July 2013

• The London Fire Brigade speculated that the popularity of erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey may account for a rise in handcuffs incidents. Third Officer Dave Brown said “I don’t know whether it’s the ‘Fifty Shades’ effect, but the number of incidents involving items like handcuffs seems to have gone up.”
  London fire brigade cites erotic novel for rise in handcuff incidents (USA Today)

• Vibease has never shied away from public attention. The Singapore startup drew guffaws when it debuted its smartphone-enabled vibrator at a startup conference in 2012 with its awkward yet effective pitch.
  Smart vibrator Vibease debuts on Indiegogo, new spokesperson is creator of contentious Valley reality TV show (SGE)

• What leads some species to monogamy and others not has prompted scientists to come up with three possible explanations. Current headlines, like the one below, highlight that the study says some species have become monogamous through evolution and, for primates, infanticide is at its root.
  The mystery of monogamy: scientists claim to have the answer (Guardian US)

• Red stripes on the straws and cups would indicate the drink has been contaminated with a date rape drug: It’s an idea Abramson has turned into a business, under the name DrinkSavvy. He’s working with two professors at his alma mater, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, to develop his first line of plastic straws and cups. He’s also working on glassware.
  Boston Man Invents Straws And Cups That Detect Date Rape Drugs (WGBH News)

• “Of course they haven’t asked us what we think,” says Gracie Finlan, 24, a model who has appeared in Nuts, Zoo and the Daily Sport. “They don’t want to hear anything positive about the industry. The campaign has decided that glamour modelling is a bad thing and they won’t publicise anything that doesn’t back that up.”
  What Glamour Models Have To Say About Lads Mags And Page 3 (HuffPo UK)

• Nothing is more emblematic of the American dream than chaotic mining and drilling towns such as Williston, North Dakota, and the people who flock to them in search of fortune. And no one knows better how these communities work — and don’t — than the traveling topless dancer.
  Wildcatting: A Stripper’s Guide to the Modern American Boomtown (BUzzfeed)

• Stunned officers chipped away plaster at a ­record shop wall and unveiled a hidden list of names thought to belong to young victims of Jimmy Savile. Police believe the major breakthrough could lead to further arrests – including other well-known celebrities.
  Jimmy Savile: Celeb arrests could soar after police discover DJ’s secret lair at record shop (Mirror UK)

• More than any other scientists before them, Masters and Johnson approached sex as a biological process to be observed, measured and analyzed. Virginia Masters died this week at age 88. Her work is credited with dispelling many long-held myths about sex, from the thought that penis size matters to the notion that old people don’t do it.
  50 Years On, Research On Sex Can Still Be A Lightning Rod (NPR)

• The world’s first case study of a man who is sexually aroused by other people passing wind has now been published. A British psychologist has recorded the case of so-called “eproctophilia” in a 22-year-old man from Illinois, America.
  50 Shades Of Smell: What Sex Fetish Is Eproctophilia? (HuffPo UK)

• Above: News Reporter Unwittingly Draws a Penis While Talking About Men At Work (Gawker)

• “I feel uneasy about sex work, but here’s the thing: it’s not about me. It’s about the safety and dignity of those who are actually involved in the industry.”
  Why I changed my mind about sex work (Guardian UK)

• YAY Ms. Naughty! “For the last 13 years, my mission has been to create porn with a more positive outlook, one that dispensed with the sexism and offensive language and tried to give priority to a woman’s pleasure and point of view.”
  This woman has spent 13 years creating female friendly porn (MammaMia)

• I could not believe that the best birth control left in Iran – an Iran whose pharmaceutical market has been decimated by sanctions – were the same pills facing court action and considered a serious health threat in the United States.
  When I Ran Out of Birth Control in Iran (IranWire)

• The chief editor of manga magazine Comic Mega Store and two others were arrested in Tokyo for allegedly distributing obscene images in two magazine both marked with 18+ labels. The three suspects are accused of selling Comic Mega Store magazine, with its sex scenes between males and females, and Nyan 2 Club, a magazine for reader-submitted adult photographs.
  Tokyo Police Arrest 3 Over ‘Obscene’ Manga (XBIZ Newswire)

• Exactly how players hook up in “Wicked Paradise” isn’t something Van den Bosch will detail during the development phase. But he claims his game will succeed where others have failed because the visual quality of computer-generated images (CGI) is finally able to make practically life-like characters.
  Sex and video games: Virtual reality erotica may be the Holy Grail (NBC News)

Do you have UK porn block fatigue? I do, from reading about a hundred million articles about it in the past few days, most of them crappy and hysterical about the concept of porn, or seemingly afraid they might ‘get some on them’ while writing about it. Below are are the best of the week so far, and they’re damn good.

• David Cameron’s War On Internet Porn Lacks a Smoking Gun (VICE)
  Has the UK ushered in an age of institutionalized censorship of open information? (The Grand Signal)
  Survive the Claire Perry Internet (survivetheclaireperryinter.net)
  UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal (TorrentFreak)
  Unblock Torrent Sites, Blocked Proxies, & Cameron’s Porn Filter With Immunicity (TorrentFreak)
  Don’t Worry Government, I Got This Porn Filter Sorted (SickSad)

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• MiKandi recently sponsored a professional porn video shoot with Google Glass, starring porn stars James Deen and Andy San Dimas, who wore Google Glass while having sex. The technique was a clever end-run around Google’s ban on porn apps.
  MiKandi Releases First Ever Google Glass Porn (MiKandi)

• Yesterday UK MP Claire Perry’s website was hacked. The current advisor to the British Prime Minister on UK Internet filtering laws accused a blogger who reported it of the deed, in threats revealing she doesn’t know how links or websites work.
  MP behind UK internet porn filter hacked, accuses blogger who reported it (ZDNet)
  Do Not Force ISP Filtering of Pornography and Other Content (e-petitions)

• Sex addiction may not be a real disorder, according to a new UCLA study. For the first time, UCLA researchers have measured how the brain behaves in so-called hypersexual people who have problems regulating their viewing of sexual images. Researchers measured brain waves in self-reported sex addicts. The scans revealed that their brain’s responses when viewing sexual pictures were not indicative of an addiction.
  Brain scans suggest sex addiction may not be real disorder (CBS News)
  Is sexual addiction the real deal? (UCLA Newsroom)

• Nineteen years ago this Hebrew Home broke with industry practice and encouraged sex and intimacy among its elderly residents, including those with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. In 1995, the home adopted a four-page policy — considered the first of its kind — stating that residents “have the right to seek out and engage in sexual expression.”
  Sex in Geriatrics Sets Hebrew Home Apart in Elderly Care (Bloomberg)

• Oxytocin, the feel-good bonding hormone released by physical contact with another person, orgasm and childbirth (potentially encouraging monogamy), might have a darker side. The love drug also plays an important role in intensifying negative emotional memories and increasing feelings of fear in future stressful situations, according to a new study.
  The Dark Side Of The Love Hormone Oxytocin (Popular Science)

• Dear friend and colleague Dr. Cory Silverberg writes, “In the past few months a couple of particularly unethical projects tied to sexuality have tried to get off the ground via crowd funding.
  So instead of linking to the badness, I thought I’d highlight a project that, whether it’s successful or not, is definitely part of the solution and not part of the problem. The project [is] Sex Ed: The Saga.” Crowd Funding Sex Education (About: Sexuality)

• All internet pornography should be preemptively blocked in Canada, says Conservative MP Joy Smith of Winnipeg, which would force those who want to access adult content to “opt in” with their internet service provider.
  Internet porn ‘opt in’ is censorship, say Canadians (CBC)

• For nearly 20 years we’ve had almost unlimited access to sexual speech on the Internet – and an incredible blossoming of communities related to sex and sexuality. Now, in a perverse echo of the anti-obscenity fight that followed the last sexual revolution, safe spaces for discussing sex are in real danger of disappearing.
  Is the (Online) Sexual Revolution Over? (HuffPo)

• A Georgetown law professor who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is facing a campaign to tank her nomination from a group that boosts abstinence-only sex education for young people.
  Unlikely snag for D.C. Circuit Court nominee: Abstinence sex ed (Yahoo! News)

Image: Political breastvertising by Hope Lingerie, via Adrants.

• People like to read erotic literature on an e-readers because they’re discreet. But retailers can make the smut very difficult to find.
  Porn on the Kindle: A Catch-22 (The Atlantic)

• Zerlina Maxwell debated guns and rape on Fox News – then she wrote this article. “We need a cultural shift NOW. In hopes of getting a conversation started, here are five practical ways by which we can teach men not to rape…”
  5 Ways We Can Teach Men Not to Rape (Ebony, via Dr. Charlie Glickman)

• A Prince George’s County woman faced a chilling nightmare when her ex-husband, who already had physically assaulted and stalked her, began posting photos of her and her children online, soliciting sex on their behalf.
  Man who stalked ex-wife on Web, advertised sex with her gets 85 years (Washington Post, via Without My Consent’s Twitter)

• Diverse sexual interests – fetishes – may thus be evolution’s way of helping humans to maximize the sheer amount of sex that goes on, matching desire for complementary desire and making sure we mix our genes up as much as possible. “We are preprogrammed to need diversity,” says Gregory Lehne, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins who studies human sexuality and gender identity.
  Fetish Theory, Post-Freud (New York Magazine)

• Banning rape porn will not make it go away, but send it underground where we are less able to observe the safety of performers.
  Don’t ban ‘rape porn’ – introduce more porn with negotiation and boundary-setting (Independent UK)

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