• “California is changing the way sexual assault is prosecuted. In the wake of the allegations that Bill Cosby drugged and raped dozens of women, the state assembly passed a bill on Thursday to end the time limit for prosecuting rape and felony sex crimes. The bill passed the assembly unanimously.”
  * California Votes to Remove Time Limit on Prosecuting Rape Cases (New York Magazine)

• Warning for survivors of assault and trauma. “Police in Florida have arrested a man who worked as an Uber driver and accused him of sexually assaulting three women this year.” Police believe there are other victims. “An email to Uber was not immediately returned, but a spokesman told the Palm Beach Post that Mtsitsha began driving for the company in February, a month after the first assault is alleged to have occurred. The spokesman also confirmed that he has been banned from the app.”
  * Uber driver ‘terrorized’ women, tried to exchange rides for sex, police say (Washington Post)

• “Sex workers are at greater risk of violence and ill health due to substantial cuts to specialist NHS health and support services across the UK, according to experts, service providers and rights groups. An editorial in the British Medical Journal, published this week, warned of “avoidable harms and disastrous long-term costs” of ongoing funding cuts to services available to sex workers.”
  * Cuts to NHS services for sex workers ‘disastrous’ say experts (Guardian UK)

• “The federal government is sitting on a ton of data about sexual violence in the United States, but most of the statistics cannot be compared to each other because of wide variations in how they’re measured, a new review from the Government Accountability Office concludes.”
  * Federal Research On Sexual Violence Is A Mess (Huffington Post)

• This is a really well balanced and interesting article, which has left me with many questions. “A new study purports to show that married people who start watching, as the authors put it, “X-rated movies,” have an increased chance of divorce. But some outside researchers and couples therapists who reviewed the study raised questions about its methodology and suggested the findings contradict what they see with clients.”
  * Study Links Watching Porn To Divorce (Voactiv)

• “Ten of the programs had at least one lesson on gender and power, and 80 percent of them saw significant decreases in pregnancy or STIs compared with a control group. Of the 12 programs that did not address these issues, 17 percent led to those positive outcomes. Teaching about power and gender roles was a consistent predictor of better health outcomes, even when Haberland accounted for other variables like sample size and whether the studies were longitudinal.”
  * When Sex Ed Discusses Gender Inequality, Sex Gets Safer (Atlantic)

• “Jeffrey Hurant, the former owner of Rentboy.com, is finalizing a plea agreement with federal prosecutors after his indictment for promoting prostitution, his attorney told the court this week. … The site, which opened for business in 1997, carried disclaimers saying its advertisements for escorts were for companionship and not sexual services.”
  * Former Rentboy.com CEO Finalizing Plea Deal (XBIZ)

• “Stings and busts are not deterring so-called “pimps” from using the internet to facilitate the sale of sex, according to a new study. … Sex work advocates, however, are skeptical of the paper’s findings and its focus on “pimps,” whom they say are increasingly less common, thanks in large part to how the internet has democratized the sex trade.”
  * Study: “Pimps” Are Doing Business Online, Despite Stings (Voactiv)

• “With this continued boom in Hong Kong’s digital age, compensated daters are enjoying certain benefits of being their own bosses—namely, they’re no longer subjected to the sexual and physical abuse from gangster agents. Also, they don’t have to give away money for an agent fee, which means they’re making more. Forums and chat apps, for the most part, are putting the power back in the hands of the sex workers.”
  * Hong Kong’s Sex Workers Are Ditching Their Pimps for iPhones (Motherboard)

• “In July 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended to its nationwide membership, that they must educate children and teens about sex. They joined countless other groups of experts, physicians, and educators, all of whom oppose abstinence-based education.”
  * Repairing the Damage of Abstinence-Based Sex Education (Psychology Today)

• “Jay Franzone is on a mission to bring attention to the U.S. ban on blood donated from men who have sex with men. As part of that mission, he is remaining celibate for a year in order to meet the requirement set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which prohibits men from donating blood if they have had sex with another man in the past year.”
  * This man is abstaining from sex for a year so he can donate blood (PBS)

• “Officers put him in the back of a police car and spoke with the woman who called police. She told them she saw the man standing near a parked van at 805 St. Nicholas Street. She went on to explain she saw Henson pull his shorts down and place his genitals in the front grill of the van that was parked on the street.”
  * Ohio man arrested after trying to have sex with a van (NBC4i)

• “Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation that would patch the holes in the federal system governing nonconsensual pornography, also known as revenge porn. … Speech advocates say the bill is too broad and could sweep pornography that should be permissible into the category of the illegal. They also worry about a chilling effect on those who wish to post or re-post content that is clearly allowed, from snapshots of family and friends on topless beaches to photos in adult magazines.”
  * We need national legislation to combat revenge porn (Washington Post)

Main post image via Dangerous Minds.

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The post Eye Candy: Best of Babes appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “School started at the University of Texas in Austin Wednesday and a bunch of students staged a protest — with the snappy catchphrase “cocks not glocks” — to express their dismay at a controversial new state law allowing handguns to be carried across campus. Their weapon of choice? Giant dildos.”
  * At ‘cocks not glocks’ protest, students carry sex toys instead of guns (Mashable)
  See also: Meet the Sex Shops in Austin, Tex., That Put the Cocks in ‘Cocks Not Glocks’ (CHE)

• “Fox News has yet another [sexual harassment] lawsuit to deal with now that former host Andrea Tantaros is alleging that two company employees have sexually harassed her. The anchor has named former network chief Roger Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly as her harassers in the suit.”
  * Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly Accused Of Sexual Harassment, Lawsuit Filed (International Business Times)

• “A Texas-based former porn star who says her career was ruined by years of online harassment is suing Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for $1 billion in federal court.”
  * Ex-porn star sues Facebook for $1 billion in harassment and libel case (Daily Dot)
  See also: Former Porn Star Lady Paree Sues Facebook for $1B (XBIZ)

• “Ryan Lochte has lost all his major endorsements and sponsors after having fabricated a story about being robbed at gunpoint during this summer’s Olympic games. Fortunately, he’s got one opportunity left. Because Brian Sloan, inventor of the Autoblow 2, the world’s first “blowjob robot,” believes things don’t have to be so bad, even when they’re hard.”
  * Ryan Lochte Loses Speedo But Gains a Sex Toy Company Offer (Alternet)

• “It’s never a good sign when a website markets itself with a phony security award. But that’s what Ashley Madison did prior to last year’s massive data breach. On Monday, privacy officials in Canada and Australia found that the Canadian adultery website used deceptive and confusing practices to make customers think the service was secure. … One problem was the use of a medal icon on the website labeled trusted security award.”
  * Ashley Madison misled users with a fake security award (CSO Online)

• “According to Chapter 9.28 of the Oakland municipal code, it’s a misdemeanor for women to expose their breasts “while participating in any live act, demonstration, or exhibition in any public place.” Even simulating that nipple with a pasty is questionable.”
  * Why Aren’t There Any Strip Clubs in the East Bay? (KQED)

• “The first time I used them, I got a slight tingling, which freaked me out at first — is it time to contact my physician? But then I realized it was just the Nadkins working. That was their way of saying, “Hey, sport! These balls are clean and dry. Enjoy your day!” And I did. I enjoyed it very much.”
  * A Painfully Detailed Review of Nadkins, the Napkin for Your Sweaty Balls (Esquire)

• “Sarah White is the pseudonym of a woman who operates an online service called “The Naked Therapist.” Via web cam, Sarah provides one-on-one interaction with men around the world, talking with them about their problems and issues. But, distinct from any other therapist or coach I know of, Sarah disrobes during the session and allows her clients to also disrobe … and even masturbate.”
  * Meet The ‘Naked Therapist’ Who Lets Men Masturbate To Their Feelings (YourTango)

• “The intricate mujra dancing that was such a foundation of the red light district required years of teaching and live musicians. Now girls learn easy but provocative dance moves via YouTube. “They take a USB or sometimes they don’t even need that, they have songs in their cellphones, they plug a cable and play the music,” laments Soan Ali, one of the music shop owners.”
  * How Technology Killed Pakistan’s Historic Red Light District (NDTV)

• “The battle between the US Senate and Backpage.com heated up again this week. Backpage demanded Wednesday that a federal appeals court continue blocking the online classified ad portal from having to comply with a Senate investigation and subpoena into how Backpage conducts its business, including providing the government with documents about the ins and outs of its editorial business model. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations contends that the site is littered with ads that amount to offering sex services by women and children forced into prostitution …”
  * Backpage demands that appeals court block Senate sex-trafficking subpoena (Ars Technica)

The post Sex News: Bill O’Reilly and Facebook sued, Ashely Madison trusted security award, Ryan Lochte, Backpage vs Senate appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “As you’ve likely heard by now, Anthony Weiner has once again messed up his life due to his inability to not sext everyone all the time: His wife, Hillary Clinton’s right-hand woman Huma Abedin, is leaving him, and he has lost two of his regular gigs in the wake of his latest sexting scandal, which includes the rather unpleasant revelation that he sent racy texts while lying in bed with his toddler son.”
  * Maybe Don’t Call Anthony Weiner a Sex Addict (New York Magazine)
  See also: How Real Is “Online Infidelity” And “Addiction”? (Voactiv)

• The video was popularized in Facebook’s now-automated ‘trending topics.’ “McDonald’s is going viral for a disturbing reason. A very graphic video of a man engaging in a sexual act with a McChicken sandwich went viral over the weekend.”
  * McDonald’s is embroiled in a social-media nightmare after a sexual video featuring McChicken goes viral (Business Insider)

• “California lawmakers passed a bill that bans probation under certain conditions for those convicted of sexual assault. The legislation was passed in response to the backlash over former Stanford University student Brock Turner, who was sentenced to serve six months for his attack.”
  * California Lawmakers Pass Bill Barring Probation After Stanford Sexual Assault Case (Wall Street Journal)
  See also: Judge in Stanford Sex Trial Bows Out of Criminal Cases (NBC Bay Area)
  More: Brock Turner Gets Out Of Jail Friday, Three Months Early (SFist)

• “A 62-year-old man was arrested after allegedly filling a lubricant dispenser with hydrochloric acid at a sex club in Australia. No serious injuries were reported in the incident at “gay and bi social club” Aarows in northwest Sydney. Items in the room had been fitted with anti-tampering alarms after they had been interfered with in the past.”
  * Australian man ‘put acid in sex club lubricant’ (BBC)

• Warning for survivors of sexual assault, abuse and trauma. “Dead or Alive Xtreme 3’s virtual reality update is slated to launch on the same day as PlayStation VR, and features a handful of experiences designed to let players ogle the female body. A video from Gamer.ne.jp shows that one of these game modes features active harassment — allowing a player to continually touch a woman who is verbally protesting.”
  * ‘Dead or Alive’ VR is basically sexual assault, the game (NAME)

• “For some cisgender men, who make up the majority of my clients, humiliation that undermines their sense of masculinity or subverts the social expectations imposed by manhood can be particularly potent and erotic. But in the wake of last week’s news, where statues portraying a naked Donald Trump with a minuscule dick and no testicles appeared in cities across the US, I’ve been thinking about where our obsession with small penis humiliation comes from.”
  * What You Learn About Masculinity from Making Fun of Men’s Small Dicks for a Living (Vice)

• “Torrentfreak points us to the news that some other FBI sites are serving up porn as well, though mostly out of FBI incompetence, rather than competence. Apparently the domain the FBI was using for its nameservers for the domains it seized from Megaupload expired, and someone else snapped it up and redirected all the sites using those nameservers to advertisements basically for porn. So, the FBI is now essentially pointing people to porn via Megaupload.”
  * The FBI’s Megaupload Domains Are Now Hosting Porn Ads (Techdirt)

• “A group of the world’s largest adult entertainment companies have come together to announce #FreePornDay, which will be held on Sept. 8, 2016. Consumers can visit FreePornDay.com, where they can browse the list of 50-plus participating sites by genre and popularity, and click through to enjoy the full fruits that each site has to offer.”
  * Landmark #FreePornDay Set for Sept. 8 (XBIZ)

• If you want to see that Blac Chyna cover for Paper Magazine… “On the red carpet at the 2015 MTV VMAs, she and her close friend Amber Rose wore coordinated outfits covered in handwritten slurs, the kind of gendered insults you can find all over their social media pages. “Stripper, slut, ho, all these things people portray us as — we wanted to start a movement, because we’re tired of this double standard …” Chyna says”
  * Blac Chyna’s New Reality (PAPER)

• “Transgender men in Australia who have sex with cisgender men are to be targeted by a new sexual health campaign so they can keep it “safe, keep it hot and have awesome sex”.”
  * GRUNT Campaign Targets Transgender Men Who Have Sex With Cisgender Men (Towleroad)

• “A Progressive Conservative government would retain Ontario’s updated sex education curriculum and Tory Leader Patrick Brown said it was “a mistake” for his party to claim otherwise. … “It is important to have sex education to combat homophobia and raise important issues like consent, mental health, bullying, and gender identity,” Brown said. “The world has changed and so should the curriculum.“”
  * Tory leader Patrick Brown apologizes for sex-ed ‘mistake’ (The Star)

Main post image via Nine of the most iconic retro BDSM illustrators (Dazed), which left out so many of my faves!

The post Sex News: Anthony Weiner, Facebook’s McChicken disaster, sex club horror appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “No unexpected union says “the apocalypse is nigh” quite like actress Pamela Anderson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s recently assembled anti-porn task force. The orthodox rabbi and former Baywatch star took their message to the masses on Wednesday with an [anti-porn] op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.”
  * Why Pamela Anderson’s Bizarre Anti-Porn Crusade Does More Harm Than Good (Daily Beast)
  “Let’s start with the very first sentence: “If anyone still had doubts about the addictive dangers of pornography, Anthony Weiner should have put paid to them with his repeated, self-sabotaging sexting.” Wait, what? Sexting and looking at porn are different activities.”
  * Pamela Anderson: Porn Made Anthony Weiner Sext (New York Magazine)
  * See also: Pamela Anderson Warns That ‘The Crack Babies of Porn’ Are Nigh (Reason)

• “The momentum is building and our community wants consent to be visible. This year we plan to DOUBLE our presence at the Folsom Street Fair by passing out 20,000 stickers to the 400,000 attendees. In order to do this we need a bigger booth and a dedicated crew of 40 volunteers. So we need your help! Your contribution will go directly to printing the Ask First stickers, which are the heart and soul of this project. We are committed to celebrating and promoting consent in public spaces, and look forward to your support.”
  * The Ask First Campaign (The Ask First Campaign, generosity.com)

• “PlayStation VR is going to launch with support for the girl-ogling simulator Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 in Japan, and a video showing off some of the groping mechanics in that game has gone viral. … But while many of us recoil at what is happening in that video, a significant part of the VR community is chipping away at improving a broad spectrum of virtual sex experiences. And no matter how uncomfortable it makes us to see a man grabbing a Dead or Alive character’s private parts, it is going to keep happening as more people begin adopting VR and AR technology.”
  * Dead or Alive’s VR groping is uncomfortable, but virtual sex is only going to get messier (VentureBeat)

• Typical Daily Mail gratuitousness, made extra hilarious by the gallery’s awkward and confused captions. “An adult expo in Asia has showcased what could be the future of sex – with a mind-boggling variety of silicone toys and dolls.”
  * Is this the future of sex? Silicone dolls and VR headsets on display (Daily Mail)

• “Internet service providers that restrict online access to pornography or block ads could be breaking EU guidelines on net neutrality even if customers opt in. EU regulations only allow providers to block content for three reasons: to comply with a member state’s laws, to manage levels of traffic across a network, or for security. Guidance on the interpretation of guidelines issued by EU body Berec says that even if a person indicates they want certain content to be blocked, it should be done on their device, rather than at a network level.”
  * ISPs that restrict porn or block ads could be breaking EU guidelines (Guardian)

• This is exactly what my book says, and explains how to mitigate risk around. “Young women have been told not to take any photographs that they would not want shared with the world. But teenagers and experts say the current approach of prohibition-as-prevention doesn’t make sense. ”
  * Nude selfies: what if they are just an ordinary part of teenage life? (Guardian)

• “Ah, Utah — home of abstinence-based education, banning teachers for using the word “condom,” and skyrocketing gonorrhea rates. That last piece is according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (and, you might say, basic common sense).”
  * Gonorrhea Rates Skyrocketing In Sex-Ed Unfriendly Utah (Voactiv)

• “On Monday, Mark Ruffalo said he was excited to be the executive producer of a “daring project”: the upcoming movie “Anything,” about a transgender woman sex worker living in Los Angeles, played by actor Matt Bomer. … But many in the trans community didn’t agree, and took to social media to argue that the film, based on the play by Tim McNeil, was just another example of “transface” — casting a cisgender actor in a trans role.”
  * Mark Ruffalo responds to criticism over his newest movie, which stars Matt Bomer as a trans woman (Washington Post)

• Warning for survivors of sexual assault and trauma. “Former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner will be released on Friday after serving three months for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman near a fraternity party, a sentence that has ignited fierce debate over the way California defines and punishes rape. Turner’s sentence to months in county jail instead of years in state prison stoked international outrage, leading California lawmakers to call for mandatory prison time for sex assaults involving unconscious victims, and expanding the state’s definition of rape.”
  * Stanford sex assault case spurs get-tough rape proposals (Yahoo)

• “Teen pregnancy is way down. And a study suggests that the reason is increased, and increasingly effective, use of contraceptives. From 2007 to 2013, births to teens age 15 to 19 dropped by 36 percent; pregnancies fell by 25 percent from 2007 to 2011, according to federal data. But that wasn’t because teens were shunning sex. The amount of sex being had by teenagers during that time period was largely unchanged, says the study, which was published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health. And it wasn’t because they were having more abortions. Abortion has been declining among all age groups, and particularly among teenagers.”
  * Drop In Teen Pregnancies Is Due To More Contraceptives, Not Less Sex (NPR)

• “Melania Trump is suing a British newspaper and a US blogger for $150m (£114m) over allegations she was a sex worker in the 1990s, her lawyer says. The Daily Mail suggested Mrs Trump may have worked as a part-time escort in New York, and met husband Donald Trump, who is now running for the White House, earlier than previously reported.”
  * Melania Trump sues Daily Mail and US blogger for $150m over sex worker claims (BBC)

• “Fear not lazy 21st century human, for Amazon has found a solution to a problem that – for most of us – doesn’t exist. The almighty US retailer has imported the Dash button to the UK, Germany and Austria: a Wi-Fi connected plastic device that allows consumers to order a specific household product at the touch of a… you’ve got it. There are around 40 buttons at launch including one for Ariel, Nerf, Olay, Playdoh, Kleenex and Durex.”
  * Got to dash out for some rubber johnnies? Amazon has a button for that (The Register)

Main post image: Illustration by Eric Stanton, via Dangerous Minds.

The post Sex News: Pamela Anderson is an antiporn nutjob, Ask First is back, porn blocking against EU regs, Ruffalo and transface appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

“Even though I’m the person dishing out the degradation, it still gives me pause when I’m calling a client a tiny-dicked sissy, or calling a penis a clit as an insult. Domme Danielle, a sex worker who practices SPH with clients, agrees: “I find it disgusting that in order to humiliate the genitalia of a man, it is often very effective to label it as the genitalia of a woman. The message that this sends is is that we don’t value women or the genitalia of women in our society as much as we do the genitalia of men,” she says.”
* What You Learn About Masculinity from Making Fun of Men’s Small Dicks for a Living (VICE)

“… To him, pushing behavior like Weiner’s under the umbrella of something called “sex addiction” obscures more than it reveals. It strips away a huge amount of the psychological complexity that drives self-destructive human behavior. “Calling Anthony Weiner a sex addict is a distraction from the important issues of personal responsibility and mindful choice,” he said in an email. “It’s also a sad form of slut-shaming.””
* Maybe Don’t Call Anthony Weiner a Sex Addict (New York Magazine)

“Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, broadly speaking, homosexuality enjoyed a certain level of social acceptance in China. According to Chou Wah-Shan, the author of “Tongzhi in China: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism,” the distinctive feature of same-sex relations in that time was neither eroticism nor homophobia but rather classism and sexism.”
* Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang Want to Get Married (The New Yorker)

“When asked by a TMZ reporter if she felt like (Re) Assignment‘s depiction of transgender issues could potentially set back progress, Michelle Rodriguez further illustrated why she is not a suitable choice to play a trans character. “If anything, it’s freakin’ promoting it,” she said. “Thank Kris Jenner for becoming who he became. And now you have a popular subject matter that nobody wanted to make a movie about, and now everybody’s on it.””
* Michelle Rodriguez’s ‘(Re) Assignment’ looks like it will be an epic, transphobic mess (Mic

“No unexpected union says “the apocalypse is nigh” quite like actress Pamela Anderson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s recently assembled anti-porn task force. The orthodox rabbi and former Baywatch star took their message to the masses on Wednesday with an [anti-porn] op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.”
* Why Pamela Anderson’s Bizarre Anti-Porn Crusade Does More Harm Than Good (Daily Beast)

This is exactly what my book advises — a harm reduction approach. “Young women have been told not to take any photographs that they would not want shared with the world. But teenagers and experts say the current approach of prohibition-as-prevention doesn’t make sense. ”
* Nude selfies: what if they are just an ordinary part of teenage life? (Guardian AU)

“… That’s why Rowntree made Empowering Ava, an immersive virtual reality experience that does not require a headset. Viewers without the headset can use headphones to experience the multidimensional sound and manually zoom in or change focus to explore the space. “It’s really important to give people the option to watch it on a desktop, iPad, phone or a headset,” she said. The multi-perspective toggles allow viewers to find the angles they find most appealing, whether that’s focusing on the female performers’ pleasure or zooming out to relish a view of the male actor’s body.”
* The future of feminist porn is virtual reality — and it’s sexy as hell (Mic)
See also: The director creating videos of ‘real women having real sex’ (Dazed Digital)

“California’s law goes further, mandating that comprehensive lessons start in middle school and include information on abortion, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. It’s also the only state to require sex education be medically accurate, age-appropriate, and culturally inclusive, without promoting religion. Sharla Smith, who has overseen HIV and sex education for the California Department of Education since 2005, calls the new law “the most robust sex education law in the country.”
* Here’s the problem with California’s groundbreaking sex ed law (Mother Jones)

Main post image: my forever crush, Milla Jovovich by Talia Chetrit for Pop FW 2016 (Fat Tongue)

The post Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “Nearly 800,000 accounts for popular porn site Brazzers have been exposed in a data breach. Although the data originated from the company’s separate forum, Brazzers users who never signed up to the forum may also find their details included in the dump.”
  * Nearly 800,000 Brazzers Porn Site Accounts Exposed in Forum Hack (Motherboard/Vice)

• “According to investigators, between 2011 and March 2016, Ryan J. Vallee [used] aliases like Seth Williams and James McRow, Vallee to engage in anonymous communications with his victims, threatening to release data he found, unless victims provided sexually explicit images of them or their friends… According to a signed plea agreement, Vallee said he often took over his victim’s social media accounts, locking the owners out. In cases where the victim did not respond to his threats, he defaced the accounts with compromising content.”
  * Hacker Pleads Guilty to “Sextortion” of over a Dozen Female Victims (Softpedia)

• “Hot on the heels of his acclaim for creating an astonishing robot replica of actress Scarlett Johansson, Hong Kong inventor Ricky Ma Wai-kay says he is working on a guide that will allow practically anyone to create their own lifelike sexbot.”
  * ‘Scarlett Johansson’ Robot Inventor Creating DIY Sexbot Guide (Future of Sex)

• “A total of 206 people [in the UK] have been prosecuted under the new “revenge porn” law since it came into effect in April last year, the report by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has revealed.”
  * 206 people prosecuted under new ‘revenge porn’ law (Wired UK)

• “NYU law professor Art Leonard reports that several states have laws making online impersonation a crime, and a Texas appeals court recently upheld the constitutionality of the state’s statute, which makes the offense a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”
  * Why You Shouldn’t Create a Fake Profile on a Gay Hookup App to Get Back at Your Ex (Towleroad)

• “The way that the question ‘is porn actually damaging our brains?’ is so often presented as a roughly 50/50 argument. On one side: people like me who love porn (or people who make it) bleating sadly about the loss of our livelihoods/hobbies. On the other side: brave crusaders for truth who are opening our eyes to the dangers with their shocking stats and stories of addiction. Except – obviously – it’s a bit more complicated than that”
  * The porn debate: false balance in sex reporting (Girl on the Net)

• Warning for survivors of violent assault and trauma. “In light of the recent ModelMayhem.com opinion by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a Nevada woman who was nearly killed by her online date can pursue “failure to warn” claims against dating site Match.com.”
  * ModelMayhem Ruling Allows Another ‘Failure to Warn’ Case to Move Forward (XBIZ)

• “The Emojibator isn’t only about a tumescent vegetable being used to achieve millennial pleasure. Rather, the researchers behind the product have tapped into cultural quirks specific to the millennial generation: we have fewer sex with partners than past generations and we’d rather not deal with people face-to-face.”
  * Now you can have sex with the eggplant emoji (Salon)

• Am I the only person who does a bug and cam sweep when they stay someplace outside their home? “The most popular shared confession on secret-sharing project PostSecret this week was the revelation: “I swap hidden sex videos with other Airbnb hosts.” There is no way of knowing whether the confession is legitimate, as the PostSecret ethos is to allow people to post their deepest and darkest thoughts anonymously.”
  * This Airbnb host has made a VERY revealing confession (Mirror UK)

• “Scientists spent six months looking into why people living in the tiny community [Acciaroli in Italy, where one in 10 locals lives past 100-years-old] seemed to live so long, and how they ended up basically immune to medical conditions like dementia and heart disease. … And it turns out to be all down to a great sex life, and a good Mediterranean diet based on olive oil and rich in fresh fruit, vegetables and fish.”
  * Rampant sex is the secret to living past the age of 100 (Metro UK)

• “Today’s post is about Pornspot, which in billing itself as “the adult social network with free porn videos and free live cams” is making a play for the adult social networking market. … For instance, if you need “anal carrots” there might only be one video on the site that’s just what you’re looking for, but that tag will take you straight to the carrot-equipped “Anal Lesbians Dressed Up Like Wascally Wabbits” that you didn’t even know you were looking for …”
  * Pornspot: Adult Social Networking (ErosBlog: The Sex Blog)

The post Sex News: Brazzers breach, DIY Sexbot Guide, the Emojibator, Airbnb hidden camera controversy appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

The post Eye Candy: Hot, Tasteful, and Slightly Nasty New Porn appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

“Few people have elevated the habit of pillow talk to an art form quite like the crafty American-born intelligence officer [spy Betty Pack], who “used the bedroom like Bond used a beretta,” Time magazine noted in 1963. … “She had a force, or magnetism, to a terrifying degree,” Hyde recalled. This was only amplified when, during her high school years, Betty discovered her unabashed love of sex. “The greatest joy,” she wrote, “is a man and a woman together.””
* The Brilliant MI6 Spy Who Perfected the Art of the ‘Honey Trap’ (Atlas Obscura)

“Listen, Mark, this is serious. First you create rules that don’t distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs. Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgement. Finally you even censor criticism against and a discussion about the decision – and you punish the person who dares to voice criticism.” People who write about sex, like me, have been living with this censorship and silencing for a decade. It is why I cannot put a link to this very post on Facebook.
* Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply with your requirement to remove this picture. (Aftenposten)

“Specifically, people who develop addictions initially show high levels of response in the pleasure centers of the brain. Over time, as addiction takes hold, these parts of the brain no longer light up. In other words, one of the hallmarks of true addiction is that the pleasure received from the object of the addiction wanes over time as the person no longer wants the object but, rather, needs the object. In contrast, even people who report very strong “addiction” to sex continue to show activation of the pleasure centers of the brain when viewing sexually explicit images. This response is similar to the response people have to chocolate, ice cream and other highly desired pleasures. Prause concluded that “sex addiction” was no more than high libido coupled with low impulse control.”
* Anthony Weiner Is Not a Sex Addict, Neither Is Anyone Else (Psychology Today)

“With the movie season in these parts bracketed, roughly, by Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn and White Girl’s Leah, I initially thought it might be good to pause a sec and cast a jaundiced eye at the “Sexy, Troubled Girl” trope. … Cultural repression, moral hypocrisy, and blindness to the abuse she’s endured work together to turn a victim into a temptress, into a “bad influence”; and they also turn her genuine affection, the attraction she feels to Marcus, into “sluttiness” simply because of her agency in matters sexual.”
* Gamera Obscura: The Problem with the “Sexy, Troubled Girl” Trope (Screen Anarchy)

“Baseball is the common language with which so many of us are taught to think about sex. … The baseball model is so widespread, we rarely notice its influence. We’re like fish who don’t know we’re in water. … Most basically, baseball is a game involving two opposing teams. … Men are expected to pursue heterosexual sex (regardless of their actual desire) and are supported in doing anything to “get it.” Meanwhile, women are supposed to avoid sex, say “No,” yet be prepared for their “bases” to be “stolen.” “Scoring” is the ultimate goal. If we look at that in terms of sexuality, consent is actually a hindrance to the game. The baseball metaphor is all about one partner forcing their way through the resistance of the other. It has nothing to do with mutual desire.”
* To Slide or to Slice: Finding A Sex-Positive Metaphor (Scarleteen)

“Montreal, with its reputation for having a plentiful supply of strip clubs, sex shops, massage parlours and escort services, has been called a world capital for online porn. Those in the estimated US$60-billion global industry say business is booming in this city, but corporate consolidation and the Internet’s endless supply of free content on YouTube-style sites has meant, aside from a few exceptions, that the porn stars have moved out and the computer nerds have moved in.”
* ‘2016 will be our best year’: How the geeks took over Montreal’s porn industry (Financial Post)

“Back in January of 2014, Medium published a piece by investigative journalist Ethan Brown that shined a light on a string of unsolved murders in the Louisiana town of Jennings, which resides in Jeff Davis Parish in the southwestern part of the state. The victims were all sex workers who were involved in the same local prostitution ring, and they’d come to be known as the “Jeff Davis 8.”
* A New Book On The ‘Real Life True Detective’ Case Links A Louisiana Congressman To Murdered Sex Workers (Uproxx)

“More recently, the idea of a writing machine has started to move out of the realms of science fiction. AI is already used to create news stories (although it is not without limitations) and projects like NaNoGenMo have begun to popularize the practice of using code to generate creative projects. The results are frequently bizarre, and often strangely compelling, such as this “Existential Erotica” by code created by Agrajag Petunia …”
* Robot Sex Writers: Computer-Generated Erotica Is Becoming Popular (Future of Sex)

“But the more recent commentary is a reminder that that didn’t mark an end to the racialized, sexualized, dehumanizing comments about Serena Williams. It’s nearly impossible to imagine these comments being made about any of her peers; they’re a genre unto themselves, offering a case study on how biases make their way into media coverage. As James McKay and Helen Johnson write in a 2008 article published in Social Identities, about what they called the “pornographic eroticism and sexual grotesquerie in representations of African American sportswomen,” even so-called complimentary commentary about Williams’s athleticism is often grounded in stereotypes about black people (animalistic and aggressive) and black women specifically (masculine, unattractive, and overly sexual at once).”
* Serena Williams is constantly the target of disgusting racist and sexist attacks (Vox)

“Police forces across England and Wales are considering expanding their definition of hate crime to include misogyny … Incidents reported by Nottingham women ranged from verbal harassment to sexual assault. Initial claims from sections of the media that wolf-whistling would be reported by women have proved unfounded. So far, two men have been arrested for public order offences and actual bodily harm in incidents classified as misogynist.”
* Police in England and Wales consider making misogyny a hate crime (Guardian UK)

Main post photo by my new favorite photographer, Martial Lenoir, via “Reflections of Disorder” on The Photographer’s Room.

The post Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “Facebook has lost its bid to stop a lawsuit by a 14-year old girl whose naked photo appeared on the platform. The girl, who cannot be named because of her age, is suing Facebook (FB, Tech30) and the man who repeatedly posted her photo on the social network. A judge in Belfast, Northern Ireland, rejected Facebook’s request to dismiss the case on Monday, meaning it will now go to a full trial.” VB note: Facebook is lightning-fast to punish and ban “Napalm Girl” as well as people like me for posting links to sites like TinyNibbles, but if someone’s actually being harmed by something …
  * Facebook loses bid to stop revenge porn lawsuit by 14-year old girl (CNN Money)

• “A hacker who uncovered evidence that two men who sexually assaulted and photographed an unconscious 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, two years ago could spend more than a decade longer in jail than the rapists he helped expose and convict, thanks to an outdated cybersecurity law.”
  * Why a Hacker Who Exposed Rapists Faces More Jail Than the Rapists (Inverse)

• “[New York] City Councilmembers will introduce a bill this week that would make revenge porn a crime, punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.”
  * NYC May Make Revenge Porn A Crime (Gothamist)

• “After [the] unveiling of the new water-resistant, headphone jack-free iPhone 7, Apple kicked off an ad campaign with the phrase “This is 7,” apparently not knowing that directly translating that to Cantonese basically means “This is penis” or “dick” in slang. ”
  * Apple’s ‘This Is 7’ Ad Campaign Translates As ‘This Is Penis’ In Cantonese, Causing Much Laughter In China (SFist)

• “In the study published in the journal BMJ Open, researchers pored over 55 qualitative studies that examined the views of young people — mostly ages 12 to 18 — who’d received sex-and-relationship education at school in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Iran, Brazil and Sweden between 1990 and 2015. … The problems, researchers found, were numerous.”
  * Sex Education Is Negative, Sexist and Out of Touch: Study (TIME)

• “… But I was also curious about Waldman’s plans — what was she hoping to gain by introducing porn to her teenage daughter? “If kids are going to be looking at porn anyway,” she told me when we spoke on the phone, “it would be good to know that there’s porn that isn’t just not sexist — I think that’s partly the issue—but that is not replete with destructive misinformation and misconceptions that current pornography [reinforces].””
  * Why Isn’t Pornography Part Of Sex Education For Teens? (Alternet)

• “The Flex Company, on a mission to improve feminine hygiene products, is gaining ground. The company, which sells Flex, a menstrual aid that can be worn during sex, recently raised $1 million and acquired its rival company, Softcup.”
  * Menstrual Disc That Can Be Worn During Sex Receives $1M (Future of Sex)

• “Four senior executives of Chinese streaming media service QVOD Technology Co. were sentenced today to more than three years in prison for hosting, streaming and profiting from pornography, according to the Shanghai Daily.”
  * China Jails 4 Internet Execs for Distributing Porn (XBIZ)

Main post image via Cora Keegan by Jared Thomas Kocka MQ Photo Shoot (In The Raw)

The post Sex News: Facebook in revenge porn hot water, China porn sentencing, hacker punished more than rapists he exposed appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “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.

The post Sex News: Apple sex crackdown redux, Facebook revenge porn suicide, xHamster does the right thing appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

“It seems these days that one cannot swing a stick on the internet without hitting an article on why bots are So Hot Right Now. As your friendly neighborhood dominatrix and expert on being served by people and things as a lifestyle, I feel obligated to chime in.”
* A Dominatrix’s Review of Chatbots (Chatbot Magazine)

Warning for survivors of sexual abuse, assault, and trauma. “For decades, the ancient forests here have provided cover for the nation’s largest marijuana-growing industry, shielding pot farmers from convention, outsiders and law enforcement. But the forests also hide secrets, among them young women with stories of sexual abuse and exploitation. Some have spoken out; a handful have pressed charges. Most have confided only in private.”
* In secretive marijuana industry, whispers of abuse and trafficking (Reveal News)

“Many intelligent, well-informed self-described feminists believe sex work should never be decriminalized. In fact, the decriminalization of sex work is perhaps the single most divisive subject within feminism today. This divide is the result of a moral blind spot on the part of anti-sex work feminists or “antis.” They conflate all sex work unconditionally with rape, trafficking, and patriarchal exploitation. Ultimately, this is based on a (very un-feminist) distrust of the loud and powerful testimony of sex workers themselves, who, as individuals and organizations, have called over and over again for decriminalization to keep us safe from violence, stigma, and exploitation. ”
* 10 Reasons Sex Work Should Be Decriminalized (Refinery 29)

“Claire* said that she faced retaliation from her male colleagues for reporting them. According to Claire, when someone finally came in to investigate the issue of the harassment she reported up, Apple admitted to her that she was in a hostile work environment. But instead of working to ameliorate her situation, she said, the company gave her a choice: stay in the position or take a lower ranking, lower paying job on another team. Claire took the demotion.”
* Leaked Apple emails reveal employees’ complaints about sexist, toxic work environment (Mic)

“As a sex worker, sometimes I want to believe the Pretty Woman fairy tale exists — the one where the dirty slut gets a makeover, a Hermes bag and polka dot sundress; the one where a rich guy and a broke girl live happily ever after. So I sat down eagerly to watch Starz network’s episodic half-hour dramedy, The Girlfriend Experience, which delivers a trope mainstream audiences crave: an understated high-end, well-mannered, well-groomed call girl, Christine Reade (Riley Keough) who decides to make a splash sucking cock for profit while studying law and straddling an internship at a prestigious law firm.”
* Girlfriend Experience Interrupted (Medium)

“I guess you could say that Mary Astor and I “met cute,” the way romantic leads always do. It happened in 1965. I was 36, a freelance illustrator who, thanks to Vietnam, had begun doing political satire in a left-wing magazine called Ramparts. Mary, as I would come to call her, had retired from the screen a year earlier, after a career often playing soigné, exquisitely coiffed upper-class women. She was 59.”
* Inside the Trial of Actress Mary Astor, Old Hollywood’s Juiciest Sex Scandal (Vanity Fair)

“Because I take it so frequently, Adderall doesn’t impact me the way it does those who rarely take it. I simply feel normal on it, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have some negative side effects, such as making me more restless, quicker to agitation and more prone to bouts of anxiety. Regardless, Adderall is part of my daily routine, and out of all the areas I see it impacting my life, my sex life is certainly one of the top.”
8 Ways Sex On Adderall Was Totally Different For Me (Elite Daily)

“Yet these biographical facts do not interest French filmmakers Thierry Demaiziere and Alban Teurlai. Their extraordinary documentary Rocco, which recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is a portrait of the porn star that tries to make sense of his mind. It’s an introspective look at Siffredi, who opens up about the death of his brother, his sexual reaction to his mother’s death, his relationship with his wife and two children, and, of course, why he likes performing carnal acts on film so much.”
* Rocco Siffredi Couldn’t Be a Priest, So He Became a Porn Star (Vice)

Main post photo: Emma Maris by Ethan Gulley, “Golden / SOTW” (Sticks & Stones Agency)

The post Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

“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)

The post Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “Apparently, there is a need for pornless torrent sites, so “MrClean” decided to make a sanitized torrent site for these proper folks. This is how the TPBClean proxy site was born.”
  * TPBClean: A ‘Safe for Work’ Pirate Bay Without Porn (TorrentFreak)

• “Strippers in Louisiana are suing the US state, claiming a new law banning dancers under the age of 21 from working hinders freedom of expression.”
  * Louisiana under-21 strippers sue for right to dance (BBC)

• “Dating sims — a gaming genre usually reserved for a male players — underwent a noticeable gender shift at this month’s Tokyo Game Show 2016. … Voltage, to put it mildly, has pretty much every theme and genre covered, from titles such as A Knight’s Devotion (set in the Middle Ages), True Love Sweet Lies (with characters such as the Busque Lawyer, and the Mysterious Boss), Metro PD: Close to You (cop romance), and Era of Samurai: Code of Love (feudal Japan).”
  * Dating Sims for Women Take off at Tokyo Games Show 2016 (Future of Sex)

• “Police officers across the country misuse confidential law enforcement databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work, an Associated Press investigation has found. … In the most egregious cases, officers have used information to stalk or harass, or have tampered with or sold records they obtained.”
  * AP: Across US, police officers abuse confidential databases (Star Tribune)

• “A 21-year-old Australian tradesman has been bitten by a venomous spider on the penis for a second time. Jordan, who preferred not to reveal his surname, said he was bitten on “pretty much the same spot” by the spider. “I’m the most unlucky guy in the country at the moment,” he told the BBC.”
  * Spider bites Australian man on penis again (BBC)

• “When Pamela Anderson wrote an op-ed bashing pornography just months after posing for “Playboy,” some of us were skeptical. Today, unfortunately, she’s proven our skepticism was well-founded. In an interview with “Dazed” magazine, she says she wants to fight pornography … by writing erotica.”
  * Pamela Anderson wants to fight porn … by writing erotic novels (LifeSiteNews)

• “Twitch, a popular livestreaming service, has rules specifying that streamers cannot show too much skin during broadcasts, much less focus on anything overtly sexual. [Zoie] Burgher, who is known for twerking while playing Black Ops 3, has been banned many times for violating that rule, with the most recent expulsion happening last weekend. While this turn of events may not sound surprising, Burgher contests that there’s something suspect going on with the latest incident with her Twitch account”
  * Banned From Twitch, ‘Bikini Streamer’ Finds Success (And Haters) On YouTube (Kotaku)

• “During gender-transition, many people start to disconnect to their existing genitals … while still getting sexual urges. Well, the first ever sex toy for pre-op, gender-transitioning men has now been made.”
  * Buck Off is the first ever sex toy for trans men (Metro UK)

• “Adult webcam platform CamSoda has paired up with teledildonic company Kiiroo, launching live VR sex shows with touch feedback last month. … Sensors pick up a performer’s speed and intensity via her smart vibrator Pearl. The Onyx devices will then tighten and move depending on the pressure felt by the vibe.”
  * Cam Site Launches Virtual Reality Sex Shows with Touch Feedback (Future of Sex)

• “The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board today said that it rejects Proposition 60 and urges voters to do so as well. Calling the AIDS Healthcare Foundation-sponsored initiative “extreme” and “demonstrably counterproductive,” the Times said the proposition would, in effect, make every Californian a “potential condom cop.””
  * L.A. Times Editorial Board: Vote No on Prop 60 (XBIZ)

• “Last month I attended the second meeting of the newly reinstated Adult Provider Network – an adult industry trade association formed last month to co-ordinate responses to the Digital Economy Bill. … Read on to discover how this will actually affect your business if you run a UK porn site, why the bill potentially discriminates against the visually impaired, and how the bill risks creating a new trade barrier between UK industry and overseas.”
  * The Adult Provider Network discusses problems with the Digital Economy Bill (Pandora Blake)

• WANT. “Lovehoney has joined forces with tokidoki, the pop-culture brand meaning “sometimes” in Japanese to launch a range of collectible designer pleasure toys. Lovehoney’s popular products have been reimagined for a style-savvy audience, featuring never-before-seen designs created exclusively for the tokidoki x Lovehoney collaboration. The result is a “kawaii” (Japanese for “cute”) range emblazoned with the characters designed by tokidoki’s co-founder and Creative Director Simone Legno.”
  * tokidoki x Lovehoney Launching in October (XBIZ)

• “Many cases of suspected micropenis turn out to what’s called buried penis—a penis partially hidden by a skin condition or a thick layer of lower abdominal fat. A lot of fat babies have this problem: their parents think they have a micropenis, but if you press down on the suprapubic fat layer, the baby’s wiener emerges like a turtle’s head. The issue is so common that the New York Times wrote a trend piece about it.”
  * 6 Things I Learned About Dicks While Working at a Urology Clinic (Unicorn Booty)

Main post image via CLARA ROSAGER BY CAMERON HAMMOND FOR TREATS! (Portraits of Girls)

The post Sex News: Porn-free Pirate Bay, police abusing databases, camming innovates VR, tokidoki sex toys appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

The post Eye Candy: Pretty New Porn appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

“To consume online porn often entails playing a rough and reductive language game. We navigate a discomforting gauntlet of search terms: a jumble of body parts (pussy, cock, ass, tits), body types (tiny, huge, skinny, curvy), sexual and gender identities (gay, bi, lesbian, trans), sex acts (anal, squirting, pissing, gang bang, bukkake, bondage) … But with the racist, sexist, ageist, ableist tropes thrown out, the question of how best to name and tag porn scenes is a wide-open and ethically taxing one, posing manifold challenges. Can a new taxonomy of porn be established and spread? If so, what might this mean for the porn industry, and the landscape of human sexual desire?”
* Can Changing Our Porn Vocabulary Change Porn Itself? (The Nation)

“It has come to our attention that the group called “Fight the New Drug” is being allowed to present its material in public school districts within the state of Utah without soliciting approval of the school board or parents. As certified sex therapists, it is concerning that sex education that is neither comprehensive nor accurate is taking place in such settings.”
* Op-ed: Utah students need real sex ed, not ‘Fight the New Drug’ (Salt Lake Tribune)

“Across more than a dozen websites, men with varying skill levels edit women’s faces onto explicit photos and gifs. … We’ve heard all about the humiliation that [revenge porn] victims experience when the most private of moments are made public, and seen several attempts to legislate against such trespasses. But fake revenge porn exists in a much trickier, much grayer area — both legally and morally.”
* A Naked Body & An Ex’s Face: The Disturbing World Of ‘Fake’ Porn (Voactiv)

“This month, Sex returns to the city: an infamous play written by and starring the budding starlet Mae West in the 1920s. After a 10-month run on Broadway in 1927, the play was deemed by a grand jury to be such “obscene, indecent, immoral, and impure drama” that it might corrupt “the morals of youth”. West was sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity, and travelled there in style – garlanded in roses, wearing silk underwear and riding in a limousine.”
* Sex: the play that put Mae West in prison returns to New York (Guardian)

“Treating trans women as sexual deviants has done them real, concrete harm. As activist Julia Serano writes, “Reducing a person to their sexual bodies or behaviors sexualizes them. And in our culture, sexualizing someone (i.e., reducing them to their sexuality, rather than seeing them as a whole person) is one of the most effective ways of invalidating a person.””
* Why Are Trans Women Penalized For Body Fantasies Everyone Has? (The Establishment)

“Other requests are far more involved. Night reminisces about a customer in the medical profession who had her procure a stethoscope so she could attach the headset to her computer’s microphone and the chest piece to her heart, allowing him to listen to Night’s heart race as she reached orgasm.”
* Camming Together: The Virtues of the Virtual Girlfriend (Observer)

“Chest binding is a fact of life for many people, including trans men, some gay women, intersex people, and gender non-conforming individuals like Naomhan. Flattening the appearance of one’s breasts—whether that’s through Ace bandages, compression undergarments, layered T-shirts, sports bras, or commercial binders—doesn’t just make it easier to pass in public as the correct gender or wear masculine clothes. For many, it’s a matter of psychological well-being.”
* Inside the Landmark, Long Overdue Study on Chest Binding (Broadly/Vice)

“In its way, the pizza delivery guy has become a cultural shorthand for the lazy plot devices of the adult movie industry. When pressed, most porn directors will admit that the scenario is exactly that: simply a matter of convenience, an easy way to get two people together for some good old-fashioned doin’ it.”
* Did Someone Order a Pizza? (Eater)

” Launch gala attendees were treated to live demonstrations of the condoms features- including “revolutionary” patterning and a base emblazoned with the word “RESPECT” meaning “respect the man who wears it” according to what Gizmodo writer Bryan Menegus was told. This was also when we learned that Charlie Sheen had been selected as the spokesman for the new prophylactic. …”
* A Pox On Your Box: The Problem of LELO Hex (Lorax Of Sex)

“With this exclusive interview, riding proudly under our Queer Visibility banner, Greg Rucka chats about the vision he and his collaborators have for their Wonder Woman series, the act of balancing representation with the craft of storytelling, and the question of what it even means to be queer in a culture absent of heteronormativity.”
* Exclusive Interview: Greg Rucka on Queer Narrative and WONDER WOMAN (Comicosity)

“[There is not] a lot of debate on is why men orgasm. They do it because it feels good, thus motivating them to spread more of their sticky little seeds out into willing and welcoming wombs. Many people use this as further evidence of how “simple” men are; implying women are somehow more complicated. Well… turns out that’s not necessarily the case.”
* Let’s Stop Acting Like Women’s Orgasms Are So Complicated (Thrillist)

“As a trans woman who has had surgery I don’t want to buy into the ‘please let my vagina pass the pussy test.’ My vagina is different, it has limitations and its own wonderful sculptural qualities. I want to celebrate those rather than hoping that ‘wham bam thank you mam’ takes place without acknowledging its inherent beauty and narrative. ”
* The Dating Game… As A 50-Year-Old Trans Woman (Refinery 29)

Main post image by Sad Amish Tattooer, via illusion.

The post Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “U.K. obscenity lawyer Myles Jackman and feminist pornographer Pandora Blake have organized a protest called the “Backlash Kink Olympixxx,” slated for Oct. 17 outside of Parliament. Jackman and Blake, along with members from the Open Rights Group, NO2ID and Big Brother Watch, will be campaigning against the risks posed to personal privacy and sexual freedom by the Digital Economy Bill that is currently before U.K. lawmakers.”
  * ‘Backlash Kink Olympixxx’ Protest Slated for Oct. 17 in London (XBIZ)

• Since Yahoo handled this, I’m sure everything will be fine. “Yahoo has open-sourced its deep learning network, which can be used to classify pornographic content on the Web. A picture of a woman covered from the neck down and standing in a field of flowers, for instance, earns a score of 0.001—about as inoffensive as it gets. A shirtless man walking on the beach, however, might draw a score of 0.074, while two bikini-clad female lifeguards running in the sand scores 0.116.”
  * Yahoo Open Sources Porn-Hunting Neural Network (PC Mag)

• “It started when CBC learned about a stealth marketing campaign involving a drug company, a well-known Canadian comedian, a doctor and a public relations firm. … But nowhere did it say this “mission” was initiated and sponsored by Novo Nordisk Canada Inc., which makes a vaginal hormone pill. Nor did GCI’s release specify that [comedian Cathy] Jones was paid to give media interviews about vaginal atrophy.”
  * Ads disguised as news: A drug company’s stealth marketing campaign exposed (CBC)

• “McDonald’s ignored serious instances of sexual harassment ― including groping, propositioning and lewd comments ― endured by hourly workers in eight states, according to 15 separate complaints that restaurant cashiers and cooks filed with a federal agency over the past month.”
  * McDonald’s Workers Detail Horrifying Sexual Harassment (Huffington Post)

• “An Australian man recently won an unfair dismissal case after being fired for downloading and watching hardcore porn (including videos of himself) on his work-issued laptop.”
  * Man who was fired for watching porn at work sues his employer and wins (Daily Dot)

• “An Indonesian man who hacked into an electronic billboard and streamed porn at a busy Jakarta intersection could face six years in prison. The stunt shocked people in the conservative, Muslim-majority country.”
  * Indonesian hacker faces six years in jail for billboard porn screening (DW)

• “Since then, Dane does what he can to ensure that his clients are honest about their intentions. He previously used Rentboy.com, but federal regulators seized the site over a year ago, and its legal status today remains unclear. Once the most visible site for male escorts, Rentboy allowed them to check client reputations and block minors, providing a peek at what a regulated escorting marketplace might look like. Because their work is illegal, escorts face a near-total lack of access to the protections and professional services that other entrepreneurs take for granted, from marketing to legal advice to insurance and beyond. ”
  * Sex Workers Explain the Struggles of Running an Illegal Business (Vice)

• Not clear how this is a news story, but here ya go. “ASCII art. Streaming video. VR. Smart refrigerators. Porn has been at the forefront of—wait, smart refrigerators?”
  * Bet you can’t wait to watch porn on your smart refrigerator (Daily Dot)

The post Sex News: Backlash Kink Olympixxx, McDonald’s sex harassment, Yahoo’s antiporn tool appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

• “For the first time, thanks to a bill President Barack Obama signed on Friday, victims of sexual assault now have a specific set of rights under federal law when it comes to the evidence collected from their own bodies. “Beginning today, our nation’s laws stand firmly on the side of survivors of sexual assault,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who sponsored the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act. The bill passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate last month before heading to Obama’s desk.”
  * President Obama just signed a “bill of rights” for survivors of sexual assault (Vox)

• “The Washington Post has obtained an extremely crass recording, above, on which Donald Trump converses with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about women aboard a bus on the set of Days of Our Lives. “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump said. “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” The GOP is in a panic as outrage with Trump boils over.
  * Trump Was Recorded in 2005 Bragging About Grabbing Women “by the Pussy” (Slate)

• “State agents raided the Dallas headquarters of adult classified ad portal Backpage and arrested Chief Executive Officer Carl Ferrer on Thursday following allegations that adult and child sex-trafficking victims had been forced into prostitution through escort ads posted on the site.”
  * Backpage raided, CEO arrested on sex-trafficking charges (Washington Post)
  See also: How shutting down Backpage, ‘the world’s top online brothel,’ could hurt sex workers (Washington Post)

• “On Monday morning, Facebook introduced Marketplace, a new section on its mobile app that allowed its users to buy and sell things with their friends and strangers. By the evening, the social giant was apologizing for an issue with the section, which featured posts that included illegal drugs, dogs, guns, and sexual services.”
  * Facebook Marketplace Goes Wrong: Sex, Guns and Baby Hedgehogs (NYT)

• “The Free Speech Coalition and the Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital civil liberties group, have agreed to work together to advocate use of the encryption protocol HTTPS for adult sites.”
  * FSC Pushes to Make Adult Sites More Secure (XBIZ)

• “The chief executive officer of the website Rentboy.com has pleaded guilty in New York to promoting prostitution. Jeffrey Hurant faces up to 21 months in prison following his plea Friday in Brooklyn. The successful site operated for nearly 20 years in an open and racy way, with male escorts paying for ads to attract new — mainly male — customers. That came to an abrupt end last year when law enforcers raided Rentboy’s Manhattan offices.”
  * Rentboy.com CEO pleads guilty to promoting prostitution (AP/Yahoo)

• “Several sports elites, like Muhammad Ali, have taken temporary vows of celibacy before a fight to preserve aggression and concentration. Now, researchers at the University of Florence in Italy suggest sex before sports could actually help, not hurt, your athletic performance.”
  * Sex Before Running Is Actually Good For You (Medical Daily)

• “Artists in Idaho claimed a victory against government censorship this week when a federal judge granted a permanent injunction against enforcement of a 40-year old law that prohibits simulated sex acts in performances with “serious literary, artistic, scientific or political value.””
  * Idaho Caves on Enforcing Obscenity Law (Courthouse News)

Main post image via GRACE HARTZEL PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROE ETHRIDGE FOR DOCUMENT JOURNAL NO. 9, A/W 2016 (Portraits of Girls)

The post Sex News: Federal rights for survivors, Backpage raided, Rentboy guilty plea, https for adult sites appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

“Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is many things—professional provocateur; contrarian pariah; enfant terrible of the AIDS activism world. But here’s one thing he is not: a reliable source on any matters relating to HIV/AIDS. Still, that hasn’t stopped myriad news outlets from reporting on Weinstein and the AHF’s pathetic, mendacious campaign against PrEP.”
* Michael Weinstein Shows How Not to Do AIDS Activism (Slate)

“Under the pretense of protecting the vulnerable, public officials are destroying what little safety and security sex workers have in determining their own autonomy over their body. Yet again, criminalization and intimidation are being used to perpetuate stigma against sex workers that will only serve to increase the violence against them. Yet again, when sex workers demand their rights, they are told they actually need to be rescued.”
* The Backpage Raid: Misguided at Best, Dangerous at Worst (Medium)

“Since then, Dane does what he can to ensure that his clients are honest about their intentions. He previously used Rentboy.com, but federal regulators seized the site over a year ago, and its legal status today remains unclear. Once the most visible site for male escorts, Rentboy allowed them to check client reputations and block minors, providing a peek at what a regulated escorting marketplace might look like. Because their work is illegal, escorts face a near-total lack of access to the protections and professional services that other entrepreneurs take for granted, from marketing to legal advice to insurance and beyond. ”
* Sex Workers Explain the Struggles of Running an Illegal Business (Vice)

“When I arrive at the 5S shop in Changsha, the capital city of China’s south central Hunan province, store owner Mr. Xiao is struggling to prevent a nearly-nude “female” humanoid doll from toppling off a chair. As Xiao finally manages to place the doll in a stable sitting position then cover its rather large, jiggling silicone breasts with a slinky pink shirt, he explains that “her” name, or rather that of her model, is Magic Beauty.”
* I Went to a Chinese Robot Shop to Witness the Coming of the Sex Dolls (Motherboard/Vice)

“I was disappointed to discover that my dream job as a sex-sound re-creator does not exist, but that’s not to say that everything you hear in a porno is 100 percent au naturel. ”
* What Do Porn Directors Do When Somebody Farts on Set? (We Are Mel)

“Every time a major hack becomes public—Target, Yahoo, take your pick—Mike Stabile is grateful it’s not an adult site. As the director of communications for the Free Speech Coalition, an adult entertainment industry trade group, he knows what the fallout could be, and that it’s potentially a lot worse than another password dump.”
* Porn Sites Aren’t Secure, But That May Be About to Change (Wired)

“At what point does a robot become more than just a vessel for satisfying a human’s needs? That’s one of the many questions posed by the new HBO series Westworld, based on that other Michael Crichton story about a theme park in which the android attractions—who are designed to be fucked and killed—rise up against their creators.”
* What Would It Take for a Sex Robot to Pass a Turing Test? (Jezebel)

“How did 007 currently identify herself on the spectrum of sexual identities? The woman answered that she didn’t know. She told Diamond that she had been heterosexual all her life until just that last week, when she suddenly found herself falling in love with her best friend—a woman. They had had sex a couple of times, something she described as very satisfying. Part of Diamond’s work was to categorize her subjects based on how they self-identified, but 007 wasn’t sure—so Diamond put her into the “unlabeled” category.”
* Beyond Sexual Orientation (Nautilus)

“Over the next decade, the two have shared pages on several comic projects—the latest being a forthcoming 40-page woman-led adventure called Cyborg Sex Surrogate. “She was created by a weird nerdy guy to be his ultimate girlfriend,” Frank says of the lead character. “She’s finding her own identity, but with a lot of sex.””
* Meet the Feminist Comic Artists Who Draw Porn in Public (Vice)

“For the first time, thanks to a bill President Barack Obama signed on Friday, victims of sexual assault now have a specific set of rights under federal law when it comes to the evidence collected from their own bodies. “Beginning today, our nation’s laws stand firmly on the side of survivors of sexual assault,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who sponsored the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act. The bill passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate last month before heading to Obama’s desk.”
* President Obama just signed a “bill of rights” for survivors of sexual assault (Vox)

“It started when CBC learned about a stealth marketing campaign involving a drug company, a well-known Canadian comedian, a doctor and a public relations firm. … But nowhere did it say this “mission” was initiated and sponsored by Novo Nordisk Canada Inc., which makes a vaginal hormone pill. Nor did GCI’s release specify that [comedian Cathy] Jones was paid to give media interviews about vaginal atrophy.”
* Ads disguised as news: A drug company’s stealth marketing campaign exposed (CBC)

“So: media both reflects a certain worldview and also helps to reinforce or shape it. That much is pretty obvious. If you search for the word ‘sexy’ on Google images, what comes up is a page full of mostly slim, white, semi-naked women. That’s not, of course, what ‘sexy’ means, it’s just that when you take a consensus view on a subjective question, you’ll get a homogenous, simplistic, not-even-wrong answer. What happens, then, when we ask content aggregators to show us ‘porn’?”
* What is ‘porn’, according to MindGeek (Girl on the Net)

““If we want to look for a room to bang in, we fail,” she said, according to the local English-language paper the Standard, using a Cantonese slang term that literally means “to strike something.” She added: “This is a matter of fact.””
* Young Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex (TIME)

Main post image via MIND-BOGGLING IMAGES FROM THE ‘WORLD BODYPAINTING FESTIVAL’ IN AUSTRIA (Dangerous Minds)

The post Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.

Nikki Darling, Bill Bailey – Pokepussy (pics)
Joanna Angel, Nacho Vidal – Anal Sex on the Beach (pics)

Dana Vespoli, Gia Paige – Manipulation (pics)
Annie Cruz, Blake Eden – Baddest Bitch (pics)

Blake Eden, Damon Dice – The Way She Moves
Gia Paige, Sydney Cole and Uma Jolie – Three Is Company
Mai Thai, Rasty – Passionate Lovers

Ava Mir-Ausziehen, Lance Hart – Empowering Ava
Julietta, Magdalena and Alex – Extreme Photo Shoot
Karina – Sensual Motion

Michelle H. – Red Fever
Cristal Caitlin and Leila Smith – Stimulate
Lexi Lowe and Noe Milk – Discovered

Lilly – Joli
Lena Anderson – Bacchus

Dahlia Sky, Jon Jon, Isiah Maxwell – Cheering for Black Cock (pics)
Chanel Preston, Mickey Mod – Chanel’s Oily Anal Scene (pics)
Lea Guerlin, Sensi – Anticipation (pics)

Chad Diamond, Aspen Brooks – Trans Girlfriend Experience (pics)
Gabriel D’Alessandro, Chelsea Poe – Trans Girlfriend Experience (pics)

Adelina White – Pause
Lindra – Unleashed
Darma and Shairy – Temptation

The post Eye Candy: Pretty Girls, Hot Fantasy Sex appeared first on Violet Blue ® | Open Source Sex.