THIS ISSUE is our 'Focus on Washington.' It's that season. Our spies have been scouring the gutters of the capital for the past three months, and I think I’ve got the low-down that is, if the D.C. police don't decide to 'clean up' the city between now & the March. Many of y'all will soon have the opportunity to find out for yourselves just how sleazy the capital can be, and I've got the feeling that you won't need this publication to guide you to the hotspots -at midnight on April 25th, there won't be a street in Washington where you can avoid running into fellow sleaze-hounds. At least, that's what we're hoping. We'll be there, and we hope to meet lots of you there, in every park & alley & bookstore. Why will we be there? The obvious answer is 'to sell magazines.' And it's an accurate answer, as far as it goes. More in line with our Purpose (Yes! We do have a 'Purpose'!) is the idea that Sex Is Important-and I, for one, am terribly suspicious that the political types who are organizing this March on Washington are trying to avoid talking about sex. Oh, they're going to make big noises about AIDS, and about gays in the military, and about Equal Rights (whatever that means), and probably three dozen other issues that may or may not be relevant or interesting to me; but I doubt that there will be one word about the federal prosecution of Jim West, one of our preeminent producers of gay sex-videos. I don't expect to hear speeches against the Broward County, Florida raids on 'adult bookstores' that carry gay titles. There will be a 'leather' contingent at the March, possibly quite a sizeable one, but you'll have to listen carefully to hear any paeans to s/m and leathersex from the main stage. And there's tittle chance that you'll hear a call for decriminalization of public sex (although it is a truly victimless 'crime,' and is certainly more of a 'gay' issue than, say, the Columbus brouhaha). So STEAM will be there in an attempt to see that Sex isn't completely swept under the carpet. We won't be invited to speak; if we have a booth, I'm sure it will be hidden at the far end of a long row of booths. But we do think it's important that someone be there who won't shut up about sex. Sex is Life!-or at least, without it, our lives would be a lot less interesting. That's what we're going to try to remind anyone who sees us in Washington. Y'all come, hear?

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