- “Always dreamed of a dildo-operated, flame-thrower? With the MBK, you can make one!” Future of Sex writes, “Today Orgasmatronics launched the Master Beta Kit, which includes everything a newbie needs in order to learn how to program almost any vibrator. Along with a step-by-step tutorial, it comes with a circuit board, an Arduino UNO board, a USB cable, a bullet vibe, and a AA battery pack. Early birds can snag the kit for $69 at the product’s Indiegogo crowdfunding page before it retails for $89.”
Erotic Engineering: An Open-Source Sex Toy Hacking Kit for Beginners (Future of Sex)
- A German federal court has issued a default judgment against a law firm that sent out 20,000 copyright infringement shakedown letters to RedTube users who were notified that they had been streaming porn online illegally. RedTube’s owner, MindGeek, at the time said that it had nothing to do with the law firm’s shakedown of its users, which reportedly netted €600,000 for Urmann and Colleagues.
German Law Firm Must Pay Damages After Sending Porn Infringement Letters (XBIZ)
- Warning for graphic descriptions of abuse and assault. This is an excellent article, though it is very difficult to read. In it, Jane McManus of ESPN discusses her interview with Christy Mack, who is recovering from severe injuries caused by MMA fighter Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver. (We love you, Ms. Mack.)
The Tragic Love Story Of Christy Mack and MMA Fighter War Machine (NAME)
- But do they have ‘Save the Beards’ bumper stickers? Prepare to feel very confused. There are a lot of terrible arguments against same-sex marriage, but this may be the worst: The Supreme Court must not protect gay couples’ marriages, because doing so would demean marriages between gay men and their wives.
Same-sex attracted men and their wives asks SCOTUS to rule against marriage equality. (Slate)
- Revenge porn has officially become a criminal offense in the UK, with those found guilty facing up to two years in jail. The amendment to the law was proposed last October and came into affect this week. It specifically targets “the distribution of a private sexual image of someone without their consent and with the intention of causing them distress,” and includes both physical and digital images, whether they’re shared in person or over the internet.
Sharing revenge porn in the UK now carries a two year jail sentence (Verge)
- Please consider helping, and raising awareness for, the family member of a friend who founded a trans community drop-in support group and was targeted by a hostile parent of one of her clients. After finding out his kid went to the support group, he called the police on the clinic’s founder – and she has been held by police but is yet to be charged. The founder was also forced to endure a strip-search “exposing myself and my breasts before four male deputies.”
Click here to support Julianna’s Legal Fees by Julianna Tourmaline Fialkowski (GoFundMe)
- Grindr the Opera may not be playing at Lincoln Center yet, but the team behind this new show believe this is more than just a gimmick: it’s an idea with legs, and a topic worth parsing.
Grindr the Opera to open in New York – and it’s more than just a gimmick (Guardian UK)
- Want tips on making indie porn? For the last 12 years, Dan Savage and his team at Seattle’s The Stranger newspaper have been curating Hump!, an indie film festival showcasing sexy and quirky short porn films. Queerty spoke to Savage and got him to dish out a few tips on how we can make our best Hump!-worthy porn debuts.
Dan Savage On How To Make A Crowd-Pleasing NSFW Video (Queerty)
- This is such a blatant scam, I don’t even know how they’re still getting away with it. Celebrities and brands are defensively buying up Internet gTLDs .porn, .adult and .sucks to make sure they don’t end up in the hands of someone who could besmirch their names and reputations.
Celebs play defense as they buy up new .porn Web addresses (LA Times)
- Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Kinsey Institute, and the chief scientific advisor to Match.com, welcomed the opportunity to debate her findings about the chemistry of love – and casual sex.
More Sex Talk from the Love Scientist – Facts So Romantic (Nautilus)
- Vladimir Putin once said half the Internet is nothing but “porno materials,” even though a major academic study in 2010 found that, in reality, just 4 percent of websites were porn. If the Russian court system gets its way, however, the number of legal pornographic websites on the RuNet could drop to zero. That’s right: a district court in Tatarstan has banned 136 porn sites, and the language of its ruling implies that all Internet porn is hereby against the law.
Tsarist Russia Bans Internet Porn (Global Voices)
- In the latest installment of Hopes&Fears anonymous interview series, they spoke with a couple who ran a BDSM business out of their apartment (and considering their inexperience, it’s amazing they didn’t experience a fatality).
We made bank running an indie BDSM dungeon (Hopes&Fears)
- Last week, the UK’s NSPCC and ChildLine released the results of a survey suggesting that a tenth of 12- to 13-year-olds fear they are “addicted” to pornography. Within days, the government had announced a new policy on internet restriction, justified in part by these statistics – and just after that, came an open letter signed by dozens of doctors and academics calling out the fraudulent survey, which came from a sleazy marketing firm.
Children addicted to porn? Don’t believe everything the surveys say (Guardian UK)
