- “Breasts have served as a gateway drug for vaginas.” In a humorous op-ed, Martin Robbins submits the most modern and progressive view about pornography Guardian UK has ever published (though someone should tell him about the Potter Stewart quote…)
Porn panic! (Guardian UK)
- Hustler founder Larry Flynt confirmed that the magazine has photos of Dania Suarez, one of the sex workers who outed Secret Service agents in Columbia and told XBIZ, “We have pictures but are still working on putting a story together.”
Hustler Magazine to Run Secret Service Hooker Story With Photos (XBIZ)
- In Tennessee today they passed a bizarre abstinence law – Lawmakers Pass “Gateway Sexual Activity” Ban. Respected sex educator Cory Silverberg has a few thoughts…
Stopping It Before It Starts: Banning Talk of Gateway Sexual Activity (About Sexuality)
- A new study published online looked at men who are aroused by women as well as men who have had sexual experience with at least two people of each gender. Men had to watch videos of male and female same-sex intimacy while genital sensors monitored their erectile responses. The study reported that bisexual men responded to both the male and female videos but gay and straight men did not.
Bisexuality proved: Scientists reveal why some people are happy swinging both ways (Mirror Online)
See also: BI UK (via Dr. Petra)
- Kate Bornstein‘s new book, A Queer and Pleasant Danger, was published this week. The Voice has an amazing interview with, and story about, Bornstein’s incredible life.
Text Archive Kate Bornstein’s Amazing Voyage (Village Voice)
- Pamela Haag writes, “Whenever I hear a headline like, “Marriage Ruined by Cheating,” or “An Open Marriage Fails—It Just Never Works,” I’m tempted to point to a divorce somewhere else and declare, “Marriage Ruined by Monogamy.”
A Marriage Ruined by Monogamy (Big Think)
- McDonald’s Double Cheeseburgers for sex? Indecent proposals by some everyday folks – even a judge and a former “Sheriff of the Year” – made FindLaw’s Top 5 list of strange things traded for sex.
5 Strangest Things People Have Traded for Sex (Legally Weird)
- Domain Name News takes a look at .XXX domain traffic and stats overall since its launch – and a year later we see that the numbers are pathetic.
.XXX domains, The Hard Numbers (Domain Name News, thanks Mike!)
- Randy Jones, the original cowboy from the legendary disco group the Village People, tells Village Voice, “Everything I’ve done has been with a wink, a wiggle, and a wave, and wanting you to laugh along. I could never have gotten up and sang a song called ‘Macho Man’ with a straight face. Think about it!”
Village People’s Randy Jones Starts A New Club Night! (Village Voice)
- Psychologist James Pennebaker recorded and transcribed conversations that took place between people on speed dates. He fed these conversations into his program along with information about how the people themselves were perceiving the dates. What he found surprised him. “We can predict by analyzing their language, who will go on a date — who will match — at rates better than the people themselves,” he says.
To Predict Dating Success, The Secret’s In The Pronouns (NPR)
- According to a lawsuit filed in San Francisco this week, Henry Wolf says his BMW motorcycle’s ridge-like seat gave him a “severe case of priapism,” otherwise known as a really, really long (lasting) erection.
Local Man Claims BMW Ride Gave Him a Permanent Boner (SF Weekly)
- Sex-positive speaker, writer and female sexuality activist Alyssa Rose recently gave a talk on sexism in tech, and published it on her blog. More food for thought…
Brogramming: Sex & Sexism in Tech Startups (Just Alyssa)
- San Francisco-based Good Vibrations will stage its “San Francisco Sex Summit” Oct. 27 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis. Organizers say the summit “will examine the relationship between sex and the media, health, pop culture and politics.” (I found out about this event by being ‘invited’ to buy a ticket on Facebook.)
Sex summit coming to San Francisco in October (Examiner.com)
Main post image via Cabin Fever by Sebastian Faena.
Regarding the .XXX gTLDs, if you put aside the debate around the reasons for setting up I would say in a way it’s actually not too bad going that some of the .xxx domains are getting reasonable traffic. The established sites are just that – established. A website like Kink.com is well known and users (plus their bookmarks, links etc) will keep using the site even if there is a kink.xxx which redirects to the main site.
Unless (and I am certainly not in favour of this) the registrar started forcing all porn sites to switch to the .xxx domain then the well known sites will continue to get good traffic and newer ones under .xxx will simply not come into the mind of users which means the .xxx domains will not rise up the search engine rankings and will continue to grow slowly.
It would be useful to compare a couple of new sites, one under .com and one under .xxx and see which grew more and got more traffic, better search engine placement etc and then you’d have an idea of whether the domain idea is actually any good.
That said, .xxx came far too late, expanding beyond the basic 22 .com .org .net etc. and country specifics e.g. the “brand” gTLDs like .ford was long overdue – so you could have ford.com as a corporate site and say drive.ford for their consumer site. Coming up with gTLDs for different uses would have made more sense before the net was as popular as it is, now it’s just a mess as the roll out of .xxx has proved as it was too little too late.