The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) Board recent approved .xxx domain names for pornographic websites. The measure has been talked about for a long time and has actually been opposed by both sides of the pornography debate.  Anti-porn people are upset because it’s porn.  Pornographers are afraid that having a .xxx domain will create an Internet red-light district and subject them to government regulation.

I tend to think having a .xxx is a good idea primarily because it makes it easier to block pornographic websites.  Practically speaking, however, the new .xxx designation doesn’t change anything because pornographic websites 1) aren’t forced to purchase .xxx domains and 2) they’ll just add .xxx to their existing domain.  Thus, YouPorn.com will presumably be YouPorn.com and YouPorn.xxx.  If there’s a block on all .xxx sites, there will still be the .com site.

The takeaway from the story is .xxx is now a domain.  Just thought you should know.

Related articles

• ICANN approves .xxx top-level domain – Computerworld (news.google.com)

YouTube Porn?

According to Alexa, YouTube is the #3 site in the world.  YouPorn is #62.  Today Google announced that they were going to release private links to videos on YouTube.  Now you can upload a video and instead of making it public or private (invite certain people), you upload videos that are unsearchable and accessible only if you have the link.  Is it just me or does this sound sketchy? Why would you upload a video to YouTube if you didn’t want it to be public (whole world) or private (invite only)? Let’s not forget that Google has a tendency to release porn friendly products.

Source: Google Public Policy Blog

I don’t watch porn.  It really doesn’t interest me.  Part of the reason why I don’t watch it is because it encourages behavior that many people emulate in real life.  Some people get turned on by watching a film about a man sleeping with someone’s wife and the man sitting right there watching.  Some disturbed people do this in real life.  Many men take what they see porn stars do and try to emulate it in the bedroom.  The vast majority of pornography is degrading to women, but yet people not only watch these films, but find it proper to do these things to their wife.

At least one guy has enough sense to know the difference (but not enough sense to stop watching porn period).  In his article “Don’t Try This at Home – Stuff Guys Want in Their Porn, Not in Their Beds,” the author discusses acts that probably shouldn’t be tried at home.  When he talks about fulfilling fantasies, he says

Take me. For some, sick reason, I love a porn involving a wife banging some other dude while her husband is fully in the know, or even in the room! Why? Because I’m insane! The husband’s just sitting there, and then there’s the wife being all “Oh this is sooo good,” clearly implying it’s better than what her husband offers.

For some reason, this porn scenario really turns me on. But the thought of real-life adultery freaks me out to no end. I don’t want another dude in the room! I also don’t want to sleep with someone’s wife. I’m not out to destroy lives. (Or have some creepy dude eyeball my johnson.) Really — even if I was offered a chance to sleep with a super-gorgeous woman who was married, and the husband was like, “Dude, dude, it’s totally cool. Seriously,” I couldn’t do it.

Unfortunately, there are still plenty of confused people out there that think that ejaculating on a woman’s face is making love.  Not being able to distinguish between “acting” (or whatever you want to call porn) and real life harm relationships in two ways.  1) If you treat your significant other like a porn star, it means that you don’t respect her.  If you don’t value someone, then there’s nothing to keep you from stepping out on them.  2) If your significant other refuses to be your porn star, then you very well may consult the services of someone that will let you [insert fetish].

Source: LemonDrop

This article is FULL of links to good sources.  I wish I had the time to read them all.  But here’s what’s most important.

Against Porn

• Ruins Relationships
• Deadens Our Erotic Senses
• Akin to Adultery
• Sexist, Exploitative

Against Those Against Porn

• Akin to Adultery? Give me a Break
• Porn May Actually Make Society Better

Source: The Atlantic

I think everyone can agree that finding someone else attractive is natural, but I’m actually have to disagree and say that it’s okay to fantasize about someone else.  When I think about fantasizing, I suppose that people mean having sex with someone else.  That’s likely a problem.  I feel the same way about pornography.  Watching porn doesn’t keep you from cheating or suppress feelings.  If anything, it sparks the desire to have sex.

Emily Gordon has an interesting approach to the issue

My rules for relationship disclosure are:
1) Will it hurt my husband’s feelings to know?
2) Would I feel that it was vital to know if our roles were reversed?

Both questions have to be answered yes before I consider telling him a secret.

I think her approach is better than making it seem like having a threesome with the wives of your two best friends is okay.

Source: LemonDrop

Failblog is one of my favorite sites. I finally have a reason to posting something on my blog.  Life is good.

Source: Failblog

Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye

Wally World is getting into the online movie business (like everyone else).  They recently acquired a company called Vudu and the first thing they did was remove the Vudu After Dark films.  Some of these films were pornographic in nature.  I can’t believe that I am giving Wal-Mart props for something.  Scary…

Source: Techcrunch

This is a wonderful article by a man brave enough to discuss how he quit his job filming porn once he realized how harmful it is to women.   Be sure to read the ENTIRE article.

The following are my two favorite passages:

But in due time, I came to learn that within the context of the heterosexual L.A. industry, while my overt task at hand was to make sure that the girls got naked, my true responsibility as director was to make sure the girls got punished. Scenes that stuck out, and hence made more money, were those in which the female “targets” were verbally degraded and sometimes physically humiliated.

None of it was written in my contract, of course; it was more of a contextual thing. Like: Everyone’s doing it . . . thus, so shall we. My various superiors across the years saw the issue from a businessman’s perspective, reminding me quite openly of the need to keep up with our competition. Anabolic’s getting nasty? Then we need to be nastier. Another one of their gambits was “We owe it our viewers.”We have to give them what they want! (And what do “they” want? Scenes of degradation, of course. Gloryholes and gang-bangs. The facial cumshot became de riguer sometime in the 1980s, but by the 2000s, you literally had to do it in every scene or risk not collecting your paycheck.)

Source: AlterNet