Chuck Calderon.

When conservatives attack porn they use ‘the children’ and ‘decency’ as their rack and iron maiden, arguments commonly defeated by the first amendment. Dworkinites and left-wing social conservatives prefer rape and taxation, the last of which is an area of the law so boring and debatable it consistently proves to be porn’s most forbiding opponent.

AVN reports that Chuck Calderon (D-Whittier) is pushing a bill which uses the imagined ’secondary effects’ of porn production as an excuse to levy an extra tax on anyone making it. With few people prepared to defend porn in public his bill’s a triple win. It’ll bring in extra-revenue, have a cooling effect on the adult industry, and steer debate away from real issues like education, health care and crime. If defeated he gets to claim the mantle of ‘public defender’ and accuse anyone against him of being soft on vice.

Which begs me to ask why, in a region where thousands of people are involved in the porn industry, know it’s mostly benign, and stand to lose if the bill is passed, are opportunists like Calderon bold enough to attack the people who employ their constituents?

It can be hard, nigh on impossible, to mix a fondness for anatomy films with streetwear you’re not ashamed to be in. Porn company logo-wear isn’t funny and will only attract knowing nods from lonely men, while promotional items for any movie produced since 1989 is out of the question unless you suspect you won’t be the only person in a “Tiny Stretched Assholes” T-Shirt at the PTA meeting.

Mondo Tees comes to the rescue with a number of retro-themed designs which, with a couple of exceptions, avoid being cringe worthy and make hip, albeit not wildly creative, references to the ‘golden age’ of skin flicks.

Wear your new shirt over this for full effect.

The best of this weeks blogs by the bloggers who blog them.

This Week’s Picks
Ménage
“Sometimes, she’s even more the centre of things than he is, since she is a more recent addition to the dynamic, and since we both adore her.”

Money and Sex
“And then in walks sex, #1 potential button pusher of all times.”

Denied - 11
“There’s a click, and a lifting of restriction, and cool, soothing moistness.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
The Skeptical Pornographer: The G-Spot.

Editor’s Choice
A fitting for a marriage

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

The ‘banned’ poster campaign for Captivity.

Torture-porn is raising the same questions in the mainstream as extreme-porn has in jizz bizz. With the UK release of ‘Hostel: II’, Time Out has joined the debate with a look at reactions to the new wave of torture porn which started with SAW.

The content of Hollywood and Jizz Bizz torture porn is similar, sexy women subjected to degradation and violence, but while Hollywood presents the torturers as evil (unless they’re called Jack Bauer) and its victims as sympathetic, porn presents those inflicting violence as the viewer’s avatar and suggests the subjects of violence are stupid, willing or deserving of the abuse they receive (hence the emphasis on women being made to ask for more and consent on camera).

Does knowing Elisha Cuthbert wasn’t hurt making Hostel:II ‘Captivity’ mean it’s right to treat its content differently to un-simulated violent porn (which we currently do), and if so, when porn films stop pretending to be documenting reality, and start to openly simulate violence, will porn get more extreme as once impossible fantasies are expressed without inhibition?

Are Hostel like movies with graphic sex-scenes what we have to look forward to?

My last attempt at buying sensible underwear (not the ‘Saturday Night Specials‘) was a disaster. I’m currently living in stuff that’s too thick, or too loose, or both. Which is why, as respecting your junk is rule number one, I’ve been shopping for alternatives.

In my web travels I came across the site for Ginch Gonch who offer a range of styles for men and women modeled by a raft of hotties in various states of undress. It’s not a po-faced as American Apparel and way, way gayer in feel (they advertise pretty heavily in the homosexualist press).

If you need a website you can visit at work for a little titillation, isn’t it time you went underwear shopping?

The best of this weeks blogs by the bloggers who blog them.

This Week’s Picks
The Other Night that I Was Waiting For
“We could have an entire relationship without ever leaving this spot.”

In the Beginning
“The actual piercing was exquisite – one fraction of a second of pain, followed by a feeling of pleasure like I have never experienced.”

A modern romance or just wanking off in front of the computer screen?
“And then there are some people you want in your bed. ”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
The Torture Porn Debate

Editor’s Choice
Never say never

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

I have run an online adult goodies store for about 3 years now. To say the least, I have run into some interesting characters in my 3 years of online smut-pandering. I am about to end my run of naughty knick-knacks and I’d just like to give a wee shout-out to the people who struck me as the most interesting, funny, annoying and downright memorable. Here goes nothing….

1. Angry, self-righteous female customer : You placed your order Sunday night. By Monday morning, you were emailing me IN GIANT RED ANGRY LETTERS that you had not received an email telling you that your order had shipped. I politely emailed you back within minutes stating that orders take about 4 business days to ship out (remember that little button you had to click on that said you read and understood ALL our policies BEFORE you were able to place your order? Well, that little gem was in there!). You emailed me again less than 45 minutes later stating in GIANT BOLD RED FONTS that you will report my website to the BBB if I didn’t send your order out immediately…hmm, the only way I know to get something right away is to get on the bus/subway/in a cab, high tail it to the adult store of your choice and purchase said items in person. After your 5th email that day screaming/demanding/threatening, to ship your items or else, I finally told you to take a flying leap off a short bridge and I refunded your money ( all $17.99 of it!). The customer is NOT always right..often times she is a total bitch!

2. Weirdo who always bought the same dildo, then canceled his order 15 minutes later: To respond to your query: NO I don’t know if this is a ‘good cock’. Even if I bought this particular item for myself, I certainly wouldn’t tell a complete stranger my opinion of it! After you fifth purchase of this item in less than a month, I finally banned your sorry ass from buying anything at my store again. Every time I have to refund your money, I lose money myself! My credit card processor takes 5% that I will never see again! You were a man buying a particularly LARGE (John Holmes) dildo… this doesn’t mean that you are gay or anything and frankly I don’t care on way or the other… but from the desperate, seeking emails you sent me and the number of times you asked for a refund, I am guessing that you couldn’t come to grips with whatever angst you were feeling at the times you thought 10 inches of Ultra-Skin would feel REALLY good in your ass.

3. Woman who bought about $650 worth of stuff at Xmas, then emails me 6 months later claiming that she only got about half of her order: Sorry, but most normal people would let me know within a couple weeks of getting a tracking number that most of your order didn’t show up. Oh, BTW, you had the WHOLE THING sent to one address, so please don’t lie to me and tell me that over half of the people ‘you had it shipped to’ didn’t get their items…how freaking stupid do you think I am? I am the only one running this company, so when you tell me to ‘ask my shipping department what happened”, I don’t have to walk far to make that query.

4. Strange customers who keep ‘reviewing’ the John Holmes cock(that is ONE popular item)….I don’t need you posting the same review 500 times! Holy crap, I get it! You LIKE this dick…..

5. People who have AOL or Yahoo accounts…WE STATE on our front page and BEFORE you place the order that you MUST add us to your address book on your email account to get your confirming email. For some reason we often can’t get through to you. PLEASE don’t email us threatening to call the BBB because you didn’t get an email confirming your purchase of the Badunkadunk Booty “Do-it-in-the-Butt” RealSkin fake vagina/ass combo. We WANT to get that email to you! Trust me, you don’t want to have to explain to the BBB or your credit card company why you are complaining/doing a charge-back for a $225 item that an elephant could easily have relations with.

6. Creepy guy that offered to exchange ‘web services’ for adult products: You wanted the Kobe Tai Ultra Realistic Ass and Pussy in exchange for helping me ‘get my website out there.”…Well, I’m guessing it’s already out there since I get about $3000 worth of business a month- not to mention YOU found it so I can’t be too far gone in cyber space that no one can hear me scream. I would REALLY feel a little weird setting up a relationship with you based on the knowledge that our first ‘exchange’ of funds was a phony pussy. It just would creep me out every time I talked to you to know that you were banging that fake vagina. Ick!!!

(via Best of Craigslist)

Steve Jobs and the iPhone.

This is an iPhone post.

Sorry.

Of interest to pornographers is that yes, the browser in the iPhone handles image heavy sites with incredible aplomb. Most of the sites I looked at rendered exactly as they would on a Mac which means if you’d like to remain iPhone compatible it’s worth downloading Safari, or if you’re on a Mac and don’t have the gadget, the iPhone simulator.

The device is brilliant. Intuitive and sexy. It’s not a super-phone, it’s a little computer pretending to be a phone and as soon as you handle it you find yourself doing a bunch of computer things (watching YouTube, surfing the web) and not much boring phone stuff.

Of interest to speculators everywhere, I was using the iPhone in London and it locks onto Vodaphone and worked perfectly. If you’re traveling to the states, have a US social security number, can’t wait for the official release and don’t mind the roaming charges (anyone still with me?) you can buy an iPhone in America and use it in London. Probably not that smart but today, with iPhones in Europe being rarer than Osmonds at an AVN afterparty, I can tell you that yes, just having an iPhone here can get you laid.

For the super-rich the latest ‘problem’ is having their submarine sexual adventures peeped on by horny dolphins.

NB: Knowing this ‘problem’ is ridiculous made-up-to-publicize-a-mini-sub-manufacturer shit will NOT stop me blogging it.

Luke Ford

Brainy Quote, one of a Bridget Kerkove sized assload of daily quote sites, has a well stocked section devoted to porn’s most famous self-hating (faux) Jew Luke Ford. I know this because it’s being fed into my Gmail which likes to point me at stuff in blogs I have already read mixed with stuff on sites I have no interest in.

Can you upload this stuff to Brainy Quote yourself, or does - *gulp* - Ford have readers who think he’s as smart as he reminds us he is.

N.B. As no one loves Luke like Luke, he’s blogged on it here.