When I tell people I write about cybersex, I get a lot of curious reactions. I’ve grown used to, for example, the “Oh my God, you’re secretly a pervert” grimace: a sour, prudish twisting of the mouth. I’m also well-acquainted with the “You actually have sex on the internet?!” look of shock and concern—raised eyebrows, dropped jaw. And then there’s the most curious reaction of all: the understanding, almost sympathetic nod, which says, “It must be tough, but good for you. After all, somebody has got to uncover that den of online perversion.”
Rarely do people—even sex positive people—respond cybersex positively. Why is that? When so many consenting adults are having sex online, why do we still think of it as “wrong”? Sure, we can blame media that feeds us anti-cybersex sensationalism (To Catch a Predator, with its line-up of internet prowling pedophiles, come to mind). But the truth is we love sex, and we definitely love technology. So why can’t we love the two together?
Few areas of sexual behavior arouse as much condemnation or as little critical thought as child sexual abuse, and child pornography (despite lack of a consensus definition) is often presented as the epitome of sexual abuse. Consequently, Jenkins’ book is valuable to those interested in issues of child and adolescent sexuality, sexual abuse, pornography, and sexuality on the Internet. Despite its flaws, no other comparable work exists that explores the online subculture of child pornography based on the thoughts and beliefs of the participants themselves, primarily as posted on message boards catering to individuals seeking to collect child pornography (CP) images.
Jenkins clearly states that CP images are exploitative and abusive, but manages to be (usually) calm and reasoned in discussing the nature and extent of the problem and possible responses. Jenkins is well qualified to take a levelheaded look at this online subculture. In his earlier book, Moral Panics, he documented how periods of extreme concern over sexual threats to children have occurred several times in 20th-century America, leading to exaggerated claims about prevalence and effects in order to advance social and moral agendas. Jenkins also writes that he recognizes the contradiction between his earlier exposure of such concerns as overblown, and his effort in this book to raise social concern about an authentic problem he believes is neglected.
The title says it all: By 2050, David Levy predicts, ordinary people will routinely fall in love with robots and have sex with them. Well, I know students whose most intimate companion is their laptop, and I have no doubt that some people are already having sex with robots, for the simple reason that some people will have sex with anything.
Levy, however, goes further: He suggests that, by midcentury, intimate relations with humanoid robots will be a commonplace, accepted feature of society. Fortunately, 2050 is still reasonably far away; in 2050, I intend to be either (a) dead or (b) 90 years old. In either case, it will take one heck of a sexy robot to get me aroused. Other, more youthful folks may not be so lucky. Do future tourists in Times Square run the risk of being accosted by lusty automata?
Levy musters some serious arguments for his claim. His chapter on blow-up rubber sex dolls and the like will surely rank as the definitive study of such phenomena for years to come. Because of the thoroughness of his research and the care with which he sets out his arguments, his thesis deserves a hearing. He begins by discussing why people fall in love with other people. One could say a great deal about this topic, or little, and Levy opts for little. People are attracted to each other emotionally and sexually, and one thing leads to another. Technology allows love to blossom into strange and new flowers, Levy argues; witness love on the Internet between two people who have never met. His point is that falling in love is natural and that people fall in love in many ways for many reasons. Fair enough. He then devotes considerably more space to exploring the love people feel for their pets. People love their pets a lot and frequently regard them as family members. Pet love is important for Levy, as he wishes to emphasize that the object of our strong love need not be human.
Good news for men whose penises are either so large or so small that they can’t find a condom to fit them: A German inventor has come up with a sprayed-to-measure system that should ensure a snug fit for even the most unusual sizes.
A German condom expert has developed a “spray-on condom” system in the form of a pump that squirts out liquid latex through a multitude of nozzles that cover the erect member with a latex sheath in a matter of seconds.
“If you go into a drug store to buy condoms, the ones they sell are mainly suited to men with the average penis length of 14.5 centimetres (5.51 inches), but a lot of people have penises that are smaller or larger than that,” Jan Vinzenz Krause, director of the Institute for Condom Consultancy, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
“We thought why not come up with a condom that fits the man rather than vice versa? This would represent a revolution in the condom market,” said Krause, whose institute gives sex education as well as providing advice on AIDS prevention and contraception.
Más o menos, creo que todos estamos al cabo de la calle acerca de los retoques que se hacen con Photoshop a las famosas; esas con las que sueñan algunos en las revistas y a las que otras intentan parecerse. A veces se les va la mano con los retoques, y dejan a las chicas sin ombligo, y otras… ¿son ellas?
Pussy at Play
New film documents the history of vibrators
by Tristan Taormino
August 28th, 2007
I never thought I’d see vibrators dancing in the closing credits of a movie at Lincoln Center. But that’s just what I saw at the world premiere of Passion & Power: The Technology of Orgasm (technologyoforgasm.com) at the Walter Reade Theater last month. The independently funded documentary was produced and directed by Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori and is based on the book The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction by Rachel P. Maines. It’s a fascinating look at the history of vibrators and the female orgasm in America.
The film begins with Maines sharing some history about how the vibrator first came to exist. From as early as Hippocrates, doctors began diagnosing women with a condition called hysteria that had a broad range of symptoms, including anxiety, insomnia, crankiness, and nervousness, and that brought on erotic fantasies and heaviness in the pelvic region. The treatment for hysteria was a vulval and clitoral massage performed by a doctor in order to achieve what was called “hysterical paroxysm”—an orgasm. In other words, you went to the doctor, he got you off, and you went home feeling better. At the end of the 19th century, the first vibrators were invented in order to make the doctor’s job easier. Although the prototypes were huge and clunky (one early one was practically the size of a bed, another was powered by coal), eventually there were smaller handheld versions. Pretty soon, manufacturers began marketing them directly to consumers.
Washington, DC — So-called “vaginal rejuvenation,” “designer vaginoplasty,” “revirgination,” and “G-spot amplification” procedures are not medically indicated, nor is there documentation of their safety and effectiveness, said The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) today in a new Committee Opinion published in the September issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Moreover, it is deceptive to give the impression that any of these procedures are accepted and routine surgical practices, according to ACOG.
ACOG recommends that women considering cosmetic vaginal procedures should be informed about the lack of data supporting the effectiveness of these procedures as well as their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia (pain), adhesions, and scarring.
The bra was invented by an engineer of German extraction called Onto Titzling in 1912. He was living in a New York boarding house, and one of his neighbours, a voluptuous opera singer called Swanhilda Olafson, complained that she needed a garment to hoist her vast bosom aloft every evening — so Titzling obliged, using some cotton, elastic and metal struts. Unfortunately, he failed to patent the device and, in the early 1930s, a Frenchman named Philippe de Brassière began making a suspiciously similar object. Titzling took him to court, but the unscrupulous Frenchman won the day. And that’s why the garment all the ladies are wearing is called a brassiere, not a titzling.
Bette Midler sang about this court case in the film Beaches, so obviously it’s true, isn’t it? Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a total fabrication, based on a spoof 1971 history by Wallace Reyburn, and is just one of a thousand tales and myths that punctuate the history of the small double-dome of cloth that encases the female chest.
The bra is a thing of wondrous variety. It has been called the Hemispheres of Paradise and, less flatteringly, the Over-the-Shoulder Boulder Holder. Its function has been, paradoxically, both modest concealment and brazen revelation. It has been praised as a revolutionary garment that freed women from constriction, and has been (allegedly) burnt in public as an emblem of oppression.
Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?
Alexandra Alter on the toll one man’s virtual marriage is taking on his real one and what researchers are discovering about the surprising power of synthetic identity.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
August 10, 2007; Page W1
On a scorching July afternoon, as the temperature creeps toward 118 degrees in a quiet suburb east of Phoenix, Ric Hoogestraat sits at his computer with the blinds drawn, smoking a cigarette. While his wife, Sue, watches television in the living room, Mr. Hoogestraat chats online with what appears on the screen to be a tall, slim redhead.
He’s never met the woman outside of the computer world of Second Life, a well-chronicled digital fantasyland with more than eight million registered “residents” who get jobs, attend concerts and date other users. He’s never so much as spoken to her on the telephone. But their relationship has taken on curiously real dimensions. They own two dogs, pay a mortgage together and spend hours shopping at the mall and taking long motorcycle rides. This May, when Mr. Hoogestraat, 53, needed real-life surgery, the redhead cheered him up with a private island that cost her $120,000 in the virtual world’s currency, or about $480 in real-world dollars. Their bond is so strong that three months ago, Mr. Hoogestraat asked Janet Spielman, the 38-year-old Canadian woman who controls the redhead, to become his virtual wife.
The woman he’s legally wed to is not amused. “It’s really devastating,” says Sue Hoogestraat, 58, an export agent for a shipping company, who has been married to Mr. Hoogestraat for seven months. “You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they’ll be having sex with a cartoon.”
* Son de silicona, tienen esqueleto metálico, llevan pelo natural y se alquilan
* Sus antecesoras nacieron como ‘divertimento’ de las tripulaciones de submarinos
* La última generación tiene apariencia humana y se alquila en burdeles
07/08/2007
ALBERTO ROJAS
MADRID.-.- ¿Puede un ser humano enamorarse de un robot con curvas de mujer? ¿Es una perversión tener relaciones sexuales con una maniquí de silicona? ¿Sueñan los androides con ovejas eléctricas? El cine, el mejor oráculo de la posmodernidad, lleva planteándose estas mismas preguntas desde los hermanos Lumière: en 1927, Fritz Lang ya creó para su ‘Metrópolis’ un autómata femenino llamado María. En 1984 ‘Blade runner’ tenía entre sus protagonistas a una insinuante y violenta replicante llamada Pris. Steven Spielberg fue mucho más allá en ‘Inteligencia Artificial’ (2001), ya que concibió un mundo futuro en el que existían legiones de ‘cyborgs’ dedicados a ofrecer placer carnal.
Igual que el ’séptimo arte’, el mundo real también ha echado mano de humanoides que, si bien no tienen nada de mecánicos, si han servido como herramientas para el ‘consuelo’ sexual. Por ejemplo, las tripulaciones japonesas destacadas en los submarinos después de la Primera Guerra Mundial usaron las primeras muñecas hinchables de la Historia no precisamente como flotadores por si la nave se hundía, sino para matar el deseo en las profundidades marinas. Después, convertidas ya en un fetiche, se universalizaron en los ’sex shops’ de todo el mundo.
Aaron was hot—as hot as a male, Second Life avatar can be. Tan, all muscle, Hawaiian shorts and long, blonde hair: he was fully equipped and ready to please. He was also a sugar daddy—the kind of guy who put his arm around your virtual shoulder and offered to buy anything you wanted: a curvy new figure, a working vagina, clickable breasts. And even in Second Life, that stuff doesn’t come cheap. So how could you say no when he proposed taking your new figure out for a spin?
One way or another, we got to be a regular thing. To tell the truth, Aaron wasn’t very good in bed. Cybersex with him made no narrative sense. (What do you mean you’re coming? You said you just came.) And every other word out of his mouth was “babydoll.” But given the amount of Linden dollars he’d thrown down on me, I felt obligated. Plus, he had this clever way of roping me into another meeting time at the end of each rendezvous. He would say things like, “I can’t wait to see you again, babydoll. You’re the best part of my day.”
Many men, faced with the prospect of going to the doctor for a fertility evaluation, will tell you: they would rather just stay home.
Now they can.
A new at-home screening test, called Fertell, lets couples find out if they have fertility problems without stepping into a doctor’s office. The test has his and hers components — a screening test for men that is the first at-home device to measure the concentration of motile sperm, and a test for women that measures a hormone considered a marker of egg quality.
The availability of the two-in-one test helps drive home the message that both men and women can contribute to infertility, experts say.
Por Beatriz Preciado, profesora en la Universidad París VIII -Saint-Denis, y autora del Manifiesto contra-sexual (LA VANGUARDIA, 20/05/07):
He aquí tres momentos de la historia política del cuerpo: la ascesis mística, el suplicio del condenado, Cambio radical. La modernidad podría ser entendida como un proceso de secularización del cuerpo. Si el cuerpo premoderno era un organismo cerrado habitado por la divinidad cuyo destino y significación estaba regido por los las leyes teológicas, el cuerpo moderno se caracterizará por expulsar progresivamente a Dios, aceptando al Estado y sus instituciones disciplinarias como nuevos inquilinos de la corporalidad. En los últimos dos siglos, el cuerpo progresivamente desalojado por lo sagrado, lo metafísico y lo estatal, cuerpo libre al riesgo de verse desencantado, se deja okupar por las fuerzas del capitalismo global.
Para complicar las cosas, este cuerpo no tiene sus límites en la envoltura carnal que la piel bordea, ni puede entenderse como un sustrato biológico fuera de los entramados de producción y cultivo propios de la tecnociencia. Dicho con Donna Haraway, el cuerpo contemporáneo es una entidad tecnoviva multiconectada que incorpora tecnología. Ni organismo, ni máquina, ni naturaleza, ni cultura: tecnocuerpo. La nuevas técnicas quirúrgicas y farmacológicas ponen en marcha procesos de construcción tectónica que combinan modos de representación figurativos que provienen del cine y de la arquitectura, como el montaje, el modeling en 3D o el diseño de personalidad, según los cuales los órganos, tejidos, fluidos y moléculas se transforman en materias primas a partir de las que se fabrica nuestra corporalidad.
Is lascivious online content, traditionally on top, losing its lustre?
WHEN the internet took off in the 1990s, it was demonised as a steaming cauldron of porn. It has certainly made pornography more widely and easily available than ever before. The online porn industry is difficult to measure, but was valued at $1 billion in 2002 by America’s National Research Council. Google, which publishes its “zeitgeist” list of top search queries, redacts sex-related terms from the rankings for fear of causing offence. But the popularity of pornography is clear from figures compiled by companies that track user “clickstreams”. Last year about 13% of website visits in America were pornographic in nature, according to Hitwise, a market-research firm. For comparison, search engines account for about 7% of site visits.
Yet the Hitwise data suggest that sex sites are now being dethroned. In Britain search sites overtook sex sites in popularity last October—the first time any other category has come out on top since tracking began, says Hitwise. In America, the proportion of site visits that are pornographic is falling and people are flocking to sites categorised “net communities and chat”—chiefly social-networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Traffic to such sites is poised to overtake traffic to sex sites in America any day now (see chart).
Here is a smattering of things I did during the six-year quest to conceive my daughter: interrupt love-making to squirt raw egg whites into myself with a turkey baster (it’s reputed to abet the feminine fluid that speeds sperm to egg); substitute two teaspoons of Robitussin for my morning coffee (its main ingredient thins and loosens mucous in the lungs, and although there is no actual proof, it’s thought to work similar juju farther south); down ovulation-stimulating pills that triggered fits of rage; inject myself with the urine of postmenopausal Italian nuns (the original source of some fertility drugs, though it’s hard to imagine how the goods are gathered); chug unidentifiable herbal potions that tasted like garden mulch; squander what would have been the college fund on long-shot in-vitro-fertilization treatments; imperil my marriage.
Here is what I did not do: stock up on Häagen-Dazs. That, apparently, was my mistake. According to data gleaned from the Nurses Health Study at the Harvard School of Public Health and published earlier this year in the journal Human Reproduction, women who consume ice cream at least twice a week have a 38 percent lower risk of ovulation-related infertility than those who indulge a mere once a week. What’s more, the piously health-conscious — women who eat two or more servings of low-fat dairy products, particularly yogurt, a week — are twice as likely to have trouble becoming pregnant as those who eat less than one serving of the skinny stuff.
Los contenidos para adultos llegan al móvil de la mano de la nueva generación de telefonía
RAMÓN MUÑOZ - Madrid
EL PAÍS - Sociedad - 19-03-2007
“Nadie va a comprar un móvil capaz de ver vídeos para bajarse un trailer de Walt Dinsey. Pero sí lo comprará para ver un video erótico tranquilamente”. La frase es de Harvey Kaplan, presidente de Xobile, la mayor empresa de contenidos para adultos de móvil. La pronunció hace dos años en una entrevista a The New York Times y ha sido profética. Xobile.com suma 20.000 nuevos suscriptores mensuales.
Y no está sola. Las compañías clásicas de contenidos eróticos como Private o Playboy se han volcado en adaptar sus contenidos a las especificaciones y usos del móvil, que forman una parte cada vez más importante de sus ingresos. Y al tirón del negocio ha comenzado a aparecer una industria cinematográfica, con directores y actores especializados. Y las películas eróticas para móviles, antes meras traslaciones de las películas de cine, comienzan a independizarse y a tener su propio formato.
May, 2003
Book Review
Jenkins clearly states that CP images are exploitative and abusive, but manages to be (usually) calm and reasoned in discussing the nature and extent of the problem and possible responses. Jenkins is well qualified to take a levelheaded look at this online subculture. In his earlier book, 
Technology of Orgasm (
“revirgination,” and “G-spot amplification” procedures are not medically indicated, nor is there documentation of their safety and effectiveness, said 
On a scorching July afternoon, as the temperature creeps toward 118 degrees in a quiet suburb east of Phoenix, Ric Hoogestraat sits at his computer with the blinds drawn, smoking a cigarette. While his wife, Sue, watches television in the living room, Mr. Hoogestraat chats online with what appears on the screen to be a tall, slim redhead.
He’s never met the woman outside of the computer world of 
MADRID.-.- ¿Puede un ser humano enamorarse de un robot con curvas de mujer? ¿Es una perversión tener relaciones sexuales con una maniquí de silicona? ¿Sueñan los androides con ovejas eléctricas? El cine, el mejor oráculo de la posmodernidad, lleva planteándose estas mismas preguntas desde los hermanos Lumière: en 1927, Fritz Lang ya creó para su ‘Metrópolis’ un autómata femenino llamado María. En 1984 ‘Blade runner’ tenía entre sus protagonistas a una insinuante y violenta replicante llamada Pris. Steven Spielberg fue mucho más allá en ‘Inteligencia Artificial’ (2001), ya que concibió un mundo futuro en el que existían legiones de ‘cyborgs’ dedicados a ofrecer placer carnal.
Aaron was hot—as hot as a male, Second Life avatar can be. Tan, all muscle, Hawaiian shorts and long, blonde hair: he was fully equipped and ready to please. He was also a sugar daddy—the kind of guy who put his arm around your virtual shoulder and offered to buy anything you wanted: a curvy new figure, a working vagina, clickable breasts. And even in Second Life, that stuff doesn’t come cheap. So how could you say no when he proposed taking your new figure out for a spin?
A new at-home screening test, called 
WHEN the internet took off in the 1990s, it was demonised as a steaming cauldron of porn. It has certainly made pornography more widely and easily available than ever before. The online porn industry is difficult to measure, but was valued at $1 billion in 2002 by America’s National Research Council. Google, which publishes its “zeitgeist” list of top search queries, redacts sex-related terms from the rankings for fear of causing offence. But the popularity of pornography is clear from figures compiled by companies that track user “clickstreams”. Last year about 13% of website visits in America were pornographic in nature, according to Hitwise, a market-research firm. For comparison, search engines account for about 7% of site visits.
Here is a smattering of things I did during the six-year quest to conceive my daughter: interrupt love-making to squirt raw egg whites into myself with a turkey baster (it’s reputed to abet the feminine fluid that speeds sperm to egg); substitute two teaspoons of Robitussin for my morning coffee (its main ingredient thins and loosens mucous in the lungs, and although there is no actual proof, it’s thought to work similar juju farther south); down ovulation-stimulating pills that triggered fits of rage; inject myself with the urine of postmenopausal Italian nuns (the original source of some fertility drugs, though it’s hard to imagine how the goods are gathered); chug unidentifiable herbal potions that tasted like garden mulch; squander what would have been the college fund on long-shot in-vitro-fertilization treatments; imperil my marriage.
