The best of the sex blogs as selected by the bloggers who write them:

Celebrate National Porn Sunday With Porn - Text
(mskitka.com)

Diddle My Skittle - Text
(madelineinthemirror.blogspot.com)

Janova In Bed - Photo
(pspporn.com)

Meet the Nubians - Text
(onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com)

Orgasm Control Training - Text
(talkingdirty.blogspot.com)

Playboy Digital - Reviewed - Text
(sugarbank.com)

Podnography #9 - SoccerGirl, Sex with Emily and Japanese Brothels - Podcast
(podnography.com)

Traci Lords - Text
(sugarhive.org)

Wham Bam Thank You Lord C - Text
(corinthiancouple.blogspot.com)

You give me fever - Text
(thefuckhouse.blogspot.com)

Join the bloggsam here!

Why isn’t the world of sex blogs isn’t growing like the mainstream blogging space?

(Wise readers will know that I’m posting this on a Sunday because today only those who are truly wedded to the broadband crack-pipe desperately continue to fix

I haven’t written anything about the unraveling of the SuicideGirls myth so far for a couple of reasons.

• Everyone else is
• I, like many others, knew most of what’s being revealed now years ago
• I was never a fan of the site and am actually glad to see the truth tarnishing their ‘hipper than thou’ reputation

Now I will, because I think I have something different to say. For people new to the story, SuicideGirls is a porn site who trade(d) on two lies:

1. They were owned and founded by young women
2. They’ve taken a stand against bland sexual stereotypes as typified by Playboy etc.

The first lie has recently been exposed to the public, thanks to some very public infighting. The company has now rewritten it’s creation myth, and is responding to claims of deceit by saying that the identity of the man who founded the site and owns the brand was simply overlooked.

Bullshit.

SuicideGirls got mountains of press from the idea they were breaking the ‘traditional’ porn mold. Something I always found offensive because it was a mold broken in 1996 by Danni Ashe, and then repeatedly broken by women in the industry running websites and video companies (e.g. Digital Playground - home of ‘Virtual Sex with…’ was founded by, and is co-owned by a woman). The difference is, these women never traded on being ‘alternative’ and, unlike the SuicideGirls, really were in complete control of their destiny.

The second lie, that SuicideGirls was home to those outside the mainstream, was too obviously false to even credit - that it was repeated so often is amazing. From day one, SuicideGirls replaced the Playboy ideal - flawless, blonde, plastic tits, big smile, neat - with its own, equally rigid ideal - piercings, tattoos, white skin, gothic.

They did try to respond to their incredibly obvious lack of ethnic diversity, but still - to pretend they were more open to ‘difference’ than the rest of the industry was crap. A truly diverse site could be home to women who look right for the pages of Playboy, the screens of SuicideGirls and everything inbetween. Having three fat models on a site with 800 is tokenism - even if it’s tokenism that your competitors are too prejudiced or honest to partake in.

Now everyone knows working for SuicideGirls meant being poorly paid, heavily censored and tightly controlled. That’s your revolution? Count me out.

Sadly, while SuicideGirls sold a myth, they fostered an impression that models without tattoos were ‘exploited victims’ and models with them were ‘empowered vixens’. The truth is that empowered women have been at the core of the adult industry for years - you just can’t spot them if you think a smiling blonde with big tits can’t run a business.

For supporting the same negative appearance-based stereotypes women have been fighting for a hundred years, while boasting about a community comprised of women they were financially exploiting ($300 for all rights to a photoset!), I’m not sad to see SuicideGirls falling from grace.

As the debate/panic over how blogs are going to make money continues I’m noticing that one of the fundamental issues is being missed so, to make up for the shortcomings of all other bloggers, I thought I’d elucidate.

Making money on the web, regardless of the specifics, always comes down to either a universal payment or subset payment model.

• Universal payment - everyone who uses the website/service pays. E.g. mandatory subscriptions.
• Partial payment - only some people pay, everyone else gets a free ride. E.g. blog advertising.

(I just made those two phrases up so, all you fourth graders reading SugarBank as part of your homework, email me if you’re having trouble understanding anything).

People are confused because partial payment means free, if you go to ad funded websites and ignore the ads, or listen to NPR (go KCRW) without contributing to the fund-drive. We all freely consume services supported by the voluntary payment of a minority (which is why I write off money spent on lap dances as ‘community college scholarship fund contributions’ on my taxes each year).

Even if ads work (and they only do when they’re totally unavoidable and interrupt your flow), it’s strange that blogs - the cutting edge of web publishing - have embraced a funding model whose effectiveness peaked in the 1950’s. Unfortunately, until Google wallet appears, and perhaps embraces porn, micropayments - which would make partial funding work for blogs on a ‘Buy this post $0.03′ model, are impossible, making universal payment the alternative.

The problem with universal payment models is they don’t allow you to try before you buy. Blogs are reluctant to try subscriptions because as soon as you can’t link in to a blog it withers. (The problem with ‘Universal Soldier’ was Dolph Lundgren’s limited acting ability).

One site that’s thinking differently is Salon (note to Apple - thinking differently is how we say ‘Think Different’ in English.) They offer the same content to subscribers and non-subscribers, but require non-subscribers to view ads before they can finish reading full articles.

The idea is that you’ll read the articles for free to start with, but after a while will want to support the site, and be so annoyed by the ads, that you’ll choose to pay. It’s a partial-payment/universal payment hybrid (not a hybrid man/machine like GR44, who was actually a guy who died in Vietnam but was brought back to life as part of the Universal Soldier program)

It allows Salon to demand you watch an ad that’s way more intrusive than they otherwise could get away with, saying to readers, “We’re letting you in as a favor - watching this ad is the price you pay”. Even if no one ever buys a subscription, Salon’s intrusive, willingly consumed, ads (the smartest kind to have) provide the site with a revenue stream traditionally placed ads couldn’t compete with. Their subscriptions are really just a way of justifying an intrusive ad model, any they sell are the icing on the cake (icing made of cash). Fiendishly clever stuff - even on a site that’s doomed by $20M of pre-launch spending.

With fewer people clicking an ever greater volume of traditional ads, is partial payment allied to subscriptions the way forward for adult blogs? Will people sit through ads to view free adult content, which is normally just an ad for a movie or website anyway? Watch ads for the privilege of watching ads? My head hurts…

Just over a week ago I reviewed the digital edition of Playboy magazine. I was fairly critical of the technology used, and soon heard from Dave Zinman at Zinio who kindly answered a few of the questions I had about his product.

My opinion’s not changed regarding the digital edition, but I certainly have a better understanding of what Zinio offers publishers of (adult) content. As magazines become more digital, and blogs offer more content that competes with print, these new ways of doing business are doubtless going to inspire, and effect, the way websites and digital publishers make money.

In the interest of balance, here follow the questions I asked, and the answers Dave gave exactly as they took place (you can read my thoughts on Playboy Digital here):

Sam Sugar: Is Zinio designed for publishers or readers, and what does it offer each group?

Dave Zinman: Zinio has offerings for publishers and readers, but is primarily designed to meet the needs of readers.  If we don’t have something that readers want, then we won’t have much to offer publishers.

Through Zinio, readers can get access to magazines they know and love, with a digital advantage.  Digital magazine subscriptions eliminate the 6-8 week waiting period experienced with print.  Each issue arrives immediately, and is delivered to your computer regardless of where you are.

International readers can finally get access to cross-border publications without paying through the nose for delivery and waiting weeks to get their issues. Digital magazines are archived on your computer for ready access and searchable for quick reference. Digital

magazines can incorporate multimedia to create a much more dynamic experience than print. Zinio offers the ability to bookmark, highlight and take notes while reading publications. Finally, digital magazines are printed on zero stock paper, so they are 100% sustainable technology.

Publishers use Zinio to create new revenue streams by building up new paying subscribers. They can also experience dramatic savings by eliminating the printer and post office. They can also launch new editions much less expensively, promoting experimentation and innovation in the field.

SS: What kind of DRM does Zinio use/impose and what’s the thinking behind it?

DZ: Zinio encrypts all magazine content and forces each reader to have a license key to open a file. For obvious reasons, we don’t discuss our DRM in detail, but it is easily the most secure solution in the industry.

SS: Why use Zinio over PDF?

DZ: Zinio recreates the exact feel of a magazine by incorporating a page flip, easy zoom, tailored search, highlighting, note taking, and a My Library feature. Additionally, Zinio incorporates a delivery manager which automatically detects when the next issue is available and downloads it in the background.

SS: Can Zinio magazines be transferred between computers when upgrading?

DZ: Zinio magazines can be downloaded again by signing into your account.

SS: What are Zinio’s plans for the future?

DZ: We just launched a global network of 9 newsstands in different countries. Now by going to Zinio, anyone in the world can find magazines from a variety of countries, sold in the local language and currency at the domestic price.  This is a real breakthrough for the magazine industry.

SS: What’s the advantage to publishers of using DRM that can be defeated with a “print-screen” command?

DZ: If you do a screen grab of a page, you will just get the image at the resolution at the time of viewing. When in two page mode, the screen grab will not be very useful for sharing and reading. When in one page or reading mode, you won’t see the whole page on the screen. So using screen grab or print screen to "copy" a digital magazine is not very useful.

Of course, the protection afforded by Zinio’s DRM is not designed to prevent any image or page in the magazine from being copied or ripped. Prior to the advent of digital magazines, anyone could take the print magazine and scan in a page.

SS: The prices for digital magazine subscriptions are almost identical to print subs. Traditionally print publications use the cover price to pay for the costs of production, while their advertising provides any profit. How is such a high price for a digital magazine justified when production and distribution costs are zero?

DZ: Publishers set the prices for their magazines in print and digital form. Many publishers reduce the prices on magazines in digital form and many do not. Let me give you two examples: BusinessWeek offers an entire year, 51 issues, for $29.97 in digital form. The print price is usually around $45. They have chosen to lower price on the digital edition to drive greater use of digital.  They have also worked with Zinio for over two years and want to drive more digital subscribers. Playboy sells an annual subscription of 12 issues for $19.97 in both print and digital. They just started with Zinio and have chosen to maintain the same price for both. Given the sales results so far, they both have chosen wisely.

SS: How are digital subscriptions audited (e.g. are they being tracked by the ABC? If not - under what authority are subscriber numbers presented to advertisers?)

DZ: Digital subscriptions are measured by the audit bureaus (ABC and BPA) in the same way that print subscriptions are measured. Publishers choose how much circulation to declare on their statements to the bureaus and the bureaus do periodic audits to ensure accuracy. As part of Zinio’s service, we provide publishers with the data that is audited and work with both ABC and BPA.

When I started talking about networking earlier this week, I wasn’t really saying ‘let’s start a network’ but it’s beginning to seem like a real possibility.

Paul Scrivens - founder of the 9rules network, and I have been talking. He’s into the idea and runs an adult blog of his own. He also knows a lot about networks and we’re discussing applying some of his expertise in the networking area. This is big. If the people reading this blog were mainly graphic designers, you’d all be doing a ‘Scrivs dance’ right now and high-fiving each other, Borat style. The man (Scrivs, not Borat) is a blogging heavyweight and his interest makes this a whole lot easier to get right.

So it looks as if we can start a network, aimed at sex bloggers, with quality to rival B5 Media, Gawker and Weblogs, Inc. The question is, do you want one?

I know from the email I’ve been receiving, that a couple of days ago I managed to give the impression that I want people to change their blogs, cede control and conform to dictatorial rule. About the only thing people haven’t accused the network concept of encouraging is vivisection (although there might be a hot sex angle for that… I’ll get back to you). Some of the emails I’ve received are so worryingly wrong regarding my stance (which is my fault for writing a post that wasn’t clear) that I took the post I thought you’d be reading today out back and shot it in the face.

In its place is this, which starts at the beginning by asking, what kind of formal collaboration between sex blogs can exist? As I see it there are three paths:

1. No collaboration. That means placing links to other sites only because they benefit you, never thinking about symbiotic feedback, or benefits of association other than traffic exchange. I’m not aware of any blogs (which I read) who follow this mantra but a few traditional porn-sites (e.g. many TGP’s and topsites) do.
2. Informal collaboration. Almost 100% of bloggers work in this way (and have to as there’s no alternative system in place). That means placing links entirely based on your own desires, sometimes trying to build relationships, sometimes as recognition of worthwhile content and sometimes as favor to a friend. It’s not all about building traffic, and is a creative decision as well as a business one. How well it works depends on how much attention each blogger gives their links. It’s very good at expressing bloggers opinions, and not very good at helping readers find what they want.
3. Formal collaboration. The network idea, an extension of informal collaboration whereby a group of websites agree to support each other as a community. I.e. Bloggers agree that, a friend of the network is a friend of mine. Every blog links to the network hub and the network hub links to every blog. Network members get the support of the entire community via one link. Readers get an easy path to quality content.

Networking doesn’t mean common design, shared hosting/technology, or any loss of copyright or editorial control. The key is community, not communism. When Lenin said,

“It is not enough that I succeed, others must fail.”

He was demonstrating a complete misunderstanding of the network idea (Lenin - you’re out!)

I see networking, of the kind described above, as having a number of positive benefits, ‘hothousing’ its members, and giving readers a seal of quality they can use to access the very best sex-blog content. Side benefits for network members can include help with hosting, technical and design support and tools to monetize blogs that aren’t currently providing a return. It’s a way of building a community for bloggers and a community for readers simultaneously.

I don’t see the idea as perfect for everyone, (aside from Angelina Jolie - is anything perfect for everyone?) but my hippy ‘love everyone’ leanings make the idea of collaboration, community, and mutual support fundamentally appealing. (Of course there’s stuff I’d like to do with Angelina and an unloaded Desert Eagle with a condom over the barrel which aren’t hippyish at all). The question is, who else finds the idea exciting (the network, not Angelina and the gun), and what else would you want from a sex-blog network built for you as a reader, or potential member?

It’s that time again. Be sure to let me know what you think Bloggasm #3 should be linking to by Friday night. As always, in return for reposting the links, you get to see your links on the other sites in the bloggasm - it’s like a big mutual trackback done without any technology.

Why join the bloggasm? Search engines find you, readers flock to you - somewhere a child smells a flower and writes ‘Love’ into damp sand with their finger.

(If you were in last weeks bloggasm and haven’t reposted the links, don’t come crying to me when your pets die.)

On your first day of webmaster academy they tell you it’s easy to attract web traffic by talking about sex. They tell you that you don’t have to be positive about sex, as long as you use keywords that’ll raise eyebrows any mention of the ’s’ word will work just fine.

Once you’ve tasted the sweet deluge of attention you can get from suckling Google’s filth faucet (safesearch off!) it’s easy to get addicted and rookie webmasters often consider discussing tiny extreme-sex niches - totally out of context - hoping to draw freaks to their door by placing phrases like ‘Animal Rape’ and ‘puppy’ in the same sentence.

Which brings me to this - which is either the most out of place article on the web, or is the most cynical marketing ploy I’ve ever seen.

Animal Life (from ‘Bella Online - the voice of women who need to be reminded not to fuck animals‘)

As of right now, I’m officially helping Violet and Gram at Fleshbot while Jonno, their senior editor, takes a well deserved break. I’ll be posting there as well as here for a bit (which means until I get fired), and trying to keep a few other projects moving along too. It will be hard, but as my dad used to scream through my bedroom door at night:

“All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.”

As I’ll be trying to bring the best of what’s new to the attention of a world full of wankers, please email me if you have any hot info on interesting sex related stuff that might be worth talking about.

Remember - we’re talking about Fleshbot here, they’ve probably written about it already, so do me a favor and search for it on their site before sending it on to me (try the website name and the URL at a minimum). If it’s gold - there will be 72 virgins waiting for you in heaven.

(NB: I’ll also thank anyone sending usable tips here, what could possibly be better than that?)

PSP Porn, my babelog (which needs a little love and is getting it thanks to my new team of deadly porn ninjas) has finally been recognized as the completely original work of genius it so obviously is.

In Stuff magazine (current issue, page 61).

Bitches.

That’s right - PSP Porn is in print, taking names and making a noise for all the little babelogs out there who have been ignored by the mainstream media. WOOT!

(Thanks to these sexy people for the scan)