Wonderful news: Sasha Grey is putting porn behind her. The fact that most of the media is saying, "finally, she can give up the crappy job she once had because she has finally made it", but most of the media hasn't really seen Sasha Grey's porn. She could live nicely for quite a while doing that, but porn doesn't last forever either. The fact that she's going mainstream shows she understands the limitations of her previous career and is investing herself into something new, two rather noble acts. To compliment her on putting porn in the rearview is like shaking a retired football player's hand and saying, "congratulations on owning that chain of gyms -- a lot better than playing some stupid game all day, right? Be you're glad you're done with that." Nobody gives a shit when somebody moves from one job to another on the High School Guidance Counselor Approved list; Grey should be congratulated for expanding her horizons and growing professionally, not because its assumed she's escaping something horrible. Thumbs up!

Initially, I was thinking an .xxx domain name would be pretty cool, and then this week it was approved by ICANN. What I hadn't thought of, however, was the 'scarlet letter' aspect of it all. My .com address puts my sexy sex stuff in the same universe as Toyota and Amazon and the Republican Party, and an exile to the XXX domain pretty much admits I'm not of the same calibre as regular internet sites. Plus, then where does policing start - if I have adult content, will I be required to have an .xxx? Will DNS servers stop querying the TLD XXX server as a form of censorship? And, of course, when I actually get around to getting an .xxx domain, all the good ones will be taken already anyways. I think I'll stay right here in dot-com land, and the XXX can be for the companies who'd rather they stayed in their own little world.

Although few porn parodies give me any sexual satisfaction, I may have to revise my predilections. They're pornin' up Community, and unlike most porn parodies they're going to have trouble finding anyone sexier than Annie or Britta. Just fucking look at her. Community is practically porn for nerdy guys anyway, I don't know how an actual porn film will do any better.

Remember the politician who inadvertently expensed her husband's porn viewing habit? She now has an idea: tax pornography to fund sex ed, safe sex, and relationship counseling. In the US, states use cigarette tax to promote quitting programs, alcohol tax to curb drunk driving, so putting a sin tax to good use isn't completely out of whack - plus, she wants "real sex education in schools", and combined with "safe sex" means that she's actually got some smarts. Of course, she was shouted down as "naiive" for her beliefs, because we can't have anybody thinking outside the box. Compared to other ways to deal with the vague Pornography Problem, Ms. Smith seems to actually be putting some thought into it rather than either just banning it outright or ignoring that some people have a problem with their porn. Too bad her peers rated her "the worst performing member of the cabinet," because when she had the power to actually do something worthwhile, it was spent misusing government money and raising anti-terrorist imprisonment to Orwellian levels. I guess some time out of office has made her give what's important some thought.

So, you've had to leave your elected position due to drunk driving and other ethical violations, you're coming out of the closet, you lost your driver's license, you rent a shabby office above a flower shop to keep your in-state address, and now you're looking for clients. The only logical step: represent pornographers, and use your Iowa offices as the porn company's US mailing address. The florist downstairs, who also owns the building, is absolutely precious in her midwest reaction: ""Oh, Lordy," Hickle said. "I had no idea. I am not OK with this. I don't believe in pornography, and, oh, my, I just don't see Northwood as the sex capital of the world." It's too bad she doesn't believe in pornography: her flowers result in more fucking than all the porn in Bumfuck Iowa combined. Seriously, Valentines Day is all about fucking, and it's the biggest day for buying flowers for your honey. One-stop porn and flower shopping is the Business Model Of The Future, and it's too bad she doesn't believe in pornography, otherwise she's be sitting on a goldmine. She'd just have to team up with the foreign company and their drunk gay lawyer to get it done - nothing bad can come from that, you know.

The University of Texas - San Antonio has one of the bestest campus clubs ever: The Atheist Group is offering to trade bibles for porn. No, the other way around: anyone bringing them a Bible would exchange it for some awesome pornography. The point - one I can't exactly argue against - is that the messages of the religious books have about as much positive impact on society as porn does. Now, there's a lot of levels to this: if you want to say the Bible is as bad as porn, well, I don't think porn is bad at all. If you want to say the Bible is as safe and innocuous as porn, then you're saying Bibles are OK. Now, if you're trading a bad thing for a good thing, I suppose...see, there's a moral dilemma in this - if only there was a book around that told me how to look into my soul and do the right thing. The article says that they weren't sure how many people took the atheists up on their offer, but my guess is they got a bunch of beat-up Gideon's Bibles that somebody stole from the hotel down the street. Now there's a racket for the atheists: leaving porn in hotel rooms instead of bibles. I bet *I* know which one's more appreciated by hotel customers!

The courts have ruled that free porn online isn't an anticompetitive threat against pay sites. Court documents regarding porn are generally awesome for many reasons. For instance in this one, the defendant's lawyer, "in the interest of representing his client, he visited 101 tube-based adult entertainment sites." - but for personal reasons he visited over 300 tube-based sites. Wait - over 100 tube sites? I'm about 40 short. Lawyers have access to all the best porn. The good news is that tube sites remain a competitive part of that "constantly changing commercial landscape" we all know of as masturbating in front of the computer.

Everything's 3D these days - Toy Story, Avatar, Nicholas Cage, and even online pornography. A couple months ago Maxim did a 3d photospread, but it just made my eyes hurt; I can't imagine blue-red anaglyph video would be any better. Hell, after a while my eyes can't focus on regular porn anyway, how is this going to be any better? All you're asking for is a two-foot long penis thrusting out of your TV at you, and that's an LSD flashback I'd like to avoid.

Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon wanted to know: what do modern people know about pornography, in our porn-saturated world? About as much as can be learned from an episode of Desperate Housewives, apparently. Despite having porn available at their fingertips at all times, modern women avoid porn and modern men are afraid to admit it in polite company. Well, duh, Making something more available due to modern communications don't change the society it lives within. Humans are prudes by nature; we hold our sex close to the vest because it's important to our existence. The fact that Girls Gone Wild exists is because the medium is more extensive, not because there's more stupid chicks willing to embarrass themselves.

The people that fall into those categories - the sexually-willing woman and the unsatiable lothario - are the stereotypes that the porn industry lives off of. It doesn't turn people into those stereotypes. Videogames don't mess up our kids, rock-and-roll doesn't cause suicide, charged political rhetoric doesn't make people kill politicians, and more porn doesn't make more sex fiends. If anything, American society over the past twenty years goes further to prove that one single environmental factor doesn't fuck up a person's entire being. The diffusion of porn into everyday life only serves to make people money, and reduce the social stigma of the average level of porn appreciation. Unstigmatising the austere and ancient love for pornography is where we all win, yo! Cheers, let's go get a beer and some DP!

Hugh Hefner, Mr. Bachelor of the Universe, has decided to marry "Playboy Bunny" Crystal. I'm never one to begrudge a guy getting married, so my hat's off to you, Mr. Hefner. Only an asshole would make old jokes. My only worry: what happens to the Girls Next Door now? It's the only thing scheduled on my Tivo - do those things ever die of disuse? At least those dumbas twins are out of the picture: jesus christ, they need to go work at the post office for a while to get some freakin perspective about where they sit in the scheme of things. Hef, on the other hand, fights of First Amendment rights, donates a bunch of his money, always seems to be a genuinely nice guy, so if he has found a hot piece of ass that he wants to devote the rest of his life to, here's to you, Mr. Awesomest Man In The World.

Over at A Slip of a Girl, a fine friend of this blog, you have a chance to win a 1-year gift subscription to the vintage erotica website Delta of Venus. Since it's that time of the year, Slip would like to know who you'd give the gift of retro smut to beneath the Xmas tree - although you're welcome to keep it, if you so choose, too. All the rules and information on entering are found at A Slip of a Girl, so put your writing hat on and you might get to see some fine natural black-and-white boobies for free!

Want to become a big porn star next year? Marketing, branding, accounting, and SEO are the way to do it. Luke Ford wants to remind you that porn is a fucking business, pun intended, because the 'business' means the same thing no matter which way to take it. Er, that pun intended, too. You'd think people would realize by now that anything you get paid for needs to be treated with the skills of an MBA to maximise profits, but people need a kick in the head sometimes.

Traffic was brought to a crawl by some inadvertent giant-screen hardcore pornography in Moscow recently. Video is here. It was, of course, blamed on hackers, because nobody in their right mind would want to watch 3000 square feet of tits bouncing in the sky. It also happened at midnight, which means that only people in search of tits were likely to have seen it - so I don't see a downside in any of this. Authorities, however, do, and are investigating.

OK, we've got the best fetish videos, but how about some normal porn? Freeones has announced their top models are Hanna Hilton, Lisa Ann, and Priya Rai, or in other words, the three finest pairs of giant tits I have ever wished I fall asleep snuggled deep between. One, in my mind, is head and shoulders above the others: Lisa Ann's Paylin schtick gets her a gold medal from me. Never have I fantasized more about an Alaskan Governor's tits, and even goes for Palin herself.

If there's one thing Fox News knows, it's the best fetishes! Doctor Belisa would like to inform you that muscle girls wrestling, kitchen foot crushing, and shirt-ripping were the top three categories at clips4sale. Nothing out of the ordinary; I thought they were coing to be weird or something. She, helpfully, reminds us that women aren't fetishists, because if there's anything that helps a relationship it's downplaying a guy's turn-ons as unappealing. No wonder guys get their toaster stomping videos online than talking to their lover about it.

The AVN events ended last weekend, leaving the faint funk of over-eager fans and various flavors of silicone, over which hangs the spectre of the lagging sales and dropping profits. Daily Beast has it wrapped up: 5 reason porn-for-profit is dying. One through three are unsurprising - porn has been lamenting those for years, but the last two show some outside-the-box thinking, even though they're not really backed up with hard evidence. Gaming hurting porn? I'm not so sure there's that big of an overlap in customer base. And "Pornstar Hookers"? That sounds like a boon - like some MFA figured out a way to diversify into mutually-beneficial markets which otherwise overlapped little. Number five might just be pay-for-porn's salvation.

...theoretically, at least. Porn doesn't know how to get its mojo back, but plans on figuring it out while in Las Vegas next weekend. I think I saw the movie about people going to Las Vegas to find their mojo - I think there was a tiger in the bathroom and the Spanish teacher from Community, then Cameron Diaz killed Christian Slater, and then Meathead's dad helped rob a casino. None of which had anything to do with fucking, so let's hope that a convention center full of huge tits will be just as stimulating as it sounds.

GB Turner's grandpa was a pornographer in the olden days - grandma ran the store, while he took photos of nude girls in the back. It doesn't say if these ever appeared anywhere else, but who can argue with the opportunity to gaze longingly at cheesecake nudies? Note: Flickr makes you sign in before you can see them.

She quit porn because she loves it - I'm not sure I get her reasoning, but the article is an excellent look at a certain facet of the porn industry. I can totally understand the dealings with Eastern European models via digital images - not going to spoil anyone's fantasies by giving more info, but I have bought custom content like this for a porn site, and, really, the idea of creepy, manipulative porn is becoming a rarity these days. Professional, willing models who get paid well for their services is far more common.

TMZ had the big EXCLUSIVE scoop - JFK frolicked around naked women in the Mediterranean! Er, oh wait - some guy who looked sorta like Kennedy was in a Playboy photoshoot and some pranksters sold it to TMZ with a huge bogus backstory! The photo was verified as the real JFK by forensic experts, which shows just how much bullshit they can come up with if you pay them for their corroboration. On the other hand - it's an excuse to look at vintage tits, so enjoy.