- Instagram recently banned the single, evocative word “curvy” in hashtag form because it violated its policies. The issue with “curvy,” Instagram said, isn’t what it represents — often body-positive images of voluptuous figures in various states of dress and undress — but how it was being used. Instagram’s efforts, while admirable, often come across tone deaf and demonize innocuous images of female bodies.
Why Did Instagram Ban ‘Curvy’? (ThinkProgress)
- Adult star Jiz Lee has announced a September release for Coming Out Like a Porn Star, a new book that contains personal stories from more than 50 porn professionals who “came out” — or chose not to — to family, friends, and lovers.
Q&A: Jiz Lee Talks First Book (XBIZ)
- Since 2013, MSNBC has aired a show, Sex Slaves In America, which claims to be a documentary series but actually exploits those who work in the sex trade. Sex Slaves In America misleads the public by conflating those who voluntarily choose to perform sex work with those who are victims of human trafficking.
Petition: Tell MSNBC To Cancel Show Exploiting Sex Workers! (The Petition Site)
- You already know that a penis has arteries to bring blood to its erectile tissues, and veins that take the blood away again when it returns to its normal flaccid state. You may not know that there’s another set of vessels tucked under its skin.
Here’s an Anatomical Structure We’ve Never Seen in the Penis Before (Gizmodo)
- In a key victory for adult businesses, a New York state appeals court in Manhattan today affirmed a previous ruling that held unconstitutional amendments made 14 years ago to New York City’s adult-use zoning regulation for strip clubs and adult video and book stores.
Ruling Is Big Win for N.Y. Adult Businesses (XBIZ)
- Porn sites are quick to paste whatever racial label on Janice Griffith they find marketable. “I’m Latina, Dominican, half-black, half-Chinese—it depends on what website you look at,” she says. It’s a common practice in the porn biz. But while some adult performers don’t chafe under their racial categories, Griffith does. “I’ve been very outspoken against it,” Griffith says about websites assigning racial categories to her. “My fans will joke, ‘She’s not Latina, guys.’ I don’t support the fetishization of ethnicities.”
Adult star Janice Griffith reveals the racist secrets of porn marketing (Fusion)
This isn't a picture of Time's 'perfect body' from 1955; it's adult film star Aria Giovanni: http://t.co/6QcYlbK7Y1 pic.twitter.com/G9rA7jumbf
— snopes.com (@snopes) July 21, 2015
- A member of the French Parliament last week asked the government to introduce a measure countrywide that would automatically block porn sites unless users opt-in and manually enter an “access code.”
French MP Demands Filtering for Online Porn (XBIZ)
- Hackers threatened to leak details including the credit card information, nude photos and sexual fantasies of as many as 37 million customers of no-strings-attached dating website Ashley Madison (known for marketing itself as an infidelity hookup site).
Hackers threaten to leak data of 37 million Ashley Madison users (Reuters)
- On Sunday, a group calling themselves Impact Team leaked documents and other data taken from Avid Life Media, the company behind the adult playgrounds of Ashley Madison, Cougar Life, Established Men, and others. The documents are a hodgepodge of details, ranging from IT infrastructure, sales and marketing data, customer records, and more.
Ashley Madison hack exposes IT details and customer records (CSOnline)
Has anyone already said that Ashley Madison hack is likely to be the work of North Korea ? :) pic.twitter.com/FRl4ipxJoH
— codelancer (@codelancer) July 21, 2015
- The U.K. government sees value in the development of an industry-sponsored route for age verification and the adult business should rally behind the Digital Policy Alliance and British Standards Institution in support of this, according to Chris Ratcliff, managing director of Portland Broadcasting Ltd., which offers pay-per-view and subscription TV services.
Ratcliff on Age-Verification Debate at Parliament (XBIZ)
- Why do people of all genders eke so much pleasure out of a little bit of vibration? “We don’t know,” Kinsey Institute’s Research Scientist Debra Herbenick said, explaining that it’s a concept we’re still trying to understand. “Ultimately, why, for example, do both men and women tend to orgasm more quickly and easily at frequencies that we don’t normally produce ourselves as humans? Why wouldn’t the optimal frequency be something that’s more common to humans, that we produce on our own?” she added.
Here’s the Science Behind Why Your Vibrator Feels So Good (Mic)
- Porn stars handle monogamy differently than most. Even though going to work means having sex with various partners, porn stars in committed relationships often consider those monogamous. Work stress might be a common hurdle for couples, but when your work is sex the relationship becomes an emotional minefield.
Can Porn Stars Stay Faithful? (Daily Beast)
- Porn actors rarely discuss pay. When they do, figures are whispered “furtively or in private” and are often “wildly inaccurate”.
Porn star answer to the dirty business of talking pay (Telegraph UK)
- “In 99% of the Terms & Conditions out there, sex, nudity and adult content is equated with sinful acts including violence, slander and hate speech. (…) How can sex and sexual expression possibly be put on the same level as an act as hateful as terrorism? These companies completely fail to address the difference between sex and eroticism and crime.”
SEX = DEVIL: Reading the small print (Erika Lust)
