July 2007

Image by Captive Girls, @.

I haven’t done one of these in a while; let me distract you for a bit….

* Fun stuff: Mind Fetish Bedding Company is introducing a huge new line of high-quality leather and rubber housewares to their inventory, so customers can better integrate fetish into their homes — as if a visit to the wooden spoon section of Bed Bath and Beyond or a trip to Design Within Reach wasn’t enough to make some of us want to play house… “Russell said he plans to expand his company to offer a full line of fetish and kinky housewares, but for now is focusing on what he calls two of the most overlooked rooms in most men’s houses: the bathroom and bedroom.” Link to Xbiz article/press release, link to Mind Fetish.

* In case you missed it, the DC Madam’s phone list is now a searchable index. Look for your favorite politicians and Fox News pundits.

* A lube to prevent HIV? Yeah, I’ve heard that song before and it didn’t sound good at all. Good luck trying to pass off that you’ll market it to South(ern) Africa, where sexual customs hold wet sex in disgust and disdain, and women dry out their vaginas with chemicals to be desirable. Pay attention! Update: I wrote “South” when I meant to write “Southern”, though I linked to correct information in this post (and I also misspelled “heard”, 3am notwithstanding). But my mistake was offensive to at least one South Africa resident who wrote, “While it’s possible that there are isolated communities in South Africa that practice the custom, and it’s possible that the huge influx of refugees from Zimbabwe into South Africa have had some influence on local custom, I’m not aware of any studies or news reports supporting this. In the absence of further evidence to the contrary, I think that in this instance you are giving South Africa a bad, and probably undeserved rap.” My apologies. Still, read more about dry sex in Southern Africa and the problems it creates for HIV prevention in this old but good piece in the Village Voice.

* Speaking of sexual customs:Vegansexuals — not just what’s for dinner. A piece about vegans who avoid sex with meat eaters — who really tastes better, anyway? (via sweet Viviane)

* Don’t miss one of my favorite Sex Blog Roundups at Fleshbot to date: my sex blogger friend Jefferson put together Business As Usual, six great recent blog posts by a variety of sex workers writing about their — jobs. Yay for lap dancers, porn store clerks, and peepshow girls!

* Gay, lesbian, straight… there’s one straight male porn performer everyone seems to agree is super-hot, and that’s Mr. Marcus. Eros Zine has a great interview with Mr. Marcus up right now, which makes me like him more than ever. He talks about his first porn experiences, HIV in the industry, race and more.

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Sharing is caring, seen @ Kink.com; friday night. (Kept next to the condoms, so sharing is sanitary, m’kay?) The other great photo from the weekend — birdbath = bloodbath?

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Site portfolio is Flash but still entertaining.

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After taking care of Hacker Boy with a 100+ fever all weekend and trying to meet deadlines (and enduring an insanely sex-negative, biased interview with Details asking about how women in porn are a result of ‘childhood trauma’ and questions about porn’s ‘psychological damage’) I get *this* idiocy from Times Online UK:

And there are endless sites offering the full 2.0 sex experience. Violet Blue calls herself a “pro-blogger, podcaster, vlogger and femmebot”. She’s written “ultimate guides” to cunnilingus and fellatio and, of course, The Smart Girl’s Guide to the G-Spot. Her site is a sex shop and supermarket of self-promotion – lust and recognition all in one super-refined techno-package. As one leading British thinker put it, “How come the highest technology is always used for the lowest purposes?”

But what is really new in all this is the attention-seeking, the overpowering need for recognition. “Sex is an amazing driving force,” says [Esther] Dyson. “Attention isn’t quite that visceral, but it’s going to be a strong force in the future.”

Link.

Fuck you, Times Online — and Brian Appleyard. This is not a sex shop. Sex is not a “lower purpose”. I’m the only one in your vacuous piece who doesn’t give a shit about fame. Take your attention elsewhere.

Update: In my inbox from last month, two emails from Brian Appleyard. Re-reading them in contrast to his finished article (and the overwhelmingly sex-negative bias in it), I’d say that he was totally misleading in telling me about what kind of article he was planning. His emails are not what his piece (“Notorious Nobodies”) was about *at all*. And, Ill say it’s likely his sentences about me were a slap for not responding to him. So, more douchebags with access to the press. But then again, it’s clear in his article he’s writing about 2.0 from the outside. n00b. His emails are below:

From: Bryan Appleyard [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 1:55 AM
To: violetblue@sfgate.com
Subject: Interview

Dear Ms Blue,
I am writing a major article on prominent people/ celebs on the web and I’d very much like to include you. I’d be grateful if we could fix a telephone/video interview in the near future,. Please feel free to look at my site and read the kind of articles I do.
Bryan Appleyard

From: Bryan Appleyard [redacted]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 8:56 AM
To: violetblue@sfgate.com
Subject: Interview

Dear Ms Blue,
I emailed you on June 13th about the possibility of a phone/ video interview for a piece I am writing about Web Celebs for the Sunday Times magazine in Lodnon. Is that possible today or in the next few days?
Bryan Appleyard

Update 8/8/07: anonymous reader email –

not sure if this made it to the states, but the Times published extracts from “Girl with a one-track mind”, a sex blog by a woman who chose to remain anonymous – then their sister publication outed her.

http://girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html

Lowest of the low. I mean, I don’t write to editors often – but in that case, I did. Having people write honestly about sex is a good thing – we should celebrate it!

So, I’ve listened to your podcast for ages, almost made it to a thing you did in SF a few weeks ago when I was over for work, and I like your blog. The self-promotion jibe from the Times – the TIMES! – is so hypocritical it makes my eyes water!

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If you’re not familiar with US federal 2257 regulations, you can read about them on Wikipedia and on Fleshbot, and even quite a lot on this website. In a (very opinionated, slightly tipsy) nutshell, they are a set of laws that are in place ostensibly to prevent underage people from becoming porn performers by making businesses that create porn keep really extensive documentation about the people in their products. Nice theory. Except legitimate businesses aren’t going to break laws that would put them out of business. Fucking, duh. The way the 2257 laws are crafted and enforced result in making it impossible for small businesses to survive, make it really, really easy to stalk porn stars, and trample all over First Amendment rights — in many ways treating porn as if it were a criminal act, even though it is legal in the US. The net result is that 2257 makes every aspect of making adult porn undesirable, unfeasible and even dangerous to women, while doing nothing to actually prevent children from being exploited. Awesome! And now, the US gov’t has put forth new changes to 2257 laws, which are now open for comment (comments close September 10, so please say something even though they’re making it really hard to find the document or comment area).

In the meantime, my friends at Kink.com made the world’s best (and extremely informative) PSA for understanding 2257 laws — and yes, there’s nudity, because we’re all adults, and see if you can spot a) the kitteh, b) teh EFF, and c) the Jake.

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