The non-profit Pinups for Vets is celebrating the 1940s tonight at the Colony, at 1743 N. Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood, complete with pin-ups, swing and burlesque.

Founder Gina Elise started the organization, which primarily sells calendars and holds fundraisers like this one, in 2007. She recalls how the project came about:

A few years ago, I started seeing news articles about under-funded Veterans’ healthcare programs. Then, there were stories about older Veterans who lay in bed day after day, never receiving any visitors. Reports started surfacing on TV about the severe injuries sustained by our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The more I heard about the uphill battles of our wounded soldiers, the more convinced I was of the need to produce a project that would bring in funds to support all of our hospitalized Veterans.

My late Grandpa Lou served in the army for 4 years during World War II. I wanted to do something to honor his name. I always loved the romance of those bygone eras — especially the 1940’s — and I drew inspiration from the World War II pin-up girls, whose photos and paintings boosted morale for our soldiers fighting overseas.

Join in tonight at 9:00PM. Tickets are $5 at the door. For more details, visit the Facebook page.

Image from Pinups for Vets.

Terry Richardson. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s a famous photographer. A famous photographer who a year ago was dubbed by the press as a complete and utter creep. Of course, there are creeps and then there are creeps. Those artsy types, they can be pretty damn creepy and stay harmless.

Former NakedCity: New York editor Jamie Peck made us question whether there was more to Richardson than just a harmless creep vibe when she recounted her experience modeling for him on The Goss:

The second time was the weird one. It was the end of my freshman year of college and my mom had just helped me move my stuff out of my dorm room, which I had one more day to vacate. I went straight downtown from there, thinking it would be more of the same, but it wasn’t. Uncle Terry [not her actual uncle, "Uncle Terry" is what he asked her to call him] was feeling frisky that day! I told him I had my period so I wanted to keep my underwear on, and he asked me to take my tampon out for him to play with. “I love tampons!” he said, in that psychotically upbeat way that temporarily convinces so many girls that what’s fun for Uncle Terry is fun for them. (I can just imagine him chirping, “Why don’t you wear these fairy wings while I fuck you in the ass? Wouldn’t that be like, so fun?” to some attenuated girl fresh off the boat from Eastern Europe. Either the man’s totally delusional, or he gets off on the fact that many of these things are not, in fact, very much fun for the girls.) I politely declined his offer to make tea out of my bloody cunt plug. It was then that he decided to just get naked.

[...] I’m not sure how he maneuvered me over to the couch, but at some point he strongly suggested I touch his terrifying penis. Who the heck specifically requests a handjob, that most unpopular of sex acts which, were we casting a sex act version of The Breakfast Club, would undoubtedly play the part intended for Anthony Michael Hall? I’ll tell you: high school boys and Terry Richardson. Not that I would’ve preferred him to request anything else, I’m just sayin’: if you ask for an H.J., you are aiming low with complete knowledge that the girl is not into it.

This is where I zoom out on the situation. I can remember doing this stuff, but even at the time, it was sort of like watching someone else do it, someone who couldn’t possibly be me because I would never touch a creepy photographer’s penis. The only explanation I can come up with is that he was so darn friendly and happy about it all, and his assistants were so stoked on it as well, that I didn’t want to be the killjoy in the room. My new fake friends would’ve been bummed if I’d said no.

While more than this account has surfaced, Richardson continues to work and exhibit his work. This month, he’s got a show here in Los Angeles for his first solo exhibition, which is kicking off this Friday and running until March 31 at OHWOW Gallery, 937 N. La Cienega Boulevard.

The exhibit, Terrywood, will feature some 25 of his latest photos, all inspired by Hollywood. OHWOW’s press release chirps:

Through a medium not typically understood as effective in translating an artist’s personality, Richardson manages to make his hand evident within his photographs. His identity is unmistakably present here, as if he created the very objects and scenes his camera captures.

We wonder if he made Hollywood’s signs and corners give him handjobs, too.

What has two wheels and an encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood facts and filming locations? The folks at The Pleasure Chest. This Sunday, they’re arranging a bike ride around Hollywood to visit on the landmarks of real and fictional Tinsel Town romance.

You’ll meet at the sex shop’s parking lot at 7733 Santa Monica Blvd (between Spaulding and Genesee) at one in the afternoon. You’ll go on an easy bike ride around the area, which will run approximately an hour and a half. Then, you’ll reconvene at the Pleasure Chest for a costume contest, vintage smut films, beer, wine, popcorn, and some cupcakes.

More details, from the Pleasure Chest blog:

This will be an easy ride with no big hills. We’ll go at a slow and easy pace with frequent stops. Route slips will be included and expert bicycle mechanics will accompany us on this tour. Your fearless ride leaders and the bumpin’ beats of the bicycle boombox will enable you to hear us wherever we go. If you’re planning to enjoy the afterparty at the store, be prepared to lock your bike outside or pack it in your vehicle before joining us for the festivities. If there is rain, the ride will be canceled. You do not need to RSVP to participate, but you can tell us you’re coming at this Facebook event page.

Wardrobe theme is “Red Romance.” Interpret however you like. Just remember that obscenity laws exist, etc. You’ve been warned.

Header image by Jeff Attaway.

Your favorite thing: porn stars. Your greatest fear: karaoke. On the same night. We know what you’re thinking — this is madness. No, it’s tradition. Porn Star Karaoke has been a great way for your favorite porn dolls to relieve some stress and showcase their other talents since 2003. What makes tomorrow’s event different is that up-and-comer Alex Chance will be hosting the event at Burbank’s Sardo’s Grill and Lounge.

Porn Star Karaoke is open to the public. Admission is limited to people over 21, but there is no cover and parking is free. Sardo’s Grill and Lounge is located at 259 N. Pass Ave. in Burbank, and kicks off at 9:00PM.

Jessie Lee doesn’t like cutesy couples, so to counteract the mushy nonsense coming up this Valentine’s day, she’s teamed up with alt-porn emporium Burning Angels founder and long-time friend Joanna Angel to throw a wicked anti-Valentine’s party.

Everyone is invited to join Lee and her hot, single friends at Angels & Kings on 1708 N. Las Palmas in Hollywood. And if that’s not incentive enough to go, Lee made sure to let us know that she’ll also be giving away Burning Angels DVDs all night.

And you were emo about not having anyone to send an overpriced bouquet of roses to? Seriously?

Think of the AVNs. Now take out the porn stars and add a bunch of scientists. What do you get? The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality’s Western regional meeting, happening April 19 to 22nd at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

What is this Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality? They are a group of professionals advancing our species’ knowledge of sex since the founding of the society in 1957. They publish a journal, award research excellence and hold meetings across various regions to promote freedom of inquiry and interdisciplinary cooperation among researchers, educators and clinicians.

“On Being Sexual” — the name conferred on the L.A. gathering — will take a “contemplative and holistic approach to the study of sex and relationships,” exploring what our species knows about sex and how we know it. Among attendees will be people from the fields of sexology, psychology, sociology, public policy, medicine and neuroscience.

We’ll have to keep an eye on their site for details about attending.

“Science to do” image from ThinkGeek, where you can get the shirt for under $20.

Tired of real life? Leave your responsibilities behind and enjoy an extravagant evening of eye candy and self-indulgence at the Playboy Mansion’s Venetian-style Kandy Masquerade on Saturday, February 25. You won’t see any elaborate ball gowns here — if previous parties are any indication, the masks on guests’ faces probably cover more than their outfits do. Assuming they’re wearing any. As far as Playboy is concerned, body paint is the height of fashion.

The world hasn’t seen this brand of decadence since Marie Antoinette’s time.

Never mind what the 99 percent did to her! If you have money to burn, what’s a grand? Lux Deluxe is even throwing in a cabana offer for you and nine friends for only $10,000!

Yeah, our editrix doesn’t pay us enough to get in there, either. But before you join us in a homicidal spree around Bel Air, consider that all proceeds from Kandy events go straight to charity organizations. This particular one will benefit the V Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping find a cure for cancer through research, advocacy, education, fundraising and philanthropy.

The Pleasure Chest is celebrating sex in our city by giving 25 percent off on in-store purchases to buyers who come with a Sex and the City 2 ticket stub.

What’s the connection? If you were a fan of the show, surely you recall that episode where Charlotte discovered the pleasures of the Rabbit. That store she got the vibrator was the Pleasure Chest. Of course, that was the store on 156 7th Avenue in New York. But, hey, 7733 Santa Monica Boulevard isn’t too shabby.

Offer ends on the first of July!

Via WeHo Daily.

Last weekend I found myself in a room of eager submissives and Doms attending a workshop on pain management. This was part of DomCon LA — a four-day series of events that is the biggest and most well-organized annual BDSM convention in Los Angeles. The overall event is geared to Dominants, both pros and lifestylers. But it’s a feast for submissives like myself, who melt into a puddle of bliss relinquishing power to a Dom. I’m a sucker for the type of man who will slam you down, pin your arms behind you and use you like a piece of meat — and this convention had plenty of them!

DomCon includes educational presentations, demos, hands-on technique training, a couture show, a gay wedding, a fabulous array of BDSM fashion, toys and lifestyle accessories for sale, play parties, a Mistresses’ tea, and the Fetish Ball. The event is produced by legendary male-to-female pro-Domme Mistress Cyan. Mistress Cyan was the 2009 Pantheon of Leather Woman of the Year, she runs a production company and a professional dungeon; and she is a successful bondage and fetish model and actress. Kinksters come from all over to attend DomCon so it’s a huge social event, great for people-watching and a lot of fun.

The scene in the pain management class: A “baby girl” (actually a twenty-something) sitting on the floor leaning on the thigh of her mommy Mistress, wearing a ruffled short dress. Her blonde hair was swept up and held in place with big pink bows.

A guy in full black latex suit with lace-up arm gloves, boots, police hat and cop sunglasses sat next to a heavyset Latina.

A handful of men and women seemed of ambiguous orientation but with most others, it was fairly obvious from their body language: straight or gay, Dom or sub.

A Domme, with hair pulled back neatly in a slick bun, sat behind the presenter, her presence intimidating. She wore a waist-cincher severely tightened to emphasize her enormous (and probably fake) breasts. I had no trouble avoiding eye contact with her — it was hard not to stare at those breasts, ready to pop out of her tight white blouse.

The presenter, an alluringly feminine blonde submissive, struggled to give her talking points, as her Domme repeatedly interrupted her to add information. The power struggle was comical but the Domme eventually took her seat and let her sub be in charge to present the material. She covered many of the same points I covered in my last article on processing pain, but added some colorful examples and encouraged attendees to share their own methods and experiences.

Outside in the convention hall, goth babes in tight, shiny latex dresses and all manner of piercings in their faces strolled alongside lanky pale men with dyed black locks. Many had floggers tucked in their pant pockets. In one booth, a man had a girl bent over a spanking bench and was spanking her vigorously. Yummy smacking sounds rang out but the girl hardly made a whimper. He had her positioned so her red ass faced out to the aisle where people could best see her.

Vendors sold leather paddles, whips, collars, jewelry, DVDs, dungeon furniture and fetish wear. I tried on a waist-cincher and the lovely girl manning the booth tied it up tightly on me. I saw we’d drawn a crowd of men — and realized I needed to own that waist-cincher!

I ran into friends and got to meet several people I knew from social networking sites but hadn’t yet met in person, including another writer for Sex and the 405. So much fun!

That night I met up with Sir M and Mistress L at the DomCon play party. It was a fetish dress up affair — meaning that half the people there weren’t really kinksters; they were club kids who liked to appropriate the fashion. Sir M grumbled about this. Case in point: an attractive trendy girl wearing a cocked fedora and super cute latex dress walked through the dance floor with a guy in tow — on his hands and knees crawling right behind her. I assumed she was a Domme but then noticed she was wearing a collar. In this lifestyle collars are reserved for submissives to display that they are owned by their Dom. I imagined the BDSM fashion police chasing her down, hog-tying her and spanking her for this transgression.

We peeked in one of the play rooms and saw a crowd watching Mistress Cyan at work with her single-tail whip, playing with a female sub. Her skills with the whip are legendary and it was a beautiful sight to watch as she concentrated on placing each crack of the whip in exactly the right spot with the proper intensity. Undoubtedly she could easily split someone in two with that whip if she wanted to.

Sir M had me strip naked and restrained me to a giant spider web made of chain. I tried my best to use some of the pain management techniques I’d learned earlier that day as he whacked me harshly with his leather paddle. My breath was quick and shallow and I tried to consciously control it. Once my breathing got slower and deeper I was able to deflect the pain more effectively.

He saw me responding well, and switched over to flogging me. Adrenaline flowed through and heightened the sensation of each blow as it landed on me. Several couples patiently waited their turn to use the web in this crowded room.

We moved over to a leather bench and I laid on my back, anxious and excited. Sir M was going to do one of his famous bonfires on my body. A large crowd gathered to watch because the effect is quite dramatic. Just as the flames danced down my torso we were told by club management “no fires!” — sorry, too late!

The next day was the most crowded at the convention. I greeted Sir M as usual by kissing his feet, then did my best to shadow him and stay on his left side.

We attended David Farrah’s excellent workshop on how to attract a play partner. Farrah examined universal theories of attraction and punctuated each point with humor and audience interaction.

He noted that facial expressions can add to or detract from attractiveness, so he advised us:

“Be happy, it’s attractive! Carry a joke with you, laugh!”

To demonstrate this theory, he had Mr. L.A. Leather Bear 2010 read a piece of paper. Mr Bear is a burly, brooding bruiser. As he read it silently, his face lit up and he smirked because he knew he was being made to laugh. It was a silly joke but it proved Farrah’s point.

(The joke was: “A guy walks into a bar and the bartender says to the man, ‘Hey guy, you’ve got a steering wheel down your pants.’ The guy replies ‘Yeah I know. Its driving me nuts!’”)

DomCon made me smile, made me scream, made me laugh, made me cry. It was very, very good.

Last night was the ceremony for the second annual Streamy Awards, which, for all of you non-geeks out there, is an award show for web shows. Think about it like an Emmys for the internet (and if you don’t know what the Emmys are, well, geez, we can’t help you). We’re not in web video, but we sent out our editrix (who’s a renown geekarizer and fancies herself a member of Los Angeles’ tech set, the poor thing) to feel out the event and come back with some juicy gossip.

She didn’t. Nevertheless, the L.A. web cognoscenti are on fire in various social networks today in regard to the award show.

Apparently, while our editrix was enjoying a tryst in the ladies’ lavatory — the award show was collapsing into a festival of vulgarity.

Here’s what everyone is upset about:

Lisa Nova and Chris Hardwick were molested onstage by other members of the webvid glitterati:

Streamy-veteran Felicia Day was accosted by David Faustino in nothing but his underwear while retrieving her award. Screengrab below from Web Series Today, via NewTeeVee:

When technical difficulties ensued, two men ran through the crowd naked, stopping only to high-five Kevin Pereira, host of G4′s Attack of the Show. They remain unidentified. Screengrab from @Kiddsock:

According to Garrett Garese, founder of Spytap Industries, the ceremony also involved a fake porn producer receiving “a ‘lifetime achievement award’ and repeatedly uttering variations on the phrase ‘oceans of semen.’”

Mathieas at Web Series Today makes mention of more of the shenanigans, including “numerous masturbation jokes” during the opening as well as a “five minute bit about vaginal reconstruction.”

Many in the industry are issuing apologies to their viewers today, for asking them to tune in to the event on Ustream. We like director Blake Calhoun’s take on the whole thing: “I liken this misstep to Kevin Smith’s early movie career. He made Clerks. Was a big hit. Went out and made Mallrats next. Was a huge flop. But then he made Chasing Amy… Let’s hope next year’s Streamy Awards is our Chasing Amy (without all the dick jokes of course).”

We’re into those dick-jokes, of course, and hope the event won’t be entirely sanitized. But there’s a place and time and proper method of execution for everything, creatures. Don’t ever forget that.

Anyway, here’s Hollywood saying “fuck you” right back: “Technical difficulties plagued the second annual Streamy Awards on Sunday night, somewhat fitting for a ceremony that honors web series.” And so the web’s battle to be taken seriously marches on.

PS: we’re kidding about the tryst. Our editrix was charging her iPhone. Hey, have a laugh, we all survived the Streamys and a little glitch is not going to stop the web’s content creators from doing what they do best: keep on rocking.

Photo of Orpheum Theater in the banner montage by Billy Jensen. Screengrabs and videos are linked to their source within the post.