 10, 1995<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 1995 David Steinberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n Field Trip to the Forum<\/p>\n A couple weeks back my partner and I decided to check out the Forum, the relatively new swingers place in San Jose that advertises regularly in the Spectator. I\u2019d been getting their refreshingly down-to-earth and intelligent mailings for some time, and we\u2019d been looking for some new sexual arenas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comes-naturally","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}