Check out this article from the Edmonton Journal about a pending study involving people appearing to have ESP, but only when the concealed pictures were of an erotic nature. Apparently thinking about sex makes us psychic. Makes perfect sense to me. Learn about MSP posts as they happen by following us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. You can also follow Craig VanKempen, the author of this post, @craigvk and make friends with us on Facebook. Continue Reading →
pornography
Recent posts
Is That You, Grandma? Welcome to the Elder Porn Industry.
I’ve posted about how sex can get better with age, but when I stumbled across Time magazine talking about the elder porn industry, I literally went “what?” out loud. While I’m a sex educator and consider myself to be fairly open minded, I wasn’t at all familiar with what Time labels “Japan’s booming sex niche: elder porn”. At first I thought that maybe they were going along with the Hollywood idea of “elder” and maybe it was pornography that included women into their 40s (in Hollywood, I feel like that’s considered old now). However, I was entirely off base. Continue Reading →
Porn Company Good For Community
This story about Kink.com opening its doors to local community events was featured on local news in the bay area. Working in the arena that I do, I didn’t feel shocked like many in the video seem to be. Continue Reading →
Porn, Addiction, And The Brain: Neuroscientists Weigh In
When Dan Savage and our own Debby Herbenick discussed porn addiction, among other fascinating sex topics, they agreed that porn addiction is not, in fact, an actual addiction (meaning there is no physical component making one become addicted to porn, though it can become a compulsion). An essay by a neuroscientist evaluating scholarship on the topic backs up their claim, stating that there is no peer-reviewed scientific work proving that porn addiction occurs at the chemical level in the brain. The differences between an addiction and a compulsion may be slight, but hopefully more research is forthcoming. Continue Reading →
Gay Porn Studio Fined By Cal/OSHA
Cal/OSHA recently fined gay porn studio Treasure Island Media $21,470 for allegedly putting employees in danger by exposing workers “to semen and other potentially infectious materials.” Treasure Island often makes barebacking porn (sex with no condoms, usually gay men) which carries many risks. I’m curious how this will affect the debate over condom use in straight porn. Thoughts? Continue Reading →
New Blog: Festivus Porn
Festivus, made popular by TV show Seinfeld, is a holiday celebrated on December 23rd in which participants erect an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, air their grievances, practice feats of strength (wrestling), and labeling easily explained events as Festivus Miracles. The idea is to get away from the whole commercialism thing. In order to get away from awful Christmas themed porn, the Festivus Porn (NSFW) blog was born. Continue Reading →
2011 AVN Awards Nominations
The 2011 AVN Awards Nominations (pdf) are out and you’re more than welcome to comb through all 74 pages of it like I did if you’re a sex toys and porn nerd like me. But if you’re not, or you just have better ways to spend your time, let me just sum it up for you. It’s a lot of the same industry porn as usual with titles that do more than just border on the offensive. But the great news is that we’re seeing more and more independent companies with loftier visions of human sexuality being nominated for awards. With the addition of sex toys and sex toy companies this year we got to see even more of this. Continue Reading →
How Do We Discuss The Effects Of Porn On Men Without A Control Group?
This 2009 report, while not new, is certainly fascinating: researchers find that all men watch porn. The original aim of the study was to compare the views of men in their 20s who hadn’t watched porn to those who did–but the researchers failed to find any men who hadn’t watched any porn. If so much importance is being placed on the notion of consequences or harm from watching porn, how can we even have this discussion without knowing what a pre-porn mentality resembles? Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Follow Jeana, the author of this post, @foxyfolklorist Continue Reading →
Lesbian Retro IXFF
The other night I attended Lesbo Retro Night as a part of the Good Vibrations’ Indie Erotic Film Fest (IXFF) and let me tell you, this porno girl was in porno heaven. The evening consisted of complimentary pizza and beer and a clip show from the fabulous Shar Rednour and Jackie Strano of S.I.R. Productions. We were treated to clips of lesbian porn made for and by lesbians starting in the 1970s and working up through 2001. Some was completely ridiculous and the audience laughed along with the filmmakers; some of it was panty dropping hot and the audience responded with cat calls. Continue Reading →
Has Pornography Heightened Or Hijacked Our Sexuality?
My father sent me a link to a public radio interview program, AirTalk, featuring Gail Dines and Shira Tarrant, feminists on opposing sides of the debate on whether pornography can be healthy or harmful toward our sexuality: “Has pornography heightened or hijacked our sexuality?” I think it’s worth a listen; the discussion touched on many thought-provoking points. For instance, are women who express skepticism about porn automatically labeled “prudes”? How do we discuss whether porn is harmful if we don’t have a good definition of “harm” in the first place? Continue Reading →