From Salon

When "Fire," the first film in Deepa Mehta's elements trilogy, came out in 1996, it was a landmark moment. For my Indian parents and their friends, it was the first time they could walk into a multiplex in Atlanta and see a film in Hindi. The fact that it was by a female Indian director -- a very rare breed -- made it even more exciting.

But "Fire" wasn't an easy film for most Indians to love; it was about two women in unhappy marriages who enter into a lesbian relationship with each other - - a subject that delighted a few but disturbed many. In India, Hindu fundamentalists attacked theaters playing the film, and "Fire" was eventually banned there and in Pakistan.

And so Deepa Mehta became one of India's most visible and controversial filmmakers. Although in the 1970s she emigrated to Toronto, where she shot her first two feature films, her return to India to make "Fire" established her reputation. Now "Water," the third installment in her elements trilogy, is proving to be Mehta's most controversial film to date.

From The New York Times

One morning this past winter, a dozen or so youthful American Apparel managers, nearly all of them women, were gathered in Dov Charney's office for a meeting. Charney, a scrawny bundle of nervous energy, is a stream-of-consciousness C.E.O. There are no regularly scheduled reviews of marketing and production issues or strategic planning and the like; instead Charney deals with everything as it flows to him.

Dov Charney proudly refers to himself as a "Jewish hustler." But he is quite possibly the most unorthodox Jew in the history of the shmatte business. A complicated, charismatic and occasionally controversial figure — he is currently facing a sexual harassment suit — Charney is so acutely in tune with the cultural moment that he is somehow able to use the plain blank T-shirts that he sells to convey potent messages concerning contemporary sex and politics.

From AlterNet

What do you do if you're a self-proclaimed asexual and you fall in love with another asexual?

You cuddle and kiss and talk a lot. You go to dinner parties, bicker over movies, sleep in the same bed. Maybe you even snuggle up and spoon, the two of you curled up in a cozy double-S.

But it does not occur to you to make the beast with two backs. Your sexual congress is permanently adjourned. You're in love, you're just not making any.

From The New York Times

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — She goes by the name Bruna, the Little Surfer Girl, and gives new meaning to the phrase "kiss and tell." First in a blog that quickly became the country's most popular and now in a best-selling memoir, she has titillated Brazilians and become a national celebrity with her graphic, day-by- day accounts of life as a call girl here.

But it is not just her canny use of the Internet that has made Bruna, whose real name is Raquel Pacheco, a cultural phenomenon. By going public with her exploits, she has also upended convention and set off a vigorous debate about sexual values and practices, revealing a country that is not always as uninhibited as the world often assumes.

From BBC

A controversial novel written by a young Saudi woman is breaking taboos in the Kingdom's conservative society. Banat al-Riyadh, or The Girls of Riyadh, speaks openly of sex, lesbianism and young women's desire to lead freer lives.

The author, Rajaa al-Sanei, is a 24-year old dentist from a conservative Saudi family. Her book has angered some people in Saudi Arabia, but it has also attracted praise for its honesty.

The four young women at the centre of the novel challenge Saudi Arabia's strict social and sexual conventions.

From Alas, A Blog

It has recently come out that ten years ago, Mary Doe (the student who reported being raped by three Duke lacrosse players) reported being raped by three acquaintances (one of who may have been a boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend) to police. Although the report was made when Mary Doe was 18, she said the rape took place when she was 14 years old.

From Feministing

I happened to see a billboard a few blocks away from house the other day and almost barfed. While I’ve listened to New York’s 92.3 KROCK’s music here and there, I was a bit shocked to see a huge picture of the woman above, The RadioChick, and the two sentences that threw me for a loop.

“Built like a woman. Thinks like a man.”

Ew.