“TinderDoneForYou is part of a growing industry of third-party apps and services that promise to take the work out of online dating. Today, you can outsource nearly every part of your love life. From finding the perfect mate to splitting assets after a divorce, our most intimate relationships have — like much more mundane, less nuanced undertakings — become a part of the on-demand economy. This is dating as a service.”
* How to outsource your love life (Engadget)
“In January 2015, Joshua Grubbs of Case Western, published powerful research showing that seeing oneself as a porn addict was predicted not by how much porn one views, but by the degree of religiosity and moral attitudes towards sex. Now, Grubbs has published explosive follow-up research, demonstrating that believing oneself is addicted to porn actually causes pain and psychological problems, in contrast to the idea that identifying as a porn addict is a part of a road to recovery.”
* Your Belief in Porn Addiction Makes Things Worse (Psychology Today)
“… But take that a step further and imagine having tiny implants which connect your internal responses, not only to machines, but plug in directly to the sensations of other people. It would, quite literally, take the concept of intimacy to a whole new level, creating a so-called “Internet of Bodies”—an evocative phrase coined by body technologist Ghislaine Boddington several years ago.”
* ‘Internet of Bodies’ Will Take Intimacy Beyond the Physical World (Future of Sex)
“This installment of our dating and sexuality interview series, Love, Actually, is with a woman who’s 44 and has a sneezing fetish, meaning, in her case, she gets turned on hearing men sneeze.”
* I Have a Sneezing Fetish (Elle)
“Like a reality TV star who capitalizes on a show’s high ratings to sell her own brand of low-cal margarita mixers, a new study published in the most recent Porn Studies journal suggests that porn stars use the scenes they appear in as marketing tools to find success in other ventures. According to “A Scene Is Just A Marketing Tool: Alternative Income Stream In Porn’s Gig Economy” by USC women’s studies professor Heather Berg, the lousy monetary structure of porn has made side-hustles essential to the economic survival of porn stars.”
* Rise and Grind: A Look at the Side Hustles of Porn Stars (Broadly/Vice)
“It’s easy to imagine that brick-and-mortar adult stores, traditionally a class of retailer where taboo products like dildos and pornography are purchased behind veiled storefronts, might be ravaged by the anonymity and purchasing ease offered by the internet, too. But it hasn’t been, as it turns out.”
* Amazon Killed the Book Store, but It Can’t Kill the Sex Store (Vice Canada)
“When I was invited to visit the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, to observe how it teaches women to own their value and get paid accordingly—many of the women who work there make well into six-figures a year—I figured I had something to learn from them. Did I ever.”
* Come for the sex. Stay for the negotiation skills. (Quartz)
“Porn site Megacams just introduced a not-creepy-at-all feature that lets you upload a photo of someone you want to see nude and get matched up with a lookalike “sex model.” The feature leverages facial-recognition technology to scan a photo — analyzing things like the bridge of the person’s nose, their forehead, and chin — to find a similar-looking sex model in the site’s database.”
* Face-Recognition Porn Is Now a Thing (PC Mag)
“UN Women has come under fire from rights activists for launching an online consultation on its sex worker policy that will, they say, exclude the opinion of thousands of people in poorer countries.”
* Sex workers in poor countries have no voice on UN consultation, activists say (Guardian)
Warning for survivors of sexual assault, abuse, and trauma. “In the midst of a national outcry over campus rape, Sherry Warner Seefeld says, students are being labeled sex offenders based on little more than an accusation. Not one to mince words, she compares the atmosphere to Salem witch trials. ”
* Fargo mother turns sex-assault case against son into national campaign (Star Tribune)
Warning for survivors of sexual assault, abuse, and trauma. “Alex Smith and Jonas Dick considered themselves part of the elite. The two men were instructors in the community of pickup artists—men who obsessively study and practice methods of meeting and sleeping with as many women as possible. Some men in the community say pickup is about self-actualization, and finding meaning in their lives. But according to San Diego’s district attorney, Alex and Jonas—both 27 years old—are predators and the pursuit of their “art” has led to the rape of multiple women.”
* Pickup Artists Preyed on Drunk Women, Brought Them Home, and Raped Them (Daily Beast)
Warning for survivors of sexual assault, abuse, and trauma. “In late April 2016, rumors began to circulate online holding that Republican presidential Donald Trump had either been sued over, or arrested for, raping a teenaged girl. … the lawsuit filed in California on 26 April 2016 was dismissed over technical filing errors (the address listed in court documents was a foreclosed home that has been vacant since its owner died), with the plaintiff failing in her attempt to avoid incurring the cost of the litigation. … The original lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on 16 September 2016, with the plaintiff’s attorney stating they would be refiling with information from a new witness.”
* Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump with Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl (Snopes)
Main post image via Cloak Room by Martial lenoir (Treats Magazine)
