- This week in sex and tech – Vatican-dot-XXX, Silicon Valley sperm donor’s other hobby, sex workers protest at Google, and more porn in the SOPA debate. Sex Tech Weekly: Google Sex Protest, Vatican-dot-XXX, SOPA (Pulp Tech)
- In late 2009, Walgreens signed a licensing deal to sell one of Screaming O’s brands in 7,000 drugstores. Their products, with bright, explicit packaging, are also sold through Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, and RiteAid.com, as well as stores in 27 foreign countries. Sex Toy Designer Screaming O Pushes Past Novelty Shops into Walgreens Aisles (Bloomberg)
- A big year for sexual health? This year has been filled with many exciting, groundbreaking and interesting events in the sexual health arena. Top 10 sexual health events of 2011 (South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com)
- This month, magazines, blogs, and talk shows are full of advice about how to make your sweetheart, friend-with-benefits, or upcoming one-night wonder explode with pleasure. Dr. Marty Klein suggests the opposite approach: that sex during the holidays may not be such a great idea. Here are five reasons why… 5 Reasons NOT To Have Sex Over The Holidays (Dr. Marty Klein | YourTango)
- After two recent controversies involving former adult stars and school kids, pornstar Aurora Snow issues a polemic about equating work in porn with bad morals. Pornstar Aurora Snow on the Sasha Grey School Controversy (The Daily Beast)
- Scientific American debuted Jesse Bering’s science-focused sex advice column this week, and it’s intense. I think it’s my favorite sex advice column right now, and it’s not for the sexually squeamish… This week, men into young girls, an older anti-feminist male seeks a girlfriend, and a female psychotherapist who acts like a crazed teenager in her relationships. “Dear Jesse, I like very young girls.” (Bering in Mind, Scientific American Blog Network)
- Gay porn blog The Sword picked their favorite eight hottest guys on Instagram – and a few of them are really hot. Are These Eight Hotties The Hottest Eight Hotties On Instagram? (The Sword)
- As reported earlier this week, French medical authorities will this week tell 30,000 women who received defective breast implants to have them removed after several suspcious cases of cancer. Now the BBC reports there is no risk. What a mess. Breast implants ‘have no cancer link’ says UK watchdog (BBC News)
- Yes, those are real boobs of a real woman sticking out of the (glory) holes of the Association’s breast cancer awareness poster (“Touch to know if it’s real”). It was erected during Mozambique’s Fashion Week. Breast cancer awareness poster with real breasts (Copyranter)
- At the moment, it appears Leo Laporte made a simple technological mistake that turned out to have much larger ramifications than its blink-of-an-eye duration would suggest. Prospective investors and business partners, on the other hand, won’t take comfort in the hedonistic pleasures Laporte indulges with the business executive who was supposed to bring discipline and financial growth to his company. How the Voice of Tech Leaked His Own Sex Chat (Gawker, main post image via)
Let me interrupt this edition of Sex News to explain why I think the downfall of tech personality Leo Laporte is well worth noting.
For whatever his reasons, Mr. Laporte has seen fit to characterize me as a ‘whore’ since the early days of his podcast (TWiT #16; TWiT #86). More succinctly, he has suggested I am a sex worker in at least two episodes of his technology podcast. And no, I don’t think anyone believes he was actually “confused” on any occasion. When he most famously did it to me in 2007, he went way too far and there was an angry backlash that sparked wider discussion about sexism in technology. The public condemnation compelled him to issue an apology – but not to me. He apologized indirectly, to one of my editors. Classy.
Let me be clear. I have never done sex work, nor have I ever performed in pornography. I am a woman that writes about sex; author, an online columnist, and a sex educator. I have no idea why this guy has behaved so repugnantly toward me, or why guys like him think it’s okay to do this to women in technology – or the wider world.
So when I read today that Mr. Laporte accidentally leaked his own illicit sex chats on his video podcast, revealing his extramarital affair with his female boss, I had to pause and observe the hypocrisy. Of a man that would devalue a woman who writes about sex, devalue sex workers as if their job made them discount for anything else – and then be a someone that isn’t what he represents in the very area of life that he harshly judges and discounts women for.
Because, you see, I really think that guys like him, guys that attempt to insult, humiliate and degrade women over sexuality are exactly the kind of guys you think they are in real life, in their own lives. Dirtbags.
Paul, It sounds like you have a lot invested in Leo being heroic. Actually, I can speak from experience, Leo’s a skank and had been lying about his affair to everyone. Funny what money will do to shut people up, though. He was not separated legally, socially, or otherwise from his wife when the sex chats appeared. The “not much of a surprise” to a high schooler is like saying Madoff’s grandkids aren’t surprised he’s in prison so it doesn’t hurt so much. Of course this is hard on his kid. And the worst part? The deception for years.
As for you, the charade of a life you are having pretending that you are married, but not married to your kids and everyone stinks on ice. How big of you to make it easier on yourself by being a pussy when it comes to being real and honest with your kids. There is a lot more damage by keeping a nebulous, deceptive situation going on than just coming out and divorcing. They know some shit is going on and are mind-fucking themselves to figure out your lies and wanting to believe dad vs the truth. How fucking kind of you.
The dance of calling her your wife, because she is, what is that? Kids learn from what you do as well as what you say and they compare notes with the kids at school. They know you as being deceptive. Because, using your words about “wife”, that is what you are. A liar to your kids.
Nah you’re all blowing this out of proportion. If you read the leaked chat again, you’ll see the poor girl obviously has a yeast problem and simply misunderstood her doctors advice when he told her to apply a douche to the area.
Wow, Bering really went out on a limb with that “young girls” post! I can just imagine if that had been on the radar of certain people in the blogosphere, the mob would have been out with pitchforks and torches.
Aurora Snow: Great article and well said, as I always expect from her. I’ve long been a fan. I actually have one of her very first videos, on VHS from an obscure “amateur” video company called Promotions Company. Soon she got into super-hardcore stuff that I wasn’t into, and I lost track of her. Years later, she turned up through her excellent writing and reporting on things like the Stagliano trial. I’m really glad things have gone so well for her. She could have easily been poster child for “innocent girl gets into porn, gets sucked into the extreme stuff, and gets chewed up and spit out” trope. Glad to see things didn’t go that way at all.
George: Irrespective of Leo’s poor treatment of Violet your arguments don’t prove he did anything wrong or is lying.
I’ve been amicably separated from my wife for well over a year, have children in elementary school and my girlfriend just moved into my house. My wife and I have not officially filed for divorce yet and I still do refer to her as my wife because she still is. As for his son in secondary school I doubt this is much of a surprise to a healthy teenager.
As for the women, there’s is absolutely no evidence that Gawker or anyone else has even asked them their side or that Leo is somehow muzzling them. They’re not public figures and may not care to be.
Is this Leo’s downfall? Doubtful and even more surprising that people on this blog would think so. He separated from his wife and is now in another relationship. That that relationship appears to include sex chats is pretty normal. It’s only his ‘downfall’ if you subscribe the puritanical anti-sex bias of the mainstream media but I was surprised to see that attitude here.
Actually, Jim, a dude whose immediate response to his sex chat being publicized is to tell everyone “for shame” shows what a selfish bastard he is. Jim, the guy has kids in secondary school. In all the spinning going on about this being no big deal, only selfish bastards don’t mention the kids. As an officer, a CEO of Leo’s company (which I don’t understand how if you own a company, you work for the CEO instead of the other way around, Kathy should respond to this in public. If a guy from MSNBC or CNET posted their personal sex chat, you better believe executives would have to answer questions about it.
He was not separated from his wife for a year, and the news that he was a free, single man is news to anyone that has been around him in public conferences where he mentioned his “wife” liberally. He was wearing his wedding band on his show into September 2011, so when he says he is a single man, as he did on Twitter this week, that shows what a liar he is. He has not filed for divorce, yet on twitter he calls himself single.
He posted support on his Google+ account in July for the idea that infidelity strengthens marriages. He is still married. If the relationship is all okay and everything, gee, the women can confirm this, but I suspect he is such a controlling douche, he will always have to have control of the message. He strikes me as an abusive jerk.
If all of these relationships are on the up and up, gee, why having we heard what the women in his life have to say instead of him being a control freak about spinning the message? Are they not allowed to speak? I’d have a question to the ladies about whether they signed something to prohibit their comments, though.
Leo was outted in the public. This was not an attempt at “gotcha” when he posted it in his own video. Leo puts himself out there as an adviser on technology and he allowed the technology to to “gotcha” himself. So that makes it a story in itself. Like a lot of jerks, when caught, all he talks about is himself. If he really loves women, and the women were really empowered, they’d speak for themselves and write their own blog entries.
RT @leolaporte: New post on LOL: Shame on me? Shame on you! http://leoville.com/shame-on-me-shame-on-gawker
“I’m at the airport flying back from a lovely Christmas with the family in (bandwidth-challenged) western Massachusetts. Unfortunately, my email is overflowing with questions about the sleazebag article published by Gawker a few days ago. I’ve answered as many as I can, but just in case I missed you, here’s the response I’ve been sending out…”
Have to disagree with the ‘5 reasons not to have sex during the holidays’ article.
It almost sounds like it is purposefully trying to discourage holiday nookie!
Well, I like this article much better than the ‘Tango’ article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-di-donato/holiday-sex-christmas-guide_b_1168445.html
And in answer to the ‘Tango’, article — for goodness sake(!) simply keep your birth-control handy/up-to-date, and enjoy the right person/people :-) And, as the Huffington article says, “be a giver”, “ask and ye shall receive”, and “count your body blessings”.
Wishing you a very happy and relaxed Christmas-time, Violet.
Plus, here’s to a 2012 where all our very best dreams come true.
xoxox
I like most of the TWiT Network shows (that I have time to listen to), but I’m sure I’m not the only person to be glad to have Tom Merritt (and now Iyaz Aktar) replacing Leo more and more during the year. Sadly, Leo is increasingly showing his limitations as a tech pundit – I find myself frequently facepalming at his oversimplification (and occasional outright misunderstanding, in the case most stories from outside the USA), and his desire to have the last word. Even on audio only, I could practically see Leo’s face going red with rage whilst losing the argument to Nilay Patel over how to deal with the threat of SOPA on last week’s TWiT show.
I read the account of LaPorte on Gawker today. The guy is all about himself. These sorts of people confuse being sex positive with being jerk positive. I’m surprised at the people coming out in support of him. Annalee Newitz commented:
“Awwww, it’s a cute, romantic exchange. And at least he’s fooling around with a woman who is his own age, and his equal professionally. All you monogamy fetishists need to chill out.”
Like, if it were with a “ho” it would be inexcusable, but it’s okay since she went to college and all and he hired to be his boss (what is that about? how can you hire someone to be your boss? she will go down, pardon the pun, before him. was it a ploy to avoid sexual harassment charges to put her as a “boss” of him?). When someone starts a sentence with “at least,” man, watch out. Lisa Kentzell never worked in media or radio, was a bookkeeper, never in management, then “hand picked” to be CEO of LaPorte’s 8 million dollar media enterprises. More power to the rapid rise, be let’s be honest here about what being “his boss” really means here. She is not his equal in power or experience, nor as old as him, as Annalee sez to make it an “at least” situation. What a woman does for a living doesn’t put her in a higher caste where it’s sort of cool to see a jerk “fooling around.” Want an honest relationship or more than one? Have them. And by definition it takes the fool out of it.
It looks like the wisdom of Ashton K. to come out and defend him at this point. He is still married and has two kids that will hear about this. And he doesn’t seem to be the type to have an open relationship where the women in his life are allowed to have the freedom he takes. After all, that would be a level of honesty that doesn’t exist in his life.
I’m in technology and LaPorte is kind of a douche in the community, truth be told. He fancies himself as the Rush of technology, which I guess if he aimed for being a bloated jerk, he reached it. He presents himself as one of the geeks in technology. He has never worked in technology and was never one of the average geeky guys at work who happened to made good in media as he likes his audience to think. He was a failed radio guy who found a green field in tech reporting. He says he’s a Yale guy in conversation frequently. He dropped out from Yale, never graduated there. He puts it across that he is a devoted family man with a wife to his audience. Not true either. I bet his staff, no pun intended, could explode a few myths with honesty.
i have a crush on aurora snow* since i discovered just after i graduated college (so 03), at first it was typical carnal lust.
then i found her on twitter.
as we have both ages she has become more and more beautiful in not only body but also in mind. She is a highly intelligent woman and I support her in this statement.
Should i mess up in life and have kids, I would have NO problem with a former porn star male or female reading to my children.
There is nothing immoral about what they do in my eyes. People have sex. That is how almost all of us have come to be on this planet. Sex is fun.
Most of us have had or will have sex sometime in our lifetimes.
I would be more hesitant to allow priests, or politicians near my children.
*as much as one can crush on a person they have (nor probably) will ever meet in personl without being mentally ill or a stalker.