Sex News: America’s sex panic ramps up, that Porn Wikileaks story, bankings war on sex worsens, a smart way to write about PornHub

• We are not in the 1950s and this should not be happening. “Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a Canadian gynecologist who also contributes to the New York Times, wrote on Twitter Tuesday that her publishers had been blocked from using the word “vagina” in promotional tweets for her new book, The Vagina Bible.”
  * Twitter under fire for removing the word ‘vagina’ from ads for gynecology book (CNN)

• I can’t agree more: the attacks and misinformation of anti-porn wingnuts is pure anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ Trumpism. “It might actually be the anti-porn activists who hate women.”
  * Misogyny in Porn: It’s Not What You Think (Psychology Today)

• I love this angle of reporting on PornHub, and all outlets covering them should take note. “To me, the fact that a morally dubious pornography empire, associated with exploiting porn performers and facilitating piracy as well as developing the technology used as part of the UK’s questionable porn block law, is prepared to acknowledge the current state of the environment indicates that it has more gall than many of the world’s governments.”
  * Opinion: Pornhub wants to save the world from plastics. But all is not what it seems (Independent)

• I saw a lot of people cheering for this (alleged) move by Bang Bros., but I urge you to read performer Sinnamon Love’s Twitter thread about it below. Wikipedia is just as culpable, and I experience this personally. “Adult film production company Bang Bros announced on Thursday that it bought PornWikiLeaks.com—a website devoted to doxing and harassing porn performers—with the intent to shut it down forever … and included a link to a video of someone pouring flammable fluid onto a pile of hard drives and lighting it on fire.”
  * Bang Bros Bought a Huge Porn Doxing Forum and Set Fire to It (Vice)

• Incredible resource by and for the adult industry that should be duplicated in many industries. “Pineapple Support is sponsoring a free, eight-week course in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help adult industry workers develop coping skills for anxiety, stress and depression. The online course begins October 1, with a new two-hour group session happening each week.”
  * Pineapple Support Sponsors Free 8-Week Therapy Course (XBIZ)

• Been seeing this in my timeline and replies, too. Glad it has been identified as the attack it is, rather than lumped into a reason to increase sex censorship. “Disinformation networks linked to the Chinese government have weaponized porn-related bots, aka ‘pornbots,’ in their campaign against the current protests in Hong Kong, according to an analysis of Twitter data by the International Cyber Police Centre (ICPC) of the Australian Strategic Policy Insititute (ASPI).”
  * Report: China Weaponizes ‘Pornbots’ to Spread Disinformation in Hong Kong (XBIZ)
  See also: Porn bots are now storming Twitter’s trending topics (Engadget)

• Terrific essay, bookmark it for reference when the Sheryl Sandbergs of the world say they’re feminists while pushing anti-sex work legislation. “This attack on women’s bodily freedoms is deeply worrying – particularly when women themselves are participating as opposed to resisting. Women’s freedom is central to making our societies more prosperous, more equal and more environmentally sustainable. Any attempt to undermine that freedom, no matter how well-intentioned, will make for a poorer and more unequal world.”
  * The real sexism problem in the discipline of economics (Aeon Magazine)

• What is it called when the cops kill their best informant? “… the government knew all along that Backpage was one of its best partners in stopping sex trafficking. Some new documents have come out as part of the ongoing lawsuit against Backpage and its founders by the feds that kind of undermine the entire narrative about Backpage.”
  * New Government Documents Reveal That Backpage Was Actively Helping Law Enforcement Track Down Traffickers (Techdirt)

• This YA author was invited then ejected for the crime of merely having authored lesbian erotica. “Watts was surprised to learn that she had suddenly been uninvited from the festival, and her name removed from its website. The reason? Allegedly, one of the adult festival coordinators was fearful that her adult lesbian erotica fiction was not suitable for teens. Of course, she was not planning–at all–to address or read from any of her adult books at a teen literary festival.”
  * 3RP author Julia Watts banned from Knoxville Teen Lit Festival – Three Rooms Press (Three Rooms Press)

• Banking’s war on sex is getting worse. “If this continues, it will disproportionately impact small sex-focused businesses, which lack the cashflow to withstand such financial setbacks, further marginalize sex workers, and decrease access to positive information about sexual health … these incidents have ramped up dramatically since March 21, 2018, when the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) passed in the Senate.”
  * Banks Are Waging A Secret War Against The Adult Industry (Vice)

• A new one by me, in which I wouldn’t let Apple talk off the record. “I started to hear warnings from adult-industry professionals that Apple Card’s privacy assurances were not to be trusted. It’s a good question: With Apple’s aggressively conservative stance on sex in the past, will it behave like banking’s war on sex and close out entire classes of “edgy” businesses, like the adult industry, marijuana-related companies and cryptocurrency?”
  * That Apple Card may not be as private as you think (Engadget)

• We’re putting up a big “send help” sign over here in the US. “We as a society can agree that the most effective policies are based on reliable data and rational debate. Moral panic on the right and purity politics on the left interfere with our right to sexual safety, pleasure and free expression by encouraging political in-fighting and self-censorship. Both threaten to replace the exchange of facts and civil examination of controversial ideas.”
  * America Is In a Sex Panic (Playboy)

Main post image: painting by Louis Braquet, showing now at Galerie Vinsantos/Funeral Gallery (New Orleans).