“It would compare to athletes: their job is very hard on their body. You are basically being a sexual athlete, so it’s not the easiest on your body. You’re doing all these crazy scenes and getting into weird positions. And also I think that in my personal opinion sometimes the stigma that can come with porn is too much for some girls to handle. Because it is not even the porn world that can really get to girls, it’s the bulls**t that girls can experience from the outside world because people think they have this idea of porn and that if you are a girl who does it then you must be a little bit weird or something. ”
Terribly cliche intro, but great interview with Skin Diamond, now known as Raylin Joy. “”
* I’m a porn star, and this is what it’s like after leaving the industry (Independent UK)
“TIME’s 1964 fears about the long-term psychological effects of sex in popular culture (“no one can really calculate the effect this exposure is having on individual lives and minds”) mirror today’s concerns about the impacts of internet pornography and Miley Cyrus videos. Its descriptions of “champagne parties for teenagers” and “padded brassieres for twelve-year-olds” could have been lifted from any number of contemporary articles on the sexualization of children.”
* What Every Generation Gets Wrong About Sex (TIME)
“The LGBTQ community has long luxuriated at the top of society’s dignity pyramid, raking in our systemic respect, employment opportunities, and general decency for as long as we’ve been recording history. But the jig is up thanks to a group called the Spiritual Science Research Foundation, who have deduced that as much as 85% of gay people are actually possessed by ghosts.”
* Welp, Gay People, The Party’s Over (The Awl)
“”One of the films in the collection is made for artists, from the 1940s, with a disclaimer in the beginning that, ‘if anyone supplies this without it being strictly for artists, they’re liable for prosecution.'” Others got around the censors by sticking to the rule of only being able to show bums and boobs in a “naturist” setting, or one that resembled a nudist camp. ”
* What I Learned About Sex from Watching a Load of Old Erotica (VICE)
“When as many as ten women accused one of porn’s leading megastars of sexual assault, the world took notice. … One year later, XBIZ and AVN, porn’s two biggest awards shows, have given James Deen and his company, James Deen Productions, a combined twenty award nominations—including the coveted “Male Performer of the Year,” one of the industry’s most desired honors. Many of his accusers saw this as business as usual for Deen, with the industry favoring star power over character, and refused to revisit the subject over a year later when contacted by The Daily Beast.”
* Porn May Have Forgiven James Deen, But His Accusers Are Still Suffering (Daily Beast)
“It is a terribly British event, but it also provides a snarky satisfaction that transcends nationality. Because for anyone with the sneaking suspicion that the sexual act is better done or seen than artistically described – that its complex idiosyncrasy is one of the few things that lie outside the remit of the otherwise resourceful English language – the Bad Sex Awards hits its mark.”
* Bad Sex in Fiction Awards ceremony celebrates 24th year (Salon)
“While the British police have described sextortion as an “emerging new threat” and the new campaign is clearly aimed at raising awareness of the risks of online video sex among young straight men, the danger of being blackmailed over sexual identity has long been a clear and present one for the LGBTQ community. Indeed, sexual extortion formed the plot of the 1961 film, Victim, starring Dirk Bogarde.”
* U.K. Police Warn of Online ‘Sextortion’ Dangers (Daily Beast)
“Police will now re-examine the deaths of 58 other people from the drug GHB over the last few years. The question this raises is: What have they been missing? Throughout the reports of the trial one word recurred again and again: chemsex. Uttered in increasingly wide circles, the term refers to men having sex with each other while imbibing, inhaling, or injecting (“slamming”) three principal drugs: crystal methamphetamine (aka crystal, meth, Tina), GHB (aka G), and mephedrone.”
* Inside The Dark, Dangerous World Of Chemsex (BuzzFeed)
“Contrary to what, Googling around, you might assume, obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. “There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt.” Those sentences are from the opening pages of Henry Miller’s first novel, “Tropic of Cancer,” which was published in France in 1934. Are they obscene? It took thirty years, but American courts eventually decided that they are not, and therefore the book they appear in cannot be banned.”
* Banned Books and Blockbusters (New Yorker)
Warning, graphic. “FGM is not my shame, it is my story. I witnessed Christian religions declaring masturbation a sin, “some Christian leaders and doctors” recommending circumcision to prevent it, physicians carrying out the practice and our American culture first accepting this form of sexual abuse and then denying it ever occurred.”
* ‘FGM happened to me in white, midwest America’ (Guardian)
Main post photo via Heather Van Gaale ‘Destination unknown’ (Sticks and Stones Agency)
Many of London escorts do the same in their job every single day.