“What makes an image NSFW, according to Yahoo? I explore this question with a clever new visualization technique by Nguyen et al.. Like Google’s Deep Dream, this visualization trick works by maximally activating certain neurons of the classifier.”
* Image Synthesis from Yahoo’s open_nsfw (open_nsfw.gitlab.io)
“…unfettered access to all things smutty, dirty and questionably filthy has created a surge in censorship tools that, in theory, use algorithms and advanced artificial intelligence programs to identify porn and weed it out. Last year, Twitter acquired Madbits, a small AI startup that, according to a Wired report, created a program that accurately identifies NSFW content 99 percent of time and alerts users to its presence. Late last month, Yahoo open-sourced its own deep learning AI porn filter and there are no doubt similar projects underway at other internet companies.”
* Artificial intelligence won’t save the internet from porn (Engadget)
“The fact that I’m a sex worker I feel has a significant effect on how I do poly because, before anything, my prospective partner needs to at least have some concept of poly so that they don’t consider my job as being unfaithful. I would not stop doing sex work for any partner, because it is something I enjoy doing and I don’t understand the need for jealousy towards my clients. It would be like if I worked at a restaurant and my partner was jealous of the customers who I served food to.”
* Poly Pocket: Question Everything (Autostraddle)
“In the past, my depression made it hard to connect sexually with my partner—even before I started taking medication. I often didn’t feel worthy of his attention, and though I knew he loved me, it was hard to be as vulnerable as I needed to be for us to have sex. We’d often try, only to end up with my feeling even less attractive than before we started.”
* Depression Messed With My Sex Life, and Here’s Exactly What I Did About It (Greatist)
“There was more to Lady Chatterley to offend the censors than its four letter words and graphic lovemaking. The book, our self-appointed guardians felt, was written in a manner that was relatively easy to read. It was approachable. And they feared, rather than hoped, that it might be read by millions. They shuddered to think of all those lewd thoughts infecting the receptive souls of so many Americans, especially those impoverished by small incomes and miserable education.”
* The Publishing Gamble That Changed America (Lithub)
“What a cat I put among the pigeons last week by suggesting, in answer to a question about pornography at a literary festival, that it should be considered suitable for pupils to watch and analyse this material in schools. I was accused, on social media of course, of being a danger to innocent children, and, yes, I received my first online death threat.”
* Porn in the classroom? Here’s why it makes sense (Guardian UK)
“Adult film actress Jessica Drake on Saturday accused Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump or someone acting on his behalf of offering her $10,000 and the use of his private jet if she would agree to come alone to his hotel suite at night after a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006.”
* Adult film actress accuses Trump of offering $10,000 to come alone to hotel suite (Washington Post)
“Inside, the Snctm Masquerade is peaking. Music swirls, laughter rises, bodies couple and writhe. Like a bar at last call, anonymous eyes search the crowd, looking to couple up. In the living room, surrounded by guests on sofas and chairs, Bunnyman is at work on a somewhat established actress, her arms and legs akimbo, the knots and coils of rope at once strong and delicate, like macramé.”
* The Last Hour Inside the Masquerade Party at Snctm Sex Club (Esquire)
Main post image via Sticks and Stones Mothership.
