A textbook has been withdrawn from circulation because what appears to be cheap stock photography was probably much more expensive than that: one "teacher" is actually a screenshot from cosplay pornography. No, it's not the girl with pigtails, but that was my first guess, too. The woman at the bottom is Mana Aoki, who, as far as can be determined, has never taught mathematics in a professional setting.

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The line between "porn star" and "prostitute" is actually less blurry than you think, and Playboy would like to keep it that way. Not that Playboy wants to call their Playmates 'porn stars', either, but a lawsuit filed proves they won't stand by Playmates being called prostitutes. A Canadian escort website is using the word "playmate" to describe their staff, and Hef wants to make sure that 'playmate' only applies to his nude models, and they're much too wholesome to be associated with prostitution. His claim is that calling the escorts 'playmates' sullies the character of his trademark - yes, 'playmate' is trademarked, despite kindergarten teachers using it as a gender-neutral descriptor of friendship for decades - and wants the escort service to stop. No word yet on whether the Canadian hookers have a resonse, but I'm betting that response will be polite.

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Remember how Canada requires more home-made porn? Well, that's kinda hard unless you have the pornstars to film. Pegas Productions, a Quebecian...Quebecer? Quebecois, I guess -- anyhow, a Q-town Canadian porn studio was short on male stars, so they set up "Male Porn Star School" and manufactured some stars of their own. For $149, candidates where put through basic training on what the porn job entails, beyond "stick your penis here." Because, as the dozens of rejected candidates learned, being a porn actor is a business, you don't just jump in unprepared.

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The Tumblr blog JustAnotherIKEACatalog actually does something more than just steal other people's content: they research the furniture in the background of porn videos, and adds an IKEA-style product description over the video. I always wondered what that side-table was during that one CFNM blowjob scene. Now I can buy one for myself! Get to the site soon; apparently IKEA is considering suing.

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This is why, walking down the street, you never actually see a pornstar in the wild. Unless they've got distinct tattoos or something else very identifiable, underneath all that makeup the ladies look like anybody else. So, use this information as you go through your daily life. That thin-lipped, acne-suffering babe with big boobs at the counter at McDonald's? Porn star. The mail carrier with long legs and dark rings under her eyes? Porn star. Life's a lot more exciting when you can just assume any person could be a porn star right in front of your nose. Just don't point it out to them that you know; famous people hate that, especially suspected pornstars.

Someone has taken the time to chart ten thousand porn stars by a variety of statistics, and comes up with the fact that porn star women are pretty generically pretty: white, dark-haired, b-cup, 5'5". Can't complain about that. Some of the statistical data is a bit skewed: the "where pornstars are born" doesn't seem to weight based on population -- he's surprised that the west, with its very thin population density, produced very few pornstars? And, just the fact that he trusts truth from the online records - when the women's visible and quantifiable qualities are pretty close to the truth but the documented weights are a bit lower than the norm, that should be a sign, and when a porn star claims to be from LA rather than Butte Montana, it shouldn't be a surprise either. But, still, when it comes to actual movies, it becomes a bit surprising: anal is far more common in porn than reality, and female porn stars actually stick with the industry for a while before finding something else to do. Still, can't complain about some statistics porn, especially on something so easy on the eyes as real-life human porn.

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A new study took a look at the mental wellbeing of female pornstars and found that, not only weren't they all "damaged goods" with a history of sex abuse and mental illness, they are actually well-balanced, spiritual women with a handle on their lives. I'm sure there's some stragglers on the outer edge of the bell curve - conservative arguments love to show those as examples of the whole - but it's nice to hear that it's studied and documented, not just assumptions made. The drug use statistic is a little unpleasant, but compare to sex objects in other industries - film, music - and you're likely to find similar numbers...or so I assume - statisticians, get on it! The full study is here if you're cool enough to have journal access.

OK, here's my reality-show invention hat. From this hat, I draw the following words: "rock band"...and..."porn star"! Damn, Bree Olson already invented this, and called it Tight. Their show is coming to a cable TV station near you in the fall of...2011? Oh, don't worry -- they're still around and giving interviews, probably to promote the DVD release.

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Viagra has practical uses, you know -- when prescribed to children with breathing problems, it's ability to dilate blood vessels helps flow through the lungs. Two problems: Viagra has it's blindness-causing risks (when compared to not breathing is worth the risk), and I'd be concerned about embarrassing "tent pitching". Again, compared to 'not breathing'...

Owen Wilson, attending the XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits exhibit, met porn star Sean Michaels. Polite small-talk was made, and Owen excused himself. Now, Mr. Michaels has turned to the media to get in touch with Owen, offering a set of "Ass Lickers" DVDs as a sign of friendship. Creepy, no? Sure, it's probably a publicity stunt, but the stalkerish overtones are a bit spooky.

Podcasts are the new venue for erotic stories, sex ed, and pornography -- according to the Wall Street Journal, and when something's big enough to catch their attention, it's worth keeping an eye on.

Male bisexuality is a myth -- so if you've been using it as an excuse to cover up your gayness, well, your cover is blown now, so just give in, buy a rainbow bumper sticker for your Honda, put on a pair of daisy-duke shorts, and blow-comb your hair. You've been wanting to all these years, you know.

AXE body spray has gained fame with a very likely, but unforseen, audience: early-teens. Now, this is wrong on so many levels: first, that the youths believe the TV commercials that say Axe will get them laid in a store changing room. Next, that sex-ed is so taboo that it's not available to young teens who'd be willing have sex with any woman that'll let them. Finally, that they somehow believe that spraying MORE of the stinky crap will make them even more irresistable than the commercials lead them to believe. I suppose, if anything, this will preclude sex ed: no girl would get close enough to an AXE-bathed lad to even approximate sex. (I, for one, believe women stroke their asses with frying pans made from my used bodyspray cans. It's gotta be true - I saw it on TV!)

Jet Set Lara is yet another courtesan with a blog...but, due to the manufactured fiction of others of this genre, there's a bit of disbelief in her writing. She claims 10,000-pounds for a minimum booking ($20,000 for two days?), and an Ivy-league chemical engineering background. Who can pass up a story of a sexy ladygeek getting paid more for two days than a month of full-time at mimimum wage? Her blog is found at jetsetblog.com

Japan tries to make condoms fun -- you know, because the acts that require use of a condom are unpleasant enough, why should condom wearing be as bad? Oh, I know, they're not as much fun as going without, but with HIV and pregnancy on the rise, Japan is worried. They, of course, blame the lack of condom use in pornography -- when porn stars go without, why should regular joes use 'em? They go on to say that the condom-eschewing masses believe pornography shows the correct way to have sex, because "...Japan does not have full and proper sex education for students." Hmmm....this sounds familiar...wait, what did the US do when HIV and teen pregnancy started to run wild and condom use was deemed "uncool?" Oh, yeah -- develop "abstinence only" sex ed which gives little info about sex and says condoms are useless. When the Obvious is looking the US and Japan in the face, both countries are lucky to have a prudish government that can see past the obvious.

It's almost mesmerizing: a limp female corpse plummets, bouncing off bubbles as she falls. Well, I don't know about the corpse thing, but she doesn't seem to feel much pain. Click on her with your mouse, and you can control her travel; I found flinging her off the right or left edge of the screen was very satisfying.

What's a business to do, when the obvious domain name for their business is already owned by pornographers? Buy it, of course! Sticky Fingers, a barbecue rib chain of restaurants, opted to pay $6,000 for stickyfingers.com, rather than change the name of their business, or expecting customers to use some sense and not assume that the obvious domain name will always get you what you're looking for. Did the whole "whitehouse.com" debacle teach us nothing?

An uninvitied mom found 70 books in the school library that she considers objectional. Judy Blume's Forever is one, as well as books on homosexuality. She has "something against this explicit stuff being pandered to our children"....if, by pandering, means that the books are available to children who seek it out on their own accord and require a book to have explicit, dangerous, ininformed, and reckless sexual fantasies and activities. I'd wager, if these are books the library took even the slightest care in purchasing, that it's better children read these than getting their sex ed from their friends or cable TV.

When the school district, one with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state, holds a meeting to get community input on sex ed materials, who shows up? No parents, that's for sure. Of course, this will be selectively forgotten when some parent decides to blame sex ed for teaching their kids how to get pregnant. One former student did attend and viewed the prospective curriculum: "I learned all types of birth control," she said. "I'm not ready to have no kids."