A new age of porn has dawned.
I'm talking about fan pages.
You've seen them. They're everywhere: YouTube, Facebook, MySpace.
Take this video from YouTube: cinemagraphic masturbation. Come on, people. There used to be a time when it was illegal to perform such acts in public. Remember Paul Reubens?
The TwIndoVerse was a all a-flutter at the weekend. Film director Joko Anwar went all Ashton-cum-Judas on us and sold his dignity for 3,000 tweeples. But at what price?
Leaving aside the whole dignity issue (Circle K?!!), there's this little law called the Penal Code. You see, shaking your noodle in public is a crime, and one that comes with a hefty penalty --- 10 years in jail and a Rp 5 billion fine. Yep, being a dick-head is against the law! But wait there's more. Apparently, Joko the Joker decided to post a photo of the incident on Twitter, potentially graduating from flasher to pornographer and [G/g]od knows what else under the UU ITE. Sound far fetched? So does locking up a housewife for complaining about crap service, silencing Burmese exiles, throwing children in jail, investigating Facebook tit-for-tats and (the ultimate) interferring with the administrative functions of the KPK. This is a ridiculous world we live in. Think before you tweet.
China says it has taken unspecified punitive actions against the Google search engine, which it accuses of violating Chinese law by spreading pornography. The official comments come as computer users in China experience intermittent difficulty accessing Google.
Read more: http://globalitnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/china-google-and-pornography.html
Tags: Chinese Government, Google Search, Pornography, Censorship, Beijing, US Commerce Secretary, Green Dam, Gary Locke, Ron Kirk, Internet Filtering, Global IT News, Chinese law, Google blocked by China,
It was too hot last night/this morning so I dreamt quite a bit.
The first portion of the dream I think was in some alternate version of inner south London. We were in a house that supposedly was the first house my parents lived in when I was born. It had a shed-like room attached to it and in this room was lots of old 90s PC equipment and a rack with books and DVDs. Some of the DVDs were apparently pornographic Japanese hentai sort of stuff (which shocked me in the dream), and others were these awesome retro Penguin books (I can't remember who but one of them was by a contemporary continental philosopher). The book collection thrilled me. I was angry, because a lot of them were on my wishlist and didn't understand why my father didn't tell me he had them.
I left this house supposedly situated in Balham to walk down the street. Though it was daylight, as soon as I stepped out in only-socked feet, it went dark. I was told I should be afraid but wasn't. As I walked to my cousin's flat down the road (a cousin of mine really does live in Balham too), there were groups of people, about my age, in what looked like some gang induction. A young boy was about to endure a burning to be part of this gang. I crossed the road so that I wouldn't have to walk through, believing that they would most likely sexually assault me if continued through them.
I passed other strange urban landmarks on the other side of the street, whereas previous one was very leafy and verdant.
* * *
Another section of the dream, and I'm in some sort of music studio - the type where several students can be taught at once. There are four of us girls, with bass guitars too big for us. There wasn't one for me but I took my spot by a keyboard to participate anyway.
* * *
Again, this was connected to the first dream, but it may have occurred after I woke up briefly before falling asleep again. I was arguing with a Filipino family that my family is friends with in real life about socio-ecomonic class differences. Our family was still in England, despite us having met them in Australia, and arguement arose because they were very well-off in a third-world country, whereas we were working class in a first world one.
(note: goddamn, my dreams are arts nerdy. That's kind of funny)
Sex, Lies, and Videotape, was released 20 years ago in 1989. That put director Steven Soderbergh on the map as a movie director. He later followed up with such films as Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, and a two-part four hour Spanish film, Che.
Mr. Soderbergh has always been one to experiment and try new things. His latest new film has a $1.8 million dollar budget, an improvisational script, and a porn actress star, Sasha Grey, in a new film titled The Girlfriend Experience.
According the Wikipedia, the girlfriend experience generally involves a more personal interaction than a traditional arrangement with an escort. This film is about a 21 year-old adult film star and her real life boyfriend. The movie is cast with non-actors, unless you consider Ms. Grey an actress.
Candance Jackson wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Mr. Soderbergh wanted to make an entire film with a cast of non-actors while also using improvisation and real life situations. The article says that Ms. Grey has starred in over 150 adult films since turning 18. Mr. Soderbergh discovered the actress her when he read an interview in a Los Angeles magazine where she discussed her career choice.
Ms. Jackson goes on to say that Mr. Soderbergh says it's no longer taboo to hire porn actors for jobs outside the sex industry. "It's so mainstream now," he says. "When you look at people who are transmitting the news to you on television they all look like they're in porn, the way they're coiffed. It's really crazy. There's this like hyper-grooming thing going on now, men and women. I was never thinking, oh, what an outré thing to do to put a porn actor in a quote-unquote normal movie. I just thought she was interesting."
In the book, Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families, the author, Pamela Paul, talks about the "all pornography, all the time" mentality of many younger men. For the book, Ms. Paul interviewed more than 100 people and discovered that porn allows men to enjoy a fantasy of endless variety, but can distract men from their partners and harm relationships.
Steven Soderbergh's movie has relevance as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught participating in the Girlfriend Experience and it cost him his political career. However, Mr. Soderbergh notes that the idea for the film was conceived at least a year before the Spitzer scandal. The movie comes out on May 22, 2009.
