Hey, wanna see an app to set your skin crawling?

So begins the much linked article at Cult of Mac that set off a mini-firestorm about the disgustingly creepy app “Girls Around Me,” a handy iPhone app built by the Russian developer iFree that utilized the publicly available APIs of Facebook, foursquare, and Google maps to provide a radar screen that informs the user of the location, photo, and profile of every girl who’s used a location-based service to check in nearby.

Perfectly designed to aid any wannabee pickup artist in finding an attractive woman in the vicinity and figuring out what band to say you like when hitting on a stranger, the app immediately raised hackles across the tech world. Foursquare swiftly revoked the app’s access to its API once word of it hit the tech sphere, and with good reason — it’s creepy enough to scare anyone away from social networking.

The response to “Girls Around Me” is nearly as creepy as the actual app, however, albeit far more subtly so.

Cult of Mac writer John Brownlee waxes eloquently about the app, exhorting it as something everyone should “download to teach the people you care about that privacy issues are real, that social networks like Facebook and Foursquare expose you and the ones you love, and that if you do not know exactly how much you are sharing, you are as easily preyed upon as if you were naked.”

That’s right ladies, going out with your Facebook settings not fully locked down is a lot like wandering outside with too short a skirt. You’re practically begging for all of that delicious data to be harvested and abused. Statements like these clearly suggest that the fault lies with the girls who childishly don’t realize what they’re getting into by using a social network like — gasp — Facebook. It certainly doesn’t lie with the folks over at iFree who made the app. They are, according to Brownlee, “nice guys.”

Never mind that the menfolk are allowed to use Facebook with wild abandon or post pictures of their face on reddit without being immediately sexualized. No, the ladies need educating. Just like we need to be educated to wear our skirts below the knee, never leave our drinks unattended, and always use the buddy system when we go to a party. Apparently, educating boys to not be creepy rapists is just too hard.

TechCrunch neatly rips apart this disgusting, but thoroughly unsurprising, attitude. The ones at blame for this abuse are the men that download the app, iFree, Foursquare, and Facebook, not the girls that agreed to Facebook’s terms and conditions. Excerpt below:

There is a discussion to be had about the default privacy settings of Facebook. But when I hear people proclaim the importance of educating these presumably ignorant young women about the dangers of Facebook, it is just a little too close to comfort to those seeking to educate women about the dangers of hemlines that end above the knee.

[...] Why is it reasonable to not blame gun manufacturers, or cigarette companies, or McDonald’s, but Girls Around Me? Because these developers are treating others as objects they have the right to use and manipulate without their permission or their knowledge. I’m sure it’s all very legal according to the terms of service we accepted when we created accounts on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare. That does not excuse the clear moral failing that the makers of Girls Around Me demonstrated.

But, you may argue, the women signed up to be a part of this when they signed up to be on Facebook. No. What they signed up for was to be on Facebook.

How much blame do the creators of Girls Around Me deserve?

Header image via Cult of Mac.

Topsy is an indexing platform primarily developed to enable businesses to understand social trends. As such, their dealings are of primary interest to people in the social marketing space, so when Topsy released their Google+ comment searching tool in October of last year, the reception was limited to people in that niche.

In the past could of days, however, the function has been spreading among regular users of the network, creating something of a frenzy. Usage is simple: all you need is a Google+ user number, which appears in their profile URL. You take that and input it at the end of the Topsy Google+ search URL (http://plus.topsy.com/googleplus/), hit enter and voila! All public comments made across the social network appear before you awaiting your perusal.

Many have hailed this tool as revolutionary for finding older comments they have made that they can no longer find using Google+’s limited search function. But as someone who posts content that largely deals with issues relating to sex and sexuality, this concerns me. I do not think it is dishonest as some have suggested to want to be able to comment on certain issues without making everything you say accessible to your boss, your family, your congregation, the people in your building, the people who live in the town where you summer, your children’s school administrators, your insurance company, your ex-spouses attorneys, etc.

Most of us lead compartmentalized lives. We go to work, we have great parties, we give our time to causes in the community, we have our sexual proclivities, we attend church (maybe only during holidays), we support certain political causes — and so on. The first rule of courtesy is to understand the place and time. You shouldn’t speak about your delight with new anal beads at work. You shouldn’t regale your family at brunch with endless details about a merger. You shouldn’t speak about your wild parties at church. And you would do well not to divide the room by mentioning religion or politics at a cocktail party. Real life allows us to keep the various facets that make us who we are separate so they do not cause discomfort to ourselves or others. This is for a variety of reasons, some dishonest, many not. It doesn’t make us dishonest to encompass our share of contradictions. It makes us human.

The problem with the web is that it largely began as a world separate from meatspace. Today, most people use their real names, but this wasn’t always the case. When I started going online in the mid-90s, no one even knew my gender. I preferred that, not because I was hiding, but because I feel very strongly that I should be judged by my thoughts, not who people assume I am by seeing I am a woman, by attaching a handful of preconceived notions to what I am saying because they see my photo and think I’m too young or too old or attractive or unattractive.

Being an intangible essence allowed me to be more myself than I’d ever been before. Posting on different niche boards enabled the level of frankness that we experience when we’re in a group of like-minded people with whom we can openly debate or discuss topics. But this is no longer how the web operates and the transition hasn’t been an easy one. In a world where employers can easily find out everything about you, where insurance companies can decide to give or deny coverage because they see some status update as representing a liability, where a judge at family court can take away your children because — God forbid — you had a photo taken at Playboy West some Halloween… It’s not a matter of the web exposing you. It’s a matter of no longer having the ability to segregate different aspects of your life as we were once easily able to do and the concern is entirely valid.

This is why, for example, the page I manage on Google+ for this blog doesn’t list the people who follow it. It is no one else’s business that you care enough about sex to follow a blog about it. I have spent a lot of time debating whether the page should be private to enable people to comment openly and if Google+ allowed pages to circle more people, I wouldn’t hesitate. But closing the doors means I might eventually reach the cap and then I would have to consider opening it to enable more people to join — and having to retrain everyone who is used to the privacy to understand that they can no longer enjoy the conversation they once did. It doesn’t seem right.

I dealt with this adding a Like box for Facebook as well. There is no way on that network to shield who has Liked a page. I wish there was. It’s not surprising that a lot of people follow the blog by subscribing to my personal feed on Facebook instead of Liking the Sex and the 405 page itself.

And I faced the same question when I implemented Disqus as the primary comment system on the blog as a means of dealing with a growing spam problem. Disqus enables people to look at comments users have made all over the web, simply by accessing their profiles. I didn’t like it then and I don’t now, and it doesn’t surprise me that comments disappeared almost entirely when I finally chose to implement it. Most often, people prefer to e-mail me when they have something to say. I understand why this is, but it saddens me because of how completely it limits the exchange of ideas.

To pretend that we can have a complete life by posting only what our mothers and bosses will read, as someone suggested in a conversation about the Topsy tool, is to rob ourselves of experience and to rob the community of valuable engagement. Comments don’t simply break down into valuable and inappropriate. There are many topics that are valuable but not something you’d want on the first page of Google when someone searches for your name. There is nothing wrong with wishing that it were possible to compartmentalize your digital conversations in the same way you do your meatspace exchanges.

Unfortunately for us, this is not the direction the web is going, which is why pseudonymous accounts and the networks who accept them are so very, very important. Those who accuse pseudonymous users of hiding and being dishonest are, in my opinion, the ones who are the most dishonest. People using pseudonyms do so mostly to protect themselves in a world they know has no walls and retains everything they’ve ever said. Are they less honest, really, than people who continuously self-censor and refuse to weigh in on important issues because they’re afraid of the repercussions?

[SSEX BBOX] is a documentary web series about sex created in an effort to fight for more openness, more understanding, less shame, and less isolation in sexual matters. Taking viewers on a journey through Sao Paolo, San Francisco, Berlin and Barcelona, [SSEX BBOX] questions obsolete assumptions about sex and sexuality.

This is the trailer (not safe for work!):

(Recognize the voice? Hi, Charlie!)

“Our commitment extends beyond sexuality to all human rights, including access to knowledge and information,” the creators write. “Our commitment is to create a space stimulating conversations about sexuality and helping others find out more about themselves and their desires.”

[SSEX BBOX] has been releasing episodes online since January. There are fifteen episodes in all, each focused on a specific subject. Episodes are also available in Portuguese and Spanish. You can see the complete list of available episodes on their page on Vimeo, or cruise their site ssexbbox.com.

This project is supported by the Center for Sex & Culture and has also received advising and consultation from sexologist, Carol Queen, Ph.D and psychotherapist and expressive arts therapist, Therese Noel Allen, MA, MFT.

Bedsider is an information destination for people looking for the kind of birth control that will best fit their lifestyle. We won’t lie, their easy-to-browse site told us more about birth control in two minutes that all sex ed classes we’ve ever attended. We dig them. Period.

Even more so, we dig their Sex Fails Facebook app, which they will be using to collect stories of sexual misadventure for the next six weeks. The app was created by Social Cubix to underscore Bedsider’s ad campaign: “You didn’t give up on sex. Don’t give up on birth control either.”

Facebook users can use the app to share their sex fails, or they can tweet them using the hashtag #sexfails. The user who gets the most Likes for their submission wins a free t-shirt. Anonymous posting is supported.

“Bedsider makes birth control approachable, easy, and fun, and this app plays off that,” said Lawrence Swiader, Senior Director of Digital Media at The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the organization behind Bedsider. “It shows that although sex fails happen to all of us, we don’t give up. The same is true for birth control. If your first experience isn’t ideal, it’s important to find the right method for you and not give up.”

You’ve seen the angels on the runway. You’ve bought into the idea that they’re otherworldly creatures, condemned to live among mortals and impose impossible standards upon you in revenge. Prepare to get the upper hand as Doutzen Kroes, Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, Erin Heatherton, Lily Aldridge and Lais Ribeiro rehash their hilarious tales of awkwardness in the name of a first kiss.

You’re welcome.

We’ve never particularly cared much for site traffic. Sure, we care about your feedback in comments and e-mails, but we were never the sort of blog to give a hoot about “the numbers.” We’ve seen what gets big numbers: animated gifs featuring cats. We’ve no interest in cats, and given the number of people who follow us on social media to keep up with what we’re posting, neither do you.

We do, however, nevertheless have a dusty Google Analytics account, which we must confess became the source of great amusement over the weekend. Behold, the weirdest searches to result in some Sex and the 405 goodness:

1. vulva documents
2. balloon vagina
3. corvette labia
4. burn bra porn
5. Gumby porn
6. dolphin handjob
7. dr seuss wank
8. dora the explorer sex
9. i left my butt in san francisco
10. the erotic review escort arrested with your information
11. tiny dicks
12. dildo mold
13. labia of the day
14. tom wolfe gets fucked
15. cant remove dildo
16. nightguard for sex blow jobs
17. shoe ass insertion
18. dire sex
19. mastrubating with a hotdog
20. naughty crucifix
21. paraphilia gasmasks
22. fat guy food fuck
23. sandwich i’d like to fuck porn
24. slutty noms
25. handjob for science

The pressing questions that lead people here:

1. pussy where are you
2. how big does my penis have to be to have sex
3. do you make more money on your period as a stripper
4. is “pussy hair” flammable
5. do smart people watch porn
6. how to call demon for sex
7. is jared leto asexual
8. what is a fuck me shoe?
9. what is an emo on craigslist?
10. what is the best sandwich to have sex with

What is with all the sandwich sexing? Is that some kind of new thing that we missed?

Why be awkward when you can be so awkward, you’re actually funny?

Introducing Etsy’s answer to our national sex ed crisis: The Crochet Learning Sex Ed Kit. For $51.51, you too will own a uterus complete with ovaries, a sperm cell, an egg, a dildo, a baby, and a bunch of contraceptive devices — all in crochet!

Alas, the crochet penis is missing, but if you’ve been reading us for any amount of time, you already know where to get one of those!

Via Brandon Campeaux.

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.