This is a great domain (okay, it’s fantastic. I’ll admit it) I was given as part of a complex deal. As I have more than enough to deal with in other areas, with no further ado…:

Ssex.com Is For Sale
London, UK, June 1 2006 - Today Sam Sugar announced the sale of Ssex.com.

Following the recent headline-grabbing sale of Sex.com, the most expensive domain name ever sold, Sugar is sure ssex.com will set records in the ‘typo’ domain-name space.

“Every 2 and 3 letter domain has long been registered and the number of four-letter domains containing real words is extremely small. Sex.com sold for $14m and sex.net, which misses the all-important dotcom designation, $14,000. On the internet hotcakes don’t sell nearly as fast as hot-sex does,” said Sugar, “Ssex.com is easy to say and sell, and will pull traffic better than anything under $14M. In a world of ‘backronyms’ and odd letter sequences its simplicity is a huge advantage to anyone serious about their business.”

Sugar believes the domain will attract a storm of interest from companies eager to include the world’s most popular keyword in a URL that, unlike sex.com itself, is not a common word and can be easily trademarked and protected.

“Every day hundreds of thousands of one-handed typists accidentally write ssex as their lubed fingers slip from one key to another,” said Sugar, “They deserve a high-quality destination and now ssex.com give someone a chance to provide it.”

Interested parties should contact sam.sugar@gmail.com with offers.

About Sam Sugar:
Sam Sugar has worked in publishing, advertising, film, television and the adult industry. He runs a network of blogs including Podnography (http://podnography.com), SugarPit (http://sugarpit.com), SugarJoy (http://sugarjoy.com), Sugasm (http://sugasm.com) and TGP (http://tgp.com). He blogs at SugarBank (http://sugarbank.com).

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A year ago this report highlighting the increasing popularity of porn among British women would have come as a surprise to me.

“The survey found that the number of women accessing porn in the UK increased some 30 percent from one million to 1.4 million in the past 12 months alone.”

On the other hand, that Britain is the fastest-growing market for porn comes as no surprise at all. Dirty? We’re carved out of mud.

“The survey also indicated that Internet surfers in the UK search for the word “porn” more than Web surfers in any other English-speaking country in the world.”

I could make a joke about an ability to use the English language properly and comment that in America the most seach sex-related search-term is ‘tity’ - but I won’t. Instead I’ll point out that, as the Inuit have 40 words for snow, in England we refer to jazz-mags, art pamphlets, left-handed reading material, scud movies, yoghurt sites and more with a perfect shared understanding of the subject under discussion.

It’s almost certainly got something to do with a generation of Brits like me (the X/Y’ers) who grew up in a country where porn was utterly illegal and are now making up for lost time thanks to the more liberal laws of the European Union. The next ‘fastest growing porn market’ should be China then…

Sometimes the ridiculous is sublime and occasionally, when the planets align just so, panties and exotic European actresses are involved too.

When I decided to work with Palm Pictures on the promotion of ‘The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things‘ - I was hoping they’d step up to the promotional plate with a tough or two of inspiration. Regardless of how the words ‘Asia Argento’s Panties’ make you feel, clicking on this link will get you a pair (sort of - you’ll see). Inspired.

Asia Argento’s Panties (click the ‘Promote’ link and then download)

I’ve also been gifted a few DVD’s and posters which I should give away (or eBay, decisions, decisions…) The poster carries the image that goes with this post and has been signed by Miss Argento herself. If you want one email me something (photo, video clip, prose) that you think earns it. If it doesn’t totally suck I’ll post it here and allow the rest of the gang (that’s you dear reader) to decide if you’ve earned such a hot collectible. Want a DVD? Same deal. Entertain me, make my blogging life easier or send cash. Extra points for people modeling cardboard undercrackers.

Go!

Craig Clevenger.

In my email this morning:

“i currenlty started practining Contortion but i have really no clue where to
start i was searching the internet i i came across you page if still have
the handbook i would love to have you send it to me.
let me know”

Just in case anyone else is thinking the same way, The Contortionist’s Handbook has nothing to do with Contortion. I know the title’s misleading - don’t blame me.

PS If the sender of this email is interested in the adult industry there’s a space for you…

In the current ‘New Yorker’ (week ending June 5th), Hanna Rosin, writes on the ability of Telenovela’s, Soap Opera’s and radio plays to influence public attitudes and opinion.

Her prime focus is telenovela’s which, unlike soaps, have a definite beginning and end and normally run for six to twelve months. She highlighted a number of cases where deliberately placed storylines had significant effects on viewer behavior.

“In 1992, a radio soap opera with a built-in AIDS-prevention message was produced in Tanzania with P.C.I.’s help (Popular Communications International - an NGO focused on health education via entertainment). One region was cut off from the broadcast, and, after two years, researchers found that there were significant differences in condom use between that area and the rest of the country. Other studies have had similar results.”

They’re not talking about dull, information packed material with low production values either:

“If they sense the material is ‘educational’ they’ll be gone in a second.”

So it seems that our entertainment affects our thinking (and the article gives many more examples.) I’m not surprised. The only people who deny the influence of media on public opinion are those who wish to influence the public and those whose influence would be so terrible they have to claim the idea’s preposterous.

Beyond the idea that porn’s influence might not be 100% positive, is there an argument to be made that by including a subtle positive influence in porn (e.g. that condom use is smart, normal and sexy) could pornographers begin to argue, and perhaps even demonstrate, that sex education and open communication are a good thing? Might it make a better ‘defense’ than the increasingly hard to justify notion that people aren’t influenced by negative messages at all?

Does this data make the ‘it’s just entertainment’ defense for ‘negative’ porn impossible to justify?

(N.B. I’m not saying GTA: San Andreas will make you kill someone - if you suggest that I’ll kill you - but I do think that a lot of exposure to violent material will change the way you think about violence. I speak from experience, in the eighties my vast proficiency at a game called ‘The Last Starfighter’ led me to the heart of an intergalactic war. Hi Grig.)

That little blue pill is more than the favorite punchline of has-been comedians.

Viagra, and the drugs that came after it (see what I did there? Anyone?), hit porn in two ways. The first, and most commented on, is that it ended the dominance of natural talent among male performers. Looking like one of the minor species in the Star Wars universe but commanding a meat-saber which never failed to power-up was no longer enough to stay on top. There will never be another Ron Jeremy.

It leveled the playing-field - women have always been able to fake sexual arousal - now men could too. Finally work could go to men who couldn’t, like Ron Jeremy, time their orgasm to a specific second (”I’ll come in ten seconds!” says Ron and then he does. The man’s a leg-end).

The second effect was an expansion of the audience for porn. As a product that’s not generally consumed by the impotent, Viagra gave a generation of men who had been forcibly retired from sex-for-fun a new lease of life (American readers can mentally insert ‘new lease on life’ in place of the last phrase. Just sounds wrong to me and hell - it’s English and so am I damnit.)

In the coming years (oh yeah, it’s all gold people) the market for the kind of material men over 50 remember being turned on in their youth is bound to explode (or dribble out aided by a few firm shakes). Softer bodies, lots more pubic hair and teasing will inevita-bly make a comeback (RIMSHOT, smile - “…and on with the show.”)

The problem is that contrary to the desire of Pfizer, Viagra can’t be proved to work on women and doesn’t work for thousands of men. Worse still, it’s a drug that creates er-rections without doing anything to your state of mind.

Enter PT-141.

PT-141 is a nasal spray that’ll likely be available as a cure for erectile disfunction (Dickus Redundantus to use the formal latin term) within three years. Unlike current sex drugs PT-141 works on the brain, not the circulatory system, and in trials makes female rats horny enough to mount males (which isn’t normal behavior - for rodents anyway). The trials on rats focused on female rats flirtation, not simply male rats erection’s. An erection doesn’t tell you anything about the owner’s state of mind. Flirtation does. PT-141 seems to make men and women feel and act, sexy.

(NB. I fear a deluge of ‘Viagra works for me’ email from angry women so allow me to clarify. Viagra doesn’t cause arousal in women when compared with a placebo accord-ing to every trial that’s been done. If it did Pfizer would have a pale pink box on the shelves before the first horny chimp they dosed reached orgasm. There’s plenty of an-ecdotal evidence for the efficacy of Viagra for women but - there’s anecdotal evidence for everything so shut up.)

If tests continue to support current findings PT-141 could be as significant as ‘The Pill’. Women (and men) who inhale the colorless, odorless spray (whose capability is unaf-fected by food and alcohol) will be able to switch their lusts on and off. We’ll be able to decide that we’re going to have sex and then create the desire, erection, lubrication etc. on command.

I wonder if they can blend this stuff into aftershave…

For porn this means a couple of things. Firstly female performers might be able to use the drug to make their job less about faking it and more about enjoying it. Though it’s unlikely to bring women into paid sex-work it could extend the careers, and greatly im-prove the general level of happiness, experienced by women who have to struggle through sex with men they dislike, in uncomfortable situations, for directors who think they’re puppeteers.

It could probably be abused too. If horny people are generally more willing to push the envelope (I’ve got my hand up - to about the elbow actually) there’s a chance it’ll be used to encourage situations that normally performers would object to. Of course in those cases what’s happening is a simple assault perpetrated by someone who’d un-doubtedly be a criminal without the aid of advanced pharmacology.

A bigger change is likely to happen in the world of porn consumption. When non-orgasmic women begin to experience the full range of sexual pleasure thanks to ‘Pete’ - I’ve decided that’s PT-141’s ’street name’, use it as you will - there’s bound to be an in-crease in the numbers of women paying for porn (drugs aren’t the only answer but I can only be in so many places at once ladies). Older, post-menopausal, women will begin to invest in sexual entertainment, and couples, finally able to be horny at the same time whenever they want to be, will contribute to a growing audience for quality ‘couples porn’ - which is currently as appealing as a smooth-jazz Tygers of Pan Tang covers band.

So does desire, available via a nozzle, represent sexual utopia or something darker? Would you take Pete and if so, how much would you be prepared to pay?

(All execs of Palatin Technologies, the company with PT-141 under development, con-sider this blogger a willing human Guinea-pig)

My friend Kirby has shot some vox-pops of people around New York (I assume) giving their thoughts on the rightness, wrongness or oh-my-God!-ness of rim jobs.

Rim Job Vox Pops

It’s easy to forget that blow-jobs were once seen as edgy, dangerous and a little deviant but ‘Deep Throat‘ helped change that - providing proof positive that fellatio was going on and that Linda Lovelace was good at it.

Now there’s a growing acceptance of the anal-stimulation of men and rim-jobs are appearing outside gay-porn with increasing frequency. I wonder how many of the people in this clip who give the ‘underbody wash’ a tongues-up were introduced to ‘cave-painting’ via porno?

The best ways to win any competition run by me are:

1. Sexual favors
2. Sexual loans
3. Sexual gifts
4. Acts of rank idiocy

Alison impressed me. Setting fire to your face is ridiculously un-intelligent especially when it’s being done purely for entertainment purposes. A copy of ‘The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things’ for you!

Want a copy yourself? See here…

In America a lot of money’s been made from ‘reality’ sites, the defining characteristic seems to be that the less real the scenario, the more popular the product. Reality’s a label which makes outlandish fantasies more exciting - “Supermodels who dig fat gamers”, is the kind of website we want to believe in.

(Speaking of supermodels, last week in London I was at a bar which was hosting a model’s birthday party. The models had reserved every flat surface, and in order to find a place to sit I had to introduce myself and charm my way into one of their reserved, but empty, booths. While I was charming, one of my friends was being hit on by a perfectly nice, perfectly pretty woman who wasn’t part of the birthday party and thus was not a supermodel. Once we’d staked out our corner (I sprayed the area with musk in order to make sure all the other cats knew it was our space) we became increasingly friendly with the models who kept stopping by on their way to buy drinks.

My hit-on friend speaks, “I don’t know what to do. If I leave with this chick who’s digging my thing right now, I might miss out on one of the model later. What do you think?” to which my other friend responded “So you’re trying to decide if you should take the chick in front of you, or risk it all for the mystery chick which you might not get? What’s your call? The box in front of you or the mystery box? Deal or no-deal?” I laughed so hard whiskey came out of my nose. Thanks to a crappy British game-show (now on in the US too) we can all now ‘Deal or no deal?’ friends whenever they’re in danger of making a sexual compromise they might regret.)

In London I was turned on to RealPunting.com, a real ‘reality’ site. So you can make an appointment to meet any of the women you see there, who are all prostitutes.

The politically correct take on porn philosophy says there’s a difference between prostitution and pornography (If you want to offend a porn-performer refer to them as a prostitute and cover your nose.) The argument’s that porn-performers get to choose who they work with, which implies they aren’t being ‘bought and sold’ as prostitutes are.

In truth you can have sex with 95% of performers as long as you have a clean STD test from AIM, a camera and enough money to cover their rate. Complicating things further, a lot of pornsters hook on the side (there used to be an LA based agency called Nici’s Girls that specialized in introducing punters to performers), and many ‘agents’ behave like pimps. I’m sure there are prostitutes who are as picky about their clients as well-known adult performers are about their partners. As for the celebrities who’ll fly to Dubai to ’spend time with’ an oil-sheik for $50k a week - isn’t that escorting at a very high level?

In the face of a porn-site like RealPunting.com is it ridiculous to try and separate the two professions? If, to paraphrase Tony Comstock, “Things that are legal shouldn’t become illegal simply because you’re filming them”, should things become more legitimate because there’s a camera in the room?

AVN Magazine reigns supreme as the jizz-bizz journal of record, despite a few obvious failings and repeated challenges from competitors (most of whom burn out as fast as the ’stars’ they cover.) If you want a handle on the industry there’s no more reliable way to track who’s fucking whom, in front of and behind the camera. (Writing sentences that loaded with cheese feels naughty and good, like finding a huge part-liquid-part-solid booger on the end of your picking finger. And then eating it.)

Normally reading AVN means subscribing - which is expensive, finding it on a news-stand - which in 90% of the world is impossible, or checking out the website - which needs work and is slow to update. Now AVN offer a free electronic subscription to print subscribers, meaning you can view the magazine pages, as they appear in print, online from any web-capable gadget. As a lot of the value in AVN is the ads, the electronic magazine is a real upgrade.

The first electronic issue’s free to browse here.

I started my career in print (I was modeling in Europe before my fourteenth birthday - I still remember the day Hans discovered me on that Beach in Madrid) and know the basic model for magazines is that the cover price pays for paper, printing and distribution while ad revenue provides the profit. On that basis if you could distribute a magazine for free you would, because the more readers see your ads, the more you can charge for them.

So online editions of print magazines should be free.

The much feared downside, that people stop paying for the print edition entirely, isn’t real. If you maintain your circulation, and free yourself of the logistics and hassle of killing trees and paying for ink, your profit goes up - the reason why most successful blogs aren’t rushing to publish print editions. In truth, for every subscriber you lose, you’ll gain thousands of new online readers. Those extra eyeballs should be worth money to your advertisers.

Of course if you advocate an ad-free, free-content model for the internet everything I’ve just suggested must make you want to throw a sandal at me and find solace in a Grateful Dead bootleg. Sorry.

If anyone at AVN wants other tips on improving the bottom line just ask…