For some reason, AVN pulled their link to this article.

Cytherea is alive, well, human and the subject of a good article in a local paper: Cytherea’s Rise, Fall, Rise, Et Cetera.

I wish our own porn “journalists” would write something like this about individuals in the industry, and knock aside some of the hype.

To everything (turn, turn, turn) … there is a season (turn, turn, turn) … and a time … to every purpose … under heaven.

So true, Bible. So true, Byrds. What the truisms neglect to tell us, however, is that “every purpose under heaven” includes not only planting and reaping and laughing and weeping, but also, apparently, performing porny Google searches.

We know this, now, because of the plantings and reapings of Science. According to a paper just published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Internet pornography — like so many storms, like so much kale — is seasonal. Porn’s peak seasons? Winter and late summer.

Researchers at Villanova examined the Google trends for such commonly-searched-for terms as “porn,” “xxx,” “xxvideos” … and other, more descriptive phrases that, because I am looking at a portrait of James Russell Lowell as I write this, I will let you look up in the paper itself. Once they’d gathered those terms, the authors examined them in Google Trends. And what they found was a defined cycle featuring clear peaks and valleys — recurring at discernible six-month intervals. The cycle, as you can see in the chart above, maps surprisingly well to the world’s calendar seasons.

Read More…

Unemployment in Spain is over 50% for those under 25. That means big competition for Porn Valley, even if Berth Milton isn’t personally hiring - and the worst is yet to come.

This photo is of young Spaniards - male and female - lining up for a single porn shoot in Madrid. What will these young people do for money that you won’t do?

Full article: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/04/spains-unemployment-level-outrageous/51634/

It is located at CultOfMac.com:

This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It’s A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy

“Boy, you sure have a lot of apps on your phone.”

“Well, it’s my job.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Oh, I couldn’t choose. But hey, want to see one to set your skin crawling?”

It was the flush end of a pleasurably hot day — 85 degrees in March — and we were all sipping bitter cocktails out in my friend’s backyard, which was both his smoking room, beer garden, viticetum, opossum parlor and barbecue pit. I was enjoying the warm dusk with a group of six of my best friends, all of whom seemed interested, except for my girlfriend… who immediately grimaced.

“Girls Around Me? Again?” she scolded. “Don’t show them that.”

She turned to our friends, apologetically.

“He’s become obsessed with this app. It’s creepy.”

I sputtered, I nevered, and I denied it, but it was true. I had become obsessed with Girls Around Me, an app that perfectly distills many of the most worrying issues related to social networking, privacy and the rise of the smartphone into a perfect case study that anyone can understand.

It’s an app that can be interpreted many ways. It is as innocent as it is insidious; it is just as likely to be reacted to with laughter as it is with tears; it is as much of a novelty as it has the potential to be used a tool for rapists and stalkers.

Read More…

A modest proposal: the case for fair trade porn

This post was originally published at Huffingtonpost.com.  It was also published, in a slightly different form, in the Boston Globe.

We have fair trade coffee and humanely raised pork. So why can’t we create a market for ethically sourced pornography? A couple of decades ago, people didn’t give much thought to their food’s provenance. We didn’t care about carbon footprints or the working conditions of the poor Africans who sold us our coffee beans. Slowly, however, consumption habits began to shift under the weight of scientific evidence and cultural change. We’re becoming a little more selective in our consumer choices.

Yet not with that multi-billion dollar white elephant: pornography. We hear rumblings here and there about the sexual trafficking of women and children, and it’s always a relief when a criminal ring is busted for what’s euphemistically called “abuse.” It’s reassuring to know that whatever was going on in the far reaches of a few sick minds has little to do with our own primitive — but relatively harmless — impulses.

But do porn consumers ever think about where their porn is sourced? What a downer! No one wants to hear about drug-addicted runaways or Albanian teenage sex slaves. Nobody wants to imagine STD infections on movie sets or the life circumstances that would impel a woman to engage in physically punishing sexual acts on camera. (And just Google the word “bukkake” if you want a quick education in the mainstreaming of fringe sex acts.)

Read More….:

Lux Alptraum, the new owner and CEO of Fleshbot, is profiled at Salon.com.

Maybe Fleshbot won’t be so annoying and scattered now that she’s in charge….

www.salon.com/2012/02/19/a_new_breed_of_porn_ceo_female

Hey, I’ve been out of the country for a couple of months and it’s high time to update some things that have become broken on the site or in the industry.

I’ve added some noteworthy new sites to the line-up of news feeds on The Floating World: Peeperz.com, ZZinsider.com, YNOT Europe, ThereIsNoMoneyInPorn.com, Striptaculous.com, Xbiz.net and Smutlife.com.

I’ve repaired some feeds that have been changed or broken on their proprietors’ end: Galaxy Publicity, Adult Chamber, LukeFord.com, OCModeling,com, PornStarPerformance.com, StarFactoryPR.com, Tod-Hunter.com and tonyBatman.com.

And a few sites have gone into the dumpster since they are no longer updated: Pornstar Babylon, PornStarsAfterHours.com, PornNewz.com, East Coast Adult News, IAmIvan.com and, surprisingly XPeeps.com, (since it is owned by AEBN, a thriving company).

If you know of other porn industry news sites I should include, or see other feeds I should drop, just let me know: terri@thefloatingworld.com.

CANOGA PARK, Calif. – Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the adult industry trade association, has opened nominations for its 2012 Board of Directors election. There are four board positions up for election, out of 13 board seats.

You must be an FSC member to make a nomination. Active FSC members should have received an email form that allows them to nominate candidates for election (sent through survey service Zoomerang). FSC will also post a link on its website, the FSC Blog and Facebook page, if members would prefer to access the nomination form through those platforms or did not receive the email form.

Any member making a nomination must supply contact information for each candidate.

Candidates must be active FSC members. The nomination form can be found at this link: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/U2LL3HTV9Z9N

Nominations will be accepted through December 1st, and candidates will be announced December 2nd. The election will take place (by email ballot) throughout December.

“This is a great opportunity for members that would like to become more involved with the FSC to either be nominated, or vote in the upcoming election,” FSC Membership Director Joanne Cachapero said. “Especially now, we need the support of all our members to help choose board members that will offer their insight in some of the challenges the industry faces – including mandatory condoms, anti-piracy efforts, .performer health and safety and patent trolls.”

For more information about the election process or to join FSC, contact (818) 348-9373, or joanne@freespeechcoalition.com.

Miami, Florida – Adult Model Call [adultmodelcall.com] offers a new twist on the standard employment profile board by allowing adult industry professionals to verify their status, helping both models and production companies to weed out the posers from the players.

President and Owner of Adult Model Call, Shane Wolfe, has taken the concerns of both models and studio owners who are disenchanted with the ratio of fan traffic versus real job opportunities to heart, in creating his online employment board. “I have been shooting as an amateur adult videographer for a while now, and I have used the existing model profile sites myself. One of the most common responses I’d get from models on those sites was, ‘Are you for real, or are you just another stalker sending me a message on here?’ I had some of the same issues from the producer’s end, because I’d get emails from people that wanted to sell me services and models who couldn’t even produce a valid ID once I got them on the set. It was time for a site that offered verification of profiles, so both sides would know exactly who they would be working with.”

Adult Model Call provides the option for models, and those seeking to hire them, to verify their profile accounts by providing identification confirming such important information as their date of birth, employer identification and, in future updates, adult industry standard testing verification. All of this information is gathered under complete privacy for both models and producers. While it is verified by real people, it is never shared publicly, and is not posted on the site. Easily identifiable icons are placed on all verified profiles.

“I want every one that uses Adult Model Call to know that their information is secure, while also providing all Adult Model Call members the ability to confirm that the profiles they see on the site belong to legitimate professionals. Why take chances? There are already enough risks in what we do, to chance hiring someone who isn’t able to produce legitimate ID once you have them on set. Worse yet, what model or performer wants to risk being hired by someone that doesn’t even have a legitimate reason to ask them to work for them?,” said Wolfe.

Adult Model Call includes a job listings feature along with profile listings. Studio employers can list their openings in various categories, such as video or stills shoots and signings at retail outlets or conventions.

For adult performers, each member is allowed to specify the type of jobs they will accept, among categories ranging from hardcore video to signings and appearances. Models may also provide information on the exact types of activities they will perform in scenes.

All models and producers who sign up with AdultModelCall.com during the launch period enjoy three free months of profile hosting to introduce the site to industry professionals. To encourage members to verify their profiles, producers and studios submitting employer documentation will be offered free job listings and featured profiles. Verified talent is offered improved service, including featured listing status and direct access to message all members within the site.