Vienna museum hosts swingers club to expose sexual inhibitions

A renowned Vienna art museum has asked a "swingers" group to move into a Gustav Klimt exhibition to help gallery visitors confront their sexual inhibitions. 

An interior view of the swingers club at the Secession. Photo: AP

The Secession building. Photo: AP

Artist Gustav Klimt. Photo: Alamy

During the day visitors to the Secession contemporary art museum walk among the mattresses and erotic paraphernalia of the "Element6" sex club to view masterpieces by Klimt, who once scandalised Edwardian Europe with his sexually explicit art.

By night, the "swingers" return to carry out orgies among the artworks.
"Group sex in the Secession – has our society completely lost it?" Austria's far-Right Freedom Party has asked.
 A spokesman for the sex club said it was participating in the exhibition "to give as many people as possible the opportunity to overcome their inhibitions".
"In the framework of this exhibition at the Secession, each individual can test for himself or herself whether this opens up new dimensions for his or her own sexuality," he said.
The sex club was invited into the museum as part of a project by Christoph Buechel, a Swiss artist.
While sex acts are not allowed during day, gallery visitors wander among the club's king-size beds, erotic pictures, bar and whirlpool baths to view the art.
"It's not my thing but why not?" said Ute Wegscheider, a young mother pushing her pram outside the museum. "Maybe I should go check it out with my husband."
The museum is hoping to reignite the original controversy that surrounded Klimt's 1902 "Beethoven Frieze", the centre of the new exhibition.
Now considered one of the Austrian painter's most important works, the frieze was once thought of as obscene and pornographic because of the way women's bodies were depicted.
One section of the mural shows three mostly naked women, one who looks pregnant and the other two covered only by their long flowing tresses of hair. Another includes naked mythical figures and a zombie-like, half-naked female with stringy black hair.
Klimt, who died in 1918, was a Symbolist painter whose primary subject was the female body and his work shocked contemporaries with its frank eroticism.
The room where the frieze is exhibited is locked at night for security reasons. But it too has its share of the sex club's mattresses, surrounded by fake tropical plants and a life-size stuffed lion.
Gerald Adler, of Britain's Kent School of Architecture, who is planning to take students to see the exhibition said that sex no longer had the power to shock in a modern art museum.
"He's putting it in a place that's an accepted venue for avant-garde art, so it loses its effect," he said.
The exhibition runs until April 18.

Pole dancing could be recognized as a sport and headed to the Olympics

Pole dancers at the top of their game may one day have a shot at winning an Olympic medal.

The strip club mainstay pole dancing - known as much for its sensual moves as its rigorous athletic side - may be headed for the Olympics.

A group of pole-dance advocates is hoping for a "test" event in 2012 and a more formal pitch four years after that, in Rio de Janeiro, according to The Associated Press.

KT Coates, a prominent pole dancer in England and director of Vertical Dance, is leading the Olympic push.

"After a great deal of feedback from the pole-dance community, many of us have decided that it’s about time pole fitness is recognized as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London," she said in a petition she’s preparing for organizers of the London Olympics.

Coates added that the prospective sport "has the wow factor."

While her petition now has about 4,000 signatures, she is hoping to add 1,000 more.

Advocates of pole dancing say other even more unlikely sports have gotten the approval of the International Olympic Committee. Tug of war was an early Olympic medal contest, and curling is now huge at the Winter Games.

Yet, well-established sports like cricket and squash haven’t managed to get a spot for themselves at the Olympics, and baseball and softball recently got the ax. The International Olympic Community would need to recognize pole dancing as a sport, which could prove to be an uphill battle.

But pole-dance enthusiasts are hopeful about their chances to go for the gold.

"It’s just a matter of time before pole dancing gets Olympic recognition," says Ania Przeplasko of Hong Kong, founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association.

"There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport," she told The Associated Press. "The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness now. We’re shooting for 2012."

Some dancers aren’t so sure about pole dancing at the Olympics because they worry that the sensual aspect of the discipline would be destroyed, and that old-school pole dancers might be pushed aside by gymnasts, circus performers and Chinese acrobats who could easily pick up the moves.

"I don’t need to see pole dancing in the Olympics," U.S. Pole Dance Federation co-founder Wendy Traskos said. "I don’t think this is necessarily the path that we need to take, as a sport."

But Traskos notes that the notion of pole dancers competing for Olympic medals isn’t as farfetched as it was five years ago.

"Now, when you talk about it you don’t hear 'like a stripper' anymore," Traskos said. "You hear things like, 'Oh, my friend takes classes for fitnees' or 'Yes, I've seen it on 'Oprah.' "

PM forms National Sports Development Committee

 Decline in sports contributed towards rise in terrorism: Gilani

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Tuesday said the decline of sports in the country had contributed towards the rise in terrorism in the country. “If the youth of the country are provided with motivation, facilities and opportunity to harness their energy into positive activities like sports, the extremists would have a hard time in finding youth that can be misled,” he added. Gilani was addressing the first ever joint meeting of the national sports bodies and national sports heroes held at the Prime Minister Secretariat. The Prime Minister said sports created integration, discipline and a sense of brotherhood. “Sports create awareness, bring cultures together and build bridges even in the case of traditional rivals,” he said. He observed there were scores of oil and gas companies, banks, cellular companies, beverages and major tea brands which were engaged in patronizing bigger sports like cricket and hockey. “They should also focus on individual sportsmen by providing them scholarships and employments.”

The Prime Minister said he would direct the concerned authorities to include sports education as part of the development package for under developed and militancy affected areas. He announced formation of a National Sports Development Committee to be headed by the federal minister for sports with minister for education, minister for inter-provincial coordination and provincial sports ministers as members. The committee has been assigned to develop a national policy for sports promotion in consultation with all the stakeholders including national sports heroes and submit the policy with recommendations within two months for consideration of the cabinet. Gilani also announced to double the budget allocations of the ministry of sports specifically for the promotion of various sports through established federations. He also announced sports scholarships in all the leading schools, colleges, and universities to encourage students to participate in sports.

What Will China Do With Its Veto?

WASHINGTON, Feb 23  (IPS)  - With relations between China and the U.S. taking some bitter turns in recent months, how China responds to mounting pressure from the U.S. and its European allies for tougher sanctions on Iran is being viewed as a major test of the current relations and a determinant of the future shape of bilateral ties between Washington and Beijing.

A series of actions and statements in recent months have given rise to tensions between the U.S. and China. The U.S. recently sold 6.4 billion dollars worth of arms to Taiwan, slammed the Chinese government over internet censorship and hacking, imposed tariffs on Chinese tyres and has called on Beijing to readjust its currency.

In addition, President Barack Obama received the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in the White House last week.

In turn, China has threatened retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products and sanctions against companies that participated in the Taiwan arms sale. Moreover, Beijing has begun to shift its balance of payments surplus away from U.S. dollars and decried U.S. condemnation of internet censorship as ”information imperialism”.

With domestic pressure mounting for the White House to take action against Iran's nuclear activities, the administration's top officials have engaged in an intensive diplomatic campaign to convince key players, in particular China, to get on board with plans for harsher sanctions.

Thus far, China has adamantly opposed attempts by the U.S. and its western European allies to impose tougher sanctions on Iran and advocates diplomacy to forge an agreement. In early February, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said during a conference in Europe that ”to talk about sanctions at the moment will complicate the situation and might stand in the way of finding a diplomatic solution.”

Many analysts attribute Beijing's position to its traditional opposition to sanctions and its growing trade relationship with Iran.

”Philosophically they don't like sanctions and don't think they work so there's not much good about this from China's point of view,” Chas Freeman, co-chair of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation and a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told IPS. ”So the only reason to do it is to please the Americans. And we haven't exactly gone out of our way to make them feel kindly about us.”

A Financial Times report earlier this month said China is now Iran's leading trade partner, overtaking the European Union (EU).

The volume of Iran's commerce with China totaled 36.5 billion dollars in 2008, according to the FT, while the EU's trade with Iran stood at 35 billion dollars for the same year. Iran is now the third major oil supplier to China. According to the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce, Iran provides 11 percent of China's energy needs.

Recognising the importance of Tehran to Beijing's soaring energy needs, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Gulf region recently, urging Iran's Arab neighbours to provide oil to China in the event of sanctions. Washington hopes that with Arab states supplying China's energy needs, Beijing will drop its opposition to Western plans for more sanctions. As of now, it is not clear yet whether the Gulf's Arab countries will go along with the U.S. proposal.

”Relations with Iran fit into the larger picture of China's burgeoning international energy diplomacy. With soaring energy needs, it cannot be too choosy in the partners it keeps,” wrote Kerry Brown, a senior fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, in an article for the forthcoming issue of The World Today, a Chatham House monthly magazine.

”With a government which places economic growth at the centre of its legitimacy, and which needs to pump out eight percent gross domestic product increases at least for the next five years, having the energy to achieve this is crucial. The Communist Party will be finished if it fails to improve the economic lot of its people,” Brown wrote.

Earlier on the 31st anniversary of Iran's 1979 Revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that his country is now a nuclear power, saying Iranian scientists had succeeded in enriching uranium to 20 percent. Western officials have disputed the claim, and say Iran could not have made such rapid progress.

Iran needs 20 percent-enriched uranium to operate a medical research reactor in Tehran.

As the U.S. and its allies increasingly lose patience with Iran, an important trump card in their hands to leverage China to comply with their demands is the threat of Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The West hopes the prospect of instability in the centre of world's energy resources could persuade a reluctant China to join them, something that Freeman describes as a ”blackmail or a protection racket.” But it is not clear how serious Beijing takes Israel's repeated threats to bomb Iran's nuclear installations.

Many doubt if Israel will be able to attack Iran given the high costs of such an action. In an analysis, a group of experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote that any Israeli assault on Iran will push up oil prices to heights that will plunge the world economy into a new recession.

Israeli officials will head to Beijing in late February to convince Chinese leadership to get in line with Western plans for more sanctions. But the Israelis apparently had little success in convincing Russia to support tougher sanctions, even though Moscow until recently was deemed to have a softer stance toward sanctions on Iran.

But Russia also appears to have introduced some degree of change to its position. Following a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Moscow in early February to demand ”crippling sanctions” on Iran, statements by top Russian officials showed the Kremlin has serious disagreements with the West over the severity of potential sanctions.

”The term 'crippling sanctions' on Iran is totally unacceptable to usàWe certainly cannot talk about sanctions that could be interpreted as punishment on the whole country and its people for some actions or inaction,” Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, told Interfax news agency last Friday.

The strong message out of Moscow may bring some relief to officials in Beijing as a Russian refusal to back strong sanctions would take some of the pressure off China. But as a permanent veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, China will have to make a difficult decision if Russia chooses not to veto sanctions on the floor of the Council.

”What they (Chinese) have always tried to do in the past is hide behind the Russians. If the Russians are non-cooperative [in sanctions] then the Chinese are off the hook and can avoid taking sides,” Freeman said. ”To use [the Chinese saying], they can sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. But this time the Chinese may not be able to play this game and may have to make a decision.”

Although sanctions politics appear to be popular among politicians both in the Obama administration and Congress, some doubt if they can really bring about any change in Iran's behaviour. They see it only as a move to satisfy the ”have-to-do-something itch” in Washington in the face of increasing Iranian defiance.

Steve Clemons, an expert at the New America Foundation, argued during a discussion on Blogsheadtv.com that sanctions are ”more designed to be about the West's emotional and political needs rather than a strategy that would really move Iran to a new course.”