Sex News: xHamster breach, asexual fantasies, UK porn filter enforceability, new Ashley Madison lawsuit

• “As China marks World AIDS Day Thursday, the effects of that missing knowledge is more evident than ever, with growing numbers of HIV infections and staggeringly high abortion rates.”
  * China’s lack of sex-ed putting young people at risk (CNN)

• “xHamster users might want to take a break from watching porn and update their passwords right about now as hackers have leaked thousands of porn account login credentials on the internet. …The attack has affected nearly 380,000 users, whose credentials were openly being traded on the digital underground.”
  * xHamster breach pops 380,000 porn account login details on the internet (The Next Web)

• “Each year Germany’s State of Saxony holds a futureSAX competition for startups with innovative ideas. The winners then receive a state’s grant to develop the product. This year “silent vibrator” made out of aerospace technology was vetted as one of the winners. And not everyone was happy about it.”
  * Innovation or Embarrassment? German Politicians Feud Over Silent Sex Toy (Heat Street)

• “According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that in 2007, he created an account with defendants’ AshleyMadison.com. On Aug. 21, 2015, a data breach with the website made his information public, the suit states. He alleges he was not in a relationship at the time he made an account but was married when the information was leaked, and as a result his wife filed for divorce on March 10.”
  * Ashley Madison user files suit after site’s data breach (Louisiana Record)

• “Sex workers were common in stations and occupied cities, and the last worry on a soldier’s mind in that moment were venereal diseases. There were those unlucky enough, however, to contract the horribly painful disease through a self-inflicted wound rather than carnal pleasure.”
  * How Civil War Soldiers Gave Themselves Syphilis While Trying to Avoid Smallpox (Atlas Obscura)

• “The first likely case of sexual transmission of the Zika virus in the UK has been reported by the authorities. The woman has made a full recovery, and it is thought she had been infected by her partner, who had recently visited a Zika-hit country. Mostly spread by mosquitoes, Zika can linger in semen for months.”
  * UK has ‘first sexually transmitted Zika’ (BBC)

• “Adult entertainment actors are worried about what Donald Trump’s presidency would mean for their industry. While the Obama administration has not put into force obscenity laws, much to the chagrin of anti-porn activists, Trump has been clear about his stance against the porn industry.”
  * Why Donald Trump’s presidency is a reason to worry for the US porn industry (IB Times)

• “The UK’s porn filter proposal is set to become law — and the politician behind it is now worried it might not even work. …The British censors would then have to choose between letting huge amounts of content slip through the net, or censoring entirely some of the internet’s biggest and most vibrant communities.”
  * The politician behind Britain’s porn filter now thinks it might not even work (Business Insider)

• “Acclaimed Italian novelist Erri De Luca has added a somewhat tarnished trophy to his list of accolades — the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. De Luca won the tongue-in-cheek prize Wednesday for “The Day Before Happiness,” the story of a Neapolitan orphan growing up after World War II. Judges said they were swayed by a description of two lovers “like ballet dancers hovering en pointe.” They said De Luca’s victory “is a reminder that, even in the wake of Brexit, bad sex knows no borders.””
  * Italy’s Erri De Luca wins dreaded Bad Sex in Fiction prize (Washington Post)

• “…For example, nearly half of asexual women and three quarters of asexual men reported both experiencing sexual fantasy and masturbating, despite reporting a lack of sexual attraction to other people and identifying as asexual. Further, there was significant overlap in the sexual fantasies experienced by participants, regardless of their asexual or sexual status.”
  * What Asexual People Sexually Fantasize About (NY Magazine)

• “One problem is that standard methods of assessing desire are too subjective, says [UCLA researcher Nicole] Prause. … To get around this, a vibrator was either connected to a sheath that the penis goes in or a small hood that fits over the clitoris. Electrodes on each participant’s head measured the strength of their brain’s alpha waves, which are weaker when people are more sexually aroused.”
  * Zap to the brain alters libido in unique sex study (New Scientist)

Main post image via this great shoot on Marco Leonardi ‘Simple pleasures’ (Sticks & Stones Mothership)