- A newly married Kate Moss features in the 2012 Pirelli calendar, along with other nude beauties in this Vanity Fair [Italy] preview: Calendario Pirelli 2012, Kate Moss e le altre (Vanity Fair)
- “I had an arsenal of stupid resolve when I came in [to porn]. I was against more than one dick in a scene, and against facials, and against degradation and things that I was told were degrading. I’ve since decided that the most degrading thing of all is being told by strangers that they have a better sense of when I’m being degraded than I do.” Kayden Kross on Degradation (Eros Blog)
- If you think that porn is by definition degrading, that it’s never okay to have sex on camera, or that getting sex involved with money is always exploitative, that’s fine. Of course, we should use the data to inform our morals, but there will always be those who are too disgusted by the whole idea of pornography to have a science-based argument about it. There are, broadly speaking, four different kinds of studies which have looked into the effects of pornography. Here’s a mini-summary of each: Evidence-based Masturbation (or, The Science of Porn) (Time Out of Mind)
- I didn’t realize this (I’m not really up on the personal lives of computer executives), but Apple’s incoming CEO, Tim Cook, is gay. According to at least some sources, that makes him “the world’s most powerful gay man,” which some activists are touting as a potential victory for LGBT workplace inclusiveness. With Steve Jobs’ Resignation, Apple Has “World’s Most Powerful Gay Man” in Charge (AlterNet)
- Lady Gaga posed in Japanese Vogue shot by Araki back in June, but a whole lot of nude and topless outtakes from the shoot have just now surfaced that Vogue decided not to put in the issue. Lady Gaga Nude Outtakes from Vogue Japan (Yeeeah!)
- Modern humans developed stronger immune systems after they interbred with Neanderthals. Sex with Neanderthals Made Us Stronger (Discovery News)
- I picked this article out of this week’s resurgence of ‘designer vagina‘ stories because it so clearly shows that the link to porn is not factual, but pure conjecture. Check it out: Is porn pushing popularity of “designer vaginas?” (CBS News)
- A gay porn DVD was found among the looted belongings of Al-Saadi al-Gaddafi, who is the 38-year old son of former Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Libya: Gay Porn DVD Found Among Gaddafi Son’s Looted Belongings (The New Civil Rights Movement)
- Penis surgery? Dude: I’d have a lot more than five questions. 5 questions to ask before having penis surgery (CNN)
- Ever since premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, the film, which follows two young Iranian lesbians grappling with their sexuality in the Islamic nation, has generated a considerable amount of anxiety within the Iranian and Iranian-American community, according to Keshavarz. She says she has received threats both in person and by email. ‘Circumstance’: Inside the Secret Lives of Lesbians in Iran (WSJ)
- Veterans say Dallas’ leather scene is under attack by sexual tourists, straights, women and worst of all, social media. How The Internet Killed (Or Maybe Just Changed) Dallas’ Leather Scene (Dallas Observer, via Viviane)
I wonder if the kind of bodies in Porn are simply the easiest ones to point to when people are dissatisfied with their bodies. They know they’re unhappy about something, decide that perhaps if their body looked different then they’d feel different about it, see that porn actors seem pretty happy, and decide to become more like them.
We’ve always been messed up, technology just gives us different ways of expressing that. We’ve always dressed like people in popular culture, and wanted to look like them, act like them, talk like them. It’s not really surprising that people have plastic surgery to look like celebrities, or porn stars. They want to have lots of fun sex like they see portrayed in movies, so they think that perhaps a body like the one they see will help them do that.
They’re missing the deeper truth, it’s acting, just like in main-stream movies. Actors take regular emotions and display them more differently, so we feel what they’re going through. Actors in porn movies take sex, and do it differently, so it looks good on camera.
If you want better sex, find ways to feel better about yourself and the other person/people, it’ll feel better.
I feel like I just fell into a timewarp. That article about the Dallas scene is about 15 years out of date; there were “old-guard” leathermen in 1996 complaining that alt.sex.bondage, the Internet’s original BDSM hangout, was “ruining” the scene by letting in too many straights, too many newbies, too many clueless.
Fetlife is just a slight (very slight!) acceleration of the process. In many ways, I don’t particularly care for Fetlife; it’s interface is difficult to manage and painfully low bandwidth (not a lot of useful information per page), plus it’s supersaturated with so many users I can’t create a valid monkeysphere (look it up) within it.
The ‘Time Out Of Mind’ article contains brilliant analyses; Gaga by Araki is, as always, magnificent; and Kayden Kross is a beautiful writer; and via ErosBlog, where I haven’t dropped by for too long, too – in short, thanks for the links!