(Insert “saddle friction” joke here.) At the risk of sounding like an episode of Portlandia, we are stoked for the Bike Smut Film Festival, which rides in for its second SF showing in two weeks – the first took place at Bayview's Cyclecide Swearhouse last weekend – on Fri/3. 

Bike smut: people having sex on bikes, sex with bikes, sex with bikes watching – surely there will be bike couplings in there somewhere (a handlebar penetrating a spoke, well greased). This incarnation of the fresh-from-touring-Europe show has an Oregon Trail theme. Yes, we know you loved that game in elementary school. You know who else did? Everyone. Read more »

Thankful. I am thankful for San Francisco sex. Just got back from the AVN awards in Vegas this weekend and couldn't get over the fake boobs (literally -- mountainous cleavage), rubber ducky-esque lips, and rote couplings that took over the Hard Rock Hotel for the better part of the week. Don't get me wrong, the weekend was all kinds of wonderful and there were buffets and penthouse hot tubs filled with Tina Horn, Princess Donna, and Akira Raine -- salacious tweeting and rumors of Robin Leach and deep red carpet conversations about being forced to wear condoms. But for me, SF. Read more »

In a culture where pain equates to pleasure and sexual power is deliberately manipulated for ecstatic highs, how far is too far? Kitty Stryker and Maggie Mayhem are two local activists who are confronting rape and abuse within the BDSM community. The two are gearing up to take a workshop they've prepared on the subject called "Safe/Ward" on the road. You can support their educational tour at a Center for Sex and Culture fundraising event on Tue/24. Read more »

I had to share this link, because I think it just might be the first time I've heard of a reality TV series improving the lives of the subjects it covers. And the fact that those subjects are six UK transsexuals makes it all the more a. inspiring b. heartwarming and c. affirmative that perhaps the 1990s most salient contribution to popular culture can indeed be used for good.

The show, aired on England's Channel Four, was called My Transexual Summer, and it followed its protagonists through their transition process. Although Ralph Fox, the author of the Original Plumbing blog post I linked to above, sounds a little disappointed in the binary way in which gender was dealt with on the show, he did mention that “The thing I most love is how it’s been a minimum effort, maximum result situation.” People in his life that he probably wouldn't have had the talk with were able to learn about his world in a positive way. Read more »

It's been a minute since we've assembled the week's sex events in this column. That's our bad – we've been busy (mind yer business). But we're back this week! And thank goodness because the week of Christmas and the beginning of Channukah has to be the least-happening week for sex events of the year. Which is why we're including the following list of DIY sex events. 

1.Sperm donation. It is very, very chic now to give away for free what you once you were paid lots of money for. Just ask this guy. It's very 99 percent. Read more »

The mayoral elections are over. San Francisco politicos have long since rolled out of rumpled election night beds, kissed their partners for the first time in months, and tossed those worn-down precinct-walkers out for something a little more comfortable. Now our eyes turn to the presidential election, which despite Ed Lee's mustache is decidedly less sexy (blame it on the overexposure, c'mon Republican ladies and gentlemen can you leave nothing to our imagination?) 

And now Herman Cain's lawyers are telling sexual harassment victims to “think twice” before coming forward to accuse their inspirational speaker-cum-client? Sound like they need to attend the first sex-positive get-together on our list... read on. Read more »

It's easy to see how photographer Michael Rosen gets people to take their clothes off. He listens, he's mild-mannered, and he makes great art of the occasion – what more could you want in a voyeur? Rosen has been taking erotic photos since 1977, images of all genders, all sexualities, all the slutty, falling-apart-at-the seams of human sexuality. His new show opens on Fri/4.

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Friday evening of the Folsom Street Fair saw a throng gathered in a second-story SoMa apartment for an art opening. The space was owned by a one Mark I. Chester, a man who counts as one of the city's many hubs of sex culture. Chester tends towards the art side of rough sex -- regularily hosting drawing sessions where men pose in various states of disarray -- a harness here, a dog mask there, and not much else. But tonight, the crowd was more diverse. It was there to witness the opening of "Fear No Art," the sex and power exhibition that you watch close its doors on Sun/30 this week. Read more »

What does the future look like for our alternative sexuality community? While the political system borders on redundancy and no one cares about it anymore, perhaps now's the time to turn our focus inward. Two projects are in the works to look at the interior world of queers – and they both could use a hand from you. Read more »

In her soon-to-be-released look at the Bay Area BDSM scene, Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality (2012, Duke University) Margot Weiss raises some tough questions for those that would tout the pansexual “new guard” scene – the techie, mostly white, mostly hetero clique in the Bay's BDSM panoply – as subverting societal norms. 

In its reliance on expensive classes and even more expensive gadgetry as condition for entry, she sees silent class division. When familiar societal situations are re-enacted on the kink stage, Weiss sees not a refutation of incest, slave auctions, and male dominance over females, but instead a neoliberal refusal by the practioners involved to accept their position in society. Read more »