It’s hard to say how much revenue the porn industry has lost to free porn tube sites. No matter what they do, they can’t seem to bring their sales back to the levels they saw before these sites made access to porn so easy. Tired of fighting, the adult video production company Pink Visual is joining their ranks.

Sort of. They’re working with other studios in the industry to launch an entirely free, ad-supported streaming site that will bring fans the porn they want while still creating a direct source of revenue for the studios that provided the content.

“In talking to the heads of other adult studios about the state of the market, one of the most frustrating things for them in recent years has been seeing their content generate literally millions of views on free sites that are displaying their content without their permission, and yet they get no direct revenue from all those views,” says Pink Visual CEO Allison Vivas. “On the site we’re developing, the advertising revenue generated by views of their content is shared directly with the studio. The more their content is viewed, the more the studio earns.”

This is great news for the consumer — though not entirely surprising. Pink Visual came to be in the time of web, eventually turning itself into the first mobile site for iPhone. By 2009, Pink Visual had developed its mobile offering to run on the majority of popular U.S. smartphones. In 2010, they moved aggressively into the tablet space. They know these here intertubes.

Also, the move to create a tube site that benefits studios directly fits with Pink Visual’s aggressive anti-piracy stance. If they can bring better quality content to viewers, they could stand to really hit the tube sites where it hurts: the bank account.

Their motto “We Innovate, You Masturbate” is right once again. Power to you, Pink Visual. We’ll be in our room if you need us.

Header image via PinkVisualPass.

Last week, Google’s social network Google Plus (Google+) opened its doors to users 13 years of age and above. In order to prevent minors from accessing adult content that sometimes appears on this blog, our editrix created a Google+ Page to disseminate our posts (you may have noticed the button on the far right column). To illustrate the page, we put up the same image we have on our Facebook page.

The very next day, we noticed that the image had been yanked. To make sure it wasn’t a glitch, we uploaded it again. No more than six hours later, the image was gone once again.

In protest, tireless anti-censorship campaigner Brandon Campeaux, issued a statement to the network’s photo team this evening, asking why the photo had been censored:

Is it because of the darker skin as we near the pubic region that gives us the impression that there is in fact pubic hair? Or are we offended by the belly-button, ribs, or can we simply not handle the curvature of the female form? I wonder because I don’t see anything wrong with this image and while it was banned twice, this other image (right) of a man’s curves went unscathed.

The Google+ Photo Team will go after this innocuous page avatar for a sex column but pay no attention to images that show up for common keywords relating to porn. First of all, I don’t think anything should ever be censored unless the content is illegal (e.g. child pornography). But the mere fact that Google has not penetrated their porn problem by filtering images that match frequently used keywords for review is a sign that the team isn’t reinvesting their talents in the company. Any first year programmer could write a script that culls images that might violate policy. Instead we have a focused effort to go after the accounts with the most followers — but only some of them, and never in a consistent manner.

Campeaux included the following image as a means of illustrating his point:

Our editrix responded to the post with some critique of the network: “This yanking of content or limiting viewing to the post without warning makes it a little anxiety-inducing to post, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place when I created the page for Sex and the 405.”

Later that evening, Brian Rose, the community manager for Google+ photos, responded the thread:

I don’t believe … photos of men from behind violate our content policies. You can show a person’s bare buttocks on network (non-cable) TV, like ABC’s “NYPD Blue”. Likewise, the image in your screenshot titled “Banned” should not be flagged as far as I can tell. If what’s visible in your screenshot is the entire image, if you send me a link to the original flagged photo I’ll follow up with our Review team so I can clarify why this judgement was made or un-flag this photo.

When Rose realized the image was a profile picture he added:

Oh, that’s likely the reason — profile photos are held to a stricter standard than photos shared in the stream, I believe because they may also show up on Google.com search result pages, other Google services, etc. I’ll still raise A.V. Flox’s photo with our Review team, and thanks for continuing to share your feedback.

He pointed to the Google+ content policy, which states: “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content. For example, do not use a photo that is a close-up of a person’s buttocks or cleavage.”

“I believe you can share photos of buttocks in a post, but that same photo can’t be used as a profile photo,” Rose told another commenter on the thread.

What happens when the profile picture depicts neither breasts nor buttocks? Or are abs really so very inappropriate?

The content on the actual Sex and the 405 page has not been censored or limited and remains accessible to people following that stream.

We’ve gotten word that AfterDark LA, the LA Weekly‘s sex blog, is pivoting from its L.A. focus to a national one in order to appeal to a wider audience. This no doubt includes taking a step back from adult industry happenings to an extent, which is a damn shame since most other mainstream media properties online have a tendency to be unabashedly sex-negative.

But don’t be sad, we have you covered. To satisfy all your civilian cravings about what’s happening in Porn Valley, we present Porn Valley Vantage, a great blog run by eminent pornologist Dr. Chauntelle, a visiting scholar at USC’s department of sociology and academic whose primary interest is in the expansion of women’s rights and opportunities in the adult film industry.

In Porn Valley Vantage, Dr. Chauntelle reviews films and comments on happenings in the adult entertainment industry.

“Everyone has an opinion about porn -– it’s either good or bad, exploitative or liberating; it’s super hott, or it’s just plain nasty,” she says. “But I’m here to tell you: it’s more complicated than that. Just like real life, porn is multi-dimensional and complex, and every discrete element is also part of a wider socio-cultural past, present, and future … Porn Valley Vantage engages these complexities, connecting the dots and offering readers a unique take on the adult film industry.”

Image of the Valley by Tony Hall.

As someone who has been researching and writing about slavery and trafficking since 2005, I worry that the overall desire to help on the part of Google has overridden a lot of details that must be understood if we are going to find a way to rid the world of trafficking and slavery. The most harmful and least understood of these details is the importance of supporting organizations that distinguish between consensual sex work and sexual slavery (something the State Department finally does and something NGOs must do to really help combat this blight). Several of the organizations that Google is funding do not make this necessary distinction.

International Justice Mission is a Christian group whose abolitionist practices are founded in morality, which casts anyone involved in sex work — coerced or not — into the role of victim in need of salvation. Their crackdowns on the sex industry is driving prostitution further underground, making it difficult for law enforcement to find real victims, and impossible for sex workers who have information about crimes to step forward.

The Polaris Project is little different. One look over their materials exposes their position on consensual sex work: they see no difference between a sex slave and a topless dancer. It’s also worth noting that they were one of the organizations on the forefront of the attack on Craigslist that resulted in the removal of the erotic services section. The problem with efforts like these is that people involved in sex trafficking will not cease their activities because a single avenue is closed off. Almost immediately after the section was closed, listings for adult services began to appear in other sections of Craigslist — in sections that do not require payment for postings, meaning there is no paper trail for law enforcement to follow.

While opponents of Craigslist may shake fists screaming about how Craigslist “profited” from sex trafficking, it is important to remember that the system of payment for adult services was instituted to create a record. That’s how Boston authorities managed to apprehend the Craigslist Killer, Philip Markoff. Censoring Craigslist has moved these activities to locations within the site where there is no paper trail, making it hard for law enforcement to locate and crack down on perpetrators.

Campaigns to remove sites similar to Craigslist altogether — such as that leveled against the Village Voice’s classified ads site Backpage, at the hands of Ashton Kutcher and the organizations with which his own DNA Foundation is aligned (among them the aforementioned Polaris; Shared Hope International, an organization that fights child sex trafficking by educating men about “the dangers of engaging in commercial sex markets, especially pornography”; and Citizens Against Trafficking, which continuously launches smear campaigns against sex educators, whom they believe are the cause of all these problems) — will only result in moving these activities underground where law enforcement will have an even more difficult time helping victims.

Censoring a site, it must be noted, is an easy victory. It gets organizations more money and it gets politicians elected. Never mind that doing so doesn’t really do anything to help real victims. And that’s not where it ends, unfortunately. The inability of these organizations to see a difference between sex work and trafficking means that efforts to censor will continue beyond sites like Craigslist: pornography is frequently a target and we’re not just talking about nude magazines and independent sites (where do you draw the line? Remember when Lady Chatterley’s Lover was considered obscene?). Sex educators are also consistently attacked, as are any groups whose desires don’t fall into the cookie-cutter moral ideal of what sex should be.

Ignorance on the topic, willful and not, and the eagerness of people to exploit this lack of information in pursuit of a moral agenda or political gain results in inaction and very dangerous legislation that affect all victims of slavery.

E. Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous — an expose about modern day slavery in various forms — has been a vocal advocate of the necessity of not only differentiating between the sex industry and sex trafficking, but also giving the same amount of attention to other forms of slavery, often overshadowed by sensationalism surrounding accounts of sex trafficking:

“The West’s efforts have been, from the outset, hamstrung by a warped understanding of slavery,” he says in A World Enslaved. “Though eradicating prostitution may be a just cause, Western policies based on the idea that all prostitutes are slaves and all slaves are prostitutes belittles the suffering of all victims.”

The inability to see the differences between sex work and slavery thwarts efforts and taxes resources set aside for identifying, freeing and protecting actual victims of slavery, because those working to help victims become diverted with matters of consensual prostitution, which should be handled by local law enforcement as necessary, and which, though a crime in most U.S. cities, is nowhere as severe as slavery of any kind.

Not for Sale also conflates consensual adult sex work and forced sexual slavery and rape. Their stance against the partial decriminalization of sex work among consenting adults in a 2008 San Francisco ballot initiative more than illustrates their position. Allowing this initiative, known as Proposition K, to pass would have brought the underground to the surface, making it easier for sex workers to work with law enforcement to nab abusers and rapists, and to find real victims of sexual slavery. The moralizing, driven in part by Not for Sale, led to the failure of Proposition K.

So, no. I am not glad that Google is supporting these organizations.

But what happens when you offer erotic images in a format that’s no longer the norm?

It’s a stretch, but there is something about the glow of of bodies on Polaroid film that adds a little art to an image that otherwise has none.

Of course, this being Tumblr, ground zero for great found porn, we doubt you will be dealing with any courts. But if your partner should be upset that you’re looking at naughty things, you can easily placate him or her with the loophole. Disregard the name Pornlaroid, baby.

It’s not porn, it’s art.

And if you should feel compelled to add to their catalog of found sexy images but find yourself one Polaroid camera short, you can always put that iPhone to good use with the ShakeIt app, hands down the best app on the market to transform any photo into a decades old-looking masterpiece.

You’re welcome. Anything we can do to make sanitized Apple products just a little more exciting.

You’ve seen Post Secret, anonymous postcards with heart-warming and terrible secrets. You’ve seen Texts from Last Night, hilarious, usually drunken text message exchanges. Now you have Filthy E-mails, a blog that collects and runs anonymous electronic messages with a filthy intent.

She wakes up early and quickly jumps in the shower. She makes sure everything is washed and completely shaved. She fixes her hair, puts on makeup and tries her hardest to resist the urge the run her fingers between her legs.

The skirt feels silky as it is pulled up her long smooth legs. The hem falls just below her ass cheeks. His strict instructions were NO panties. The red shelf bra is put on and fastened in the back. This lifts her tits while keeping the nipples available for any potential use. She picks up the black permanent marker and writes the words he has instructed on the top of her tits, above her nipples: PIG SLUT.

The white tank top is put on next, allowing for her new label to be easily visible. She quickly puts her shoes on and heads out of the door. Her heart races as she pulls up to the truck stop. He ordered her to go inside and purchase a drink. She carefully gets out of her car and walks inside. There are a handful of unwashed grungy truckers inside who instantly start gawking at her. She bends over to pick up a bottle off the bottom shelf.

All eyes are on her bare ass. She slowly walks up to the counter and buys the drink as the cashier stares at her in stunned silence. She gets back into her car and heads for the interstate.

An hour later, she arrives at her destination. She grabs her wallet, cell phone, and blindfold and again carefully gets out of her car. There aren’t too many people down at the Riverwalk. However, it is a very chilly early morning and her nipples become erect instantly, poking through the thin fabric of the tank top. She walks to their meeting place and places her wallet and cell phone on the picnic table. Her heart pounds out of her chest as she walks over to the overlook on the river. She takes a deep breath as she ties the blindfold around her eyes. Both of her scared hands grip the handrail as she leans over slightly — just enough for the skirt to allow her ass cheeks to poke through.

After what feels like forever, she hears footsteps behind her…

– Filthy E-mail #152

You love it.

The imagination is rarely given enough credit. Think of the eroticism inherent in the careful W of skin on the nape of a maiko’s neck. Or the hint of cleavage created by toes in a pair of satin pumps. When was the last time you beheld something so suggestive it was more erotic than actually seeing the real thing might have been?

We haven’t lost that talent, but we seem to be exercising it less and less. Perhaps that’s why things like Porn Without Porn exist, to remind us that sometimes, the imagination is far more powerful than our other senses.

It’s not the greatest exercise in sensuality, but we like where the concept is going. Have a look.

On Wednesday, November 02, Bryan Jones shared a public post on Google+ protesting the censorship of artist Paul Roustan‘s art on Google+ which contained an album with 22 images. A handful of the images were quickly flagged by Google+ and some time on Friday, November 04, the post itself became restricted to other users.

Because Jones could still see the post, the movement he had sought to start to bring awareness to censorship practices on Google+ (illustrated by the hashtag #occupygpluscensorship), lost the momentum it had gained in the previous 48 hours. In a conversation with Googler Brian Rose, Rose told Jones that the post “should not have been automatically made private to me… something was wrong… and that he would follow up with Google’s Post team on Monday.”

There was never a notification from Google+ telling Jones the post had been made private or, when it was reinstated the following Monday, November 07, that it was accessible once again.

Whatever your views may be when it comes to flesh on social networks, you have to agree that a process that doesn’t notify users of actions being taken by a social network with regard to their content is one that breeds insecurity and doubt. How can we feel that Google+ is an extension of our homes when we can’t be sure that we’re allowed to voice our opinions? This situation is grave indeed.

Consider this matter beyond the content. Do you feel safe knowing that Google+ could silence your posts without warning? Are stated guidelines enough of a warning? How can Google+ do this better?

We concede that we’re not the typical porn consumers, but even so, we had a feeling we were not the only ones who get distracted during porn by certain errors or leaps of creative license in story lines that deal with our respective fields or topics of interest. Turns out we were right.

Introducing Blackboards in Porn, a blog devoted entirely to analyzing the stuff scribbled on chalkboards in naughty teacher porn. The authors analyze formulas, discuss the accuracy of boundaries on scribbled maps based on the dates given, critique the wording, mock the handwriting, and just about tear apart everything that could possibly be inaccurate, while extolling those which get things right.

The site, which posted sporadically throughout 2010 appears to have made a comeback after almost a year of inactivity, causing the educated, ourselves included, to erupt in a wild chorus of cheers. It is our hope that the creators will keep at it, thereby enabling academics everywhere to have a more legitimate reason to look at porn unabashedly.

However well-intentioned the desire to protect young users from age-inappropriate pornographic content, very often conversations about sexuality and sexual issues become conflated with pornography. It’s a dangerous road that disables people from having the open dialog that give the internet promise. How can sex educators and interested users build any sort of community in a network that could become hostile toward them at any moment? The answer is that right now, we can’t.

In this video, Violet Blue discusses the difficulties her podcast experienced with Apple, the community she built at Tribe.net that was obliterated when their policies became more conservative, and the fragility of trying to build a community around sex online. It’s not a new video, but the words ring true even now — perhaps even more so now:

If you want to see where something is at its most fragile, or where someone is at their most hypocritical, make the conversation about sex. Outlets like Tribe.net and other places I’ve been since then, and other people have as well, they create a terms of service: ‘you will not violate these terms.’ But it’s always very loosely defined, loosely prescribed. It’s more, we either contextualize sex if it’s bad, or we pretend that it’s not going on at all. So we either get rid of it, we don’t want to talk about it, or we just move it away. This is not just something that’s going to continue to make our social media structures fragile, but it’s going to make us very vulnerable as a culture.

[...] We see these wonderful structures built, and we rush them, we go there and we build a community and then something happens: they sell, or turn their backs on their users or they decide that they want to become ‘mainstream,’ not realizing that we’re the mainstream too.

[...] What happened to us? What happened to people me? Where I was running with packs of people who have bold ideas, inventing these amazing things, being at the forefront, and now I’m handing my communities and my value over to gatekeepers? And these things are being built not by leaders, but by followers. So why are we doing this?

[...] You have the power to change this, too. I think one of the things that could help change this is the harm-reduction approach to social media. And it’s not a “Just Say No” approach, it’s applying different standards to different communities, and letting the communities decide what the level is of what is harmful and what is not harmful, and giving people the tools to assess for themselves, instead of letting gatekeepers decide for us what’s OK to talk about, what’s OK for us not to talk about.

A harm-reduction approach, I think that would help. If we could people to build this idea into their systems — please look harm-reduction up, take out the rhetoric about drugs and apply sex, because in America, we are so Puritanical, people are making us think about sexuality as a drug. It’s not accurate. It’s not true. It is one of the things that keep us connected to our bodies. Our hearts, our minds, our passion and our human sexuality. It is an intrinsic and beautiful part of our human circuitry. And they keep telling us it is not beautiful and I’m going to keep telling you it is.