March 2014

• In the past two weeks, hundreds of Internet users have spent hours investigating every career detail of felonious, law-evading porn performer Jake Steed. This isn’t due to a new porn film or his emergence from hiding. Instead, it’s a cryptic reference in Grand Theft Auto V – and some are convinced it contains the answer to one of the game’s biggest mysteries.
  Could a ’90s porn star unlock the biggest mystery in ‘Grand Theft Auto V’? (Daily Dot)

• I could tell her why, but I’d have to charge.
  Why Are Couples Posting #Aftersex Shots on Instagram? (NERVE)

• For failing to broadcast sufficient levels of Canadian-made pornography — and failing to close-caption said pornography properly — a trio of Toronto-based erotica channels has earned a reprimand from the Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission.
  Your porn is not Canadian enough, CRTC warns erotica channels (National Post, thanks John!)

• Florence Williams’s cool new book Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History calls human preoccupation with large breasts a contested issue among scientists. Most participants in a JustBreastImplants.com forum thread about motivation report that they had breasts and wanted bigger ones- not to satisfy the demands of anyone else, but out of a wholly personal desire.
  Breast Intentions: The Complex Reality of Implants (Kinsey Confidential)

• Imagine a study of the alcohol industry which interviewed not a single brewer, wine expert, liquor store owner or drinker, but instead relied solely on the statements of ATF agents, dry-county politicians and members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But change the topic to sex work, and such methods are not only the norm, they’re accepted uncritically by the media and the majority of those who the resulting studies.
  Lies, damned lies and sex work statistics (Washington Post)

• This article’s copyeditor appears to have been faking it, but the piece is worth a read. “Yes, women fake it to boost their partner’s ego, out of insecurity and to just get the darn experience over with. But a new study suggests women also fake it ’til they make it.”
  Women May Fake Orgasms to Have an Actual Orgasm, Study Says (TIME)

• I hope this story gets the attention it deserves. An American research grant from the National Institutes of Health comes with a stipulation to block pornography from a campus’s network – shades of the UK porn filter (disaster and censorship) coming home to roost.
  Get Grant, Block Porn? (Inside Higher Education)

• “The first issue of Porn Studies, an academic journal exploring “pornography, and sexual representations more generally,” has debuted. The mere fact of its existence, which became public in mid-2013, was occasion for a media event. But the journal’s articles are serious articulations of the intersection between the concerns of media studies and those of pornography. Porn Studies is not a joke, though it seems to provide everyone with some relief to treat it as one.” (Disclosure: I’m on the Editorial Board for this journal.)
  Why It’s Time for the Journal of Porn Studies (The Atlantic)

• “Like that bad-for-you ex from whom you just can’t seem to make a clean break, the reoccurring “news” story about how the federal government funds questionable sex studies has come back a-knockin’ at the door. We’re supposed to be totally horrified that our tax dollars are going to fund studies that find out what turns people on and what makes people loose.”
  Why Sex Research Is Worth Funding With Public Money (Pacific Standard)

• “Bisexuals have historically been imagined as sexually predatory, “greedy,” “slutty,” or as necessarily requiring simultaneous sexual activity with people of different genders — essentially, bisexuality has been defined by mainstream culture as an inherently sexual and sexualized category, sometimes little more than a genre of porn.”
  The Journalistic Quest to Write An Accurate Story About Bisexuality (Autostraddle)

• Judd Apatow has revealed that HBO refused to allow Lena Dunham to film controversial sex scenes for her hit show “Girls,” which he says may have included a male erection.
  HBO cut hardcore sex scene from ‘Girls’ (NY Post)

• “If your body isn’t ‘perfect’ it’s easy to feel like a failure. What I’ve learned is that humans are capable of desiring every type of body under the sun, and if you publish DIY porn online you’ll find your audience — whatever you look like. I don’t care what flaws you think you have, I guarantee those exact quirks are what make you someone’s fetish.”
  How To Empower Yourself Through DIY Porn (The Frisky)

• This history of sex blogging is great! I have so much to add, so many stories (and backstories) to fill in the blanks… plus a huge part of the beginning of sex blogging was gay (male) sex blogging, so important to add. Anyway – enjoy!
  A Brief History of Sex Blogging (Dangerous Lilly)

• So glad to see this article. I’ll add it to the page I’ve had on unsafe sex toys that is actually almost ten years old :P “There’s no government regulation for sex toys and their safety, so do your homework on which materials are safe, and which are not. For example, safety concerns have emerged over phthalates – chemicals found in sex toys and other products to soften plastic and increase flexibility.”
  A Guide to Sex Toy Safety (US News & World Report)

• (Disclaimer: I love Spy!!!!) Artist Spy Emerson conceived of a unique way to explore the rise in popularity of geo-social dating/hookup apps like Grindr and Tinder with her Hook-up Truck. The truck is her latest art exhibit and is described as “a car service, like a mobile hotel room, available for short term rentals accommodating intimate relations.” In essence, she’s providing a safe and private place for strangers to have a safe sex adventure.
  The Hook-up Truck, a mobile art exhibit that facilitates sexual trysts for strangers (BlazenFluff)

• You might expect an ex-judge and a sex worker to be on opposite sides of the law. But former High Court judge Michael Kirby has become patron of advocacy group Touching Base, which links sex workers with people with disabilities. And in his new role, Mr Kirby has spoken out against hypocrisy in laws that can inhibit sexual expression for some people.
  High Court judge turns patron for sex workers (Women’s Weekly, via Ms. Naughty)

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• “The takeaway here is that the content you’re producing can be perfectly legal, not obscene by any jury’s definition, and if you can’t find a way to publish it you can still be censored as effectively as by the government or police. Everything we sell online is controlled by unregulated, international corporate entities that are not subject to any particular legal jurisdiction. Online marketplaces have democratised publishing, but that ease of access is the very thing that permits them to censor our work.”
  Spanked, Not Silenced (Pandora Blake)

• This article has been one of the most shared articles within sex communities all week, and is getting *tons* of praise from sex workers, sex educators and sex-positive pundits of all kinds.
  What I Want to Know Is Why You Hate Porn Stars (The Stranger)

• A federal district court judge in Ohio has ordered Eric Chason and Kevin Bollaert, the founders of the “revenge porn” site You Got Posted, to pay a woman $385,000 for posting sexually explicit images of her on their website.
  “Revenge porn” site creators hit with $385,000 judgment (Ars Technica)

• Belle Knox writes, “The overwhelming criticism I have received for my participation in this rough blowjob scene is incredibly revealing to me about the condemnation-happy state of “gotcha feminism.” I’ve been called a hypocrite and mocked for daring to talk about empowerment if I have also not kept adequately hidden away my enjoyment of rough and dirty, nasty and filthy, saliva-dripping and name-calling-filled sex.”
  In Defense of Kink: My First Role as the Duke Porn Star Was on a Rough Sex Set (XOJane)

• A Tor child porn ring, with more than 27,000 members and hosting more than 2,000 explicit videos of minors, is shuttered with 14 of its alleged operators arrested.
  Homeland Security busts child porn ring on Tor network (CNET)

• Join me in disbelief that the date of this article is actually 2014! Forbes thinks teledildonics and haptic technology might be the next big thing in sex and tech… Totally missing the rest of the blogosphere covering each of these things in detail ten years ago. Linked for the astonishingly dated lulz.
  The Future Of Virtual Sex, Part One: 5 New Technologies (Forbes)

• MPs on a cross-party panel are calling on the UK government to use a 55-year-old law to better police the publishing of adult material online. GREAT IDEA GUYS. The Obscene Publications Act 1959 was the law famously used to try to prevent the publication of DH Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which contains graphic descriptions of a married aristocrat’s affair with her gamekeeper. In his opening address, prosecuting barrister Mervyn Griffith-Jones famously uttered the phrase “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?”
  MPs urge UK.gov to use 1950s obscenity law to stifle online stiffies (NAME)

• Lindsay Lohan is “leaking” a list of dozens of celebrity dudes she claims to have fucked, and most of them are the sidewalk sale fare you’d expect out in front of the Marmont on a weeknight lineup of dollar-store Hollywood dick. The list is a no-surprise who’s-who of will-bang-anything stank dick, like Ashton Kutcher and Justin Timberlake, though props for we-know-he’s-a-perv Benicio del Toro.
  WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Lindsay Lohan’s Conquest List: More A-List Lovers (InTouch)

• Duke University porn star Belle Knox tells FOX411 that she has been receiving numerous death threats on campus.
  Duke porn star Belle Knox will return to school despite death threats (NY Daily News)

• UK sex educators and bloggers offer up sex-positive advice for some tough questions, such as painful sex.
  The sex bloggers give their advice (Guardian UK)

• According to KTVU, Richmond PD plans to “publicly shame” alleged customers of sex workers by posting photos of men arrested in prostitution stings to Facebook and Twitter.
  Customers Of Local Sex Workers Might Have Their Photos Tweeted (SFist)

• In December, a highly publicized study declared that distinctive wiring in the brain explains different skill sets in men and women. The trouble is, the study is riddled with faulty assumptions and methodological flaws.
  Stop Looking For ‘Hardwired’ Differences In Male And Female Brains (Popular Science)

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