It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The German Association for Free Body Culture turns 75 this year but has seen dwindling membership and changing attitudes towards a textile-free lifestyle.
'Free body culture' has long been part of the German cultural fabric
Image: Bernd_Wüstneck/ZB/picture-alliance
Here's the naked truth: Generally, Germans are unfazed by bare bodies.
Some of the country's lakes, parks and beaches are sectioned off for naturists; those who prefer keeping their threads on are usually unruffled when sharing spaces with those who don't.
This nonchalance could be attributed to one of the country's most iconic (and sometimes misunderstood) movements: Freikörperkultur (FKK), or free body culture.
As the Deutscher Verband für Freikörperkultur (DFK) — the umbrella body representing the interests of organized supporters of FKK — celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, we peel back the layers of this movement's evolution in Germany and its role in the country's cultural fabric.
Bare facts: Germany's nudism movement
Germans find it easier to strip naked on a beach or in a sauna than people from many other countries. A brief history of the country's nudism movement, known as FKK.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Pedersen
A 'free body': Germany's nudist culture
It's a part of German culture, just like techno music and "Spargelzeit," the asparagus season. Even though the practice of Freikörperkultur (FKK), which translates as "free body culture," is dwindling among the younger generations of Germans, you'll still find lots of FKK areas on beaches as well as nude culture enthusiasts in spas — and even parks.
Imago/D. Matthes
The healthy hobby
By the late 19th century, many Germans believed it was healthy to strip off and bathe "textile free" at one of the country's many lakes. At the time there was a move away from polluted industrialized cities to nature in pursuit of good health. Some people also enjoyed hiking or doing exercise in the nude. This picture dates back to 1933 and shows two women at Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria.
A culture promoted in film
Increasing health through free movement in nature was an ethos featured in the 1925 film Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit (Ways to Strength and Beauty). Starring controversial German actor and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, it was one of the country's most popular educational films of the silent era. It contained scenes of physical exercise such as dance and bathing.
FKK and the Nazis
Leni Riefenstahl later became Hitler's favorite filmmaker, and glorified the Aryan athletic physique in her two-part film Olympia, based on the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin. While the Nazis initially banned FKK, nude swimming was once again allowed in 1942, if done discreetly in remote areas. Many promoters of the FKK movement were however leftists
A strong tradition in the former GDR
While FKK in the GDR was initially promoted by avant-gardists in the 1950s, it became widespread and tolerated by the 70s. As life in the GDR was so tightly controlled in other ways, bathing nude could be seen as a rare liberty — and people made full use of it. In this picture from 1986, dozens of nudists bask in the sun at Müggelsee, a lake in the suburbs of East Berlin
FKK on the Baltic coast
FKK was also particularly strong on Baltic Sea beaches. However, the practice didn't spread to the Polish side of the coast. After Poland joined the EU, it became easier to walk from one country to the other's beach, but nudism was a cause of tensions between the localities on both sides of the German-Polish border.Image: Imago/argum/C. Lehsten
Getting into the FKK spirit
At this beach in Leipzig in 1980, nudists hang out together on a hot day. The FKK spirit is about celebrating the body and being free from clothes. According to FKK enthusiasts, the practice is not connected to sex; it's about freeing yourself from social constraints. And it's certainly one way to make sure that you don't get any pesky tan lines from wearing a swimsuit.
Not only in the east: Munich's designated spots
While public nudity is generally forbidden in Munich, there are various specific areas where FKK is allowed, for example in the English Garden and along the Isar River, including the Flaucher beach area, a popular destination for nudists, as this picture on a hot day from 2002 shows. FKK areas usually have a clear sign, and people chilling there do not want to be seen as a tourist attraction.
Berlin's park life
The practice is not as strong as it used to be, but some parks still have a certain FKK tradition — so you might come across more flesh than you were expecting on an afternoon walk. While public nudity is illegal, sunbathing naked is tolerated in different Berlin parks, such as the Mauerpark, Volkspark Friedrichshain (picture, from 1999) and Tiergarten — as long as it's not disturbing anyone.
A passion for millions of Germans
Angela Merkel was famously taking a sauna the night the Berlin Wall came down; it was her Thursday ritual. Figures show that around 30 million people in Germany visit the country's 2,300 saunas regularly. The majority of spas are open to all genders and require users to be textile-free.Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Pleul
Bare all in the wild
It may not be for everyone, but if you really want to get in touch with nature you could try going for a hike — au naturel. Deep in Germany's Harz mountain region is where you'll find an 18-kilometer naked hiking route. Stretching from the town of Dankerode to the Wippertal reservoir and back, the route welcomes FKK aficionados. Just watch out for nettles
To be clear, no law in Germany expressly prohibits (non-sexual) nudity.
Nakedness on private grounds is considered legal, even if visible from outside. The same applies to naked sunbathing, unless otherwise stated by local laws.
FKK's roots date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Germany was abuzz with social reform movements aiming to redress industrialization's impact on people's health.
At the time, living in cramped, polluted cities was wreaking havoc on their physical and mental well-being.
The movement's proponents believed that enjoying the feeling of sun, air and water on bare skin amidst a community of like-minded individuals was beneficial, fostering not only a healthy body image but helping heal an assortment of maladies that included TB, rickets, and seasonal affective disorder — now known as SAD.
It was also a form of rebellion against the rigid moral attitudes of the 19th century.
The first FKK groups emerged in the 1890s, advocating for nude sunbathing as a healthy — albeit non-sexualized — natural activity.
In 1920, Germany established its first official nude beach on the island of Sylt. A few years later, Adolf Koch founded the Berlin School of Nudism that, amongst others, encouraged mixed-gender open-air exercises. The school hosted the first international nudity congress in 1929.
Clearly demarcated spaces for 'textiles-on or off' spaces on a beachImage: Axel Heimken/dpa/picture alliance
Thumbing noses at authority
During the Nazi era, nudism faced mixed fortunes due to moral restrictions.
In 1933, laws limited mixed-sex nudism, citing concerns over Weimar-era immorality.
Furthermore, nudity was linked to Marxism and homosexuality — despite naturism reportedly being popular among some SS members. In 1942, some rules were relaxed but still bore Nazi biases, especially against Jews and other marginalized groups.
After World War II, Germany's division into East and West created two environments for FKK.
For many East Germans, going nude in public was a statement of individual liberty in an otherwise tightly controlled society. Even though East Germany's GDR leadership initially tried to suppress FKK for fear it would undermine socialist ideals, they eventually conceded.
Meanwhile, the DFK or the Association for Free Body Culture was founded in the West German city of Kassel in 1949. Today, it is part of the German Olympic Sport Federation, and is the largest member of the International Naturist Federation.
There's generally a live-and-let-live attitude in Germany towards a clothing-optional lifestyleImage: Hartmut Schwarzbach/DUMONT Bildarchiv/picture-alliance
Loving your lumps and bumps
So, what does one actually do at an FKK club besides being in the buff? Basically, the same things you'd do at any other social gathering — minus clothes and minus anything sexual.
Activities range from swimming and sunbathing to team sports like volleyball. There are also designated nude hiking trails in Germany that allow naturists to commune with, well, nature.
Besides affording the body better air circulation and optimum Vitamin D absorption, FKK proponents say that the lifestyle encourages people to appreciate their bodies as they are — complete with all the lumps, bumps, and quirks that come with being human.
Furthermore, stripped of designer wear or flashy accessories, nudity is a great equalizer.
A 2017 study published in The Journal of Happiness Studies states that spending time naked with others can lead to improved body image, greater self-esteem, and higher levels of life satisfaction.
The lead researcher, Dr Keon West from Goldsmiths, University City of London, noted that "naturist environments help people see real, unfiltered bodies, which reduces anxiety around appearance"
Social media has also put off younger people from naturism for fear of falling short of the perfect 'curated' bodyImage: Matej Kastelic/Zoonar/picture alliance
Pressure to be perfect
Paradoxically, while platforms like Instagram and TikTok celebrate the human body in highly curated, filtered ways, they are believed to have contributed to a decline in FKK membership.
"The rise of the cult of the perfect body on TikTok or Instagram is increasing the pressure to not want to undress," DFK's President Alfred Sigloch told the press in June.
In fact, the DFK had to call off some plans to celebrate its 75th anniversary owing to a lack of interest. Sigloch added that DFK membership has slumped from 65,000 people 25 years ago to fewer than 34,000 now, with many remaining members said to be losing interest.
Furthermore, some current FKK practioners are also disuaded by digital technology that could secretly photograph them and post them online without consent.
Sigloch also partly blamed the rising popularity of glamping for the closing down of FKK-dedicated holiday sites. Campsite owners earn better from campers willing to pay for a more luxurious outdoor experience than simpler naturists.
The DFK president noted however that many nudist clubs had seen an uptake of interest during the COVID crisis. He attributed this, among other factors, "to the fact that the pandemic has encouraged many people to seek alternative and healthy outdoor leisure activities.”
But the fact remains that clubs are struggling to retain or attract new members.
Sigloch intends to revive the movement. "We will fight to keep onboard every single naked person who wants to be with us," he said.
"FKK is an ancient culture that cannot and will not die."
Edited by: Stuart Braun Brenda Haas Writer and editor for DW Culture
Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael review – bitchy Da Vinci conquers the army of gnarly nudes
Jonathan Jones
THE GUARDIAN Tue 5 November 2024
Swirling … a copy of The Battle of Anghiari painted by Rubens, based on Da Vinci’s engraving of 1558.Photograph: Vandeville Eric/ABACA/Shutterstock
‘Art is a serious subject,” say posters put up by the Royal Academy in London to champion art in schools. But is the Royal Academy itself serious? Its main galleries are now full of vacant paintings by Michael Craig-Martin, RA, while three of the greatest artists who ever lived are crammed into a couple of rooms round the back.
Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c 1504 is based on the rivalrous encounter between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo when both were commissioned to paint battle scenes by the Florentine republic. First, Leonardo was tasked to paint a mural of The Battle of Anghiari, in which Florence had defeated Milanese mercenaries. As Leonardo planned it, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint another battle on the same wall.
This exhibition could have been, should have been, a mighty epic. In the golden age of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Florence these two geniuses emerged. They were different ages and had opportunities beyond Florence, so they didn’t meet until “c 1504”, as the exhibition subtitle has it, when both were back in town.
It was a changed place. A revolution inspired by the preacher Savonarola chucked out the Medici and established a popular republic. Savonarola supported a new democratic assembly and spurred the building of the Great Council Hall. Then he was executed. One of his critics, Niccolò Machiavelli, future author of The Prince, became a powerful political figure.
It was probably Machiavelli who came up with a cunning plan to excite the citizens by getting both Leonardo and Michelangelo to paint histories of Florentine battles in the hall. Then it kicked off. Michelangelo insulted Leonardo by goading him about his failure to finish his bronze horse in Milan. At a meeting to decide the location for Michelangelo’s new, nude statue of the biblical hero David, Leonardo suggested the back of the Loggia della Signoria. And its genitals should be covered. Ooh, you bitch, Leonardo.
The Royal Academy’s exhibition tells practically none of this. It makes little attempt to bring “Florence c 1504” to life. There’s nothing about the hall where the standoff took place: I wanted wall-filling photos, digital projections and hi-tech sculptural and architectural simulacra.
No. This is an academic show. A drawing by Raphael of David from behind has to stand in for Michelangelo’s great statue. There is too much Raphael. The show’s insistence on treating him as a third contestant in the Renaissance Turner prize is nonsense.
So up to its halfway point this is a bore. Then the lad from Vinci steps into the ring. The fight is on and it’s not even a contest. Leonardo devastates Michelangelo. The second part brings together many of their preparatory drawings, plus copies of their battle-scene works. It leaves you struggling to give Michelangelo attention.
For without its political background, Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina is baffling. In a 16th-century copy, naked men are clambering out of a river, rushing to get dressed. In a soft, sensitive sketch, Michelangelo maps out this scene with much warmer beauty.
Is he just indulging his passion for male bodies? One of the models in his drawings turns provocatively, another adopts a boxer-like stance. Michelangelo dwells on back muscles with such gnarly power you feel you are looking at landscapes.
But he is not only pleasing himself – he is satisfying Machiavelli. The story of how a Florentine army was taking a break to swim in the Arno at Cascina when the Pisans attacked, and the soldiers rapidly armed to secure a victory for Florence, is told in Renaissance history books. It was relevant in 1504 because Florence was again at war with Pisa. It was going badly. Machiavelli believed this was because of the bad habit of hiring mercenaries. A republic should have a citizen army always ready – like Michelangelo’s energetic nudes.
Michelangelo was painting propaganda. David, too, was installed in front of the civic palace as a symbol of republican readiness. The political ideas behind them go to the heart of republican theory. The Battle of Cascina and David express the belief in citizen soldiers bearing arms that later inspired the US second amendment. But Michelangelo had not seen war and his designs look false beside the blast of Leonardo’s The Battle of Anghiari.
Just before this, Leonardo served as military engineer to Cesare Borgia, psychopathic son of Pope Alexander VI. You can witness the soulless, inhuman snarls of the killers he had encountered in a copy of The Battle of Anghiari by Rubens. It’s an interpretation rather than a replica but Leonardo’s drawings confirm its scene of an old warrior howling from his leathery cruel face as he prepares to chop off an enemy’s hand.
This frenzied hate makes Leonardo’s preparatory drawings in red chalk and brown ink throb like beating hearts that have just been torn out of an enemy body to eat. On one sheet horses rear, their mouths churning, a furious human face mirrors their madness and a snarling lion is thrown in for good measure. In another, a rearing horse shakes its body so violently Leonardo draws it in a blur of positions that anticipates Eadweard Muybridge and futurism.
If he looks forward, he also looks back. He sees in The Battle of Anghiari a basic, primal human capacity to transform from civilised creature to wild animal. A drawing that reduces a horse to a rush of red chalk lines thrusting through space resembles cave art.
At the same time, Leonardo worked on inventions. On one sheet war sketches are mixed up with cogwheels. His interests, including an attempt to fly, distracted him and the Florentine republic got furious. Michelangelo was called away by Pope Julius II. The Medici retook Florence, desecrated the Great Council Hall and probably destroyed The Battle of Anghiari.
This is a flawed exhibition but you will never forget Leonardo ’s vision of war. Fill your nightmares with apocalypse c 1504.
• Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c 1504 is at the Royal Academy, London, from 9 November to 16 February
Sunday, November 03, 2024
43ft nude Trump statue pops up again in swing state – and local GOP leader isn’t happy
Madeline Sherratt and Kelly Rissman Fri, November 1, 2024
A 43-foot tall nude effigy to Donald Trump has popped up once again just days before Election Day – this time along a busy highway in swing state Pennsylvania.
The giant statue of the former president appeared on Thursday along Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia where it caught the attention of locals, police – and Philadelphia’s Republican party leader.
The city’s GOP chair Vince Fenerty caught wind of the monstrosity through police scanners and immediately filed an obscenity report to police, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
While the space had been rented for 24 hours, due to its graphic nature, police requested the structure be taken down, the outlet reported.
In September, it was erected in a fenced-in lot next to Interstate 15 north of Las Vegas.
It then appeared in Detroit and Phoenix before it was last seen in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 27, reported The Cap Times.
The artist behind the foam and rebar effigy has remained anonymous and has turned down interviews, reported the Detroit Free Press.
However, they said the intention behind the statue was to serve “as a bold statement on transparency, vulnerability, and the public personas of political figures,” Arizona Central reported.
The effigy seen in Las Vegas (AFP via Getty Images)
So far, it’s attracted mixed reviews.
“I think it’s hilarious,” a former Democrat named Miguel told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Evan Pollack, an iron worker, agreed: “It’s hilarious that someone put that amount of work into something so insane.”
Another suggested the artist wrap a Puerto Rican flag around the lower half of the giant sculpture – a reference to the recent offensive joke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
This isn’t the first time Americans have been graced with nude statues of the Republican presidential nominee. In 2016, five unclothed Trump statues popped up in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Seattle.
That project was called “The Emperor Has No Balls” and was created by Indecline, a group that describes itself as an “activist art collective.”
This election, a wave of bronze satirical statues poking fun at the former president have also sprung up, including a bronze tiki torch and poop statue in Washington DC.
Another monument has been erected mocking former President Donald Trump — this time in a key battleground state — following a series of activism art installations throughout the United States.
The third "monument" appeared Wednesday in Philadelphia and is a golden statue of Trump standing behind a statue of a partially nude woman. Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery has been following the statues as they pop up.
The plaque reads: "In Honor Of A Lifetime Of Sexual Assault," and it cites Trump's "grab em by the p---y" comment he made on a hot microphone during a 2005 segment for "Access Hollywood." Trump bragged he couldn't control himself and would force himself on women, kissing them. He then said he could grab the women because he was a "celebrity and they let you do it!"
Additionally, a statue mocked Jan. 6 insurrectionists and another highlighted the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Donald Trump calling them "very fine people." Both were raised in Washington, D.C.
A group called "Civic Crafting" filled out the permit with the National Parks Service to erect the monuments in Washington.
Lucian Freud 'masterpiece' fetches £13.9 million at London sale
London (AFP) – A nude by Lucian Freud that took 16 months to paint sold for £13.9 million ($18.2 million) at a London auction on Wednesday, the first time the work, hailed as a "masterpiece," has come to market.
Works by the British artist, who died in 2011, have attracted growing interest -- and prices -- in recent years.
"Ria, Naked Portrait" was the star attraction of Wednesday's sale, fetching £11,810,00, rising to £13,891,500 once the buyer's fee is added on.
"It's a late masterpiece," Anna Touzin, from auctioneers Christie's, told AFP. "It was painted between 2006 and 2007 and in the same collection since it was made.
"It's the first time it's coming to the market, which is really exciting."
Freud, considered one of Britain's greatest portrait artists, took 16 months to paint the work, with the subject -- Ria Kirby -- sitting virtually every day for up to five hours.
"So a really long process and I think it shows Freud's relationship with his sitters, the kind of dedication that they would give to him but that he also gave to them, painting them," Touzin added.
Freud -- the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud -- is known for his uncompromising nudes and self-portraits, replete with flabby breasts or rounded stomachs.
"He doesn't want to portray an idealised view of the body... he's really trying to paint people as they are," said Touzin.
That has made Freud one of the most sought-after artists on the art market.
In 2022, his "Large Interior, W11" sold for a record $86 million, while in 2015, another nude, "Benefits Supervisor Resting", went for more than $56 million.
The Christie's sale also included Freud's "Head of a Woman", which sold for £4,187,880.
Works by Marc Chagall, Berthe Morisot, Willem de Kooning and Jeff Koons also went under the hammer.
In South Korea, deepfake porn wrecks women’s lives and deepens gender conflict
Citizens stage a rally against deepfake sex crime in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) Citizens stage a rally against deepfake sex crime in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. The banners read “You can’t insult us.” (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) The National Assembly passes bills toughening the punishment for deepfake sex crimes in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Three years after the 30-year-old South Korean woman received a barrage of online fake images that depicted her nude, she is still being treated for trauma. She struggles to talk with men. Using a mobile phone brings back the nightmare.
“It completely trampled me, even though it wasn’t a direct physical attack on my body,” she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. She didn’t want her name revealed because of privacy concerns.
Many other South Korean women recently have come forward to share similar stories as South Korea grapples with a deluge of non-consensual, explicit deepfake videos and images that have become much more accessible and easier to create.
It was not until last week that parliament revised a law to make watching or possessing deepfake porn content illegal.
The National Assembly passes bills toughening the punishment for deepfake sex crimes in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Most suspected perpetrators in South Korea are teenage boys. Observers say the boys target female friends, relatives and acquaintances — also mostly minors — as a prank, out of curiosity or misogyny. The attacks raise serious questions about school programs but also threaten to worsen an already troubled divide between men and women.
Deepfake porn in South Korea gained attention after unconfirmed lists of schools that had victims spread online in August. Many girls and women have hastily removed photos and videos from their Instagram, Facebook and other social media accounts. Thousands of young women have staged protests demanding stronger steps against deepfake porn. Politicians, academics and activists have held forums.
“Teenage (girls) must be feeling uneasy about whether their male classmates are okay. Their mutual trust has been completely shattered,” said Shin Kyung-ah, a sociology professor at South Korea’s Hallym University.
The school lists have not been formally verified, but officials including President Yoon Suk Yeol have confirmed a surge of explicit deepfake content on social media. Police have launched a seven-month crackdown.
Recent attention to the problem has coincided with France’s arrest in August of Pavel Durov, the founder of the messaging app Telegram, over allegations that his platform was used for illicit activities including the distribution of child sexual abuse. South Korea’s telecommunications and broadcast watchdog said Monday that Telegram has pledged to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on illegal deepfake content.
Police say they’ve detained 387 people over alleged deepfake crimes this year, more than 80% of them teenagers. Separately, the Education Ministry says about 800 students have informed authorities about intimate deepfake content involving them this year.
Experts say the true scale of deepfake porn in the country is far bigger.
The U.S. cybersecurity firm Security Hero called South Korea “the country most targeted by deepfake pornography” last year. In a report, it said South Korean singers and actresses constitute more than half of the people featured in deepfake pornography worldwide.
The prevalence of deepfake porn in South Korea reflects various factors including heavy use of smart phones; an absence of comprehensive sex and human rights education in schools and inadequate social media regulations for minors as well as a “misogynic culture” and social norms that “sexually objectify women,” according to Hong Nam-hee, a research professor at the Institute for Urban Humanities at the University of Seoul.
Victims speak of intense suffering.
In parliament, lawmaker Kim Nam Hee read a letter by an unidentified victim who she said tried to kill herself because she didn’t want to suffer any longer from the explicit deepfake videos someone had made of her. Addressing a forum, former opposition party leader Park Ji-hyun read a letter from another victim who said she fainted and was taken to an emergency room after receiving sexually abusive deepfake images and being told by her perpetrators that they were stalking her.
The 30-year-old woman interviewed by The AP said that her doctoral studies in the United States were disrupted for a year. She is receiving treatment after being diagnosed with panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder in 2022.
Police said they’ve detained five men for allegedly producing and spreading fake explicit contents of about 20 women, including her. The victims are all graduates from Seoul National University, the country’s top school. Two of the men, including one who allegedly sent her fake nude images in 2021, attended the same university, but she said has no meaningful memory of them.
The woman said the images she received on Telegram used photos she had posted on the local messaging app Kakao Talk, combined with nude photos of strangers. There were also videos showing men masturbating and messages describing her as a promiscuous woman or prostitute. One photo shows a screen shot of a Telegram chatroom with 42 people where her fake images were posted.
The fake images were very crudely made but the woman felt deeply humiliated and shocked because dozens of people — some of whom she likely knows — were sexually harassing her with those photos.
Building trust with men is stressful, she said, because she worries that “normal-looking people could do such things behind my back.”
Using a smart phone sometimes revives memories of the fake images.
“These days, people spend more time on their mobile phones than talking face to face with others. So we can’t really easily escape the traumatic experience of digital crimes if those happen on our phones,” she said. “I was very sociable and really liked to meet new people, but my personality has totally changed since that incident. That made my life really difficult and I’m sad.”
Critics say authorities haven’t done enough to counter deepfake porn despite an epidemic of online sex crimes in recent years, such as spy cam videos of women in public toilets and other places. In 2020, members of a criminal ring were arrested and convicted of blackmailing dozens of women into filming sexually explicit videos for them to sell.
“The number of male juveniles consuming deepfake porn for fun has increased because authorities have overlooked the voices of women” demanding stronger punishment for digital sex crimes, the monitoring group ReSET said in comments sent to AP.
South Korea has no official records on the extent of deepfake online porn. But ReSET said a recent random search of an online chatroom found more than 4,000 sexually exploitive images, videos and other items.
Reviews of district court rulings showed less than a third of the 87 people indicted by prosecutors for deepfake crimes since 2021 were sent to prison. Nearly 60% avoided jail by receiving suspended terms, fines or not-guilty verdicts, according to lawmaker Kim’s office. Judges tended to lighten sentences when those convicted repented for their crimes or were first time offenders.
The deepfake problem has gained urgency given South Korea’s serious rifts over gender roles, workplace discrimination facing women, mandatory military service for men and social burdens on men and women.
Kim Chae-won, a 25-year-old office worker, said some of her male friends shunned her after she asked them what they thought about digital sex violence targeting women.
“I feel scared of living as a woman in South Korea,” said Kim Haeun, a 17-year-old high school student who recently removed all her photos on Instagram. She said she feels awkward when talking with male friends and tries to distance herself from boys she doesn’t know well.
“Most sex crimes target women. And when they happen, I think we are often helpless,” she said.
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
Dali prints found in London garage sold at auction
Agence France-Presse September 30, 2024 The lithographs signed by Salvador Dali were discovered in a London garage
Eleven lithographs signed by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali sparked an auction battle on Monday after being stored and forgotten in a London garage for about 50 years.
The prints, which were found as the seller cleaned up his lock-up in the upmarket Mayfair area, had been bought in the 1970s at an art gallery closing down sale for £500.
Chris Kirkham, associate director of auction house Hansons Richmond, said each lot exceeded its guide price of between £500 to £700 ($670 to $935).
The most sought-after -- an abstract color lithograph of nude figures, a limited edition print signed by the artist himself -- was sold for £4,900.
Dali's 1929 portrait of French poet Paul Eluard sold for a staggering £13.5 million at Sotheby's in London in 2011.
But Kirkham told AFP that demand for the lithographs, even at a lower price, had been "exceptional", with worldwide interest.
"They sort of tick a lot of boxes. You've got a heavyweight artist that has an enduring appeal. They're vibrant and colorful which makes them commercial and I think they're probably fit in anyone's home," he said.
"And they're nice and big, and they're decorative, so they've got a good mixture of things."
The sale was an example of how online bidding had allowed more private buyers a chance to buy art at competitive prices, he added.
"We have one lady that bought three today," he said.
"She saw them from the advertisements and she just wants them for her home on the wall which is great which is nice because previously 10 years ago auctions would only really sell largely 80 to 90 percent to trade, then they would resell them."
Former first lady Melania Trump spurred confusion Wednesday when she declared her outrage that the press would not stop asking about the nude photos taken of her as a professional model — which she compared to the works of Paul Cézanne and Michelangelo.
Mrs. Trump explained her decision to pose naked in a promotional video (which included a photo array of famous nude portraits) for her soon-to-be released memoirs, and despite her professed frustration with the media's interest.
"Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?" Melania Trump says via voiceover in a new X video. "The more pressing question is why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?"
This take confused two political commentators, among them journalist Aaron Rupar, who wrote:
"NOBODY: "NOT A SINGLE SOUL IN THE WORLD:
ADVERTISEMENT
"MELANIA TRUMP: Let’s talk about my nude modeling career."
Everybody: ... Melania: WHY DOES EVERYBODY TALK ABOUT ME POSING NAKED!!?? Everybody: ... who are you talking to right now?
Melania: HERE IS SOME NAKED ART. Everybody: okay. Melania: BUY MY BOOK! Everybody: Is it... is it a picture book? Melania: DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT!
Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic strategist, suggested with sarcasm the promotional video suggested a tight collaboration between the former first lady and her husband, Donald.
"Between Trump’s silly crypto scam and Melania talking about her nude modeling," he wrote, "you really have to appreciate how laser focused they are on the campaign 48 days out."
The political group Republicans Against Trump admitted they did not immediately believe the video was genuine.
"I thought this new video from Melania Trump was fake, but no," they wrote. "She actually posted it on Twitter. I guess she’s desperate to sell as many copies of her new 'book' before the Donald loses in November."
Keith Boykin, former White House aide to President Bill Clinton, took a more serious tone, arguing Melania Trump was held to a different set of standards than former First Lady Michelle Obama.
"Nobody on the left cares that Melania Trump did nude modeling," he wrote. "We do care that Republicans want to police our bedrooms, our doctors, and our books, and ban pornography. We know that if a Black First Lady posed nude, Republicans would lose it. It's the hypocrisy, not the nudity."
Melania Trump explains why she's proud of her 'nude modeling work'
NOT PROUD ENOUGH TO SHOW IT
Kathleen Culliton September 18, 2024 US First Lady Melania Trump announces her "Be Best" children's initiative in the White House Rose Garden AFP / JIM WATSON
Melania Trump is outraged that the press shamed her for nude photos nearly a decade ago because her fashion photo shoots for Max Magazine and Sports Illustrated were just like Michelangelo's David, the former first lady explained Wednesday. Art.
Melania Trump's newest ad for her eponymous memoir delivered Wednesday morning a defense against a media attack Raw Story was unable to locate.
"Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?" Melania Trump says via voiceover in a new X video. "The more pressing question is why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?"
Melania Trump's fashion model work received coverage between 2016 and 2020, when her husband Donald resided in the White House, a residence he hopes to reclaim in 2025.
Her nude shoot with another female model received media attention once again Wednesday morning — when Melania Trump decided it was a pressing subject.
The video defense includes sweeping music and a photo montage of historic works of art such as John Collier's 1897 painting of Lady Godiva, in which she appears naked on a horse, Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguière's sculpture of Eve, naked next to a tree, and The Bathers by Paul Cézanne — you guessed it, they are naked.
It does not include any images of Melania Trump.
"Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?" Melania Trump asks. "Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape."
Her post includes a link to the Melania Trump website where readers can pre-order the memoir slated to be released on Oct. 8.
It is one of several such promotional posts from the former first lady which have been described by critics as "cryptic," "nearly normal" and "weird."
"We should honor our bodies," Melania Trump contends. "And embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self expression."
SINGAPORE – Social workers and online safety advocates in Singapore are bracing themselves for a wave of AI-generated porn targeting victims here, as deepfake-on-demand services are popping up on publicly accessible online channels.
Such programs allow users to generate realistic deepfakes within seconds – and often for free – simply by uploading a picture of someone’s face, which the AI, or artificial intelligence, will combine with a digitally rendered body.
Celebrities have long been targeted by explicit deepfakes created using programs such as Photoshop, but now the accessibility and rapid processing of deepfake-on-demand programs lower the barrier to entry for anyone.
Widely circulated on platforms like Telegram, these apps have fuelled a deepfake pornography crisis in countries like South Korea, where sexually explicit deepfake images of women and young girls – often created based on school photos and social media content – are being widely shared in online chatrooms.
Social workers here have not encountered victims of deepfake harassment, but warn that South Korea’s situation should be a warning to the rest of the world.
The Straits Times found more than six Telegram channels offering deepfake services that allow users to develop “nude renders” using photos of real people within seconds.
These channels, which have up to 95,000 subscribers, are accessible to anyone.
Subscribers can generate deepfakes based on pictures they upload, as long as the target’s face is clearly visible.
In some channels, users upload pictures of real people and request the channels’ administrators to “undress” them, which they do for a fee.
Customers can tweak the footage to their fancy, such as by changing the size of the modified image’s body parts. And the more one pays, the more explicit the generated images can get.
“Deepfakes are a genre of pornography that we are seeing more among addicts,” said We Care Community Services’ counsellor Alvin Seng, who specialises in therapy for those with sex- and porn-related addiction.
The addiction recovery centre has not dealt with victims of deepfakes here as the trend is still new, but the issue has cropped up in an increasing number of talks with school partners, said Mr Seng.
“But it is still early and could be happening right now. I’d imagine that cases are coming soon,” he told ST.
Mr Seng said deepfakes should not be viewed lightly, no matter how unrealistic the renders seem.
“To a victim, seeing their face on a deepfake will feel very personal,” he said. “It is a violation of privacy and a betrayal of their trust.”
One of the earliest cases of deepfake sexploitation reported here occurred in June, when at least four men were blackmailed by fraudsters with deepfakes using their faces.
One of the victims received an explicit video of himself from an unknown contact, who threatened to circulate it unless he paid $700.
It is not known how many more cases like that have occurred in Singapore. The police said then that they do not track the number of deepfake-related scams.
The deepfake threat has prompted counsellors at non-profit Touch Cyber Wellness to develop a module for parents and young people to address emerging online dangers, including image-based sexual abuse and cyber bullying, according to manager Shem Yao.
Set to launch in 2025, the module will educate young people on the impact of deepfakes, as well as how to spot them and respond if they encounter them.
Deepfakes should not be ignored just because they are fake, said Mr Yao.
“Victims often endure profound emotional distress, feeling ashamed and powerless over their own image,” he said. “This violation can lead to significant stress and lasting harm to their reputation.”
With time, deepfake images are sure to become even more realistic, he added.
Singapore has seen a number of cases involving online sexual harassment.
Notably, more than 44,000 Telegram users were part of a chat group formed in 2018 – SG Nasi Lemak – where lewd images of young girls and revenge pornography were circulated. It was shut down in 2019.
Image-based sexual abuse is among the most common types of online harms faced by clients of SheCares@SCWO, a support centre for victims of online harms, said assistant director of research Natalie Chia from SG Her Empowerment, which runs the centre.
A study by the non-profit organisation in 2023 found that nearly a tenth of internet users have personally experienced image-based sexual abuse, including deepfakes. Women were almost twice as likely to be sexually harassed online than men.
Advocates and experts have long called for new policies that will help online harassment victims seek redress swiftly.
This was echoed by Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam, who said in 2023 that the law needs to be expanded to enable victims of harmful online content to take action and protect themselves.
Since then, the authorities have allocated $50 million for a new Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety which will research tools to detect harmful online content, including misinformation and deepfakes.
New measures to counter deepfakes of candidates during elections were also announced on Sept 11.
More can be done in Singapore to protect those who have limited options to seek redress, as online harassers are usually anonymous, said Cyber Youth Singapore president and chief executive Ben Chua.
The charity conducts cyber-wellness workshops and is revamping its course material to raise awareness of deepfakes.
Tech companies can be slow to remove content too, said Mr Chua.
Messaging app Telegram, for instance, has been slammed for its lack of cooperation with the authorities worldwide, leading to the arrest of its founder Pavel Durov in August over allegedly allowing criminal activity on the platform, including drug trafficking and child sexual abuse images.
Durov’s arrest reflects an increase in pressure to hold platforms responsible for not complying with the authorities in the fight against online harms, said Ms Chia, who called for stronger regulations to make it illegal to create, possess and share image-based sexual abuse materials.
Cyber-security expert Abhishek Singh of Check Point Software Technologies said Telegram is an ideal platform for vices to thrive.
This is because it allows large files to be shared across massive groups of up to 200,000 members, who can choose not to disclose their phone numbers to remain anonymous.
“It has brought dark web content to the masses on a public channel,” he added.
Deepfake software, in particular, has become more widely available since late 2023, said senior threat researcher David Sancho from cyber-security firm Trend Micro.
He said: “Any teenager can (use these apps). It’s not expensive and there are even support forums to guide users on how to do it.”
Mr Sancho added: “The trouble is, if you close one platform, another pops up.” Advice to guard against deepfakes
Avoid allowing unfamiliar accounts to follow your social media accounts, and be mindful of the content that you post, although this can be hard to control in this day and age, said Mr Seng.
Victims of deepfake porn should make a police report and flag the content to the online platform, said Mr Yao.
They should collect evidence, including images of the online material, time and date, and the usernames of those who have shared it. Mr Yao said: “Evidence is vital, even if the specifics are painful to recall.”
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
WVU develops prevention and response program for rural youth at risk of sexting, bullying and self-harm
West Virginia University
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Youth in rural communities are at high risk for behaviors such as bullying and sexting. Yet rural areas often lack mental health resources for youth and support for caregivers. With a series of virtual trainings and podcasts, a WVU counseling researcher aims to move the needle.
A researcher at West Virginia University is working to prevent risky behaviors like sexting and self-harm in rural youth.
With $343,719 in U.S. Department of Agriculture funding, assistant professor Kristine Ramsay-Seaner, a counseling expert at the WVU College of Applied Human Sciences, will oversee the development of trainings and other resources to support professionals who work with youth in rural communities across the United States, in collaboration with the University of Georgia, South Dakota State University and North Dakota State University.
“Poverty, social isolation, lack of access to mental health treatment — those factors and others contribute to rural youths’ heightened risk for behaviors like sexting, self-harm, substance use, bullying and disordered eating,” Ramsay-Seaner said.
“The average age of exposure to pornography is now 12 years of age, with some studies suggesting as early as 11. One 2021 analysis found 19.3% of youth had sent a sext, 34.8% had received one and 14.5% had forwarded one without consent.”
In West Virginia, for example, schools have provided educators and students with trainings related to violence prevention, but Ramsay-Seaner said gaps remain on topics such as sexting, digital scams and even self-harm. Kids’ digital risk will only grow as society’s reliance on technology increases, she emphasized.
She said the problem is exacerbated because parents and frontline youth service professionals in rural areas receive limited training on how to recognize and address problematic behaviors. That’s why she’s developing virtual trainings and a podcast series teaching professionals and parents about risks to middle- and high-school-aged youth and how to react.
Working closely with WVU Extension and other state Extension offices, Ramsay-Seaner will provide rural caregivers with evidence- and research-based tools which expand the Youth Mental Health First Aid program that is already the primary risk prevention program for rural communities.
They’ll offer the intensive trainings virtually to avoid the time constraints and financial barriers posed by long, onsite sessions.
The virtual trainings will comprise eight modules that educate youth development professionals and parents about trends in risky youth behaviors, and how to address those.
“Utilizing skills such as active listening and non-judgmental communication, we want to prepare youth service professionals to respond to the complex needs of today’s youth,” Ramsay-Seaner said.
Each module will be offered multiple times to afford participants maximum flexibility, and each will highlight topics relevant to the session’s particular audience. Attendees — including parents, school staff, 4-H professionals and volunteers, and workers in the foster care system — will commit to at least four hours of training. Pre- and post-training assessments will allow Ramsay-Seaner and her colleagues to test whether the sessions are effective.
The team will also produce a 24-episode “how to talk to your teen” podcast series featuring half-hour interviews with national experts who offer practical guides to discussing risk behaviors in a way that’s comfortable for both youth and adults.
Ramsay-Seaner added the risks to youth in rural areas are very real, pointing out the number of emergency room visits for self-harm and self-inflicted firearm injuries is much higher among rural youth than those from metropolitan areas. In 2023, about 16% of all U.S. emergency room visits for self-harm were made by youth in rural areas, she said.
“We also see e-cigarette use increasing more among rural youth than among youth in small and large cities. We see that almost 8% of rural U.S. youth have substance use disorders, including 3.5% with alcohol use disorders — again, higher than in urban areas. Kids from rural places use methamphetamines more than kids from cities. They sniff inhalants like glue or aerosols more. In one survey conducted among rural high schoolers in a southern state, 30% of the kids reported sending nude photos of themselves to another person.”
She continued, “All these behaviors come with serious risks, and they deserve serious, well-informed conversations. It’s our goal to help adults have those conversations and make them count.”
The first historian of the anarchist Home Colony was Radium Levin, born there in 1903. He was actually born at a hospital in Tacoma, but he was raised at Home along the sea, within the trees, like dozens of other anarchist children. Decades later, Radium had legally changed his name to Ray LaVen, but in his report-backs for the Home Colony reunions, he always signed with the simple name Radium. It was during the 1945 reunion in Los Angeles that he presented his major work of history, There Was No Place Like Home, a 35-page chronology of events at Home, along with reflections from those who lived there.
Radium Levin, bottom center. Bessie Levin, top middle. Nathan Levin, top, second from right.
Radium was the son of Bessie and Nathan Levin, both Jewish anarchists who fled the pogroms of the Russian Empire. Bessie was from Minsk, Belarus, while Nathan was from Babryusk, Belarus. Neither of them were religious, and as Radium recalled, my father rebelled against everything.They landed in Philadelphia and joined the circle around the anarchist newspaper Fraye Arbeiter Shtime, a Yiddish-language weekly. Here the Levins met the anarchists Chaim Weinberg, Voltairine de Cleyre, and David Caplan, among many others. They were also members of the Workmen’s Circle, whose anarchist branch ran the local Radical Library.
Nathan and Radium
Chaim Weinberg would later recall how, sometime before 1903, their circle desired to pursue cooperative activity. A certain comrade Mrs. Levin arrived on the scene, who showed a strong willingness to work. Comrade Caplan wrote to us from Boston that he was willing to come with his wife, who could also be a cook. This was, of course, one of the most important things for us in maintaining a house. We, the Philadelphians, went to look for a house. This time we rented a six-room house on Morse Street for $15 a month. The members were: Comrade Levin and his wife, Comrade Caplan and his wife, Comrade Zarember and I: six in all.
However, this communal anarchist house was sunk by the love affairs of David Caplan, who brought his lover Vera Bayer and his wife Fannie together under their roof. Knowing what would happen, Caplan went to work while back home Fannie tried to poison Vera, then she threw boiling fat at her face. After being treated with skin-grafts at a local hospital, Vera quickly recovered, and when she left the hospital one could hardly tell that she had had such terrible facial injuries as we had seen that Monday when the horrible deed was done.
Caplan then abandoned Fannie and their children to go live in New York City with Vera, who he soon got pregnant. After she gave birth, Caplan denied the child was his and ran off to San Francisco with a British anarchist named Flora. By then, the communal apartment in Philadelphia was finished, so in those final days, Nathan Levin left the city and traveled westward across the US to the anarchist Home Colony in Washington State, looking for a new place to live.
According to the Home News column for The Demonstrator of June 24, 1903, Nathan Levin, of Minneapolis, Minn., is here looking us over. He expresses himself as satisfied with our looks and is seriously thinking of locating here. It appears Nathan lied about his origins, but he also seems to have immediately taken to the beauty and ease of Home. In the July 29, 1903 issue of The Demonstrator, we find that Bessie Levin came from Minneapolis, Minn., the other day to join her companion who had preceded her here. We hope the young couple will be able to make a comfortable home here.
It seems they bought land at Home, just as it seems Bessie had been pregnant since April, and in the September 16 issue, we find that Nathan and Bessie Levin have gone to Tacoma for the winter. We hear that they are doing well, and will be in shape to make a showing here next spring. Nathan came back for a brief visit a few weeks later, alone, and then it was announced that a boy was born to Bessie Levin on Tuesday, December 22. Mother and son are doing exceptionally well. Less than three weeks later, the January 13, 1904 issuerevealed that Nathan and Bessie Levin, and their little boy, are back here again. They are going to see about building a home.
As explained by Radium in There Was No Place Like Home, his parents did very little besides buy some land. Radium wrote that an excellent example of the cooperative spirit that existed in Home was demonstrated when I was a baby. We were staying with Joe Heiman at the time and Dad bought a piece of land on the hill (this was later sold to Falkoff’s.) There was no house on it so Dad bought $15.00 worth of lumber and the morning the lumber was delivered, the men of the community gathered at the place with hammers and saws and the women came later with food and coffee—by evening they had built us a frame house. That was their contribution to a young couple who decided to live among them.
II: Tinker, Tailor, Homeite, Anarchist
Nathan and Bessie lived in Home through the winter, leaving only to go work in Tacoma. As we learn from the March 16, 1904 issue, Nathan and Bessie Levin have left us again, going to Tacoma to work for a few months. Their house here is just about finished. It’s unclear who they left Radium with, but he didn’t join them in Tacoma during their two week work-stint, and they were back by the March 30 issue, now living in their new house. They went back to Tacoma for work that spring but returned to Home by the May 11 issue.
Later that fall, a comrade from Philadelphia came to visit them, an anarchist named Joseph Bogdanoff. It’s unclear who this is, but less than two weeks later, it was announced that Nathan and Bessie Levin have opened up a tailor shop on St. Helen avenue near Ninth street, Tacoma. Those who are going to have clothes made or have any they want cleared, dyed or repaired should call on them. They appear to have moved away from Home, and it’s unclear where Radium was, but in the December 21 issue, we learn that Nathan and Bessie Levin are now at 728 St. Helens avenue, Tacoma, where they will be pleased to see all their friends. They are prepared to do dyeing, cleaning, and repairing of clothes.
Bessie came back for a solo visit in January 1905, when Radium was just over one year old, and its unclear if she went back to Tacoma. In the March 15, 1905 issue, The Demonstrator wrote that our readers in and around Tacoma who want clothes made, cleaned, dyed and repaired should call on Nathan Levin, 728 St. Helens avenue. He will take great pains to suit you. Aside from the pun, this entry also reveals that Nathan was seemingly alone in Tacoma. However, in the April 18 issue, we learn that Bessie and Nathan Levin came out Sunday to talk up the pants factory. Nathan went back Monday, but Bessie remained several days.
It’s likely Bessie often returned to Home to be with her two year-old son, but she did routinely work at the Tacoma tailor shop. As revealed in the July 19, 1905 issue, Nathan and Bessie Levin are out for a short rest. While they are here Charles Kranz is running their tailoring establishment in Tacoma. Charles Kranz and his wife Angelika were Swedish anarchists from Chicago, having moved to Home in 1902 with their daughter Henrika.
After letting Charlie run the place, Bessie and Nathan worked in Tacoma for many months. As revealed in the December 6, 1905 issue, Nathan and Bessie Levin are at home again after an absence of a year in Tacoma, where they were engaged in the tailoring business. Andy Klemencic has charge of the place now, which is located at 728 St. Helens avenue. If you want any clothes made, repaired, cleaned or dyed call there. Andy Klemencic was actually the Slovenian anarchist Andrej Klemenčič, a founding member of the IWW and one of Home’s original members. He appears to have been running the Tacoma tailor shop until July of 1906, when he suffered a train-hopping accident and went Home to recuperate.
While he was running the shop that spring, Nathan and Bessie Levin hosted their friend Ida Rosenson from Seattle, just as they were visited by Sarah Bogdanoff and two children, of Seattle. At the end of summer, it was announced that Bessie and Nathan Levin have gone to Tacoma to stay until January. They have sold their improvements on the hill and bought those of Nellie Sherman on the waterfront. Nothing was heard of the Levins for many months until the April 3, 1907 issue of The Demonstrator, where we learn Nathan Levin has had a nice wire fence put around his place.
Later that fall, in the November 20, 1907 issue of The Demonstrator, we learn that a class for the study of Esperanto meets every Sunday afternoon at the home of N. Levin, W.P. Austin teacher. All our gatherings are free and all are welcome. The next month, Nathan donated $5 to The Demonstrator and would soon travel to the east coast soliciting funds for the paper and a new print shop. They left on January 2, 1908, and by the time they got to Chicago, the Demonstrator had ceased publication. It wouldn’t be until Home got it’s next newspaper that Bessie and Nathan returned to the columns of Home News.
Bessie Levin, cutting hair
In the meantime, the anarchist Jay Fox arrived from Chicago. According to Radium, shortly after arriving, my mother invited Jay to the house for dinner. Mother usually baked her own bread, but on this occasion she had bakery bread and Jay questioned mother to learn if the bread was union made. Mother didn’t remember for sure, so Jay explained the importance of insisting on seeing the union label before buying anything. It seemed that mother learned her lesson well, for sometime later when Jay was invited over for dinner again, my mother placed a platter stacked high with bread, and pasted to each slice was a union label. Funnily enough, it would be Jay Fox who launched Home’s next newspaper, The Agitator.
III: The Home Grocery Company
The Agitator was inaugurated on November 15, 1910, and in the January 1, 1911 issue, we learn that the reading class that meets every Friday evening at Comrade Levin’s, is well attended, and the discussion which follows the reading, bringing out the numerous phases of the subject, is very instructive. This is one of the few mentions of the Levins in The Agitator, and the final mention from June 15, 1912 indicates Nathan had become responsible for the Home Grocery Store and needed to be paid out. This episode with the store was later chronicled by Radium in his There Was No Place Like Home.
Jay Fox in The Agitator print shop
As he explained, when the Home Grocery went broke, Oscar Ingvall sued the members of the “co-op” store for back wages as clerk and manager. At the hearing many of the members accused Ingvall of wrecking the store by his drinking and mismanagement, but the court granted him a judgment against each member for a sum of money he borrowed for the store in an effort to save it.
Radium went on to write how most of the members were very poor and a few of the Anarchists who had little respect for court decisions decided that they wouldn’t pay. John Buchi was one of the latter and while he could afford the $47 judgment to Ingvall and the $42 to Dad, he just refused to recognize the court’s decision. As time went on most of the members cleared up their indebtedness with cash or labor—but not John, he’d hold out till the end.
Came a time my mother needed some money badly as Dad wasn’t doing too well in his business in Tacoma—so being a direct-actionist mother took a .32 pistol which Dad kept in the house loaded with blank cartridges and called on Buschi. She told him that John owed her and Nathan $42, and she was there to collect it. John turned white at the sight of this determined woman with a gun pointing at him and said that he intended to pay all along but didn’t know that she needed it so badly. Then he suddenly dashed into his bedroom.
Bessie Levin
Mother reasoned quickly to herself that John also had a gun in his bedroom and that his bullets were not blanks—she decided that there was no time to lose in getting away. She ran as fast as she could to the road where fortunately Mr. Cooper was driving towards the store with his team and wagon…meanwhile thanking her lucky stars that John didn’t shoot her while she was running.
Mother climbed aboard Cooper’s wagon and on the way to the store she told him the story and handed him the revolver so that he could see that the cartridges were blanks. When mother returned home she felt like ¢2. She had not only risked her life but she had accomplished nothing. Would John sue her for threatening his life? Or would he just shoot her on sight? Mother spent a sleepless night. But the next morning Phil Cohn, whose father was running the store then, called on mother to tell her that John Buschi asked the store to credit my mother with $5.00 and charge it to him. It was only then that mother felt she could breath easier and that John was probably more scared than she was (that was all John ever paid though).
Oscar Ingvall on the other hand let the law take its course and a short time later foreclosed and John lost his home to Ingvall because he wouldn’t pay him the $47. Jay Fox had worked his indebtedness off to Dad in the form of carpenter work, but he didn’t pay Ingvall so he too lost his home for $47. This all represented the beginning of Home’s decline, but Radium appears to have had an ideal, loving, wholesome, funny childhood at Home. His mother Bessie was certainly at the end of her rope around 1912, because in 1911 she’d given birth to her second son, who was first named Ferrer after the executed anarchist school-teacher.
IV: There Was No Place Like Home
As explained above, the Levins sold their first house and moved down to the waterfront. Radium would describe how our two acre place was along the waterfront. Across the road from out gate were steps leading down to the beach. Because of the shrubbery between the road and the beach, a tall maple tree growing in this spot and two logs about 20 or 25 feet apart that lead from the bank part way down the beach—the spot in between was completely secluded from the road. In the summer when the tide was full during the early hours, my mother enjoyed hoping out of bed, crawling into a kimono then walking down to the secluded spot on our beach for a cold plunge into the water before starting her day’s activities.
Unfortunately, a local creep named Teddy Meyers came snooping around one day, hoping to sell nude pictures to Tacoma newspapers. The next morning after seeing Teddy, Bessie took her plunge 15 minutes early. Sure enough, Teddy arrived 15 minutes later with his camera, but fortunately Bessie had already put her kimono back on. She went bathing earlier and earlier, thwarting creepy Teddy, and then randomly stopped going altogether until Nathan cornered him in the woods, beat his ass, and according to Radium, almost threw him into the bay. Fortunately for Bessie, this creep didn’t get her picture, given the dreaded nude bathing scandal was right around the corner.
In the meantime, it seems the Levins bought ten acres of land just south of Home, and they traded it for a launch (a type of boat) which would run a Home to Seattle ferry service. The launch was named the Hoo Doo and first captained by Home resident Bill Larkin, who then passed the wheel off to a young man named Donald Vose, son of the anarchist Gertie Vose. One day, Donald asked a bunch of kids if they wanted to ride along while he towed a boat-house, so many of them agreed, including Radium. However, the engine suddenly failed and the launch ended up beached across the water near Arletta. Donald and the kids camped the night by a fire, went to the Arletta general store the next morning for a breakfast of tobacco and soda-crackers, and after the engine still wouldn’t start, the kids took the local ferry back to Home.
This is one of the few wholesome stories involving Donald Vose, for shortly after this incident with the Hoo Doo, it seems Donald began working for the Burns International Detective Agency, one of the closest equivalents to today’s FBI. Back then, the federal government was extremely weak and most high-level law enforcement was contracted out to agencies like Burns, Pinkerton, Thiel, etc. After the Los Angeles Times building was dynamited on October 1, 1910, the City of Los Angeles paid Burns to find the bombers, and the agency immediately zeroed in on David Caplan, the womanizing anarchist who lived with Nathan and Bessie Levin back in Philadelphia. As they discovered, Caplan fled San Francisco in December 1910 for the anarchist colony of Home, where he disappeared.
William J. Burns himself posed as an encyclopedia salesman and went door to door at Home trying to find Caplan, but little did his agency know that Caplan was living on a chicken farm sixty miles north on Bainbridge Island, the land paid for by Ersilia Cavedagni and Leon Morel, two anarchists from Home. According to Radium, his future mother-in-law Frankie Moore was keeping house for Caplan up in Bainbridge, and it’s likely they were having an affair. It seems that Donald Vose knew someone was hiding out on Bainbridge, but not exactly who, and when Donald began working for Burns in late 1913, he certainly mentioned this fact.
Radium Levin refers to everything that took place at Home prior to 1915 as B.C., or Before Caplan. In those last cheery years, no one thought it odd that Donald Vose went north to hang out with David Caplan, nor did they find it odd when, shortly after, Donald used his anarchist connections to visit New York City and finally see the world. When this son of anarchists claimed to have a letter for Mathew Schmidt, another of the Los Angeles Times bombers, no one thought anything was amiss.
However, on February 13, 1915, the NYPD arrested Schmidt, while Caplan was arrested on Bainbridge Island on February 18. It took nearly half a year for the anarchists to verify that Donald Vose was a traitor, and some (like Alexander Berkman) wanted to kill him. In the end, it was another resident of Home, the Ukrainian anarchist Lucy Robin Lang, who found coded documents in Donald’s bags proving he worked for Burns.
This information struck Home like a thunderbolt, especially Donald’s mother Gertie Vose, who seems to have flown into a bit of denial. She could never say no to her son when he showed up at her door like a dog, but the rest of Home made sure he never came back. In 1974, Radium told Paul Avrich that Donald Vose was a weak person who saw a chance to make some money by becoming a stool pigeon. He went on to explain how Donald tried to come back to Home for a baseball game when one of the older French colonists, Gaston Lance, went up and spat in his face.
V: Look Homeward, Angel
Radium was twelve years-old when Caplan was arrested, and he grew up knowing all the details of what lead to this betrayal. Despite the gravity, life seems to have rolled on usual at Home. Sometime in 1915, Radium described a resident of Home named Mr. Hawks, who the children called Deacon Hawks. According to Radium, the old gent was quite a character. He had a large goiter on his neck and he could talk for hours extolling the virtues of Woodrow Wilson who was President at the time. Hawks would wall-talk, or button-hole, anyone who came his way, including Radium.
According to him, I was about 12 or 13 at this particular time and was boarding with Macie Govan whose place adjoined the Hawks place. I had the newspaper route in home then and Hawks was the last customer on my route. Try as I would, I was unable to get by his place without his button-holing me…but one day the problem was solved and after that I had no more trouble getting away—As I would come up the road after that, one could hear me whistling as loud as I could, and just as far. Hawks was ready to start in on his long dissertation, but Macie came out on her porch to announce that dinner way ready.
Macie Govan, center (house in background)
It remains unclear why Radium was staying with Macie Govan in 1915, but his parents were likely in Tacoma. However, they could have been up to something more interesting. Nathan and Bessie Levin were deeply connected with the global anarchist net-work, and when Emma Goldman came to Home with her lover Ben Reitman, the couple stayed with the Levins. Radium later told Paul Avrich that Emma was very jealous of any attention that other women paid [Ben]. When Mother was talking to him out in the yard, Emma couldn’t stand it and kept calling him to come into the house. Reitman told ghost stories around a bonfire to us kids. Emma Goldman only showed her vulnerabilities around her close friends, historically, so this incident speaks much about her relationship to the Levins.
There isn’t much documentation about the Levins following 1913. After the Agitator left Home in November 1912, the next closest thing Home got to a newspaper was Why?, published by Frankie Moore and Enrico Travaglio out of Tacoma. The Levins donated to the May 1913 and June 1914 issues, but the final donation was just fifty cents. In 1915, it seems Bessie and Nathan separated, with of both them finding new partners. Radium went with Nathan to Tacoma in 1917, while Ferrer stayed with Bessie. Oddly enough, two publishers of Why?, Frankie Moore and Enrico Travaglio, would soon become Radium’s parent-in-laws, for sometime in the late 1910s, their daughter Leah Travaglio fell in love with Radium Levin, and the two were legally married before 1920 under the last name LaVene.
Leah and Radium appear to have had children based on this passage from Radium’s history: I’d have difficulty convincing my daughter of my truthfulness after telling her how much better behaved I was than she, at her age and younger, for example: how could I explain the time when I was about 8, and one of mother’s friend who was always suggesting to mother ways of disciplining me, so antagonized me that once on the beach in front of our place when she was undressing to go bathing, I ran up and bit her on the breast? And on another occasion when I saw her enter our back-house, I sneaked around and let the trap door silently down in back and tickled her while she sat with a long oat straw, at which she let out a screech, jumped up and ran out of the place as fast as she could. (How could I explain such wicked actions?)
Radium and Leah seem to have lived in Home until 1920, at which point they moved to Los Angeles. Many former residents of Home also moved to this coastal wonderland, and they began having Home reunions in MacArthur Park, which back then was called Westlake Park. It seems that Radium composed his There Was No Place Like Home for the 1945 reunion, and the intro to that text is dated September 22, 1945 from Los Angeles.
Unfortunately for Radium, his wife Leah left him sometime that year, and she married the radical LA City Councilman Arthur E. Briggs on December 25, 1946. This was probably one of the saddest Christmas presents Radium could have received, but he remained the main organizer of the Home reunions and wrote the report-back for the 1947 gathering in Westlake Park. Leah didn’t show up with her new husband, but Macie Govan and her daughter Opal mailed the reunion a bound volume of the complete Discontent and Demonstrator print runs. Radium wrote that we will take care of this treasure and will display it with the other volume at future picnics.
This other volume was the Home Album and the Home In The News volume kept up by Nina Halperin, the other primary historian of Home. As Radium wrote into the intro to his history, I wish also to dedicate my part in this effort to Nina Halperin, without whose pleasant but persistent prodding, this great (?) document might never have been produced. Nina had known Radium since he was a little boy, and this dedication is quite sweet. Without their efforts at preserving the history of Home, untold truths would have already vanished from living memory.
Nina Halperin, top center. Radium, bottom left.
Radium lived the rest of his life in Los Angeles, residing at 536 West 89th Street, which is in the Vermont Vista neighborhood of South Central. Radium lived about an hour’s walk away from Nuestra Pueblo, the famed Watts Towers of Sabato Rodia, another anarchist who settled nearby. Meanwhile, his former wife Leah Travaglio was living with her new husband at 2424 Hidalgo Avenue, a property in the Silver Lake neighborhood not far from the former Magonista commune in Edendale. It’s unclear when Leah died, but her childhood love Radium Levin passed away in Los Angeles in 1991. He was eighty-eight years-old.
Radium was the first historian to collect the Home News items from Discontent and Demonstrator, enabling researchers to more easily track the anarchists who came and went from Home. Radium only collected less than 50% of these items, and in his memory we continue the work, bringing the number of transcribed Home News entries up past 90%. We hope the following collection and index can help anarchists, historians, and descendants follow the lives of those Home residents who didn’t wait for a new world to emerge from nothing, but instead built one with their own hands. May their work not be in vain, and may we all create new worlds just as vibrant as theirs.
Lucian Freud's 'Ria, Naked Portrait' took 16 months to paint © BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP
