John Dvorak: To Avoid Embarrassment, Avoid Everything!

“The Internet is often eternal,” says PC mag columnist and the host of the weekly podcast CrankyGeeks, John Dvorak. “Once something appears on it, someone will invariably keep a copy of it — or the thing will simply stay online forever. Just as the rest of us are finally forgetting that video of the chubby kid prancing around the room with his light saber, someone will reintroduce it to a whole new generation of viewers. When this kid turns 60, I guarantee that someone will pull out the video at his birthday party.”

Stuff we do online is like a tattoo that never goes away. How can we avoid the possible embarrassment of having to face our digital footprint down the line? Refuse everything that is human interaction via technology! Duh!

Cardinal rules:

1. Do not sext. “This is probably the dumbest thing you can do,” he says.
2. Facebook and Myspace. “Facebook is a product you use after agreeing to its terms of service,” Dvorak says. “It’s a well known fact that the guy who runs the site is not interested in your privacy. Never assume that anything you post on the Internet is going to stay private. Nothing is.”
3. Twitter. “Sounding like an idiot on Twitter with hour-by-hour chatter about your feelings is incredibly revealing,” he says. “Every so often I check in on someone’s tweets, only to discover that the person I just met is a total dingbat.”
4. Blogging. “I’ve never understood why someone wants to reveal their innermost feelings on a blog,” Dvorak says. “It’s generally not that entertaining. Too often it focuses on someone’s cat. You have to wonder why people present such sad personalities online. Do they even know that they’re doing it?”
5. Chat Rooms. “It’s also very easy to record a video chat,” he says. “What would an employer think if they got a hold of the video? What would your mom think?”
6. Flickr. “I constantly use Flickr to do due diligence on people,” he says. “Why not? If someone has hundreds of pictures posted of him or herself, an immediate red flag goes up. Why do you need so many pictures of yourself online? These pictures were usually taken at parties where people end up acting like the Whore of Babylon or an out-and-out drunk.”
7. YouTube. “While you can indeed remove videos from YouTube, I can assure you that, if you are really making a fool of yourself, someone will capture the stream and repost it,” Dvorak says. “Again, you can expect to see yourself as a dopey 15-year-old on the big screen of every birthday part from 21 to 60. Like the fat kid with the sword, you may forever be defined by that video.”

Information from PC Magazine.

She Lied About Infecting Over 500 People With HIV

Last week, the interwebz went ballistic over a YouTube video wherein a woman confessed to infecting some 500 people with HIV.

“Just because something looks good, it could be dirty on the inside,” the masked woman says, talking to the camera in almost a sing-song voice. “Like a fruit. If you see a shiny red apple — you should have learned from Snow White. Just because the apple was pretty and inviting, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t harmful.”

It’s the scariest thing we have ever seen. Naturally, everyone went into a panic. The woman has since been identified as Jackie Braxton, an adult star on the web. She confessed to the Detroit News later that she does not have the virus.

“I made the tape because I wanted to raise awareness about AIDS,” the 23-year-old said.

Police picked her up at the Detroit college she attends and immediately took her to the city’s health department to be tested for HIV. The results are confidential, but Deputy Chief James Tolbert told the News “we are 100-percent positive it was a hoax.”

More from the News:

Braxton said she feels “bad” about making the video that has spread panic among Metro Detroiters and others around the country. But, she said she felt her tape served its purpose when she went to the city’s health department this morning and saw people waiting to get tested for AIDS.

Braxton, who uses the stage name “Fame” and has a 5-year-old daughter, admitted she made the videotape to market her own porn site, which she says she operates with her husband. Braxton’s video on the Mediatakeout.com site had recorded more than 430,000 hits by Thursday evening.

Police do not know yet if criminal charges can be levied against Braxton because they don’t know if she has broken any laws. Failure to disclose to a sex partner that you have HIV/AIDS is a felony.

Here’s the video for those of you who can’t take our word for it on how terrifying this is:

OK, so we here at Sex and the 405 know there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but… just the thought of HIV/AIDS makes it impossible for us to even think about getting down. Fame’s a cute pornstar name — very Lady Gaga — but Braxton will forever be “AIDS Girl” in our minds.

Good job on freaking everyone out into getting tested, though. According to WCTV, Michael McElrath, a spokesman for the city’s health department, said that the number of walk-ins for HIV testing more than doubled in Detroit on Friday.

That’s gotta count for something.

Image and information from the Detroit News, via @miamirotica.

A Peek at the D&G Threesome Flame War

Last year, on November 16th, the day after our fearless editrix’s birthday (and quite possibly the best day of all time), Dolce & Gabbana released their new Time ad.

The ad featured 2009′s ultimate sex obsession, the ménage-a-trois (you can all thank Sean Percival and Gossip Girl for that).

We should have reported on it, but we failed, because as we said, our editor was too busy having The Best Day Ever.

She offers her sincerest apologies — as sincere as you can get from a woman who wouldn’t have traded marathon sex to update a blog, anyway.

In penitence, we bring you some e-mail fresh from D&G’s inbox from people who are pissed about the ad — and D&G’s bitchy responses!

But first, the ad, of course:

From: Prim and proper
To: a little helper desk [D&G]
Subject: Your ad

Your new threesome ad is disgusting. I only hope you have to describe to your daughter why it isn’t appropriate to have sex with two guys even though *your* ad says it is. I can only hope you use good sense and remove this ad. By the way, good job going from a gang-rape ad to a MMF threesome ad. You are truly moving in the wrong direction.

From: better things to do [D&G]
To: Proper deranged
Subject: YOUR daughter

Keep being that kind of parent and she will most probably end up in an MMF scenario, only off-camera and in your own bedroom. At least our model was paid for it…

Best regards,
A Little Helper Desk.

+++

From: A concerned mother
To: a little helper desk [D&G]
Subject: Your filth and total lack of wisdom

I could not help but notice your site these days is pretty covered in naked torsos and various depictions of boys in underwear; upon clicking on an article promising me to help with the last minute ski preparations I subjected my sons to the pretty upsetting sight of male models virtually undressed. The way you people have of objectifying the male body is frankly vile and unsettling for young boys growing up in a world like a meatpacking district. I sincerely hope you sort yourself out and learn the meaning of the word “respectibility”.

From: better things to do [D&G]
To: The reason why your children will eventually do drugs
Subject: Two steps away from happiness

First one: buy yourself a dictionary unless you want your sons to be dysfunctional both sexually AND grammatically (hint: respectability).

Second one: Grow some balls, women have been subjected to such treatment… well, since about forever and apart from a notable few exceptions they have turned out just fine.

Best regards,
A Little Helper Desk.

PS: Find attached a few post-runway shower shots to teach your kids all about anatomy.

We can expect no less from Dolce & Gabbana, who brought us the first kiss between two men in a commercial in 2006.

What will it be for 2010? Dare we hope for plushies?

You know you love it.

Image via saksoffenderx. Information from Swide.

The Fair Vow Breaker

Before there was sex, there was history, and in this history there is a man by the name of Gerald. 

Gerald is middle aged and has a family. He believes in the scientific method, conservative politics, philosophical pursuit and all things adventurous.  Adventure was hard to come by once he became a husband and father. His days had become inseparable from the plot to the film Groundhog Day. Nothing was fresh or worth savoring. His idle mind left him wandering one particular evening in the depths of the web, via Google.

Gerald was curious about criminal psychology in the beginning of August 2007. His search revealed a particular criminal psychologist blogger who cited a link to an obscure and abandoned blog I had created in years past. The blog featured my e-mail address, and Gerald was captivated by the person I had introduced. Luckily for Gerald, I actually read the subject lines of items in my junk mail folder, and his subject line set him apart from the scammers and spammers: “Beauty,” it said simply. Who knew that a single ego-feeding word would draw me in and risk the health of my computer?

His missive read:

“Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.” — Marcus Aurelius

Most of us know that spam is usually sub-human advertising, a bank account scam, phishing or random drivel. This was random, but far from drivel. I decided the email was worthy enough to respond to since most strangers don’t email me quotes about beauty from Roman emperor philosophers. My response was a slight twist to the emperor’s words, but sage enough to bait the hook and catch us a conversation worth having for over three years.

With any intimate conversation, people will stay engaged if you’re still interested, and especially if you’re interesting. I would describe myself as interesting, perhaps even borderline strange. I like to push limits and see how far I will go in any situation presented. You could say I was also interested in all things adventurous. 

That’s how it started. Innocently — or, well, as innocently as missives begging for adventure can be.

Neither he nor I had any idea just how far — and how deep — we would end up going.

If you met her in person, you would never guess the kind-faced psychologist and devoted fiancée was living such an intense double life. But she is — and she’s here to tell us some of the hot stories and logistics involved with conducting a successful illicit affair. Learn these lessons and you too will be able to join the select elite who can lead as many lives as their greedy hearts desire. Image in this post is property of A.V. Flox.

John Edwards Sex Tape? OMFG.

Calm down, there is no tape to be shared yet (I know, this blog is turning into a catalog of all the sex tapes that don’t exist, including my own. Sigh).

But bear with me because this one is juicy. So as you know former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards had an affair with Rielle Hunter, a woman his team hired to videotape the candidate during his campaigning. Well, get this: his former aide Andrew Young says the ex-senator and his former mistress made a sex tape.

Young spelled this out in the proposal for his book The Politician.

This doesn’t sit well with the Edwards, obviously, but then things have been tempestuous between the two camps for a while.

According to an old piece on the New York Daily News gives us the juicy gossip on Young’s feud with the Edwards:

Young says that his belief in Edwards ran so deep that he agreed to take the fall for the candidate, inviting the pregnant Hunter to live with him, his wife, Cheri, and their three children. Later, after Hunter delivered the baby, Young and his family moved to a different home in California.

While he was unpacking, Young discovered a videocassette, according to the book pitch. Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign to videotape the candidate’s movements, but this one is said to have shown him taking positions that weren’t on his official platform.

The purported sex tape confirmed to Hunter that Edwards was even more reckless than he thought.

Elizabeth Edwards is said to hold Young partly to blame for her husband’s affair, since Young knew it was going on and sometimes used his cell phone to conference the senator and his girlfriend. Young has told friends that, in revenge, Elizabeth arranged for the media to learn about a youthful misdeameanor in which Young was arrested for stealing a sign from a biker bar.

Elizabeth also suspects Young stole the baseball card collection of her late son, Wade, according to a source who says that she told Young in an e-mail that other former staff members “have passed lie detector tests.”

Whoa, can you say drama? So, of course, now that Young’s book is thisclose to coming out, he’s bringing the deets on the tape out to stir up the jaded masses. But it gets better. John Edwards has told the National Enquirer that the story that Young found the tape is a total lie and that if there is a tape, then Young is the one who recorded it. The plot thickens! Dun dun dun!

So what’s in this tape that may or may not exist? Sources tell Gawker, the media gossip blog, that: “The tape… is explicit and reveals that Edwards ‘is physically very striking, in a certain area. Everyone who sees it says “whoa”. She’s behind the camera at first.’”

Oh, my! Well, now we definitely want to see it. Not that we didn’t before — but then, you know our editor here is kind of a sex tape aficionado.

Erin Kotecki Vest, Producer of Special Projects at BlogHer, raised another very important thing we need to verify: does Edwards’ hair move during sex?

People, the public has a right to know. Make it happen.

Image from the publication that brought you every gory detail about this affair (so recognize!), the National Enquirer. Information from everywhere we link, via Erin Kotecki Vest.

Southern California Schools Ban Dictionary

I wish this was a joke or a statement about how the three people who hit on me at the coffee shop this morning seemed to only use monosyllabic words and so liberally sprinkled the word “like” in statements that nothing they said made too much sense.

It’s not. Some schools have in fact banned the dictionary.

Why? A parent complained the definition of “oral sex” in Merriam Webster’s 10th edition, common in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (populated by nine and 10-year-olds), is too graphic.

It describes oral sex as “the oral stimulation of the genitals.”

The Press-Enterprise reported on the incident:

“It’s just not age appropriate,” said [district spokeswoman Betti] Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the [Manifee] district.

“It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” Cadmus said. She explained that other dictionary entries defining human anatomy would probably not be cause for alarm.

I AM ASHAMED OF THIS STATE TODAY. ASHAMED.

Information from The Guardian and Press-Enterprise.

Joshua Ferris: We Don’t Really Have Anybody Writing Boldly About Sex

Vanity Fair‘s Claire Howorth talks with Joshua Ferris, lit darling and author of the acclaimed Then We Came to the End and the new The Unnamed.

VF: Do you think your generation of writers is conflicted about sex? Or feels awkward writing about it? The Unnamed contains two pretty notable sex scenes and they’re… relatively tame… I mean, they’re not Roth-ian…

JF: But they’re also not deciding to masturbate in two corners [laughs]. If I had gone on, it would’ve taken the wrong tone. I think if a book is going to take on sex, it should take on sex, and do so boldly.

I’m not sure that there’s a categorical mistake that’s being made somewhere by saying that this generation of writers is too tame compared to the earlier generation, or that somehow this generation doesn’t take it as seriously, or is even less preoccupied by it. A lot of those Roth and Updike books almost have sex as the only object.

I don’t know where a writer can be faulted… Michael Chabon, let’s say. Michael Chabon can’t be faulted for having a far more ambiguous ending spot or approach towards sex simply because he might be the heir to Bellow or Roth.

I think you could talk similarly about a departure of prose style, and wonder, well, why isn’t Jonathan Safran Foer writing as effervescently as Bellow? It seems slightly misguided.

At the same time, we don’t really have anybody writing boldly about sex. So maybe there is something in the water, I’m not sure. But I suspect that it’s not over. I don’t think the sex game is over.

Information from Vanity Fair.

Sir M’s School of Discipline

On a recent Saturday night I found myself blindfolded, nearly naked and chained up in the “play room” of a dungeon party. This was my first BDSM play session with Sir M and I was afraid, yet thrilled to be trained by such a highly experienced and respected Dominant. My adrenaline surged with the first smack on my behind.

“I’m going to introduce you to a lot of my different tools so you can learn the different sensations,”  he whispered as he locked me in a wrestler’s hold from behind with his left arm and slipped on my blindfold. His right hand then teased my erect nipples. “I’d like to string you up by these nipple rings but we’ll have to wait until they’re completely healed. What a shame!”

He tortured me with a series of implements – barehanded spankings, leather paddle spanking, three or four different floggers, a riding crop, and a lucite cane. With each one, he’d tell me what is was, stroke it softly along my face and body to teach me the feeling and the smell. Some floggers felt smooth and heavy, others has more of a tooth to the fabric like suede, and one seemed to have more texture.

Sir M’s Torture was delicious and painful

Sir M took his time and let each blow be absorbed before giving me the next. It was delicious and painful. I screamed a lot and swore uncontrollably, trying to dodge when the blows got harder.

“Don’t dance!” he’d yell if I squirmed around.

He was careful to test my limits — this session was going to be the base for many more to come.

Sir M paced our session so the pain intensity would warm up and swell and peak, then have cool down periods. There would be intermissions of pain and he’d check in with me to make sure I was doing OK. He’d check my chakras, caress me for a while, console me, then say “OK, slut, ready for more?”

A few times he cupped his hand around my throat just under the jaw for what seemed like several minutes. It felt strange and frightening, like I might be strangled, but I could still breathe just fine.

“Sir, may I ask a question? What are you doing?”

He chuckled. “You may ask that but I’m not going to answer. I’m checking something.”

I noticed that Sir M always stayed attuned to my breathing, sometimes synchronizing his own breath. When he gave the most intense pain he’d remind me to keep breathing deeply.

Divine surrender

At some point in the session I felt transformed. Lightheaded but clear. Exhilarated. Still feeling the pain acutely but able to spread it through my body with my breath and transcend it. I later realized we’d spent two hours but the time had flown.

When he was finished, Sir M had me wrap my arms around him and give him a bear hug. This helped ground me and prepare me for the outside world. He settled back down in the leather armchair and watched me get dressed, with his permission. He instructed me to clean off all the toys he used with alcohol and taught me to only clean the “fall” of the floggers, the part that touches the body.

Aftermath

We joined the groups socializing outside the playrooms, gathered by the fire pit. A slave called Cinnamon with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks rushed through the crowd holding a snifter of cognac. It was balanced on the palms of her hands as if she were a human tray. I could see she was rushing over to serve her master and it wasn’t a good time to chit chat.

I was pretty dazed. I stood there with Sir M’s heavy bag of whips and chains. Several people I’d never seen before complimented me on our scene, on my tattoo. I realized we must have drawn a crowd with my loud cries and screams. And we got their seal of approval.

I knew that once I stepped outside the club doors I’d return to being my assertive, independent self. That fact makes my choice of submission even more meaningful. I can attain freedom through surrender!

Daisy TraLaLA (@DaisyTraLaLA) is a saucy Angelino kinkster who glides with ease between the worlds of tech, art, cuisine, electronica and dungeon parties. She’s currently unowned and uncollared. The image used in this post is from Daisy TralaLA.

How To Get Our Editor To Do You

You think we’re kidding?

OK, maybe a little, but only slightly.

He had it with the first two sentences. Then he started going on about what a weakling he was and, well, that ruins the worthy adversary fantasy.

The fact that this is strictly platonic might also be something of a problem. What proper battle doesn’t end in violent sex? Like, hello.

Oh, and he’s in Louisiana. But apparently Ms. Flox will jet for a proper show-down.

Link via Marsha Collier.

Yum, Yum: Dolce Boys

We had some sexy ladies earlier this morning through the link on our interview with CelebrityFantasies, so we thought to include a little bit of noms for us lovers of men.

Behold the beautiful creatures that are Adam Senn, Sam Webb, Noah Mills and David Gandy! Behold the thankless, horrific task that is method acting and modeling! But, oh, the suggestion of testosterone…

Dolce, dolce, dolce.

Video by Swide, via @FemminaForte.