National Porn Sunday is run by the oddly-named XXX Church, whose website states,

Porn Sunday seeks to drive the conversation about pornography into our churches, families and lives. This weekend service brings healing to those sitting in churches who are caught up in pornography.

For Leon, it brings easy targets. When a "large, highly repressed woman with glasses in matching tweed suit jacket and skirt" points him to her husband's "testimony" about losing interest in her due to porn, Leon reflects, "How surprising. Who would have thought that her husband would become sexually disinterested in this piece of work?" And here's how he says he chatted with "a large, smiley manly man:"

"Today's sermon was, how do I say it, powerful!" I exclaim. "I could tell you firsthand how porn has affected my life.

"Has it been something you've been struggling with," the manly man asks, making creepy eye-contact that shifts as I explain my faux porn addiction.

"Yes," I say, licking my dry lips, explaining that I was addicted to gay porn, most specifically photos of men in the outdoors doing very compromising things. His creepy eye-contact becomes stronger. I wave his brochure. "Yeah, I'll have to check out this Men's Prayer retreat. (Pause.) We'll be camping, right?"

Is that you, Bruno? But mock-the-Christians free-for-all aside, Porn Sunday does appear to have taught Leon some disturbing things about XXX Church's anti-porn crusade. In Dirty Little Secret (above), a video shown at the event, a guilty husband confesses, "If I have to be brutally honest, it's not just naked women I look at" — implying that looking at straight porn either leads you to homosexuality (horrors!) osr possibly, as Leon guesses, "Brazilian monkey porn." And the pastor "tells of an email he claims to have received from a 12-year-old girl who's struggling against porn. It was written while crying with alcohol and a bottle of sleeping pills in front of her, because Satan now gives her nightmares." This 12-year-old, if she exists, deserves to be told that her sexual desires are normal, not that "Satan is pimpin' this generation" and trying to make her "his ho" (apparently "hip-hop language" is another tool of XXX Church). I'm not sure that we needed an "infiltrator" to tell us that fundamentalist anti-porn programs are ignorant, sex-negative, and creepy. Still, maybe we should all watch a little porn this Sunday in protest — after all, Satan has to get his money somehow.

Porn Sunday, The XXX Church, And You! [True/Slant]

Researcher Simon Louis Lajeunesse studied twenty male college students, and found that "not one subject had a pathological sexuality. In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional." Furthermore, as we mentioned yesterday, he says,

Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship which they all want as harmonious and fulfilling as possible. Those who could not live out their fantasy in real life with their partner simply set aside the fantasy. The fantasy is broken in the real world and men don't want their partner to look like a porn star.

And finally:

Aggressors don't need pornography to be violent [...] If pornography had the impact that many claim it has, you would just have to show heterosexual films to a homosexual to change his sexual orientation.

All of Lajeunesse's subjects said they supported gender equality — which must mean they totally do! In all seriousness, it's hard to tell exactly what Lajeunesse's methodology was. But since it's unlikely that he either read the students' minds or watched them have sex, it seems like he probably just asked them how they thought about sex, relationships, and women. Their responses, while not entirely worthless, were almost certainly colored by what they thought they were supposed to say — which is that they respect women and don't expect them to look or fuck like porn stars. The students even said they "felt victimized by rhetoric demonizing pornography," which would make them extra likely to claim that porn was harmless.

Which maybe it is. But I have a hard time believing that representations of sex that boys start seeing when they're about 10 and continue watching for somewhere between 20 minutes and several hours a week (according to the study) have absolutely no effect on their sexuality or their thoughts about their partners. Lajeunesse also seems to misunderstand feminist concerns about (mainstream, heterosexual) porn. I'm not worried that pornography will cause men to have "unconventional" sex (horrors!) or that it turns all men into violent "aggressors." I just think that it may affect how men see women's bodies and women's sexuality in ways that the men may not be willing to admit, and that these effects are worthy of study. And just talking to twenty guys isn't quite enough.

Are The Effects Of Pornography Negligible? [EurekAlert]
Study Stymied By Lack Of Porn Newbies [UPI.com]

Earlier: Researcher Refutes Demonization Of Pornography

• Her official photographer has posted many of the pictures on Palin's Facebook page, along with the credit "The Photo Opportunity is Provided By SarahPAC," so, if you want a shot of yourself wearing an Obama shirt next to Palin you'll have to contribute to her PAC. • Sarah Palin will give the keynote address at the International Bowl Expo 2010, the "premier international convention" of bowling in June. A rep said: "Regardless of your political affiliation, Ms. Palin is a force in American politics and culture. Her presence underscores the impact and importance of bowling, one of our country's leading national pastimes and a growing $10 billion industry." • Leroy Benros was charged with rape at a New York nightclub after his alleged victim texted her friends during the attack. After he forcibly kissed her, the woman texted her friend: "I'm being molested. Help." By the time two of her friends found her, police say she was partially naked under a coat with her eyes closed and her arms dangling. Her friends pulled her away and Benros was arrested. • Now that Maurice Clemmons, the ex-convict suspected of killing four police officers, is dead, authorities are focusing on the people who may have helped him escape and stay on the lam for two days. Prosecutors are expected to charge alleged getaway driver Darcus D. Allen today. Clemmons' aunt and another woman have been arrested and are expected to be charged for giving him first aid and helping him escape. Police are still investigating a handful of other suspects. "Some are friends, some are acquaintances, some are partners in crime, some are relatives. Now they're all partners in crime," said a police spokesman. • Cocaine abuse is on the rise among young English women. Among women ages 18 to 25, the number of women who needed treatment for cocaine abuse in England. jumped 80 percent in the past four years from 329 to 592. Experts point to a growing "ladette" culture, which is also blamed for increasing alcohol abuse among young women. • In a new British study, researchers say they have discovered how and where androgenic hormones work in the testis to control normal sperm production and male fertility, which may allow for the development of a male birth control pill. "This study provides a new opportunity to identify how androgens control sperm production, which could provide new insight for the development of new treatments for male infertility and perhaps new male contraceptives," said Michelle Welsh, Ph.D., co-author of the study. • An increasing number of British women are hiring doulas to help them give birth, but anesthetist Dr. Abhijoy Chaklader questioned their role in the British Medical Journal. He wrote the trend toward hiring doulas, who have no medical training, may "be a sad reflection of failures in the delivery of medical and midwifery care, a sticking plaster concealing greater problems... a cynic might ask whether the doula business is actually necessary or whether it is exploiting - for profit - unspoken fears about NHS perinatal care and the seemingly limitless market for birth related products and service." • Switzerland elected women to the nation's top three political positions today: president, speaker of parliament's lower house, and speaker of the upper house. Swiss women couldn't even vote in national elections until 1971. • A Dutch man was arrested for allegedly collecting information on more than 30 girls from social networking sites, then blackmailing their parents. He posed as a photographer and told the parents their daughters had performed sexual acts on camera, or suggested they had been raped by others, then said he'd upload the non-existent pornography online if they didn't pay him. • Family members say a New York hairdresser who disappeared last week after dropping her 6-year-old daughter off at school complained about a creepy man she kept encountering near the school. "She mentioned to us about this guy in the street she would see every day," said Jamaica Smith's niece. "He was real aggressive toward her, always saying, 'Hey, baby, you look so pretty.' ... We know for a fact she was abducted because she would never leave her daughter." There are rumors that some people saw her struggling with a man near her home, but police deny the story and say they don't think foul play was involved. • After General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson announced yesterday that he was stepping down, someone claiming to be his daughter Sarah Henderson posted on GM's Facebook page, "HE FUCKING GOT ASKED TO STEP DOWN ALL OF YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. I'M FRITZ'S FUCKING DAUGHTER, AND HE DID NOT FUCKING RESIGN. WHITACRE IS A SELFISH PIECE OF SHIFT [sic], WHO CARES ABOUT HIMSELF AND NOT THE FUCKING COMPANY. HAVE FUN WITH GM, I HOPE TO NEVER BUY FROM THIS GOD FORESAKEN [sic] COMPANY EVERY [sic] AGAIN. FUCK ALL OF YOU." It was later removed. • Adeline Bayne-Goody, a 56-year-old New York City subway driver, may lose her job over an incident in October in which she subdued a crazed man who threatened other passengers, spewed racial epithets, punched her and spit in her face. She held him down until the police arrived, but officials told her she committed "gross misconduct" and should be fired because she left her post. • Carmen Huertas, the woman accused of driving drunk in Manhattan, injuring six children who were in the car and killing one, has been trying to commit suicide in jail. "She's tried to place objects around her neck," said her lawyer. "She's confused and devastated, and understands the consequences of her actions." • Thirteen female ski jumpers have filed a request with Canada's Supreme Court to allow the sport in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The International Olympic Committee voted in 2006 not to include women's ski jumping in the 2010 Olympics because they say the sport is not developed enough. • The Japanese man who recently married his virtual girlfriend from the Nintendo DS game Love Plus has responded to media reports with a letter and some photos from his honeymoon. He writes: "Now that the ceremony is over, I feel like I've been able to achieve a major milestone in my life. Some people have expressed doubts about my actions, but at the end of the day, this is really just about us as husband and wife. As long as the two of us can go on to create a happy household, I'm sure any misgivings about us will be resolved." •

As some commenters pointed out, Grey's words in Newsweek, though unfairly slammed by Kathryn Jean Lopez, were actually kind of annoying. In response to the Mark Sanford scandal, she wrote,

Americans act so shocked when they hear about politicians, celebrities, and athletes having affairs, but I have to believe that many women who are married to men with power are aware of affairs, and accept it. Don't ask, don't tell; as long as they receive something in exchange from their husband-whether that exchange be children, money, material items, or sex. We create our own morals. It's once the affair goes public that morals change. The wife feels shame and humiliation because of public awareness, yet felt no desire to speak out prior. [...] Ideally, we should all openly have something extra on the side.

Commenter Old Jean Gallagher called this response "shockingly victim-blaming," which is pretty accurate. Grey criticizes political wives for making a public stink about their husbands' cheating, and sort of implies that they are all violating some previously agreed-upon quid pro quo. But while we may "create our own morals," when we're in relationships we need to agree on some of them, and it's unlikely that all wives of powerful men agree, even tacitly, to infidelity. As to her suggestion that we should all have something on the side, that's just as prescriptive as saying we should all be monogamous.

Grey seems much more thoughtful in her Dazed Digital interview with John-Paul Pryor. Pryor asks, "Do you think without prostitution and pornography there would be more instances of rape and so on? Or do you think that they actually allow for an arena where those kinds of abuses can take place?" The idea that porn and prostitutes act as a safety valve for men's natural desire to rape isn't new, but it is offensive — luckily, Grey handles it pretty well:

I think it depends. You have women on the street who are obviously being abused and they have pimps, I mean all you have to do is watch a few documentaries to see what that's like and how raw it is. That just perpetuates the negative stereotypes of prostitution, or pimping, or the johns. And then you have the women like Christine – they are like call girls, and they might not have a pimp; they are doing it on their own. I don't think that those necessarily perpetuate the abuse and the violence, but in the same vein, I don't think they help stop it at all. But the guys who are paying for the higher echelons don't beat the girls up – well, that's generally speaking from the research we did, maybe some politicians are going to go out there and beat some girls up, I don't know.

She makes the streetwalker-versus-call girl distinction that's been so much in the news lately, but she's careful to qualify it. She recognizes that just because she hasn't heard of violence against call girls doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Here's Grey on sex and communication:

Well, I just think it's 2009 and we're still so afraid to talk about sex. I think ignorance breeds fear and vice versa and the less you know the more negative things can happen, such as teenage pregnancy or the skyrocketing rate of STDs in young adults. It is about sexual freedom but it's about more than that, it's about communication and talking and learning. I think people are so afraid to do that; people are afraid of the truth – we'd rather hide inside a bubble.

And on acting:

I think the technical aspects and the people and the crews are all very similar but as far as performances go, I really hate it when people say, ‘Oh this is reality porn!" No. Because any time you put a camera in front of anybody, even if they have never been in front of a camera, they are going to act differently. For me, pornography is performing – it is what it is and I am an extension of myself, I am hyper me, whereas in a film like this, I am doing character research and I am stepping into the shoes of someone else, and I am thinking about my mannerisms.

It's nice to hear someone point out that pornography isn't real without denigrating it — Grey's words remind us that we can enjoy porn as a performance without expecting our actual sex lives to mimic it. Throughout the interview, she comes off as smart and appreciative of nuance — Kathryn Jean Lopez is missing out by dismissing her. However, Grey's also only 21 years old. While in most of the interview she sounds very mature and articulate, she occasionally makes statements like this one: "Before Christianity and Catholicism took over most people were in poly-amorous relationships."

I don't have the entire sexual history of the pre-Christian world at my fingertips, but I do know a little bit about Greece and Rome in the centuries immediately BCE, and I know that while upperclass men there often did have sex with multiple partners, the lives of their wives were pretty rigidly circumscribed. Of course, this doesn't mean women never had "something on the side," and it's frankly a little hard to tell who was screwing who thousands of years ago, especially among groups that didn't leave written records. But men were trying to control women's sexual behavior long before Christ, and the idea of a polyamorous pre-Christian golden age doesn't really hold water.

Maybe it's ageist of me to chalk up some of Grey's more sweeping statements to the fact that she's barely old enough to buy booze. I'm a half-decade older, and while I bet I could beat her in an ancient-history trivia contest, I may not actually know more about relationships. K. Lo's apparently 33, but being old enough to run for Senate hasn't taught her not to judge other people's personal choices. Grey can be judgmental too, but even in her short and very public life, she's managed to learn the value of "communication and talking and learning." A 21-year-old could do a lot worse.

Sasha Grey / The Girlfriend Experience [Dazed Digital]

Related: Governor Sanford's Appalachian Adventure

Earlier: Newsweek Too Hot For National Review Writer

Dugard is probably the most upsetting possible subject for a headlines-to-bedroom transformation, especially since Shane Ryan, who wants to make the film, is also responsible for one titled Amateur Porn Star Killer. He makes the ridiculous statement that, "We're trying to figure out a way to do that so it's not exploitative." A spokesman for the Dugard family called the proposal "exploitative, hurtful and breathtakingly unkind," which sounds about right. But Ryan's idea, though gross, isn't unique.

Donald Trump, who both championed Carrie Prejean's tenure as Miss California and called her racy photographs "lovely," now says, "Maybe, she should become a major porn star, make millions of dollars, and give it to worthy causes." While his suggestion that she give her profits to charity is sort of touching — maybe she could choose Lambda Legal — it's still annoying that he assumes a porn career is the logical next step after making a private sex video. Of course, even those without sex tapes in their past are vulnerable to porn suggestions and unauthorized depictions. Octomom Nadya Suleman was offered $1 million to star in a porn movie, and who can forget Who's Nailin' Paylin?

There wouldn't be anything wrong with Prejean or Suleman choosing to do porn on their own but it's a little depressing that when a woman inadvertently becomes famous — even if her fame comes from a horrific multi-year imprisonment — others move so quickly to turn her into jackoff fodder. Probably when it comes to porn the, um, heart wants what it wants, and maybe the demand for adult films starring or depicting famous women will always be strong enough to keep people like Shane Ryan afloat. Still, there's an element of institutionalized sexism in the idea that women who become well-known — and who meet a certain standard of conventional attractiveness — must also become objects of mass sexual fantasy. Of course, Carrie Prejean and Nadya Suleman have sought the media spotlight, directly or indirectly, but Jaycee Dugard never did, and the fact that someone is even considering pornifying her story hints that there might be something screwed up about what Americans find hot.

Report: Adult Filmmaker Plans Jaycee Dugard Movie [Silicon Valley Mercury News]
Carrie On, Then [New York Post]
Dugard Spokeswoman Blasts Plans For Film On Case [AP]

Earlier: Dugard Family Responds To Film Proposal • Runners World Didn't OK Use Of Palin Picture

The Vanguard presentation centers a lot of the documentary around Kink.com, a successful niche operation based in California. The CEO, Peter Acworth, read a news item about the profits involved in peddling porn and left his PhD program to start the company. Twelve years later, the company is thriving, thanks to Acworth's tech savvy. Kink.com was one of the original sites to pilot affiliate marketing programs and has been at the forefront of our changing technological lives ever since.

In another segment of the documentary, Regina Lynn, author of The Sexual Revolution 2.0, provided some insights as to the evolution of sex and technology, tracing it back to the telegraph and the printing press. In general, once we invent something, its only a matter of time before we are trying to enhance our sex lives with it. Even chainsaws aren't immune:



Interestingly, the porn industry is in the same boat as the music industry - the onset of technology has not only created a quicker path for pirates (and made many of us content bandits) but also changed the perception of value. Current TV interviewed various staff members at Wicked Pictures, one of the last plot-driven porn companies, about how their work has been impacted by technology. While there's always been some form of bootlegging, the internet has been able to take what was once a localized network and deliver pirated content to the world. And the industry is feeling the pinch - DVD sales are estimated to be down as much as fifty percent.

Pornographers seem concerned with educating consumers about the economic consequences to downloading free porn, but I'm not sure that will work as well as it assumes that the consumer, regardless of circumstances, will always make the ethical choice when faced with the glut of free content available. In addition, the documentary doesn't explore the other reasons why sales may be slumping - like the recession (which is eating up discretionary income that would go to the companies) or perhaps even the decline of retailers like Tower Records, which offered pornography in an easily accessible venue. In addition, the falling price of technology allows for anyone to become an amateur pornographer (which is explored in the documentary), which means that the market is over saturated will all kinds of free content - the idea of paying for graphic material is starting to seem almost quaint.

As a counter-piracy measure, Wicked pays full time employees to locate poached content and to send cease and desist letters. However, this is hardly effective - even the employees admit that even if they succeed in getting the content removed for one day, it will reappear a few days later. (Someone from this industry needs to talk to Prince. The Purple One hasn't fully scrubbed the internet of his content, but it's the closest I've seen to success.)

A better tactic toward stemming piracy appears toward the end of the film, as industry star Jessica Drake discusses how building relationships with her fan base gives them more of an investment in her personal success. Also, the advent of newer delivery methods like iPorn does appear to be a game changer - the industry is moving toward making porn a full sensory experience through live events, 3-D videos, and content delivery through channels like the iPhone. However, I'm not so sure if the fleshlight 2.0 will catch on:

Ultimately, the brief documentary was interesting, but not satisfying. For technology heads, there wasn't enough discussion of what types of technology porn was ushering in. Quick mentions of HD streaming and affiliate marketing aren't enough to be a prominent part of the story, which focuses on what is currently on the market. Current also appears to be going for maximum sex appeal, trading off the naughty cache of talking to porn stars and industry people in their element. However, HBO consistently does this better with shows like Real Sex and Pornucopia, which leaves the Current TV version too sanitized to be truly salacious.

Porn 2.0 [Current TV]
The Sexual Revolution 2.0 [Amazon]
Pornucopia [Wikipedia]

The latest to take porn to task for ruining modern fucking is Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams. She writes,

Convenience, ubiquity, and the goal-oriented, money-shot, male-centric perspective of most porn (hint: women don't need to see that much fellatio) have changed us. Much has been written on how porn's transformation into the modern sexual lingua franca affects women – the pressure to be bush-shaved and adept at pole dancing didn't come from Oprah or Martha Stewart. But porn has changed men too – what we expect of them, what they demand of themselves. And the problem is that thinking you can learn to make to love to a woman from watching porn is like thinking you can learn to drive from watching "The Fast and the Furious."

Her point is that dudes who watch too much Ron Jeremy think that women want to be jackhammered — or, more upsettingly, that they enjoy a man "withdrawing his member at key moments to thump it on" them. Williams's piece is pretty funny; about the latter technique, she writes, "You know what description you never want a woman you've slept with to apply to your sexual technique? 'Baffling.'" But do men really need to "learn to make to love to a woman?"

Williams writes that "unlike other recreational pleasures — bowling, baking pies — sex, unless you're a swinger, isn't something people get much firsthand observational experience with," and speculates that some turn to porn for its "instructional uses." She also says, "sex isn't just a matter of doing what comes naturally." To which I thought, it's not? Yes, it's true that your first encounter with your high school boyfriend (or girlfriend) is not going to be the most mind-blowing intercourse of your life. And Williams is right about the necessity of communication: she writes, "I have nothing but admiration for anyone who's ever had the guts to simply come out and ask a lover what works and what doesn't." Me too. But the idea that sex is a skill, like bowling, for which we need instructions, actually seems like part of porn culture to me.

To be clear, I don't think Williams is suggesting that guys bone up (sorry) on a million different techniques before bedding women. She seems to be arguing for talking to your partner, not believing everything you see on the Internet, and not taking yourself too seriously — all of which sounds like good advice. What I'm dissatisfied with isn't so much Williams's argument per se as the whole idea that people have to be "good in bed." It's a concept promulgated not just in porn but in magazines, which imply that you don't really have a good sex life unless you know 32 ways to massage the taint. And in terms of commodifying something that's supposed to be fun and (usually) free, convincing us that we need professional advice on sex is almost as bad as telling us we're not allowed to have pubic hair.

Both sex advice and new sexual techniques can be fun and hot. What's less hot is the idea that sex is just one more area where we have to achieve — and where we're supposed to pay other people money to help us do so. If, as Barbara Ehrenreich alleges, late-stage American capitalism has produced the life coach, it's also spawned a crop of sex coaches — magazine editors and self-help book writers devoted to helping us win the game of satisfying a lover. But unlike capitalism, sex should be a game where everybody wins.

Though Williams, with her emphasis on fun and communication, is part of the solution, her claim that guys can't just do what comes naturally is part of the problem. So, of course, is porn, privileging huge dicks and ridiculous moves over actual enjoyment. But maybe the pornification of sex wouldn't be such a problem if we weren't worried about "doing it right." Maybe we could keep porn in its proper place — entertainment, not instruction or comparison — if we weren't constantly told we needed to compare or instruct ourselves. Maybe what we need is not so much to critique porn, but to get past it — to stop thinking so much and just fuck.

How Not To Make Love Like A Porn Star [Salon]

Turner writes that complaints of misogyny can always be "shrug[ged] off with the age-old refrain: the trouble with you birds, is, you can't take a joke." She writes about a recent Spectator column on the fuckability of Labour MP Harriet Harman (pictured), and a run-in where she passed up the chance to express her indignation:

I spotted the Spectator editor at the time, Matthew D'Ancona - who I know a little socially - at a film screening. I sat throughout the movie planning what I would say: how disappointed I was that such a celebratedly clever and cultured man could print such garbage. But in the end I just left. It was easier to say nothing than to risk weary accusations of being a strident old ranty-pants, him laughing behind his hands later. Yet it is such silence that granted him permission to publish.

I know the feeling. It's a lot more fun to be the person uttering snide jabs (i.e. "So - Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober.") than the one getting mad about them, and the allegation of humorlessness is a pretty hard one to defend against. Saying, "I do too have a sense of humor, just not about this" is pretty unfunny, and in my experience tends to prove my opponent's point. Making feminism even harder to sell is the fact that it often attacks things that men are supposed to find hot — the pursuit of ever-younger partners, for instance, or surgically enhanced breasts, or mainstream pornography. I've had more than one depressing conversation with a man in which it's clear that he thinks I'm "against" anything sexy. I turn into the fun police, and whatever I'm supposedly forbidding becomes taboo — and thus even more exciting.

In elementary school, I learned that the best way to deal with someone who's bothering you is to ignore them. And indeed, some feminist-baiters, especially on the vast fringes of the Internet, are best left alone. But as Turner points out, silence is also implicit permission. And since many of the engines of misogyny aren't individual people who depend on reactions for their continued existence, but big corporations with a stake in female insecurity, this is a big problem.

In an earlier column, Turner decries the pressure on young girls to be "skinny, [with] full breasts, long hair, full lips and an utterly hair-free body," a pressure that she says "comes direct from the porn industry." But, she says, "if old-school feminists protest against this pornification, we are accused of being anti-sex, not groovy enough to enter that 24/7 pleasuredome of modern youth culture." The interesting thing about this "pleasuredome," though, is how unsexy it actually is. You don't have to be anti-sex, or even anti-porn, to chafe at a dominant aesthetic that just happens to play right into the pocketbooks of the beauty and anti-aging industries. Our cultural preference for skinny, nubile women is at least as much about money as it is about male desire — and it's about the least taboo thing I can imagine.

Rebelling against a system that actually tells men what to like — as well as, of course, telling women how to be — actually seems kind of sexy. And refusing to do what you're told — in this case, to quietly accept sexism so as not to seem "strident" — can be exciting. So rather than reading Turner's new column — which this week includes some pretty grotesque sexual harassment involving a pen — as the blotter of the fun police, I'm going to think of it as a dispatch from the fun radicals, a textual Molotov tossed into the edifice of institutionalized misogyny. And I'm going to enjoy it.

It's Time To Challenge Casual Sexism [TimesOnline]
When Feminism Went Nuts [TimesOnline]
‘Babe' Watch: Sexism In Daily Life [TimesOnline]
Harriet Harman Is Either Thick Or Criminally Disingenuous [Spectator]

According to Michael Winerip of the Times, Hefner fille is a mover and shaker among Illinois Democrats, having donated $201,000 to Democratic causes over the years. She apparently got Barack Obama to speak at the 2005 Magazine Publishers of America conference, and Gloria Steinem invited her to be on the board of Voters for Choice. Victor Navasky, the former Nation editor who recently tried to recruit Hefner as the publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, says,

She's certainly a liberal feminist and a liberal Democrat. People would say, ‘so what's she doing putting out a magazine and running clubs catering to horny men?' But she found a way to make it work consistent with her values, to serve Playboy and her father and give them an opportunity to do socially useful things.

But it's hard not to see Christie Hefner's position at the head of her dad's sex empire as a little creepy. While he dated women half her age (she's 52), she rebuilt his business. It was in shambles when she asked to take over in 1982, and, she reports, "Hef said, ‘I felt like I had this incredible birthday party and you had to come in and clean up the day after.'" Cleaning up after your dad's birthday party — especially a dad whom you call "Hef" — doesn't seem like the most empowering career.

Then there's the issue of hard-core porn. Winerip writes, "while Hef bragged about not crossing the line into hard porn, she did, buying Spice TV and Club Jenna and defending the move as business." Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors questions whether Spice TV is really "consistent with Christie Hefner's values," and if so, how feminist those values can really be. The answer to this depends on what you think about porn, but it is worth noting that Playboy Enterprises represents a very corporate end of the porn spectrum. Annie Sprinkle they are not.

But Hefner's "values" may be a whole lot simpler than the can-porn-be-feminist debate implies. The words "networking" and "networker" appear over and over in Winerip's article, and it's clear that Hefner has been very successful in making powerful friends. Her job tidying up after her pajama-clad, twin-banging dad may not be particularly enviable, but she's leveraged it to create a high-profile political and entrepreneurial platform. She's appeared on CNN, Fox, and CNBC, she'll be working with Navasky to create a for-profit arm of the Columbia Journalism Review, and she's collaborating with Canyon Ranch on a line of health products. Whether or not she's a feminist, she's certainly doing well for herself.

Winerip's emphasis on this success makes his profile kind of depressing. Bartow goes a little far when she calls it "sycophantic," but it's certainly not critical, and Winerip takes claims of Hefner's feminism at pretty much face value. It's popular lately to claim that any woman who is very successful is somehow a feminist icon (The Onion skewered a similar sentiment in the classic "Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does"). But doing well as a woman doesn't necessarily mean you're doing good for women. Hefner may support liberal causes in her personal life, but where her business is concerned, it seems like her most important "values" are monetary ones.

No Silk Jammies For Her [NYT]
The NYT Adulates Christie Hefner, Delicately Refrains From Substantively Mentioning The Hardcore Porn That Generates Most Of Playboy's Revenues [Feminist Law Professors]

• In this video, Miss Universe contestants are shown participating in the "Condom Olympics" three days before the pageant on August 23. The event was sponsored by the AIDS prevention group Population Services International, and the women were asked to blow up condoms until they burst, fill them with water, and conduct condom demonstrations. A representative for the group says they were preparing the new Miss Universe to be an Ambassador for Youth AIDS and "Often times, target populations are illiterate or of low literacy and we need to find ways to reach them through engaging activities that don't rely on written materials." Conservative groups are upset that the activities didn't promote abstinence and PSI was founded by pornographer Phil Harvey. • Amber Alerts were created for stranger abductions in which a child is in danger, but LiveScience columnist Benjamin Radford argues that there are too many false alarms. Most abductions are committed by a non-custodial parent or family member and don't qualify for the notification. One study found that of all the Amber Alerts issued in 2004, police had violated protocol by issuing the alert in 70 percent of the cases. • Australian Tegan Leach, 19, is waiting to see if she'll have to stand trial for giving herself an abortion at home. Her boyfriend may be charged with supplying a drug to procure an abortion and both have been charged with procuring an abortion, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years. Police found empty Ukrainian blister packs they say may have contained pills that induce abortion. Abortion laws in Australia vary by state, but they are illegal in Queensland, where she lives, unless the mother's life is in jeopardy. • Iranian MPs have approved the the first female minister in the republic's 30-year history. Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, who will be the health minister, is a hard-line conservative who has proposed introducing gender-segregated health care in Iran in the past. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated three women for cabinet positions but MPs rejected the other two women he picked to be social security minister and education minister. • A study of 1,000 Iranian high school students suggests family history may determine whether or not teens get severe acne. Of the teens whose parents or siblings had moderate to severe acne, 20 percent had the same problem, compared to only 10 percent of those teen with no family history. • Russia's supreme court has cancelled the retrial of four men accused of being involved in the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. Prosecutors have been ordered to begin a new investigation into the involvement of the suspected gunman as well as the four men. In the decision the court sided with the journalist's family, who argued a retrial would take attention away from finding who planned the murder. • Primatologists at New York's Stony Brook University have found that pregnant female gorillas continue mating with males to prevent other females from mating with him. "It seems to us that mating is another tactic that females use to compete with each other – in this case to gain favour with another male," said one researcher, who believes this behavior may help explain how humans evolved into a generally monogamous species. • People have continued secretly visiting Neda Agha-Soltan's grave in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery even though Basij paramilitary vigilantes have threatened to harass or arrest mourners. Authorities may have decided to bury her and other opposition martyrs there because the cemetery is large and located an hour outside Tehran, but people have figured out where Neda's grave is and leave flower petals on the site. • Researchers studied 32 women with postpartum depression and found that 17 of the mothers, or 53%, felt suicidal. This group was also felt they were less prepared for motherhood and had greater difficulty responding to their infant's needs than those who were not suicidal. • Australian scientists tested cancerous breast cells and found several strains of HPVs known to have a high risk of initiating cervical cancer. "The finding that high risk HPV is present in a significant number of breast cancers indicates they may have a causal role in many breast cancers," said one researcher. "Confirming a cancer-causing role for HPV in some breast cancers establishes the possibility of preventing some breast cancers by vaccination against HPV. • Dirty Diaries, a collection of 12 short pornographic films shot by a feminist documentary maker Mia Engberg and funded by taxpayers is premiering in Sweden tonight. "Porn has always been made by men for men," said Engberg, "Above all, it's about showing sexuality through a female's perspective. It's not made to please a male audience and it's not made to make money," she added. • A 68-year-old nun was arrested for drunk driving on Long Island, New York on Tuesday after crashing into a tree. She was driving a car that belonged to the church and almost hit a group of children playing on their lawn. Police found a water bottle filled with alcohol in the car and say her blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit. • A 68-year-old Salt Lake City woman who held the Guinness World Record for her long fingernails lost them in February when they broke during a car crash. She says it's much easier to move her hands now without the weight of her fingernails, which measured as long as 2 feet, 11 inches. She's not going to try to grow them out again because it took her 30 years to get them to that length and she doesn't think she'll live that long. •

She invites people to look at their favorite interracial porn clips and see if they can honestly say they're not racist. And she's got some strict criteria.

1. The color, size, or shape of the characters' body parts, particularly genitals, as they relate to his or her race or ethnicity is not mentioned
2. No racist epithets are uttered.
3. The race or ethnicity of the characters (including the white characters) is not mentioned.
4. The background music, setting, and general environment of the scene does not conform to a stereotype related to one or more of the characters' racial or ethnic identity.

I didn't say it was an easy test.

The first thought that popped into my head, having somehow gotten myself onto Hustler's parody review list (and you thought you had problems with Nailin' Paylin!) was their more recent entry into the genre: Not The Cosbys XXX. Although Lux at Fleshbot wasn't a fan (consider all links from here on out NSFW, please), it does feature an interracial orgy scene (two white women, one Asian woman, one white man and a black man, who started out the scene as "Denise's" nominal boyfriend) in which the race of the participants is hardly an issue; the next one features "Theo" and one of the (white) women at a party; the fourth is "Claire" flashing back to her (white) boyfriend; the third is "Vanessa" and Theo's friend "Cockroach"; and the final scene features Denise losing her virginity to a white man whose ethnicity Denise mentions to a friend in passing. Most of the scenes take place in a suburban home or on a campus; there's very little reference to the races of the participants; and there are no references to things like "bootys". Granted, I fast forwarded through a lot, so maybe I missed something mid-sex, but it seemed to keep to the outlines of Muse's rules.

Lux, however, recommends the work of Tristan Taormino, like the film Chemistry 4, to find non-racist interracial porn. (Taormino is already known for her socially progressive pornography, so that's perhaps unsurprising). Lux also recommends Stoya Atomic Tease as a movie that doesn't deal in racial stereotyping to get a viewer off, despite its interracial cast. And, for the lesbians in the crowd, she strongly recommends Champion, which (apparently) won the 2009 Feminist Porn Awards.

Lux has actually been trying to answer the challenge Wendi Muse posed for a long time, having put together a top-10 list of non-racist interracial porn last fall. The one thing that might make it fall off Muse's list of must sees, though, is that 9 of the clips involve a black man and a white woman (the 10th is the interracial lesbian three-way pictured above). So maybe the question to ask is why it's easier to find non-racist interracial sex scenes between black men and white women than it is to find ones of black women and white men?

Dear Porn Industry: Must Interracial Porn Always Be So Racist? [Racialicious]

Related and NSFW: "Not The Cosbys XXX": All That And A Jello Pudding Pop [Fleshbot]
Keeping The "Chemistry" Alive: The Orgy Edition [Fleshbot]
"Stoya Atomic Tease" Makes A Perfect Yule Distraction [Fleshbot]
Champion [Pink & White Productions]
Fucking In Perfect Harmony: Top Ten (Nonracist!) Interracial Sex Videos [Fleshbot]

The high-concept movies of three to four years ago (like the 2006 feature Flasher, in which a woman is driven to exhibitionism "because of the way her mother treated her") have been replaced by short scenes strung together by a common theme, like "glasses." These "vignettes" are easy to separate and distribute on the Web, where porn exec Steven Hirsch says, "the average attention span is three to five minutes."

So are today's consumers so tweeted-and-facebooked-out that they can't even pay attention to porn? Nah, not really. Plotted pornography was popular in the early 70s, but went out of style with the advent of hand-held cameras. Storylines didn't get big again until the introduction of DVDs in the 90s. Nowadays, says Hirsch, "It's almost like we're back to the late '70s or early '80s when the average movie was eight minutes and just a sex scene."

Given the silliness of a lot of porn plots, it's not surprising that customers don't mind forgoing them in favor of good old-fashioned boning. Porn stars, however, are less than thrilled with the change. Savanna Samson (pictured) says that in the good old days, "I couldn't wait to get my next script." But now, "getting it on in one hardcore scene after another just isn't as much fun."

Lights, Camera, Lots Of Action. Forget The Script [NYT]

Under the image of a woman in profile with her mouth wide open, staring blankly at something in the distance above an approaching seven-inch burger, the ad reads:

Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A.1. Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce.

This ad does not just hint at sex, it bashes you over the head with lame puns and heavy-handed double entendres worthy of the Todd. To make matters worse, the woman about to receive the "hot beef injection," as one commenter here put it, is made up to look like a blow-up doll. She is expressionless, a blank slate on which we are supposed to project our (assumed to be masculine, of course) desires. Unlike the "2 Girls 1 Sub" video from Quiznos, which is its very own brand of nasty, or the new Burger King ad with Audrina Patridge, or even that Carls Jr. ad, the woman here is not excited about the giant sandwich looming near her face. She is empty and submissive, as pliable as a plastic doll. Strangely enough, it doesn't make us very hungry.

The association of meat and sex is nothing new of course, as feminist vegetarian theorist Carol J. Adams has shown time and again. In an interview published on her website, Adams says,

Everyone is affected by the sexual politics of meat. We may dine at a restaurant in Chicago and encounter this menu item: "Double D Cup Breast of Turkey. This sandwich is so BIG." Through the sexual politics of meat, consuming images such as this provide a way for our culture to talk openly about, and joke about, the objectification of women without having to acknowledge it. The sexual politics of meat also works at another level: the ongoing superstition that meat gives strength and that men need meat. There has been a resurgence of "beef madness" in which meat is associated with masculinity.

Adams' argument applies on several levels here. The ad displays both the meaty sandwich and the female body as objects ready for masculine consumption. The woman in the ad is not meant to enjoy the burger, for this is not about her. Like the meat, she is a thing to be consumed, a thing that will provide the viewer with a hearty dose of masculinity and virility. In an interesting twist, this ad, which is clearly intended to sell a piece of meat to straight men, also presents the phallic stand-in as something desirable. Men are supposed to see this image and think something along the lines of: "I like BJs and burgers, cuz I'm a real man. I need some BK," yet the ad makes the meat into a sexualized, fetishized masculine object.

Several other blogs have weighed in on this particular ad. Copyranter says:

Well, this ad via Singapore for the BK Super Seven Incher is the new leading "most overtly blow-jobby ad" I've ever seen, surpassing this one, this one, and even this one. Nice misogynistic touch making the woman look like a fucking blow-up doll. Note the Photoshopped-enhanced creamy white mayo.

A debate has sprung up on Flickr about this image, with one commenter being labeled a "annoyinghypersensitivefeministbitch" for failing to understand that the ad is actually "funny and sexy." Commenter "photo.envy" responds:

Sexy is a state of mind. There's a difference in being sexual and being used as an object of want to sell burgers. Objectification is the difference.

Fast Food News doesn't like it much either:

We've seen more suggestive advertising, to be sure, but this one just seems to be poorly executed AND in bad taste (and probably tastes bad, too).

We're not convinced about that last part, but if showing a sandwich dripping with mayo aimed for the mouth of a lifeless woman isn't in bad taste, we don't know what is.

The New King of Blow Job Ads [Copyranter]
Copy Conundrums: BK's New Ad Hints At Fellatio [Media Bistro]
How Many Cliches In One Ad? I Think We Can Do Better [YesbutNobutYes]
It'll Blow [Flickr]
BK's Suggestive 7 Incher Ad [Fast Food News]
Audrina Patridge Gives Good Burger In New Ad [People]
Carol J. Adams [Official Website]

Related: Quiznos Wants People To Associate Their Sandwiches With Poop, SpongeBob Meets Sir Mix-A-Lot In New Burger King Ads

Note: I speak for myself on that last point. Cooper has intercut footage of his subjects - Lindsay, Benjamin, Kristin, Rafi, Genevieve, and Theodore - talking about pornography with, well, if not quite actual pornography, something approximating it. Or perhaps I should say, his film can be seen as an exercise through which to discuss what exactly "porn" is: I have no doubt that, for many, bearing witness to the facial expressions and reactions of people masturbating while they look straight into the videocamera is far more intimate and less arousing than any of the images these young people are getting off on.

With the exception of one participant, 47-year-old Theodore, the film is also a document of a particular segment of American and English youth, many of whom are so familiar with the genres and lingo of contemporary porn - and their own sexual psychologies - that they put some of us older folk to shame. (Also: speaking for myself here.) Of course, this might also explain why they were willing to be filmed in the first place. The clip is below; thoughts, in the comments.

Video: Robbie Cooper: Sex, Sighs & Videotape [Wallpaper]

Earlier: Up Close & Personal: Wallpaper's Safe For Work Porn Portraits Reach A Thrilling Climax

Vivid's not exactly the first company to try to hitch its train to a woman in the news, and Carrie Prejean is hardly the first target of its exploitation. The company offered Nadya Suleman $1 million to star in one of its movies, and full medical and dental insurance for her family if she agreed to perform sex acts for them on an ongoing basis. Kick Ass Films offered Susan Boyle the same deal two weeks ago to film her professional deflowering. Porn producer Cezar Capone even had a run at Sarah Palin last year, offering her $2 million dollars to star in one of his "MILF" films, plus an extra $100,000 and a snow machine if she did it with her husband Todd.

Do these companies really believe that they are going to convince Prejean, Suleman, Boyle or Sarah fucking Palin to shed their clothes and fuck strangers on camera for money? Of course not. But they are exploiting these women and their celebrity, notoriety and ability to get the attention of the press to market their movies and their own names, and they're doing it, frankly, without the permission of their supposed targets. (It's interesting - and probably no mere coincidence - that, with the exception of Palin, the women targeted are either reportedly celibate and/or virgins.) or And even if these women did (in some alternate universe) agree to do such a film - as porn star Lorelei Lee told Violet Blue last year - it's not for the weak of heart nor the amateurs or people who haven't really considered what it means to become a sex worker.

A thought: If the porn industry wants to shed its reputation for exploiting or coercing vulnerable women, maybe a good place to start is to stop exploiting the images of women who did not and would not agree to be a part of the industry in the first place.

Miss California Offered Million Dollar Porn Role [TMZ]

Related: OctoMom Offered $1 Million To Make A Porno [TMZ]
British Singing Sensation Susan Boyle Offered $1 Million To Star In Porn Flick [NY Daily News]
Sarah Palin Offered $2 Million To Appear In Porn Film [Vancouver Sun]

Earlier: Sex For Money, Not Love [San Francisco Chronicle]

Savita Bhabhi is not an ordinary porn star. Pornography is illegal in India, but Savita has developed quite an online following. Deshmukh, the site administrator for SavitaBhabhi.com, tells GlobalPost that the site gets 60 million unique visitors every month, 70% of which are from India. Savita is available in 10 different Indian languages, including English, and, as such, Savita has become somewhat of an internet sensation, even though she's only a cartoon.

Savita's adventures are published online in comic book format. The story lines are generally based on reader fantasies, which fans send into Deshmukh, who turns their brief plot sketches into detailed encounters. One of the "fairly believable" stories features Savita meeting and seducing a door-to-door bra salesman (?) who visits her with a too small, lacy red bra. This type of sexual aggression is one of the key features of the Savita comics. In the interview with GlobalPost, Deshmukh says:

One of the reasons for creating SB was to also portray that Indian women have sexual desires too. India is a country which is still sexually repressed and I feel that for it to break the shackles, it is the women of India who are going to have to come out first. We are already seeing that in a way, and hopefully SB will do her bit to help in this revolution.

Deshmukh sees Savita as the Indian version of a MILF. (This is also apparent in her name: Bhabhi means sister-in-law, which means something slightly different in Indian culture.) Deshmukh explains,

Bhabhi is the Indian version of a MILF. Though in literal terms it means your "brother's wife" - that is not the meaning here. For an Indian youngster his first fantasy is normally the newly married hot woman in the neighborhood who is referred to as a hot Bhabhi. Hence it seemed only natural that our hot heroine whom the entire neighborhood lusts after be called Savita Bhabhi.

However, despite Savita's sexual power, sociologist Sanjay Srivastava argues that she essentially plays into the mixed feelings of attraction and repulsion that surround female sexuality. "It plays upon a well-established male anxiety and desire - wanting and being scared of the modern woman," he said. "It's good to have a modern woman as a girlfriend, but [as the serial cuckolding of Savi's husband illustrates] it's dangerous to have her as a wife."

Porn Comes To India - As A Cartoon [Newser]
Meet India's First Porn Star [GlobalPost]
An Interview With The Secret Creator Of Savita Bhabhi [GlobalPost]
Savita Bhabhi [Official Website]