Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week

“Since the 1970s, the hills above Hollywood have played host to a booming pornography industry. A majority of American sex films are shot there in warehouses and private homes — helping the San Fernando Valley rake in $4 billion in annual sales in its ’90s heyday. How did an out-of-the-way desert suburb become the porn capital of the world? Location, location, location.”
How LA’s ‘Porn Valley’ became the adult entertainment capital of the world (Tech Insider)

“Allen, who is Canada research chair in queer theory and assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at Brandon University, is a serious scholar, someone who feels passionately that all too often, in literary criticism and contemporary life, the anus gets a bum rap. Is he right?”
Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus review – getting to the bottom of ‘anal theory’ (Guardian)

“A new study led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst sociologist finds that sexually active teenage girls who took a pledge of abstinence were at a higher risk of contracting human papillomavirus (HPV) and having non-marital pregnancies than those who did not take such a pledge.”
Sociologist Finds Abstinence ‘Pledgers’ Have Higher Risk of HPV, Non-Marital Pregnancies (UMass Amherst)

“Lisa (a pseudonym), 34, has been with her husband for half of her life, and says being polyamorous has strengthened her marriage. Their relationship has been almost entirely open, albeit with differing rules and structures as they’ve figured out the type of setup that works for them. Currently she has four additional partners; two of those relationships are ones she shares with her husband.”
I’m in a Relationship With Four People. Just One Is My Husband. (ELLE)

“When you say it as baldly as that it appears an even worse idea than at first glance. For police to use intrusive surveillance, to observe the payment being made, they will need to know who to target. That means that, even thought they are not committing a criminal offence, sex workers will have to be on police intelligence databases. How will those databases be compiled?”
Enforcing asymmetric criminalization (Sometimes It’s Just A Cigar)

“Of course, the most paradoxical thing about Samuel Delany is that he’s done some of his deepest thinking within the genre conventions of science fiction, a genre not known, when he published his first novel (The Jewels of Aptor, in 1962), for its hospitality to black men, let alone gay ones. Undaunted, he pushed the envelope of speculative fiction and fantasy, improvising on the identity politics of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and class in sprawling, richly imagined novels that are as sensual as they are philosophical.”
Sci-Fi Hero Samuel Delany’s Outsider Art (Daily Beast)

“We’re generally handed about 20 sheets of paper, a big contract that says, ‘Here’s payment info. Here’s what you’re doing. Do you consent to this?’ many times,” porn performer Mercedes Carrera told an audience gathered for a recent panel discussion called “Consent in Porn: Debunking Myths & Managing Realities” held in Los Angeles. “People try to interlay their personal understanding…of what they think consent is, with this very cut and dry legal understanding of consent.”
What Does Consent on a Porn Set Look Like? (Broadly/Vice)

“According to data provided by Uber to BuzzFeed News, the company received five claims of rape, and “fewer than” 170 claims of sexual assault directly related to an Uber ride as inbound tickets to its customer service database between December 2012 and August 2015. Uber provided these numbers as a rebuttal to screenshots obtained by BuzzFeed News. ”
Internal Data Offers Glimpse At Uber Sex Assault Complaints (Buzzfeed)

“The onset of dementia does not have to signal the end of a healthy sex life. All relationships experience change over time. … Some people find that when they – or their partner – are diagnosed with dementia, this raises some questions about puzzling changes in their sex lives…”
Alzheimer’s and Sex/Intimate Relationships (Dementia Today)

“It’s no surprise to anyone to hear that there is a lot of porn on the Web. OK, perhaps not as much as some studies make out, but there’s still plenty of naked bodies out there if you want to find them. Behind those most popular sites are tough to track corporations – and behind most of them is just one. Here are the companies and people behind some of the most biggest porn sites in the world.”
The (almost) invisible men and women behind the world’s largest porn sites (TNW)

“(…) But the manner in which OneTaste has commercialized the clitoris massage rubs some people the wrong way. It’s not the product — it’s the marketing. Throw in the motivational speeches, expensive retreats, and the focus on the charismatic personality of Daedone, and accusations of “cult” inevitably appear. …”
Is Orgasmic Meditation a Cult? (Daily Beast)

“This morning, Kesha fans took to the streets to protest Sony’s apparent inability to free Kesha Sebert (known to fans as Kesha or Ke$ha) from a contract which binds her to her producer and alleged abuser, Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald.”
We Asked An Actual Entertainment Lawyer: Why Can’t Sony Help Kesha? (Autostraddle)