Porntifications

Posted by mikezillion at July 23rd, 2007

My partner Ken Slater received an email from Ali, one of his performers, this past week. Apparently, a friend in Maryland saw Ali in a clip from “Feed the Bears,” a copyrighted adult CyberBears DVD, on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The clip wasn’t credited, and was misrepresented as a scene from a recent popular movie. A staff writer at The Late Show even blogged about how he researched and obtained the clip, so clearly the source was known to the producers of the show. I guess adult companies don’t get the same copyright protection as other media producers…

Posted by mikezillion at July 12th, 2007

I am not kidding you. This was actually handed to me on the corner of 17th and Castro St. in the heart of San Francisco’s gay district this afternoon, by a group of folks soliciting contributions to support the impeachment of Dick Cheney. (Note: The telephone numbers are for Nancy Pelosi. The intent was to encourage folks to call her office and support the impeachment.)

When I objected that giving people condoms with staple holes through the middle was irresponsible, they said nobody would be foolish enough to use one. I pointed out that it was foolish to provide them in the first place, and they asked me whether I was generally uncomfortable with sexual humor. I told them I run a porn studio, and that this was a public health issue. They replied that they were here about political issues, not public health, and asked again for a donation–or at least for a few hundred replacement condoms if I was really that serious about getting them to stop what they were doing. It went on like that for a few minutes. They continued to hand these out while we talked.

I finally left, and went two blocks down Market Street to the offices of the Stop AIDS Project. They immediately dispatched a volunteer with a box of 800 condoms to explain the situation to these irresponsible solicitors. I ran into the volunteer an hour later, and he told me that he had succeeded where I had failed. I guess 800 condoms are a good bargaining edge.

How can folks think this is ok? Sheesh!

Posted by mikezillion at July 10th, 2007

I know, I know. What the hell is a porn blog doing covering Disney? Well, not linking to them, for one thing. But the fact is that Disney’s “Toontown” has over a million unique users, and charges them all $9.95 a month for access, but the company has decided to abandon the subscription model in favor of an advertiser-supported solution. This is a noteworthy switch in tactics. There may well be significant implications for all the porn publishers who use subscription-based services to sell their products.

Posted by mikezillion at June 3rd, 2007

Exhibitionism is becoming part of normal expressive sexuality, but it’s starting to affect our children in negative ways. Given the trend, it may be that exhibitionists with alternative body types, such as the popular Suicide Girls site, could help pave the way to a more accepting and healthy body image for all of us.

Posted by mikezillion at June 1st, 2007

The Second Life community is reeling from a blog post warning that the service will not tolerate certain taboo activities on its site. Among these is role-playing of sexual interaction involving minors, even when both role-players are actually consenting adults.

This is getting into a sticky area, and I don’t envy the folks at Linden Labs, who run Second Life, their responsibility. I’ve visited Second Life a few times (and no, I’m not going to tell you my alias there) and as far as I can tell it’s equally easy for a minor or for an adult to log in and play around as either a virtual minor or a virtual adult. This being the case, I don’t see that they have any choice but to impose reasonable limitations on the activities of their members.

Make a site that’s limited to adult members, and make sure that all the members are adults, and then we can open this discussion again. Of course, I might still side with the folks who want to impose similar limits on what’s acceptable in virtually public adult-only spaces, but at least then the discussion would be worth having.

Posted by mikezillion at May 23rd, 2007

The webmaster (and S/M bondage master) of a kinky slave-oriented site is facing 30 years in jail for exceeding the consent of a woman who is portrayed on the site. He claims to have had model releases and letters from the woman offering unlimited use of her image, not to mention her body. But the unlimited consent offered by the woman was revoked along the way. The webmaster’s appeal, based in part on the private and consensual nature of their relationship, has been denied due to the commercial aspects.

Posted by mikezillion at May 21st, 2007

Titan Media has signed up to be the first adult gay studio to sponsor the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco at the “Presenting Sponsor” level, right beside Miller Beer and NakedSword. The agreement includes a three-year commitment to the sponsorship, and the launching of a new line of leather-themed Folsom DVD’s from Titan. Sounds like a good deal all around!

Posted by mikezillion at May 20th, 2007

I don’t mean to be insensitive. I think it’s a shame that the most representative memories I have of Jerry Falwell are his losing lawsuit against Larry Flynt and the First Amendment, and his outing of Tinky Winky. I’m sure he was a great man and a fine leader to his community. I believe he was sincere in his faith. I just have trouble reconciling the images.

I blame myself.

Posted by mikezillion at May 13th, 2007

It’s more about the changes in distribution than it is about the actual content, in this case. I’m stoked to see James Patrick Kelly’s novella, Burn, won the Nebula Award this past weekend. This is the first time I’m aware of seeing a piece which has a Creative Commons License and is distributed via podcast win such a prestigious award. Things are changing, and as long as you pay attention, there is no change that is not for the better.

Posted by mikezillion at April 28th, 2007

I just realized that BearParty Magazine got a taste of what Seth Godin was talking about when he promoted the idea of the inverse funnel. Our BearParty Magazine release parties were all proposed by the venues that hosted them, based probably on the reputation of CyberBears and the common need for what we had to offer. Coolness.