I did a 5 page resource list for the porn guide today, then blew off a little steam cruising for shoes online — and found these totally amazing S/M bodybag purses. Wow.

I’m crawling to the finish with the book that’s due wednesday– I also have to write the intro to Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn by the 1st… I’ll be back as ultra ultra Violet after the 1st; sorry I can’t respond to emails or calls right now. But it looks really, really good. I’m really excited about this manuscript and it’s had me investigating everything from human hair whips (in blonde, redhead and brunette) to slave cage dinette sets and more. I *love* my job!

Now I must make sweet (and deeply concentrated) love to my keyboard for the next day or so. I’m almost done!

I am a total dork and forgot to tell you that I was interviewed by Irene McGee on her podcast and radio show No One’s Listening, joining the ranks of Noam Chomsky, David Pescovitz and my dear friend Jack Napier. Oh, and uh, Jeff Gannon and Craig Newmark. Strange bedfellows indeed. Link to show post.

I’ve been a porn reviewer for 8 years now, and I know a lot of other porn reviewers. Some are meanspirited idiots who hate their jobs and it shows in their writing; the rest are really smart, funny, extremely snarky people who completetly freak out and shoot beer out their nerdy noses when they (we) see a truly hot porn film. This being rare, we do our best to keep each other sane while watching some of the stupidest, most overhyped movies in existience.

Email exchange today with a good friend who is slaving away in the porn review pits of hell somewhere down south:

he: Have you seen “Control,” from Digital Playground? Gram P. gave it a lukewarm review on FBot and now I understand he was being way too kind.

me: no I never get screeners anymore unless sent from the directors or a porn marketer on a binge. I have to *rent* the titles I review. nor do I get AVN. not sure if it makes me sad or not.
mmmm, not. definitely not.

he: If you really want, I will fly to SF and bring Control over to your house and you can loan me your gun, I can hold you at gunpoint and make you watch it, then you will never, ever wonder again whether it makes you sad. Otherwise, 1) You are not going to watch more than 5 minutes of it, and 2) you will never know — I mean really, really know — how not-sad you are about the fact that you don’t get screeners from Digital Playground.

me: uh, hot.

he: My editor wants me to to write a fawning review of Control. I drew the line at Pirates, but maybe [other female porn reviewer name redacted] can find something insightful to say about that. Like “God, I wish I was a pirate girl. I would want to be gangbanged by every famous pirate from ancient times to 1723, when England enacted the Defense Against Piracy act and essentially ended the age of the freebooter, insofar as piracy was enacted along the Spanish Main as a tool of national defense policy. Speaking of national defense in the age of sail, I would love to have Long John Silver up my ass while Jean Lafitte throat-fucks me till I cry. Do you think Captain Kidd should shoot on my face or retain his cargo in favor of a more lucrative price in future ports?”

he: Also, I don’t really understand the Carmen Luvana hysteria…she’s very beautiful, but what’s with those knockers? What planet did those friggin’ things come from? She’s actually not that bad as far as porn actresses go (her NY accent in Pirates notwithstanding, I’m talking about the horizontal form of acting) but I just can’t get past those….those THINGS. They’re alive!!! They’re alive!!!!

Update — now we slag on other porn writers:

he: Meanwhile, in case you have not eaten lunch yet, I ask you: Have you ever read anything so disturbing in your entire life? [link]

me: my Firefox blocked the barf-inducing text — what’s it say?

he: “Double Decker Sandwich 6: Sloppy Hoes! Savor an old schoolyard favorite, minus the heartburn! Juicy slices of ripe teen twat, stacked tall and piled high, then dipped and soaked in our secret sloppy sauce. Mounds of moist breast meat, tantalizing your tastebuds and sandwiching your salami. Ripe teen pastrami lips, served hot and fresh with your choice of sides: Semen Soup or Ass Salad. It’s a double dosage of giant-cupped delicacies to satisfy your hunger for hardcore. Enjoy the tastiest treat on the menu and grab a napkin… It’s gonna get messy!”

he: That’s really what it says; such a composition is so far beyond my meager literary talents that there is no way I could improve on it, except possibly to cut and paste it 30 or 40 times so you can read it over and over again without having to take the time to move your eyes back up to the top. However, I will refrain from doing so because even THAT would be messing with perfection. I, for one, will be having the ripe teen pastrami lips, with the ass salad. No, wait, semen soup. No, no, wait a minute….I’ll get the ass salad, you get the semen soup and I’ll just have a taste of yours.

me: that is the grossest thing Jeffrey Dahmer ever wrote before they killed him in prison. no one knew about his briliant life as a porn copywriter. so sad.

he: Oh, all right, all right. I’ll have the semen soup!

Tammy, Tammy, you’re the girl for me.
You don’t know me but you make me so happy.
Tammy, don’t change your number,
8-6-7-5-3-0-9 (8-6-7-5-3-0-9) *

Who’s Tammy? She’s only the hottest webstar on Technorati right now (front page; screencap image at right) — or at least it’s the name given to an alleged IT student who filmed her oral and anal adventures on her cell and then — as these things happen — it fell into the wrong hands. Or the right hands, depending on your POV. Unfortunately in Singapore oral and anal sex are a “crime against nature” that result in 10 years in jail. But jail shmail, and nevermind the Hiltons when some guy is selling off your info on eBay!? Or a CafePress shop (proudly made in the USA; privately fucked in the Golden Triangle). Even YouTube got Tammy’s number. Oh, and the irony of “kittens”. (thanks, Xeni)

I stumbled across this listing in the (local) Castro Theater upcoming listings: The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, March 24 to 30. Gawker’s on it, and points me to A Bear in the City (great blog) who has photos of the posters at the Castro. Yes, they’re actually rushing distribution of this picture out to capitalize on the lies — and we all know how hurting Ms. Albert is for money to put her kid through expensive local private schools. Now, if there was only some way we could all think of to tell Laura Victoria Albert and Palm Pictures how we feel….

Remember when I went to that smoker? There’s another one this weekend. There will be robots and a hot brass band (members of Extra Action and Rube Waddell) — and I predict a propane leak to make everyone nice and cranky. I think I’ll sit this one out.

I’m totally losing my mind writing a book on a really rough deadline right now; I’m a disheveled, sexless shut-in (and my landlord wants all my tools and motorcycle stuff out of the garage *now* so it looks like I’ll be apartment hunting after I struggle over the finish line on this manuscript that I’m writing like 10 hours a day on).

But nothing, *nothing* can crush the glee radiating out of me right now. Check out my next book The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn! Yes! Yes! W00t! The Amazon text is obviously in progress (sad HTML), but it’s got hyooge chapters about online porn, finding the good stuff, porn surfing safely, locating hot sex (and hot performers), podcasts and new porn tech, why porn sucks, and where the good porn is. Now I understand why my cat rolls around on the floor like a spaz sometimes. I’m going to go do that right now in a big pile of really bad porn DVDs.

Last week I had fun running Fleshbot while Jonno was in NY trying to convince everyone he has bad sex. One of the things I got to poke a little fun at was the online game being used to promote the Hollywood movie Running Scared. I got all cutesy when I pointed out that the male character is a Mormon, saying that he was a Mormon pixelinguist who performed Mormonilingus on his co-star Vera Farmiga.

Nothing wrong with a little silliness, but the whole thing still bugs me in a big way. If you’re not familiar with the story, check out this play-by-play BoingBoing post. Basically, the movie is coming out and so New Line Cinema decided to promote it with an online game, which makes sense since they did Final Destination 1,2, and soon 3, all based on video a game. But they decided to put an explicit sex scene in the online video game, one where the main character (played by Paul Walker) goes down on the character played by Vera Farmiga. To access the game, they had an age check of 17 or older and required your government ID.

As I commented in the BoingBoing piece, porn sites do not use gov’t ID as a means of age check — because no one has access to a the DMV’s database, which is run state by state. Porn sites do not want to go to jail, so they use certified national credit card services, as do wine, alcohol and tobacco sales sites. Also, it was revealed fairly quickly in the same post (and on other sites) that New Line’s gov’t ID system could be easily fooled. Again, no porn, tobacco or alcohol vendor would last two minutes if access to their products could be easily gained. And another thing on this egregious list? To access the Running Scared game you have to be 17 or older, whereas the legal age for access to adult material is 18. A 17-year-old is *still* a minor. (This is based on the legal age of majority in the US for adults as related to sexual behavior; not to be confused with the age of consent. Yes, the median age of consent in the US is 16. So, no Tiny Nibbles for you, but you can still marry Uncle Jethro. Yikes.)

So why can’t Hollywood follow the same standards as the porn industry when it comes to restricting explicit content? Good question. But what do you get exactly when you access the game? Well, you get some really disrespectful text about “I just fucked your wife, (etc…)” and you (the player, as Paul Walker) perform cunnilingus on Vera Farmiga’s character. Or pixelingus, or Mormonolingus. I’m an athiest, which makes me insensitive sometimes, but I do respect and understand people’s right to believe in whatever makes sense for them. And Mormonilingus is funny. I may have had some once. But actually, Paul Walker doesn’t give a shit.

But my mind keeps worrying at one detail, like when you get a splinter and keep touching it to remind yourself it’s still there, even thought the sensation is unpleasant: the actress, Vera Farmiga. Did she know that by consenting to be in a big “blockbuster” film that she was also consenting to a digital representation of herself having her G-spot poked via mouse to pretty much anyone who can type on a keyboard? That any dork with a PC gets access to her pixel pussy? In a day and age when Hollywood is so sex-negative that most actresses won’t even show a boob onscreen out of fear of ruining their careers, I find it hard to believe that Farmiga knew what she was getting into (and if this is Hollywood’s idea of sex-positivity, or porn for that matter, it’s going to be a long summer). However, if she’s being pro-sex she needs to speak up; if she’s being pro-porn she needs to speak up, too. In porn it’s clear what a girl is signing up for when she provides her gov’t ID, social security card, all her names, her address and contact info and signs a contract — which is what is *required by law* for porn producers to even snap a photo. After the Traci Lords scandal in 1986, porn has been very careful about performer’s age and consent, as in, no one wants to go to federal prison careful. Sure, it’s “just a game” that Farmiga is spread wide in (and as a non-photo representation — art — it falls outside 2257 regulations and there is no penetration), but it’s a movie promo game, so it’s not just gamers who’ll check it out. There are no answers here, and I’m just thinking out loud, but it’s hard not to wonder how the woman (Farmiga) feels about the context her image is being cast in. It’s also difficult not to think about how much more complicated things like this stupid, stupid game will make the free speech and porn discussions of the future.

There’s long been this persistent myth that Hollywood is where the “real” movies and actors are, and that everyone in porn is either a failed Hollywood person or is hoping to “cross over” and break through — even porn industry rags like AVN perpetuate these myths. But it’s unnecessary. Compared to the way the Running Scared game has been handled, porn holds higher age and consent standards than Hollywood. Meanwhile, I end up on 2257 and porn discussion panels where people in the audience get up and say things like, “porn exploits women” and “porn needs to be keeping records” and “there need to be laws to keep kids away from porn”. I take a deep breath and explain again that exploitation is nonconsensual; the records are kept; and we already have those laws. Now if we could just somehow tell someone at New Line Cinema…

Yup, home on a saturday night. Here’s a picture you don’t see every day, but life would be interesting if you did. Another naughty nun. Kind of goes with this blasphemous yet ingenious tattoo (via Sex Machine Diaries). How about a little sexorcism? Hot retro sapphic nun violence. R. Crumb nun chaser. Just a cool photo. The flying kittenun. How about a little altnun? Don’t forget the priest. Priests love kids. This would be his bumper sticker. Halloween, everytown, USA. Holy mother of yum. Nasty polaroid nun, who is really hot. Beware of nunwhores.com.

* I just found more of that hot altnun, Cora Chaos, here.

Update: Correction — our altnun model’s name is Amy, not Cora Chaos, whose site her pics are posted on. I wrote 12 pages today about fucking machines then porn surfed, though it’s *never* an excuse for miscredit. I have been smoted. (Rollover reveals filename “Amy”, directory is “naughty nun”; thanks, Nightbird!)

I’m going crazy trying to make a book deadline. All I do is write. I am a writing nun. I just went over the edge with a camera, some sex toys and my feet on my kitchen floor.

The album is here.

(Yes, I know my feet are small. I’ve heard all the jokes already.)

* I won’t shoot you in the face like cheney -m4w-35

* Flowers from the wrong guy

* Paramedic that saved my life Thursday night - w4m (downtown/civic/van ness)

* MALE BOOTY FOR VALENTINES DAY!!! (north beach/telegraph hill)

Update: Just got in from the gym after running into my friend Chriso and meeting his friend from Seattle DJ Freddy King of Pants (!!!) — I told them about the Cheney Valentine’s Missed Connection post (above) and the meme has begun: “Cheney” is now code for facial comeshot. Usage: “I’m going home with a bottle of champagne to play Cheney with my boyfriend.” Hornboy asks, is it specifically an unexpected comeshot? Good question. Either way, when it’s a faceful of spray, it’s definitely a Cheney.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m blogging at Fleshbot — come visit!

My friend Coop just finished his paintblogging series — now, who *wouldn’t* want a gorgeous pair of bouncy orange ten feet tall boobies in their living room? I sure would. But they’d get all worn down from me rubbing on them all the time. Not to mention the damage I’d do to the joystick.

Paintblogging II: The Last Plop In The Bowl [positiveapeindex.blogspot.com; photo from my visit to his studio last month]

I *finally* don’t sound like Suzanne Pleshette anymore, and took my first (maybe awkward) stab at the iLife 06 podcast suite — the text:

My too-long hiatus from a sore throat is ended with Cate Robertson’s “Just Watch Me, Rodin”, an intense story about an edgy modern girl’s compelling power-exchange relationship with a male artist — from Best Women’s Erotica 2006. This is one of my favorite stories of the year (so far), rife with erotic tension, full character development, a woman who willingly plays rough with her own boundaries, a tough man calling the shots, and explicit kinky sex. Yum.

Open Source Sex 28 (MP3 link); Click here to launch iTunes: Open Source Sex

Even since I discovered Student Doctor Net’s Emergency Medicine Forums via BoingBoing, I’ve been hooked. They know they have lurkers like me, and I know I have a fetish for shows like ER and Green Wing (WAY better than ripoff Scrubs), so it’s all out on the table. And yes, I have an actual fetish for men *in* scrubs and emergency tech uniforms. But what I wanted to share with you is something not for the faint of heart or stomach, but proof that those urban legends aren’t just myths. Consider this post one in an infrequent series; it’s just too addictive not to read this stuff (and a great way to procrastinate my book deadline and the 800 emails in my inbox)… Pardon the deeplinks, but I think you’ll want to read the entire posts I’ve taken excerpts from:

“In the area of ‘interesting things found in the rectum’ I would like to add the half-dozen Barbie heads extracted from one pt. They were complete with their lovely synthetic locks. The pt. could give no real reason for this. I’m not sure there is one.”

“And then there was the older gentleman who presented with a stainless steel cock ring embedded at the base of his, well where they go. It had done its job very well and his erection was quite permanent. When all the medical personnel had run out of ideas, we summoned Rescue One and they arrived and set up their cutting tools. When they fired up the 10-inch carbide circular saw, the ring miraculously seemed to fall right off.” [link]

“I had a woman who was tweaking on meth and handcuffed to the gurney pull a crack pipe out of her vagina AND EAT IT! She chewed it up and got glass in her mouth and esophagus. I’d never seen anyone eat a crack pipe before and I did med school in Philly (city motto: Crack. It’s not just for breakfast.)” [link]

“Make sure to have your boyfriend re-insert the same 12″ dildo that was taken out of your ‘booty’ with twice as much force this time after it was in there for a few hours and was forcibly removed by the ED personnel 2 hours ago because surely the hole is now open enough that it won’t get stuck a second time…” [link]

“BASED ON A CASE TODAY…
don’t allow someone with a known poorly controlled seizure disorder to perform oral sex on you… enough said…” [link]

“the painless chancre of primary syphilis, the cauliflower-like growths of HPV, the blisters of herpes, and the urethral discharge of gonorrhea/chlamydia can, indeed, all exist on a single penis. the owner of the above penis presented with a chief complaint of “cuts on my dick”………..hmmm”

“When you finish your night at the pool hall, be sure to keep your pool stick in a case after you unscrew it and wear your seatbelt if you drive a large van - otherwise you might hit a pole, fly out of your seat, and end up with a pool stick up your ass. 8 ball - corner pocket…”

“The broad base on the 12 inch dildo is meant to be the place to stop…not additional stimulation as you jam that part in your rectum as well. If you do this, and you’re an active duty Marine, just go to the local Naval hopsital. If not, you’ll explain the whole story to a civilain Doc, who will label you “non-emergent” and package you off to the Naval hospital anyway. Be sure to bring your wife along to share the humiliation since it was her exuberance that got you there in the first place.” [link]

“If somehow a ping pong ball should make its way into your rectum and you cannot retieve it, do not mix yourself a cement enema–as this will only make your problems worse. (I did not see this in person, but saw the radiograph. the hardened cement block was removed under anesthesia.)” [link]

“An unconscious 30-year-old man was brought to the ER by ambulance. His girlfriend had found him lying naked on the floor of his bathroom and called 911. In the ER, he was found to have a large lump on the top of his head and, strangely, several scratches on his scrotum. The doctors figured the lump was possibly caused by a fall or a knock to the head. However the source of the scratches remained a mystery until he woke up and provided the doctors with the following explanation. He said he had been cleaning his bathtub while naked, kneeling on the floor beside the tub. His cat, apparently transfixed by the rhythmic swaying of his scrotum, lunged forward, sinking its claws into this pendulous target. This caused the man to rocket upward, striking his head on the top frame of the shower door.”

“If you’re taking pictures of seasonal plants in the desert (is a cactus seasonal?), don’t do crystal meth and fall down and embankment and impale your scrotum and penis on a cactus. It’s bad.” [link]

First, a huge sticky-sweet thank you to the Montreal Mirror for saying such incredibly wonderful things about me, my felltio book and labor-of-love Tiny Nibbles in ther Sexy and Sweet: A Mirror Valentine’s Gift Guide. (I’ve always wanted to visit Montreal, so this is especially cool.) Next, over on SFist you’ll find my latest column Your ‘Fisty Valentine, where I tell where to find a heavy handful of local sex parties and events this weekend, my favorite local chocolate makers (including a romantic chocolate factory tour), suggestions for picnics and weekend movies around town, and much more. Two events of note:

Saturday night at the CSC, Thomas Roche’s My Sucky Valentine is a benefit for SFSI featuring Carol Queen, Thea Hillman, Daphne Gottlieb, Mistress Morgana, mi blue (no relation), as well as MC Roche and myself. Thomas tells us, “what makes this event slightly different than your run-of-the-mill group drunken crying jag at the Zeitgeist is that My Sucky Valentine peels back the rotting rose petals of romance that cover the fragrant bud of sleaze. Many of San Francisco’s best-loved erotica writers step away from their usual sex-positive selves and mingle their appreciation of the nastier side of sex with bitter and downright admissions about how wrong it can go.”

What he doesn’t tell you is that I have no idea what I’ll be reading — Thomas is picking something for me. Just great. So if you like my podcast and you want to see me put on the spot by my best friend and forced to read filthy dirty erotica live, this is the time…

SRL fans will want to come to the Women’s Building friday night for an indiefest screening of the awesome video shot at last year’s Los Angeles SRL show — this will be a benefit to help us move and half of the door proceeds and all of the merchandise we sell goes toward the move. I have to go down to SRL this afternoon to round up stuff to sell; I’ll be the one at the merch table trying to part you with your hard-earned cash. With a smile, of course.

And now’s the time to order if you want them to arrive in time! I just wrote up a Horny Valentine’s Gift Guide on Fleshbot that includes delicious pink leather bondage kits, solar powered and recycled materials sex toys, great sex toy kits for couples, cool sex art t-shirts, chocolate dilddo casting kits, DIY pussy mold making kits… and much more.

Image: Aria in Stockroom’s pink leather bondage gear

* Wait — you’re wondering why I’m linking to Stockroom again, after I told you they carry unsafe Anal Eze ans shrink creams, But guess what — they called me and told me they permanently removed those products from their stock! So not only are they a bunch of sweet, kink-happy punk and alt kids, but they have a sexy site and they care more about sexual health than making a buck. So, based on our phone call and their ethical decisions, (they asked me and) I’ve agreed to become a celebrity sex ed moderator on their Kinkwire Forums, with Midori and Steve Diet Goedde. (I’ve been beta testing; it’s still not officially announced.) *And* they are soon going to become the official sex toy sponsor of Tiny Nibbles, which will help pay my bandwidth fees (’cause my kneepads need a rest) — and I reserve the right to editorialize and snark all I want, because they seem to like me all fiesty like that.

This morning my inbox greeted me with emails (thank you!) linking to the Yahoo news article “Kids’ Ability To Access iPod Porn Raises Concerns“, where my podcast Open Source Sex is held up as an example of a “dirty download”, “pornography webcast” (only if it’s done right, dear reader). Apparently I’ve been somewhat targeted by a hardcore Christian group called National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, who call themselves a “Cincinnati-based pornography watchdog group”. Of course, their religious beliefs are not mentioned in the article (though they are cited as a source). It only took one click to see that they’re anti-gay, anti-porn, they promote “family” marriage legislation across the nation, and promote abstinence and virginity as sex education for kids/teens. In their own words about online pornography, “Harm is just a click away”.

Funny that the article didn’t mention the parental controls in iTunes, which is where they cite the most ‘danger’.

But I was really most curious about the organization’s spokesdouche Jack Samad who said in the article about “dirty downloads” like my podcast, “‘It’s addictive behavior. The consumption of this stuff will lead you deeper into activities that you normally would not progress to.’” Then the article states that “Porncasts like Open Source Sex walk a very thin line between sex education and pornography.”

Harm was indeed just a click away. Jack Samad’s online resume tells us that his career highlights include “Interactions with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Vice President Quayle, Colin Powell, Norman Schwartzkopf and Bob Dole”. In the ZDnet article “Google stands up to US government porn probe” it seems that Mr. Samad was quoted again as a source — and a DOJ backer — blasting Google for not complying with the US DOJ’s subpoena to surrender private citizens’ search records under the umbrella of COPA.

Hey, I’m just sayin’. If you have kids, use filters and for the love of love, don’t tell them abstinence and god’s virginity are all the sex ed they need — read these great books with them instead.

…. even if it *is* an instant gratification information delivery system. Even if it sucks and the blogger is a retard, it’s a record of how they suck and are retarded — or that some *thing* of value, for at least one person out there, found language. It’s also why you should always credit the links you find (I have a list of linkstealers), and always thank your colleagues for tips. And don’t forget that we all talk to each other. Make a fake blog to cheat search engine spiderbots? Google will kick your ass into next week (where no one can find you). And when you fake shit for the US government on Wikipedia, we know. Lie to the public and don’t feel the need to note your corrections, then remove the page entirely and think it goes unnotced? Wrong. Blogging makes it all truthy here in the internet, even if you have to polish your information gathering shopping skills a bit. It’s high time more people got a clue about this. Bacchus has a great post about why people who treat blogging as disposable culture are slimeballs:

More Internet Vandals Go Offline

“So I notice that Panties Panties Panties has gone offline, saying goodbye thusly:

‘Thanks to everyone who wrote in expressing concern. Enough emails were received such that some kind of explanation seems necessary. We simply thought it in our best interest to discontinue the blog. We’re each okay; it was just time to euthanize it. Anyway, thanks for reading, commenting, and sticking with us as the blog evolved. See ya, motherfuckers*, perhaps in some other place, in some other guise.’

No, motherfuckers, you won’t see me. You may come back, but it will be a cold day in hell before I link to you again. You’ve demonstrated that it’s a waste of time trying to incorporate you into the warp and woof of the world information culture that is the internet.

(…) If you put it up on the internet, it’s going to stay there, or come back if it seems to have gone. In addition to the currently-active public archives like the Google cache and the Wayback Machine, there are dozens of entities spidering the web and making private archives for various purposes (commercial research, government intelligence gathering, etc.) All the data in those archives is likely to become public — and be put back up on the web — at some point in the future. Meanwhile, there are a zillion quotes and excerpts of your stuff on every blog that ever linked to you, none of which material is going away. You can’t unring the bell, and you look foolish trying.”

[read more, photo via Spanking Blog]

Finished a chapter and started another today, phew. Still dwelling on the virgin creams. Our bodies, our selves. Watch this darkly humorous video of Brit girls getting their bikini areas waxed:

Bikini Waxing! (funlol.com)

Then check out the *real* our bodies — hey, are you fat? Is your body perfect? In one week, Media Nipple gathered video from TV and put together this video (warning: graphic imagery):

The Perfect Woman (culturalfarming.com, thanks Evil Signtist)

Lie on the web and get caught part bazillion: Wikipedia has higher ethical standards than the U.S. government — Wikipedia had to block Capitol Hill IP’s due to falsification of entries from our elected officials and their flunkies. Perhaps they were all too busy circlejerking with Tom DeLay in Schwarzenegger’s Hummer to watch this segment on The Daily Show.

I’m at home writing and researching a book that’s due at the end of this month, and I’ve entered into a sex ed area that is a real sore spot for me. You’ve no doubt read my gripes and warnings about the widely available and highly profitable anal numbing creams and “shrink” creams, but have I ever told you the many reasons why they’re evil?

Lubricants with benzocane and numbing agents such as Anal-Eze, “good head gel” and desensitizing creams contain oils, flavors and colorings, and they are very unsafe. Numbing the back of your throat, the penis, the vagina, and especially the anus can lead to serious injury and infections that can (and often) land users in the doctor’s office or ER. Think: you can’t feel the skin breaking or tearing, and if it’s the anus, there’s fecal bacteria. When you can’t feel pain, you are getting injured, period. Pain sucks, but it’s an important tool during anal play, telling you something’s not right. If it hurts you’re either going too fast, you need more lube, the item is too big, or you’re not really in the mood. And when I researched my fellatio book, I communicated briefly with a dentist who’d seen signifigant bruising *inside* the throat of a female patient — again, just think about it.

Also unsafe but widely available are “shrink creams”, “sure grip”, “tighten up” and “feel like a virgin again”, which claim to make the vagina smaller or tighter. The key ingredient in these creams is alum (aluminum chloride, an aluminum compound). Alum absorbs water out of the outer layer of the skin; as more water is absorbed, the cells begin to swell, closing the ducts that water would normally flow through. No study has been done on the effect of these creams on the cervix, which is what they eventually end up getting rubbed on during penetration, but I’ll wager it’s not good. I kind of want to make the manufacturers snort a thick rail of alum, so they can study the effects on their own mucous membranes. What I really hate about these “shrink” creams is the fact that they’re trading on female insecurities about the vagina not being tight, pretty or good enough for their male partner — like we need any negative reinforcement from our pussy-phobic culture about how we look, feel or smell down there. The marketing text runs, “China Shrink Cream is formulated to tighten the vaginal walls. China Shrink Cream is to help with loose vagina due to multiple child birth and frigidity.” I also want to throw up every time I see the packaging on these creams, as they are often called “oriental” or “China Shrink Cream”, paralying off of racist stereotypes and exotifying Asian “sexual mystery”, much the same way the porn industry fetishizes skin color and markets (I think racist) negative stereotypes about black male sexuality with its “interracial” videos.

The short of it is that because sex toy companies market this shit as “for novelty use only”, they can get away with anything — even though they explicitly know their products are for sexual use (genital application). It’s clear that they just don’t give a shit if anyone gets hurt using their products. Same goes for the scary chemical materials many companies use in the manufacture of their toys (mostly in China), but that’s another rant, for another day.

Grrr. /rant.

The smiley girl with the nice nipples in the new free Hegre gallery?

Or the bunny?

Yes, I’m still on the Hegre free galleries affiliate email list; I joined it to research affiliate programs for a users’ guide about online porn I have coming out soon. I don’t agree with Hegre’s recommended link practices, but that doesn’t mean you and I can’t enjoy the free pictures of really pretty, happy skinny naked girls they keep sending me. (like the tiny tree-hugger; Miss No-carb Lollipop, and this tan line beauty.) I guess you see how I am; a steady diet of fluffy bunnies and naked girls… oh, and liberal applications of naked Viggo Mortensen pics. Yum.

Last night I went to the Valleywag launch party, but I didn’t go alone. Oh, no — in fear of suffering through being the gender minority at these tech things yet again, I summoned a posse of nine women to attend with me/meet me there. That’s right, Violet Blue has a posse, just like Andre the Giant. Valleywag is a local tech gossip blog, brainchild of Nick Denton and run by a man I call Little Nicky, because he is also named Nick and is adorably bite-sized. Conversation snippets:

Guy from Slate: I wish I had a camera when you came to pick up Xeni the other day.
me: We get that a lot.
Guy from Slate: Your license plate should be “NSFW”.

His friend, former Suck.com writer: I’ve firgured out what the big Vallywag gossip is.
me: What!?
His friend, former Suck.com writer: It’s that Denton has crossed over his look into “daddy bear“.
me: Does that make Little Nicky a cub or an otter?
His friend, former Suck.com writer: Definitely a cub.

Annalee Newitz: Charlie Girl and I have to go — let’s go *get* Little Nicky.
(I make introductions.)
me, to Little Nicky: So, do you live here yet?
Little Nicky: Yes, I live in a commune in [SF neighborhood].
me: You’re in a cult!
Annalee Newitz: A sex cult!
Melissa Gira: Oh, I’ve heard of that cult!
Little Nicky: I don’t think it’s a cult.
me: Oh, you just haven’t been through auditing yet.
Melissa Gira: That cult is all about extending the pleasure of the female orgasm, they’re Tantrikas.
Little Nicky: I haven’t seen anything like that going on.
me: So what’s the big gossip you’re launching with tomorrow?
Little Nicky: I can’t tell you that.
me: That’s because you’re in a cult!
Annalee Newitz: That’s the gossip!
Little Nicky: I don’t think it’s a cult.

(photo: Melissa Gira + me, by Scott Beale, his post on the event is here)