Here at Parlour, we love and support everybody. Gay, straight, Bi, Cablinasian & Questioning—as long you bring bubbly and good vibes, we’re happy. In the spirit of one nation under champagne, we invite you to watch the documentary “Her Name Was Steven” this weekend. I took a look at the trailer today and will admit, I’m impressed with anyone who has the courage to undergo any type of major change in public, especially when sex & gender transitions are still foreign to so many, leading to often negative responses. In the case of Steven Stanton, he lost his job as the city manager of Largo, Florida after he announced that he would like to continue his career, and his life, as a woman. She is now Susan Stanton, and is finally sharing her story that put her in the middle of a media circus while she was in the middle of her coming out process, to the world and to her family. (more…)

It ain’t easy finding love in NYC. However DJ’s M.O.S and Kiss not only love one another but the pair spin together, and separately, at various clubs around the city and the globe. With V-Day looming, we decided if these two can make a relationship work while traveling around the world and all over the Big Apple, it’d behoove us to ask for some practical advice. They’ve even given us a nice mix entitled “The Afterparty,” so when you call the lucky person in your world this Sunday, you won’t be stuck fumbling through your iTunes. You’re welcome.

PLR: How did you two meet and how long have you been together?

M.O.S – We met at a nightclub, Kiss was taking acting classes and waitresing at night and I was DJ’ing. We’d always end up staying late talking about music at the end of the night. I offered to give her DJ lessons and the love affair began. We’ve been together four years.

Do you ever hide music from each other?

Kiss – Never, we are each other’s biggest supporters. We represent each other. If one of us doesn’t look good, the other doesn’t look good! (more…)

I’ve been thinking about sex. A lot. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about our sisters in sex—prostitutes. Whores, ho’s, working girls, escorts, courtesans—whatever you call them, the oldest profession in the world is not going anywhere, so it’s challenging to me that our attitudes toward the game seem to fall backward while some of us profess “progressiveness” in our overall sexual thinking.

Recently, The Guardian published an article entitled “Why Men Use Prostitutes” that highlighted a recent study of over 700 men in hopes of revealing the science behind the drive to pay for sex. The results were interesting to say the least and revealed a mixture of power-lusting, personal unfulfillment, loneliness and curiosity. Sensitive, yet applicable subjects like violence, trafficked and “pimped” women were discussed, but there was one answer that I expected that did not appear from any of the men interviewed: “Because I can/I want to.”

Men sleep with women for a variety of reasons, and men pay to have sex with women for an even more complicated set of rationales. So to ask “why do men pay for sex” will inspire a range of comments and views, but what the interviewers failed to explore was the mentality behind the action of shelling out the cash. (more…)

There has been lots of talk surrounding Stephen Soderburgh’s new film The Girlfriend Experience which premiered on Tuesday at the Tribeca Film Festival.  It stars real life porn princess Sasha Grey, who plays an escort who charges $2,000 an hour to hang out with a guy and pretend she’s his girlfriend all night.
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I think casting a popular porn star in a feature film is a brilliant idea!  At 21, Grey is a porn superstar with 150 adult films on her bedpost.  She’s been iconicized American Apparel style (pic after the jump – NSFW). Her fans love her because she pushes the envelope with her sex acts and is “striving to make porn more artistic.”
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The film comes to NYC and LA on May 22, I’m sure her followers will be dying to see what she’s like on the silver screen.  Hell, I am!

Source (more…)

I’ve always wanted a dog. Even in my younger days when I lived at home and my little sister begged my mother for a pet and we received a cat, I wanted a dog. Maybe it was the notion of a canine being “man’s best friend.” Maybe it’s because I really, really liked White Fang when I was a kid. Or maybe, it’s because for all intensive purposes, it’s because I thought having a dog would simply be awesome. This past September, I turned wishful thinking into reality when Rumble, my Alaskan Klee Kai came into my life. But Rumble’s arrival was more than of just me checking off an item from my bucket list. No, he was the culmination of several events.
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Some of those events stemmed from boyhood wishful thinking, while others (and perhaps the most compelling) come from the realities of being a man in his late 20s, living in the post-Obama era and staring down the impending barrel of a pre-mid life crisis where career and my relationship with my (then) girlfriend were what I based happiness upon.  In case you can’t read between the lines, Rumble was my way of coping with a break up from someone, who I had been with for many years. After all, the best way to mend a broken heart isn’t in the arms of another woman – it’s on a long walk to the dog park.

Rewind back to May when the notion of having a dog was as viable as a lucrative career in the print medium. I was at a rooftop BBQ and in between conversation hopping, spotted a dog who, because of her medium size and defined, intelligent-looking features, caught my attention. “I should get a dog,” I quipped to myself.  Sufficed to say, it was one of those moments that were partly fueled by cold beer and the warm sun, and so naturally, it sounded brilliant. I asked the owner about the dog and the breed and all he could tell me is that it was a rescue from Puerto Rico and he’d had her for only a short while. I mused to my friend Va$htie that I wish there were huskies (the closest thing to a legal White Fang I could fathom) that were small enough to comfortably enjoy the confines of apartment living. To which she replied, there were, and said dogs were amazing, as she’d seen one. She gave me the name of the breed, I Googled it and was amazed, but chalked it up to wishful thinking and drifted back into my previous conversations. (more…)

This morning, in a post CMJ show-crawl haze, I found myself in my bathroom thoroughly engrossed in New York Magazine’s feature on the pro’s and cons of circumcision for boys. Maybe because every show I went to was a typical hip-hop “sausage fest,” I found myself going over my mental image history of every penis I have encountered and wondered what the fuss was about. I always understood it to be a hygiene and religious thing, but some label the practice as horrific and barbaric as female genital mutilation—also known as female circumcision. While I think that the comparison is a little extreme, there is a growing number of American parents who are turning away from the practice. I’ve only seen one “uncut” penis in my life and I admit I was a little…intrigued. What are your thoughts ladies (and gents!)? Any hot mammas out there care to share their experience with their sons? Should our little girls get ready for more foreskin on the scene?

Image: Hannah Whitaker/New York Magazine