What I’m Reading, September 28, 2015

What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States, Chico Harlan, Washington Post, September 11, 2015

It’s worth pondering for a moment just how difficult it is to survive on $2 per day. That’s a single gallon of gasoline. Or half a gallon of milk. If you took a D.C. bus this morning, you have 25 cents left for dinner. Among this group in extreme poverty, some get a boost from housing subsidies. Many collect food stamps — an essential part of survival. But so complete is their destitution, they have little means to climb out. (The book described one woman who scored a job interview, couldn’t afford transportation, walked 20 blocks to get there, and showed up looking haggard and drenched in sweat. She didn’t get hired.)

Edin is a professor specializing in poverty at Johns Hopkins University. Shaefer is an associate professor of social work and public policy at the University of Michigan. In several years of research that led to this book, they set up field offices both urban and rural — in Chicago, in Cleveland, in Johnson City, Tenn., in the Mississippi Delta — and tried to document this jarring form of American poverty.

Batman: Arkham Knight Has a Serious Problem With Women, Denny Connolly, Game Rant, June 2015 Continue reading

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This Week in WTF, September 19, 2014 (UPDATED)

– That was supposed to be a figure of speech: A Chinese candy company accidentally supplied candy stores all over New Zealand’s South Island with bags of dicks—technically, bags of phallus-shaped candy, but I like my way of saying it.

– For the mourner on the go: A funeral home in Michigan is offering drive-thru viewings (h/t Amy).

I’ll just leave it at that.

– Math just got interesting: A Thai textbook publisher recalled a math textbook once someone (presumably anonymously) notified them that what they probably thought was a stock photo of a teacher on the book’s cover was actually a Japanese porn star. I’m not entirely sure what the big deal is, as the picture is of a fully-clothed woman holding a folder while standing in front of a chalkboard with math-related stuff written on it. I guess the association with adult entertainment renders people unable to avoid the thought that she is naked underneath her teacher costume.

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SXSW 2013 Diary, Day 2 (March 9, 2013)

[Typed on an iPad with minimal proofreading.] Since it was a Saturday, I could use my fiancee’s parking pass downtown. No bus for me!

I almost immediately regretted trying to drive downtown. I got one of the last parking spaces on the roof of the garage, which I only obtained after a lengthy process of abruptly stopping to avoid rear-ending the driversnwho seem to think that you must close every 10-foot gap between you and the car in front of you at 20 mph or more.

Te first session I attended was entitled Tweets from the DMZ: Social Media in North Korea with Jean H. Lee, AP Bureau Chief for North Korea. While there was some interesting “slice of life” information about a Seoul-based journalist’s regular trips to North Korea, it mostly consisted, quite literally, of screenshots of tweets she has sent. I learned some interesting stuff, though. She said that the regime never stops her from taking pictures, but they always know what she is doing. They try to make sure she is “respectful” to her subjects more than almost anything else. South Korea has very strict limits on access to online material from the north. It is apparently illegal in South Korea to access North Korean websites, and the government has a strict firewall in place. It is illegal even to retweet something from North Korea. People in South Korea, she said, must be careful even following people in North Korea. North Korea has a few government-run sites, including Flickr, Twitter, and Instagram. The main goals of these government-run social media sites are propaganda, getting pictures of the leader out, etc. One person, during questions, basically suggested that she was a dupe of Pyongyang, doing their bidding by presenting their side of things, but she disputed this. He even suggested that North Korean agents might be in the room keeping eyes on her. She responding by inviting any North Koreans in the room to stand up and say hello. No one did, and I decided that would be a good time to leave.

Last year, I met some interesting people in the Samsung Blogger’s Lounge, so I headed there next. Let me try to be charitable here……while I recall that they used the room last year both to give bloggers a place to work and socialize and to do webcasts of interviews with people who are “buzzing” at SXSW, this year the interviews were harder to ignore. Impossible to ignore, actually. The host of these interviews is probably a very nice person, but her style is, I dare say, not suited to any room where anyone is expected to pay attention to anyone except her. She’s bubbly, goofy, and loud, is all I’m saying. I was able to finish my Day 1 blog entry, but couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone for long.

I hesitated to attend the next panel, for pretty basic social reasons of taboo and embarrassment. I’m glad I did, because it was one of the best sessions I’ve attended at any conference, ever. Not just because the presenter, Cindy Gallop, has an awesome British accent. The session was entitled The Future of Porn, and the line to get in extended out of the ballroom quite a long way. (She noted that nearly everything she was going to say in her talk could be a double entendre, andit was good to get that out of the way.) This was not a discussion of smut per se. In fact, she maintains that the sites she created, MakeLoveNotPorn.com and MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, are not porn, but “real world sex.” I’m just going to paste some things from my notes (shout-out to Evernote here):

  • What happens when you combine easy access to porn online with societal reluctance to discuss sex at all?
  • MakeLoveNotPorn compares porn world to real world. Led to TED Talk in 2009.
  • Not anti-porn. Issue is lack of honest conversation about sex in the real world.
  • Social media platforms generally won’t deal with sex. She wants to “socialize sex.” Launched MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, where people can submit their own videos of real sex. Site is curated, so it’s not like YouPorn. $5 submission/curation fee, $5 rental fee for 3 weeks unlimited viewing, 50% of revenue shared with submitters. The “Etsy of Sexy.”
  • Not porn, not “amateur.” They are #realworldsex. Community tells them what real world sex is.
  • Real world sex is funny, while porn sex is “earnest.” Sexual equivalent of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”
  • Real world sex is messy. Porn is “clean,” i.e. hairless, and you never see lube. No sex during periods [Ed. note: no judgment here. Whatever floats your boat.].
  • Real world sex is responsible. Porn either doesn’t have condoms, or they magically appear. More condom use if it seems sexy.
  • “Lazy person sex” – after long day, really tired, but horny. Don’t want to lift a finger to get off. No representation of that in porn or other media.
  • Thumbnails & copy are all SFW, so no one has to slam down the laptop when someone walks by.
  • You can make personalized playlists, send them to people. Lets you tell people what you like w/o awkward conversations [Ed. Note: I don’t get how this is less awkward than talking, necessarily, but what do I know?].
  • Could be the “Kinsey of today.” Had to design in-system scoring that is easy to use and one-handed. You hit the space bar to say “yes!”
  • Porn industry has been supportive. Gen Y in porn has reached out to her (entrepreneurial, ambitious, want to be part of the “new world order” of things.)
  • They’re not competing with porn. Most porn labeled “amateur” isn’t.
  • One viewer told her “Porn makes me want to jerk off. Your videos make me want to have sex.”
  • No bank in the U.S. will work with her because “porn” is in the name. No mainstream payment processor would work with her. Finally got PayPal challenger Douala (?) on board, had to go with a European bank and payment processor.
  • Porn is falling prey to the same dynamics as the music and publishing industries. Businesses play it safe by doing what everyone else is doing. Porn’s way of dealing with it is more controversial.
  • ***”It’s not that porn degrades women. It’s that business degrades porn” Pushing any business into the shadows enables bad things to happen. She’s trying to change the world through sex, make sex better for everybody. Business world is trying to stop her. She says the business world is driven by men who believe men are their target audience. She listed women entrepreneurs who are doing great work (Nina Hartley, etc.) “Women challenge the status quo because we are never ‘it.'”
  • She listed a few other products or sites she felt were worth mentioning:
  • Vibease – device for couples in LTRs.
    Offbeatr – website for sex projects
    They Fit – custom-made condoms, no FDA approval in the US
    Bang with Friends – launched about a month ago.

  • Average age of first seeing hardcore porn online today is 8. They don’t necessarily go looking for it.
  • Less than 5% of parents, she says, ever talk to their kids about sex. The talk has changed, as it needs to include discussion of what shows up in porn.
  • Legalities: 2 forms of ID, “no children, no poop, no animals.” Brought in adult industry lawyers to help.
  • Protecting privacy and IP: members-only site, no way to guarantee no piracy, though. They review everything submitted to the site before posting it. They remove videos on request if a couple breaks up.
  • Finance: adult industry-specific companies, payment processors, etc. She wants business partners who get their mission. AI-specific processors think they’re just porn, have extortionate rates. Even they though MLNP was too risky. Company like Manwin has $$$, has easier time with banking.
  • None of their videos have an “extraneous” cameraman. Spouse might record other spouse, or person might use webcam.
  • Difference between porn and sex ed. Teachers have asked to use MLNP dot com in their sex ed classes. So few people are willing to stand up for these issues, that everyone wants Cindy to do all of it.

A couple of questions stood out. Someone eventually asked if Cindy appears in any of the videos on her site. Less predictably, the questioner was a woman, and the question was asked very earnestly (as opposed to a pervy manner). A mother of teenagers got up and described how her kids have used the family computer to access adult content. She is worried about the false impressions they will get about sex, and so asked about how to use the MNLP video site to give her kids access to more realistic, perhaps even “educational” material. Mom of the Year? Quite possibly.

I could write for weeks about everything I think is wrong in the way we deal with the issue of sex. It’s prety screwed up in most of the world, but I’ll focus on the U.S. Her opening statement summed it up very well, though: we have unprecedented access to “adult” material, and not just through porn, but through an overall sexualization in our culture. At the same time, we still lack almost any ability to discuss it like rational adults, and we still attach ridiculous forms of stigma to people regarding sex. This applies to people who have sex a lot (cf. Sasha Grey), people who don’t have it at all (cf. Lolo Jones), and everything in between. And that’s only covering the conventionally-attractive young white woman demographic. Don’t get me started.

I went to a 15-minute session on copyright law after that. Blah blah fair use and so on. Then I went home to assemble more IKEA furniture.

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In today’s America, coal-mining activism has more porn than actual porn

An activist attempts to demonstrate the effects of pollution on her coal-mining community, and gets accused of possessing and displaying child porn.

A 17 year-old famous for being really creepy launches a website with provocative pictures of herself, and people snicker.

Marc Randazza describes what happened to West Virginia activist Maria Gunnoe:

A West Virginia coal activist hoped that she would be able to improve the environmental conditions for her neighbors by attending a house committee meeting in Washington, D.C. to present the story of her community. Instead, she was accused of attempting to show pornographic pictures of children.

The water on Maria Gunnoe’s property is not potable. Because of her community’s proximity to a coal-mining source, the water has been contaminated by the coal industry’s retrieval process. To illustrate this point, Gunnoe wanted to present a series of photos, one of which included a toddler taking a bath in a pool of orange-colored water. The politicians present decided it was inappropriate and would not allow her to make her presentation, as the child was naked. Police pulled her aside and apparently questioned her about child pornography.

You can view the photo here. Is this really what passes for child porn these days? A photo of a toddler taking a bath? The most disturbing aspect of this photo is the water she’s bathing in, not that she’s unclothed.

The War on Child Porn has gone so overboard that even the most innocent of photos — whose mom doesn’t have a photo like that of them lying around? — is considered “child porn.” Anyone who calls that photo child porn is either just trying to underhandedly shut down Gunnoe’s speech, or they’re sick fucks who fap to kids themselves — or both.

Compare that to the website of allegedly-17 year-old Courtney Stodden, who married some 50-something actor famous for marrying Courtney Stodden (no, I am not linking to it, and you may go and compare at your own risk.)

On the one hand, you have a photo of a child taking a bath, something every parent probably has (yes, there are bathtub photos of me out there, none of which have ever been digitized.) On the other hand, you have a teenager who will turn 18 sometime this year, posting naughty (but not nude) photos of herself.

The latter set of pictures gets splashed all over tabloids and the news, despite having no news value whatsoever. The former gets suppressed out of sudden concern for the welfare of a child forced to bathe in orange-colored coal-water.

One set of photos is meant to educate people about a serious problem, and serve an advocacy function. The other set is showing off a minor’s goodies. Since part of the definition of “pornography” involves an appeal to “prurient” interests, it ought to be clear which one is the real porn here. Courtney Stodden might not actually be showing any specific naughty bits, but it’s hard to call the site anything but “prurient.”

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t really care. I have no interest in Stodden’s website, and it honestly causes me pain to devote this much attention to her. Her parents seem to approve of everything that she has done up to now, and she is close enough to age 18 that she can’t exactly be called a “child.” It’s really none of my business what she does. My point is about consistency. I wholeheartedly agree with Marc Randazza that concern over alleged child porn, while it is a problem, has reached an unsustainable level of insanity. These laws are applied where convenient, where politically expedient, or where they can most effectively distract the discussion from something like, say, coal pollution.

We now live in a world where a teenager who takes a picture of him- or herself (usually her, though) can be charged with possession of child pornography. Fotunately, at least one federal appeals court refused to go along with that.

The rationale of the police who handled that case is rather remarkable:

“It was a self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude,” said Capt. George Seranko of the Greensburg Police Department.

Police said school officials learned of the photos in October. That’s when a student was seen using a cell phone during school hours, which violates school rules. The phone was seized, and the photos were found on it, police said. When police investigated, other phones with more pictures were seized.

“Taking nude pictures of yourself, nothing good can come out of it,” said Seranko.

***

Police said the girls are being charged with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys face charges of possession.

“It’s very dangerous,” said Seranko. “Once it’s on a cell phone, that cell phone can be put on the Internet where everyone in the world can get access to that juvenile picture. You don’t realize what you are doing until it’s already done.”

And of course, the way to deal with the threat is to put the girls–who let us not forget, are supposed to be the victims here–in a position where they could spend the rest of their lives on a sex offender registry. For their own protection, I guess. Bravo to the Third Circuit for not going along with this. Education, and maybe more adult supervision, sure. What kind of twisted mind thinks throwing teenagers in jail for this is an appropriate response?

Meanwhile, Maria Gunnoe cannot present her case before Congress.

And Courtney Stodden, after inventing “floor flashing,” gets a reality show.

And a group of teenagers nearly had their lives ruined because they made some bad decisions with cell phones that only hurt themselves (and the cops wanted to send them to prison for an act of which they were the only victims, if you even want to call them “victims.”)

Blogger Aaron Brady, who first reported Gunnoe’s story, knows what this is all really about:

Coalfield activists like Maria face threats, intimidation, and vandalism regularly; she’s received verbal threats to her life, her children have been harassed at school, “wanted” posters of Gunnoe have appeared in local convenience stores, and so forth. This is a strong lady, and I suspect I’m not wrong to say that it’s far from the worst of the shit she’s faced for daring to be strong in a part of the country where Coal is King. It was just the kind of insulting humiliation that it was meant to be. Coal-friendly congresspeople were using the resources at their disposal to harass someone who had the nerve to speak out against the industry they shill for, to try to intimidate someone like Maria who speaks for (and is) one of the people that industry poisons.

But it’s pretty clarifying, don’t you think? The real obscenity is that people drink that water, that they have no choice but to bathe in it, and to bathe their children in it. You know that, and I know that. But if a massive surface mining operation in the vicinity of your house poisons your water table, and if your well water runs brown with coal sludge and heavy metal particulate, well, that’s just the cost of doing business in America, a cost that will be paid by the Appalachians who only live there. It’s regrettable, at best. You can’t call the police and the state doesn’t want to know. And if you dare to take a picture of child’s exposure to that poison, if you have the nerve to walk into the halls of Congress and show them the obscenity that is a child that must wash herself with poison every day, they will call you a child pornographer. They will call the police.

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It’s like a high-quality Buffy fan film, except…

The things you find on YouTube. This is completely SFW, and Buffy fans may find this to be a remarkably astute recreation of the characters and settings:

Aside, of course, from the fact that these are probably all the scenes in the movie where people aren’t schtupping. Still, you know there’s serious geek cred here when an actress goes by the name April O’Neil (of Ninja Turtle fame, of course).

Also, it’s directed by a guy named Josh Wheldon: Continue reading

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Getting right to the point with social media (or, It all comes down to smut in the end)

'Pinterest User Pie Chart' [Fair use], via G4I don’t get Pinterest. I think I have made that pretty abudantly clear in recent months. I have a few “boards,” to which I will “pin” things from time to time (my board entitled “Food porn“) is far more popular than it probably deserves to be, considering the level of inattention give to it. I never, however, browse through other people’s pins the way I might scroll through my Facebook news feed or my Tumblr dashboard. It’s just not my thing.

Don’t get me wrong; I think Pinterest is a brilliant idea, and it has been wildly successful. It just doesn’t necessarily appeal to my particular sensibilities. Maybe it’s because I’m a dude, although I doubt it is as sociologically significant as that (for me, anyway.) Whether or not by design, Pinterest primarily appeals to women, possibly a first for the internet. Of course, this being the world in which we live, someone has to ask how to make a service like Pinterest more appealing to the sausage-bearing crowd. And because it is the internet, it eventually comes back to the question of how many X’s we can post. Perhaps not surprisingly, these two questions overlap.

To review the state of what I will artfully call Smut in Social Media:

  • Facebook won’t allow anything over an “R” rating.
  • Twitter might let you get away with a little “X” now and then.
  • LinkedIn has no idea what you are talking about right now.
  • Tumblr saw your three X’s and raised them to a level of perversity heretofore unimagined. Seriously, you are never more than 2-3 mouse clicks away from an animated GIF of activities that Porn Valley might not even know exist.

(Please note that I use the word “smut” in a purely descriptive sense.) Continue reading

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