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Category Archives: sex

Revenge porn won’t end without societal change

04 Apr

TopSecret1It’s been a while since I’ve written about porn, but some news happened the other day that I just couldn’t pass up. The government of Florida is in the process of passing a law that will prohibit “revenge porn.” It’s not a sub-genre I was familiar with, although it turns out the concept is probably readily understood by anyone who has spent time online.

Revenge porn happens when someone, usually a male, posts nude or sexual pictures or videos of an ex- on the net without that person’s permission. The sentiment is fairly easy to understand, although that doesn’t make it excusable – one party to a relationship is angry at another, so they seek to hurt, shame or sometimes even extort that person by publicly sharing what is otherwise private imagery.

A bunch of sites have sprung up to cater to such people, including IsAnyoneDown.com, Texxxas.com and Ugotposted.com (the first two look to be down and that last one is definitely not safe for work), with some getting hundreds of thousands of visitors a day. Some of them make good advertising money, while others supplement their revenue stream by charging victims a fee to remove their photos. Some also go a step further by including personal information about the people in the photos, such as their email addresses or links to their Facebook profiles.

It’s about as slimy as the internet gets. While the knee-jerk reaction for free speech, anonymity and general internet proponents is to bristle against the sorts of laws that Florida is proposing, this is the sort of thing that just doesn’t seem defensible. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on April 4, 2013 in sex

 

Condoms on the election ballot in L.A.

06 Nov

You may have heard there’s an election going on today. But while all the attention is on Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, there’s another big vote going on in Los Angeles county at the same time. This particular referendum is likely to decide whether the city will continue to be one of the world’s hubs for pornography production.

Los Angelinos will be voting on something called Measure B, also known as the Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, which – if passed – will force porn performers to use condoms. What seems like a fairly innocuous motion to laypeople has actually resulted in a fiercely fought war between the industry and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the act’s primary proponent.

The AIDS awareness organization believes the adult industry is rife with sexually transmitted diseases, which not only poses a threat to the larger public, but also adds to the taxpayer burden for health-care costs.

The adult industry, on the other hand, says the organization has been spreading misinformation and that its own self-regulating measures – which include vigourous, regular testing – means performers are already safe and disease-free. The New York Times has a story detailing the industry’s testing efforts that is well worth checking out. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on November 6, 2012 in health, sex

 

China leads the way with sperm-extraction robot

03 Oct

Have you ever seen a piece of technology that makes you wonder why it exists? If not, brace yourself because this one’s a doozy. Say hello to the automatic sperm extractor:

As the Daily Mail explains, the new device – which can be adjusted to the desired height, speed, frequency, amplitude and temperature – is being used in Chinese hospitals to… well… automatically extract sperm:

The director of the urology department at Zhengzhou Central Hospital said the machine was being used by infertility patients who are finding it difficult to retrieve sperm the old fashioned way. A website which is selling the machine for $2,800 promoting it stating ‘it can give patients very comfortable feeling.’

Vice Magazine, as is its wont, puts things a little more plainly in dubbing the device a 21st-century glory hole. Writer Kara Crabb wonders why China, of all places, even needs sperm donors.

To me, it’s just another piece of the sex robot puzzle. We’ve already got robotic lips, penises, vaginas and even butts. Can’t somebody just put them all together into a cost-effective package and give us our Cylon sex vixens already?

(Thanks to Michaela Pontellini for the tip.)

 
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Posted by on October 3, 2012 in robots, sex

 

Porn based on ice cream flavours? Really?

24 Sep

You could say Ben & Jerry’s was asking for it.

From the “so silly it’s amazing” department, there comes the news that porn production companies Rodax Distributors and Caballero Video must recall all films based on Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavours.

Yes, it’s true. The companies have produced such films as Boston Cream Thigh, New York Fat & Chunky and Peanut Butter D-Cup, based respectively on the ice cream maker’s Boston Cream Pie, New York Super Fudge Chunk and Peanut Butter Cup. A New York court issued a consent order requiring the companies to remove the films from the marketplace after Ben & Jerry’s sued.

I’ve written before about the amazing world of porn parodies and the dubiousness of their actual “parody” qualifications, but this case takes the cake (with a side of ice cream).

As Amanda Hess notes over on Slate, while porn parodies have been big business over the past few years, there really is no parodying being done in this case. While a parody generally has to skewer the work it’s based on, it’s unlikely that Caballero’s films “are crafted around tightly-wound narratives skewering the ice cream industry; they’re not so much parodies as they are porn-plus-puns.”

Indeed. If the porn industry is stooping to naming its films after ice cream flavours, it’s in real trouble indeed.

 
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Posted by on September 24, 2012 in parody, sex

 

More pieces of the sex robot unveiled

02 Aug

It seems like with each passing day, we’re getting closer to fully functional sex robots. The individual pieces are certainly falling into place.

Hooman Samani, a robotics professor in Singapore, has created another segment of that inevitable whole with a set of “robot lips” that can simulate the act of kissing. The “Kissenger” – a combination of “kiss” and “messengers” – is a pair of silicone lips affixed to a plastic head-like shape that can be connected to a computer via USB plug.

The idea is that couples separated by distance can look at each other via video chat and smooch at the same time. “It can be used between humans to improve their communication,” Samani says.

He’s apparently had offers to commercialize the invention – doubtlessly from porn companies – but Samani is going slowly because of the “ethical issues” that need to be resolved.

Meanwhile, over in Japan, a new restaurant has opened up that offers customers a robot cabaret dance. The top half of the robot dancers look like women while the bottoms resemble, er, Robotech mecha. For about $38, visitors get a drink and a show, with the robots controlled by real, bikini-clad women.

It’s good to know that the inevitable march toward sex robots is turning out to be really, really weird.

 
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Posted by on August 2, 2012 in robots, sex

 
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