“We never get to see Kerry Washington as a brilliant inventor who gets a little too close to her android, Liam Hemsworth. And that’s a problem. It’s a problem because in real life we’re continuously seeing a proliferation of female robots that are designed to be aides. There are, of course, male robots: With broad shoulders and pectorals, NASA’s Valkyrie is clearly male. But also: He’s not even hot, mostly because he doesn’t have a face. Female robots, however, are almost all Stepford wife-type entities — there’s no female robot tasked with the job of exploring planets.”
* In Praise of ManBots (Inverse)
* Related: Why Does Viv, A New Technology From The Creators Of Siri, Also Have A Woman’s Voice? (SFist)
“John Humphrey Noyes so fervently believed sleeping around could lead to immortality that he convinced 300 people to join him in a utopian socialist community built on that very principle, in upstate New York. As he saw it, promiscuous “interlocked contact” between men and women — in the form of a polyamory scheme he called “Complex Marriage” — would generate enough spiritual energy to propel the human race into some sort of electrically powered, divinely connected eternal life. ”
* Inside the 19th-Century Free Love Commune Powered by Electric Sex, Eugenics and Delusions of Immortality (Gawker)
“Once a decision is made, the horse sex can finally begin. To determine if a mare is in heat and at the proper point in her estrous cycle — her peak period of sexual receptivity and fertility — breeders use “teasing,” an aptly-named process in which the breeders put the mare and stallion in a room together and see how horny the mare gets. It even has a scale, developed by Dr. Thomas Riddle of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, measured by gauging the mare’s reception to the tease …”
* American Pharoah And The Horse Sex Industrial Complex (Voactiv)
“Last November, Meg Muñoz went to Los Angeles to speak at the annual West Coast conference of Amnesty International. She was nervous. Three months earlier, at a meeting attended by about 500 delegates from 80 countries, Amnesty voted to adopt a proposal in favor of the “full decriminalization of consensual sex work,” sparking a storm of controversy.” Some of the things in this are crappy opinion, but it’s overall good. -VB
* Should Prostitution Be a Crime? (NYT)
“When Jake Silverstein, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, and Kathy Ryan, the magazine’s director of photography, proposed a cover image showing dozens of sex workers for my article on the debate over whether prostitution should be a crime, I was daunted. I had been reporting the article for months and I’d spoken to lots of people who do sex work … They were suspicious of the media, and I couldn’t blame them.”
* The Everyday Faces of Sex Workers (NYT)
“Like many people, I first heard about Lioness via an Instagram ad — which is weird, because Facebook, which owns Instagram, doesn’t allow adult companies to advertise on any of its platforms. (“Our ad policies don’t allow companies to advertise adult products or services, which includes sex toys,” a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an email.) But Klinger found a workaround.”
* How Sex Toy Makers Sneak Around Digital Filters (BuzzFeed)
“My email inbox is jammed with messages from women who, like me, are of Middle Eastern and Muslim descent. They write to vent about how to “get rid of this burden of virginity,” or to ask about hymen reconstruction surgery if they’re planning to marry someone who doesn’t know their sexual history, or just to share their thoughts about sex.”
* Sex Talk for Muslim Women (NYT)
“Myles Jackman is a lawyer specializing in cases involving pornographic and obscene content. … In Jackman’s view … the basic impulse to humiliate and inflict pain upon others by exploiting their sexuality isn’t new, but apps and social media make it so much easier. ”
* An Obscenity Lawyer Explains Why Teens Are Being ‘Sextorted’ (Broadly/Vice)
“You always hear about how porn doesn’t represent real-life sex, but you might be surprised by the extent to which it’s different. A lot of bizarre, hilarious, and, frankly, impressive feats go into its creation. Here are a few aspects of porn shoots that you would probably never think of.”
* 8 Surprising Secrets That Go Into Making Porn (Glamour)
“… sex dolls have become so realistic, they’re indiscernible from human beings. We [Vice] spoke with a psychologist about the risks—and rewards—of loving them.”
* Why Men Love to Fuck Dolls (Broadly/Vice)
Main post image via: Seductive photos of the female form dressed only in light (Feature Shoot), by Dani Oliver
what an art. is body painting or light projection? sexotoys.co.uk