Sunday Sex Reads: Best of the Week

“People are taking to the internet to find Pokémon Go sex partners. And we’re not talking about a kinky minority, here—there are so many hookup ads related to the game that ‘Pokémon Go and Blow’ might just usurp Netflix and Chill, or at least become this year’s leading lazy sex pun.”
* Close Encounters of the Casual Kind: A Pokémon Go sex craze is sweeping the internet (Daily Dot)

“On Microsoft’s website for its HoloLens apps — applications available for its augmented reality headset — it depicts men and women using the hardware in very different ways. …”
* Microsoft’s HoloLens Site Reinforces Every Gendered Stereotype in Tech (Mic)

“[In prison] If you have a [girlie] magazine in its entirety, it can be hawked to other inmates for upwards of $200, depending on what condition it’s in. The owners then make copies and resell them in black-and-white for $20 a pop. Copies (e.g. copies of copies) of spreads or certain pin-ups are then sold for a stamp a page, and prisoners often trade when they get bored of “their girls.””
* How Prison Inmates Get Porn (VICE Canada)

“Three days later, a link to the experiment was posted on 2ch (“Dvach,” a Russian anonymous forum). The users created a thread titled “Looking for Sluts Who Acted in Porn or Worked the Streets,” and coordinated a cyberbullying campaign. 2ch users encouraged each other to write to the husbands and friends of supposed porn actresses whose profiles were identified on Vkontakte using FindFace. [FindFace Founder Maxim] Perlin often uses the Russian equivalent for “cool”: “identifying porn actresses is fun and kind of cool”; “it’s cool to do something good on a global level”; ”
* The end of privacy: ‘Meduza’ takes a hard look at FindFace and the looming prospect of total surveillance (Meduza)

“Launched in August 2015, Ohlala is a web-based app that facilitates what it calls “instant paid dating.” Male users post offers for dates, consisting of a time, a duration, and how much money they’re willing to pay — a typical offer is from 1–4 hours at an average price of $300. While the request is up, women can decide whether or not they’d like that person to be able to contact them. Crucially, women are not visible to men before they initiate conversation — it’s the inverse of the backpage listings to which it’s often compared. ”
* A new app lets women charge for a night out. Will dating join the on-demand economy? (Verge)

“… Pearson made headlines when he authored a report for Bondara, an adult product retailer, saying that artificial intelligence-equipped robots could “offer a customisable personality with only the emotional baggage you want” and thereby be “perfect for those people who want to live their ultimate fantasy without all the strings and emotional commitments of real relationships.” Which would seem to be exactly what Professor Sharkey is frightened of. …”
* People May Lose Their Virginity to Robots in the Future (Future of Sex)

“A woman with an enormous, warped vagina stands over you, attempting to situate a pair of naked coeds just so on an overstuffed sectional. Their faces distort and sporadically disappear as they pleasure each other and themselves. Their movements are sometimes smooth, sometimes staccato, like a couple of gyrating marionettes on Ecstasy. They moan with pleasure and talk dirty to no one in particular, but their mouths don’t move.”
* One frightening live sex show and the state of 360 video (Engadget)

“When Audrey Davison met someone special at her nursing home, she wanted to love her man. Her nurses and aides at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale did not try to stop her. On the contrary, she was allowed to stay over in her boyfriend’s room with the door shut under the Bronx home’s stated “sexual expression policy.” One aide even made the couple a “Do Not Disturb” sign to hang outside.”
* Too Old for Sex? Not at This Nursing Home (NYT)

“… By now, the attentive reader is starting to itch. You have to visit the original article to find out where Carr is sourcing his ideas. One source is CovenantEyes.com, a private company that sells Internet use-monitoring software, ostensibly so parents know what their kids are doing online. Another source Carr cites is Jill Manning, a Colorado family and marriage therapist who once worked at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC. The Heritage Foundation has a well-worn reputation as a conservative think tank.”
* Tone-Deaf Column Argues That Internet Porn Destroys Marriages (Ask Men)

“A Republican National Convention platform committee has declared pornography “a public health crisis.” Committee members don’t seem to know what “public health” means. … Pornography may be an even more ridiculous extension of the “public health” claim. The GOP platform draft says, “Pornography, with his harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions.” But it offers no evidence. … But in a 2009 review of the literature, psychologists Christopher Ferguson and Richard Hartley concluded: “it is time to discard the hypothesis that pornography contributes to increased sexual assault behavior.”
* Porn is not a ‘public health crisis’ (The Hill)
* See also: GOP Is Adding ‘Porn Addiction’ to Its Platform, But Does It Even Exist? (New York Magazine)

Main post photo by my photo hero Helmut Newton, from HELMUT NEWTON EXHIBIT IN VENICE, ITALY (Treats! Magazine), which I would die to see in person.