Liz Langley

    Orange County Circuit Court Judge Marc Lubert yesterday set the trial date for   Lisa Marie Nowak,  former astronaut, charged with attempted kidnapping, battery and attempted burglary with assault. Nowak  is woman who allegedly stalked a romantic rival, going from Texas to Orlando while wearing a diaper to avoid having to stop for bathroom breaks in February 2007. Her trial will be Dec 7, 2009.      The first thing most people say upon hearing Nowak's story is "How could an astronaut do something so crazy?" That's what I thought,  too. It seems like our best and brightest - world leaders, financiers, school teachers - should exhibit more sense, more self-control; witness the breaking news story of Mark Sanford  , GOP luminary and governor of the Great State of South Carolina and his secret Argentinian romance (just saying that makes me hope to be able to lay on the couch in two years with a hangover watching the Lifetime movie). Turns out they are prey to huma

             On the harrowing night of the 2008 presidential election I saw Jeff Jones do a quick-hit stand up act at Hamburger Marys in which he said that if the right wing was so goddamn concerned with the sanctity of marriage then why didn’t they ban divorce?              I’ve been a fan ever since. Far right hypocracy of the on the issue of gay civil rights is easily as perverse as anything I’ve ever seen…and I’ve seen "Coctomom".                         Lucky for us Jones expanded the soul of that joke, focused his keen eye on the politics of hate and came up with the Fringe comedy “Welcome to Hell,” now playing at Parliament House's  Footlights Theater through July 11 (click for ticket info).  .             " Welcome to Hell" finds us where many of us expect to be eventually - face to face with Satan himself. As an audience member you have arrived in the underworld and await your orientation (which I previously thought of as“the Bush years”), and are stuck

            A while back I gave you a video low-down  on the AANR World Record Skinny Dip  which will take place on July 11 at 3pm EST at sanctioned nudist outfits all over North America. The event is happening so the Guinness Book of World’s Records can admit a largest-skinny-dipping record into their annals, or wherever they put these things, for the first time.             Figuring I owed myself some peace after a few hectic weeks I decided to treat myself to a pre-skinny afternoon at  Cypress Cove , the closest resort for Central Floridians who want to participate in the event. After feeling sufficiently hypnotized by sun and draft beer I felt refreshed enough to go back to my grueling job of talking about vibrators, romance and Chastity Bono’s sex change (don’t cry for me – I’ll tough it out somehow).             So I go to my car, which has been sitting unattended for about two hours. And the driver’s side door is open.             Not unlocked.             Not ajar.            

“One’s own soul, and the passions of one’s friends – those were the fascinating things in life.”                                                                         Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”             When people ask how I came to write primarily about sex and relationships it’s easy to say something glib like “I enjoy the research,” but the truth is that I get a kid-at-Christmas thrill, a true sense of wonder at the sheer volume of different experiences everyone has with these topics. It doesn’t matter to me whether the wrapping paper is erotic, scientific, emotional or cultural – I can’t wait to tear it off and see what’s in there. Despite having been born in 1964 I was raised by people who were pacifists in the sexual revolution. Having started out with limited ideas on the subject, the more I learned (along with the rest of the country) the more interested I got. I have a friend who came to America from England as a child and said that the variety of cereal

Based on a conversation with my friend Elizabeth about the often-tangled nature of love, creativity, sex and inspiration, I wanted to share this short film by Joe Nussbaum. There isn't a doubt in my mind that this is how it could really have happened "dozens of years ago in a nearby galaxy..."

       The only dogs anyone picked up at Gay Days were, we’re quite sure, one of these beauties from Greyhound Ranch Adoptions Inc  . Regal, loyal, gentle and observant, greyhounds have two selling points many other dogs do not: they neither shed nor bark very much. And we like the political bent of their little red jackets.         So much for the beautiful dogs; some of the beautiful people we ran into on Saturday were cutie-patootie Danny Garcia (above, on the left) from the ever colorful, informative and funny What's Happening magazine  , Joey from Orlando's GLB Community Center  , supporting the community with excellent programs including free HIV testing (and knowing how to advertise - dig the Speedo above) and Sandy Anderson, this startling Dolly Parton look-alike with the River Stone Resort and Spa  in Pigeon Forge, TN.  Sandy was as sweet as she looks, and I love that she made sure I knew that the resort was right near Dollywood  – as if any any girl attending a Gay Da

Usually right now I'd be posting a video of my own but I just found something so brilliant I have to share it. This morning on alternet.org, under the headline  Glenn Beck Gets Freaky: A Look at Right-Wing Erotica  by Alex Leo of the Huffington Post  there was a link to Andy Cobb's YouTube channel  . I don't think I've ever actually applauded a YouTube video alone in the privacy of my home before but this parody of a lonely right-winger trying to promote a lifestyle of heterosexuality is the best laugh I've had in days. You enjoy - I'm going to go watch the rest of his stuff. :)

        Male or female, young or old, ravenous or picky…we all have one thing in common when it comes to sex: we remember our first time. How we lost our virginity, whether it was perfect, horrid, or perfectly horrid, is a pivotal moment, the turnstile to a wonderland more complex than the movies or manuals could have told us.        In this month’s Details  magazine, author/editor Jeff Gordinier chronicles a classic tale of that quest in " The Greatest Virginity Story Ever Told" (it's called just "The Virgin" in the print version): hormone-crazy Otto, guided by his wise friend Bill, means to leave his cherry in Vegas before going home to England. The difference is that Otto has Down syndrome.          “I read some stories about Lucy Baxter, Otto’s mother, and her quest to find a partner for Otto,” Jeff said in an email interview for www.lizlangley.com (Baxters are famous in England). “While her comments had stirred up a controversy in the U.K., it dawned on me

          China has lost it's sexual attraction:  Before it even got a chance to nail its first tourists, to test the "If you build it they will come" theory, the Chinese sex theme park, Love Land (entrance below),  was closed down  by local authorities.          It’s kind of easy to make fun of the idea of a sex theme park,  easy to wonder if there would have been   rollercoasters with dongs stuck to the seats and a tongue-shaped water slide (these were never planned). And because it's easy to make fun of it's easy to dismiss as having been a bad idea in the first place.          But that cynicism starts to evaporate when you read about the Love Land theme park in Jeju, South Korea (and this great piece in Associated Content) . Jeju is an island where bashful couples joined in pre-arranged marriages once came to honeymoon and where people were available to make them feel more….at ease…with the first-time sex they were about to have (an idea that’s either wonderfu