so last week: cheap divorce in NYC. the sunset in Jamaica and WTF in NYC.

• Gay actors go out, but they’re not out…of the closet. (Reuters)
• Why I think Cynthia Nixon rocks. (LGBTQnation)
• Newt Gingrich should shut the fuck up. (ibtimes)
• Tim Gunn pulled the trigger on his sex life 29 years ago. I love him for coming out. (LATimes)
• When it comes to online dating, it may not be there’s too little jam, their may be too many jars to choose from. (CNN)
• A pastor who advocated for more sex in marriage. But not gay marriage. (VICE)
• Seal calls split from Heidi Klum shocking. (BelfastTelegraph)
• New ways to date, and undate, online. (Jezebel)
• And if you’re dating online, don’t drunk text after midnight. Okay? (EditrixAbby)
• Drinking tea may prolong your sex life because you’re drinking tea and not having sex. (Limelife)

photo credit: Chadil Deffy

• “My view is that the G-spot is really just the extension of the clitoris on the inside of the vagina, analogous to the base of the male penis.”…and the G-spot controversy continues. (Today)
• Female feticide can be stopped by concealing the gender of the fetus for at least 30 weeks. (CTV)
• Dude marries his dead girlfriend before she’s buried and posts pics on facebook. Yes, you read that right. (MSNBC)
• LA County makes condom use mandatory in porn movies. (AfterDarkLA)
• On Newt, cheating and open relationships. (Forbes)
• So today: male sex drive to blame for world conflict. (Telegraph)
• Dating in the interest of women everywhere, one widow speaks up. (ObRag)
• Sexually speaking, what’s a girl to do? (LATimes)
• 10 handsome, successful men who were born female. (Oddee)
• Porn for pregnant women. A need is met. (BabyCenter)
• Porn and women. Some like it hot and hardcore. (DNA)

Do you think they’ll also be spot checking for dental dams? Or just snapping photos to send their friends? And when does safer sex start? When do condoms have to be used? Does oral count?

Obviously I have a lot of questions. And I also have a lot of opinions, and although I’d love to see a disease free world where safer sex was more exciting than love without condoms, I also think that there are bigger fish to fry than if porn stars use condoms. On the flip side, I like that people care about porn stars and their health and well being. No really, I do. What I want to know is why do they care?

Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of the industry I despise. There are parts that are icky, and having safety precautions for those in the industry who can’t, for some reason (age, lack of IQ, fear, etc.) stick up for themselves, isn’t a bad idea either.  The thing is, I hate the authority this will give law enforcement to check out any porn set they want. How many LAPD will be making the rounds of  just to say they’ve been on a porn set, or got to fine a porn performer? The novelty will eventually wear off, but at what cost?

There are STI’s floating around porn, but that doesn’t mean that condoms are always the answer.  It’s not atypical to have experienced the joy (can you feel the sarcasm) of gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, a grueling yeastie (as one friend affectionally calls yeast infections) or a UTI – if your day job is having sex on film. Most porn performers brush it off as part of the job. And the rates of HIV have always been low in the mainstream porn industry, condoms or no condoms, that’s not going to change much either.

My problem with the mandatory testing has always been that each performer has to do it once every 30 days. That means PRON MAN is tested (day one) allowing him to screw in a film anytime for thirty days. In the time he screws all of West Hollywood, then drives over the border to Mexico, and screws everyone in a small town, then engages in a wild orgy romp on his way back through San Diego and has sex on camera on day 28 (still clean according to the papers) even if he’s not so clean anymore. That’s because all this partying and porking took less than 29 days to achieve and PRON MAN didn’t have to get tested again for a whole other day.

Fine, that’s just one radical example, but the point is that it’s easy to get a clean test and then do dirty things for a whole month until a performer gets tested again. I’m not down with that, although everyone I’ve ever known in porn swears that the community is tight and small and in order to get into their tight and small vaginas (or in order for them to get in yours), you will seem clean, or be clean, or clean up your act before you work again.

Do I think condom use in porn should be mandatory? I think that condom use in porn should be accepted and expected, but when it comes down to it, each performer needs to make the decision for him or herself. If they opt out of using condoms, it doesn’t  hurt to have them sign a waiver, or a release, letting everyone know they are fully aware of their big girl or boy choice.

So while I say yes, let’s bring more awareness to safer sex, I also say let’s bring more awareness to the porn industry. Treat it like a legitimate business and it will act like one. Condoms or no condoms.

However, now you can enjoy more than five extra stories this week (from two weeks ago), and more great stories from this week, including female sex addiction! Shrink wrapped couples! Lisa Swayze! A woman with two vaginas! Western man’s booby obsession and should prisoners be allowed their porn? It’s all sex news you may have missed.

First Image Credit: Photographer Hal. Me and Bonnie from Honey’s Place on stage at the Xbiz Awards. Gram Ponante and Jessica Drake.

So Last Week:

• Bizarre shrink wrapped couples are fun to look at. (Flavorwire)
• Female Sex Addiction. Is it an equal opportunity health crisis? (NYDailyNews)
• The internet is altering your child’s sexual behavior. (SidneyMorningHerald)
• Because every hero needs his heroine. Lisa Swayze finished writing her story one year, eight months and a day after her husband Patrick’s death. (DailyMail). Buy Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward.
• Woman born with two vaginas speaks uses this information as an ice breaker at parties. (ABCNews)
• The important message behind “I Love the Way You Lie.” (CampPendleton*Patch)
• Size 12 model becomes the face of the UK Sex Shop, Ann Summers. (Limelife)
• “It is indeed sad that men are so powerfully obsessed with fat-filled sacs attached to the front of women..” and so the story goes. Men and breasts. A lifelong obsession. (Telegraph)
• Schoolboy dresses as a girl and dialogue ensues about his right to be in school. (DailyRecord)
• Porn and prison. Should an inmate have a right to his/her masturbation material? (SCPR)
• Porn stars and CES do mix! (CNet)

So Last Two Weeks Ago:

• Rick Santorum thinks an imprisoned father is preferable to a same-sex parent. (LATimes)
• The Obama administration’s expanded definition of rape now includes men as victims of sex crimes. (HuffPo)
• Beware of marriage. Advice for men. Not. (Jezebel)
• Another survey supports the theory that for women, sex gets better with age. (USAToday)
• Porn yesterday: A token of sexy times past. (Guardian)

so yesterday: BoC with Abby Ehmann

• Love in a time of autism. (NYT)
• Sex education for teenagers, online and in text. (NYT)
• All the single ladies (and guys): Here are our best cities to find a date in 2012. (DailyBeast)
• 10 science stories from 2011 that may make you blush. (LiveScience)
• Sex and tech headlines that topped the list in 2011. (ZDNet)
• Porn actors and mandatory condom use. The battle begins. (LATimes)
• So a little over a week ago: Officer fired for selling sex toys out of the trunk of his whilst in uniform. (CharlotteObserver)
• World masturbation champion prefers anime girls to real girls. (Kotaku)
• An open letter to the old man drying off his balls in a public restroom. (McSweeneys)
• So gossipy: Katy Perry and Russell Brand are getting a divorce despite saying they aren’t a few weeks ago. (MTV)
• Damn Girl: Sinead O’Connor explains her 16 day marriage. (EW)

• Don’t say gay. Tennessee school actually bans everything homosexual. (thenewcivilrightsmovement)
• A look at some of the daring few who challenge the one child limit in China. (USAToday)
• Helen Gurley Brown and how Sex and The Single Girl, made unmarried, childless women less oddball-ish. (BBC)
• Do ask, do tell. Lesbian naval officer scores first kiss. Swoon. (HuffPo)
• So updated last week: Former ex-gay minister reveals he’s still gay and he can’t change that. (HuffPo)
• Young couples don’t marry so they don’t have to divorce. (LiveScience)
• RKB on negging. (TheFrisky)
• Meet the penis mom. (GirlonSaturday)
• The popularity and perfectionism behind butt sex. (Jezebel)
• Girls Gone Wild Elf and more. (LilBlueBoo)
• Chastity Belts. A very brief history. (Mosex)

Things I saw, So Last Week.

• The next Roe v. Wade. Jennie McCormack’s abortion battle. (DailyBeast)
• An inspiring (and amazing) story of two identical twin boys who were weren’t exactly identical. (BostonGlobe)
• What’s happening to America’s vaginas? Pubic hair goes the way of the dinosaur. (TheAtlantic)
• Reading this could make you happier: 10 habits of happy couples. (HuffPo)
• In defense of casual sex. (PsychologyToday)
• How to get rid of a one night stand: Derek Jeter style. (NYPost)
• Bradley Manning had secrets. (BoingBoing)
• 5 historical sex myths you may think are true. (Cracked)
• Vulva tattoos you may, or may not, want to screw with. (Buzzfeed)
• Where would you lick if you had 24 flavors of sexual orientation to choose from? (Sexis)
• What does Ryan Gosling’s sperm have to do with getting pregnant with Michelle Tea? (xojane)
• Melissa Rivers is dating porn mogul Steve Hirsch. Can we talk? (TMZ)

my so last week: plungerhead and tahoe

• Why we need to stop bemoaning the end of men. (Forbes)
• Persons excited by penises, beware. Bananas and cucumbers lead to thinking about sex. (ibtimes)
• The ten naughtiest vegetables on earth. (OrganicAuthority)
• It’s time to legalize prostitution. (Salon)
• Teaching mutual satisfying consensual sex may help boys wait a little longer to “just do it.” (PsychologyToday)
• Toddlers touching their bits. (MadeForMums)
• A guide to farting in the middle of a blowjob, and then more non-sex questions. (DeadSpin)
• Uhm, yeah. Glow in the dark vagina dentata underwear. I like-y. Thx @MollyCrabapple (etsy)
• Polyamory with Jaiya. Meet my friends and fellow sex educator Jaiya, her partners Jon and Ian and their son Eamon. (DailyMail)
• Ye olde college try. Is it impossible for men and women to be just friends? (youtube)
• Why dating your opposite isn’t always attractive. (good.is)

So yesterday: nipple cupcakes @CondomRev in Costa Mesa

• Condoms with teeth fight rape in S. Africa. (Gizmodo)
• How the iPhone’s Siri is misleading women who need reproductive help. (ThinkProgress)
• Meet the lovely sex worker who sexes up disabled clients and teaches us all a thing or two about the human experience. (Jezebel)
• The Little Rooster is a vibrating alarm clock you were in your panties. Sign me up please! (Geekologie)
• The odds of getting into the NYT wedding section. Yes it does depend on who you are and what you’ve achieved. (TheAtlanticWire)
• TLC debuts “The Virgin Diaries,” and a recent study shows virginity is on the up-n-up. (ABC)
• File under HAWT: Rouge. A short film by Smitten Kitten. (YouTube)
• Sex school to teach better loving opens in Vienna. (HuffPo)
• LA could vote on porn star condom use. (TorontoSun)
• No crazy chicks. Eight red flags in online dating. (m.good.is)
• Five relationship killers (written for hetero-types). Do you agree? (ChicagoNow)

In this week‘s Hot Sox podcast I’m joined by pioneering, feminist sex educator Amy Jo Goddard to discuss the large part that sexuality plays in our lives. Working on shame and patterns, Amy coaches women and couples through a nine-step program to help them get the things that they want out of their sex lives and relationships. What are the major issues couples have? From communication to sex skills, Amy Jo’s got you covered.

Plus building a community for sex educators, being authentic in our sex lives and what happens when sex educators need sex advice? Suggestions from one of the premier and authentic sex educators I have ever known, Amy Jo Goddard. For those in the New York area, you don’t want to miss her workshops either. And sex educators, take her online survey here.

Listen to the podcast here or via itunes.

Twitter: @amyjogoddard