- Meet today’s two contestants: Ryou Sawai, a heterosexual Japanese porn star with a 90s boy band haircut, and Takuya, a gay man who owns a bar called Cholesterol. The challenge: Can Takuya bring Sawai to orgasm against his will within 40 minutes? If you thought Deal or No Deal was high stakes, welcome to Japan’s Orgasm Wars.
What Orgasm Wars reveals about Japan’s sexual culture (The Week)
- The dating website for married people who want to cheat on their spouses is being sued by a former employee who says she damaged her wrists typing up fake profiles. LOTS of them. She was asked to create 1,000 “fake female profiles” meant to lure men to the new Brazilian Ashley Madison site — and given only three weeks to complete the work.
Woman hurt typing fake profiles of sexy women for dating site Ashley Madison, $20M suit alleges (National Post)
- I agree with James Franco on this one. In a review for a different film, he recently wrote about Michael Fassbender’s character arc in Shame – he thinks the downward spiral culminating in a gay sex club visit during the third act was a bit offensive.
James Franco Thinks Being A Sex Addict In ‘Shame’ Wasn’t So Bad, Criticizes Gay Club Sequence (Indiewire)
- A new sex-positive social network and dating site, NautiNinja.com, recently launched its online community. According to the company, the purpose is so “sexually open-minded people can make social connections through the freedom of expressing interest in sex culture, adult lifestyles and exploring kinky relationships as a healthy aspect of internet dating in modern society.”
Sex-Positive Dating, Social Network Launches (XBIZ)
- The number of permits filed to film porn in Los Angeles County has fallen since a law requiring condom usage went into effect.
After L.A. County Condom Law, Porn Film Permits Plummet (CBS Sacramento)
- A Fort Carson officer linked by DNA to a string of sexual assaults on young girls will be allowed to blame his twin brother at trial.
Fort Carson soldier linked to sex assaults can blame twin, judge rules (Denver Post)
- Realistic animated 10-year-old girls are being used to catch sexual predators in the act, and creating moral, legal, and human rights quandaries in the process.
Why Are We Building Jailbait Sexbots? (Fastco Labs)
- A nonprofit intern counts down the hours until she can shed her office attire in a Times Square gentlemen’s club.
Stripping on the Side (Narratively)
- This is a fun piece: “A most interesting, and distinctly X-rated connection exists between our devices and ourselves. It’s not just a passing phase.”
Smartphones Are Fundamentally Changing Human Sexuality (Business Insider)
- Five short years after swearing she’d never do porn again, Jenna Jameson is back getting naked on camera for money – Jenna recently made her return to the adult industry as a webcam model – stripping and doing sex acts online in exchange for tips – and tells TMZ it’s all for the sake of her kids.
Jenna Jameson — I’m Doing Porn Again … To Feed My Kids (TMZ)
- The NYT is obsessed with moralizing against young women enjoying hookup culture, and continue to produce a steady stream of articles promoting the worldview that casual sex “hurts” women. It’s really quite offensive. So, it’s been four months (almost to the day!) since The New York Times published a trend piece about young women’s sex lives. Thank goodness Natalie Kitroeff was willing to delve into the topic again, this time focusing on orgasms (or lack thereof)…
The New York Times Wants to Talk About College Girls Having Sex Again (The Atlantic Wire)
- Helmed by CEO Christian Thorn, who launched the site a little less than a year ago, Pinsex touts itself as one of the few social porn sites on the market to successfully merge adult content and social media. Thorn says it gets 120 to 150,000 unique visits a day, and the company hopes to break a million by next year.
Is the future of porn social? (Daily Dot)
- TinyNibbles friend Cora writes, “I ran across a tweet from Elisabeth Dale referencing a press release on AR Wear, a new company using Indiegogo to help finance a line of “rape prevention” underwear. …I was treated to some amazingly blasé myths about rape, which were not only flat-out wrong, but which can also help to perpetuate the kind of misinformation that makes it harder to be a sexual assault survivor.
AR Wear: Should Lingerie Companies Profit from Spreading Rape Misinformation? (The Lingerie Addict)
- Terrific post about latex allergies: Approximately 4-17% of healthcare workers will develop a latex sensitivity over time and some will go on to develop the most extreme forms.
All About Latex Allergies (Miss Maggie Mayhem)
- Singapore’s government has blocked access to Ashley Madison amid a public outcry ahead of the company’s planned launch of a portal for the city-state; it blocked access to the Canada-based website because it is in “flagrant disregard of our family values and public morality.”
Singapore bans adultery website Ashley Madison (USA Today)
- Walking around topless in New York City is perfectly legal for males and females, but one woman, dubbed the “topless paparazzo” was illegally arrested several times and has won a $40,000 settlement against the city and its police department.
‘Topless paparazzo’ wins $40,000 from NYC over illegal arrests (Washington Times)
- Cosmo interviewed Tristan Taormino about what constitutes feminist porn, and if it can still be considered feminist if the fantasies appear degrading toward women. The magazine received flack from “family” organizations for running this (great, sex-positive) piece.
So, What IS Feminist Porn? Find Out From a Woman Who Makes It. (Cosmopolitan)
- New brain studies explain how pleasure really works – and the amazing science behind amazing pleasure. “For example, pain can topple into pleasure. Women have higher thresholds for pain when sexually aroused. These thresholds increase on average by 40% with vaginal stimulation and by 100% near and during orgasm. Despite these changes in what counts as pain, the sensation itself is not dulled and is no less arousing. Rather, the same intense sensation is not experienced as pain.”
Orgasm for dummies: Neuroscience explains why sex feels good (Salon; reprinted from new book The Aesthetic Brain)
Thank you for sharing my post on ARWear!
Is it just me, or was Taormino’s whole interview just the worst example of walking-the-Cosmo-minefield public-relations speak I’ve seen in a long time? She was SO “respectful” and SO careful. After editing, Cosmo successfully took one of the best and brightest contributors to porn we have and somehow managed to create yet another cautionary article. It really does come across as “Don’t worry ladies, not even Tristan Taormino would dare change The Rules of The Game.”