Sex News: Apple sex crackdown redux, Facebook revenge porn suicide, xHamster does the right thing

• “Apple is frantically banning specific search terms, and struggling to remove certain images from other searches. Some obviously NSFW searches like “fisting,” “blowjob,” and “terrorist how-to” were seemingly banned right from launch, but other terms are being pulled as this post is being written.” VB note: Apple’s [sex] censorship of my podcast is the primary reason I stopped doing it.
  * Apple Is on a Moderation Rampage After Porn Was Found in iOS 10 (Gizmodo)

• Warning for sexual abuse and trauma survivors. “Danielle is an engineer at Apple — and like many of the women in the company, she works on a male-dominated team. On a Tuesday morning in July, when men on her team began to joke that an office intruder was coming to rape everybody, Danielle decided to speak out about what she described as the “very toxic atmosphere” created by jokes about violent sexual assault.”
  * Leaked Apple emails reveal employees’ complaints about sexist, toxic work environment (Mic)

• “An Italian woman who was subjected to online abuse after explicit images and a video of her were widely shared across the country has killed herself. Tormented by the mimicry, she moved house and changed her name. This month, she won a legal case forcing Facebook to take down the abusive posts. But following at least two previous suicide attempts, her family said Ms Cantone had taken her own life while staying at her mother’s home.”
  * Woman kills herself after sex tape becomes a meme (Independent UK)
  See also:
  * Facebook loses bid to stop revenge porn lawsuit by 14-year old girl (CNN Money)
  * Facebook Slammed for Censoring Iconic ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo, Deleting Posts (NBC)

• “A porn company has paid a five-figure sum to acquire a sex tape featuring late trans activist [and actor] Alexis Arquette, and destroy it. xHamster paid $25,000 to a former lover of Arquette, who died last week of AIDS-related complications, according to the Daily Mail. The former lover of Arquette had started trying to sell the tape just hours after she died … But all copies have now been destroyed, xHamster confirmed, in a bid to stop the man who sold it from “smearing her memory”.”
  * Porn company buys Alexis Arquette’s sex tape and destroys it to protect her memory (Pink News UK)

• “The US Supreme Court says the online ads portal Backpage.com will have to comply with a subpoena and produce documents as part of the Senate’s investigation into sex ads and human trafficking.”
  * Backpage.com sex ad subpoena fight ends, Supreme Court sides with Senate (Ars Technica)

• “Pornhub and YouPorn, the biggest adult websites in the world, have been blocked in Russia. And things have become very odd. The site[s have] been blocked by the Russian state watchdog Roskomnadzor, which is known in English as the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. Among other things, that agency is in charge of monitoring the internet and blocking sites that the government doesn’t want to be used.” VB note: They actually blocked 11 sites; does anyone know what’s on the full list?
  * Russia has lost all access to porn. And things have got very odd (Independent UK)

• “Terry Gross has a theory about lesbianism, and she tested it out on recently retired soccer star Abby Wambach in a Fresh Air interview this week … In other words, do straight women need to try having sex with other women just to figure out if they’re actually straight? Do straight men need to sleep with other men to justify their sexuality to themselves and the world? … The theory of homosexuality that hinges on an unsatisfactory sexual experience with someone of the opposite gender casts doubt on the legitimacy of gay identity. Gross … is essentially positing that gay people must have a good reason for being gay, that some lesbians can’t really be lesbians until they’ve ruled out men by sleeping with them.”
  * Terry Gross Asks Abby Wambach If She Needed Sex With a Man to Decide She Was Gay (Slate)

• VB note: Put a big “alleged” in front of the incidents, and know that this is actually about homeless people “hogging” the kiosks. “A spokesperson from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office said, “There were concerns about loitering and extended use of LinkNYC kiosks, so the Mayor is addressing these quality-of-life complaints head on. Removing the internet browser from LinkNYC tablets will … address concerns we’ve heard from our fellow New Yorkers.””
  * After Porn & Masturbation Incidents, LinkNYC Removes Web Browsing From WiFi Kiosks (Gothamist)

• “One animal which has been pulled back from extinction however, is a species of Galapagos giant tortoise – thanks to the sexual exploits of just one male. Diego is over 100 years old and has fathered some 800 offspring.”
  * A tortoise had so much sex that he’s ‘saved his entire species’ (Indy 100)

• “Following the growing trend of crowd-funding sex toys, Indiegogo has added a sexual wellness category to its platform. Named the Indiegogo After Dark collection, the category has raised more than $1.6 million for 15 campaigns and over 18,300 backers.”
  * Indiegogo Adds Sexual Wellness Category (XBIZ)

• “Meg-John Barker … an author, psychotherapist and activist-academic, is a key figure in UK queer politics and has teamed up with artist Julia Scheele to create an utterly un-dusty tome that questions everything from the way we categorise our sexual desire to the foundations of happiness.”
  * ‘Queer: A Graphic History’ Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender (Vice UK)

Main post image by Thomas Allen via Dangerous Minds.