It’s been a packed August so far, and these links are a little late in the making. But all’s well that ends well, as they say. And I hope these links from around the internet about Pornhub and doxing, sex-positivity and black femmes, Bree Olson and the adult industry, ED drugs and transparency, and Chelsea Poe all treat you well!
The Nasty, the Fabulous, and the Thought-Provoking of August
The Nasty
- Ah, Pornhub. That cultural touchstone that angers, edifies, and confuses us all. There’s a lawsuit under way alleging that the adult entertainment company Girls Do Porn right now uploaded the plaintiffs’ images to Pornhub without their consent. This has, in turn, allowed for doxing and harassment. And they’re far from the only ones to have experienced this when their images ended up on “the world’s most popular p0rn site.” A tidbit from Samantha Cole at Motherboard:
Some of the videos posted to Pornhub have been viewed more than 40 million times…This is a massive amount of exposure for people who say they didn’t want to be seen having sex on camera in the first place. And as they take their case to court, Pornhub continues to make money off of them.
Read the rest at Motherboard! - The sex-positive sex-education and -influencer space is, naturally, a fraught one. The industry, as it exists currently, is relatively small, but growing. This means it’s competitive, and that means that it can get ugly. This series of stories about black femmes working in the sex-positive world and being treated terribly by a white-led company within that space is chilling. Not just because it reveals many ways in which marginalized groups within this small and supposedly “inclusive” industry are suffering. But also how we rarely hear their stories. Those of us who want to be sex-positive can learn a lot from nearly every sentence of this article. A nibble:
The fact of the matter is that Black femmes still face so much in this space. We are still pushed out of the same spaces for opportunities, pigeonholed by others’ assumptions and limitations of who they think we are and are more often tokenized to only be able to contribute because of our identities than for the expertise we hold as sexuality professionals.
Please read the whole article at Medium.
The Thought-Provoking
- It’s kind of amazing that nobody outside the adult entertainment industry really talks about erectile dysfunction drugs on set. It’s not that this is a good or a bad thing—it simply is a part of the industry. Yet almost no one talks about it about outside of the cloistered halls of adult sets. That means that, particularly for those who watch a lot of porn but don’t know about the prevalence of little blue pills, there’s a lot of information being left out of the equation. That’s why I’m glad that Aurora Snow at the Daily Beast brought it up in a recent article:
If taking ED drugs magically transformed a non-working unit into a meat sword there would be a much larger pool of male talent; nonetheless, it’s still a commonly carried trade tool—though not always openly discussed.
Read it all at the Daily Beast! - Great news! The link between cannabis use and mind-blowing sex is getting more attention from the scientific community! Specifically, women who used marijuana before sex were twice as likely to have “satisfactory” orgasms. This is according to a recent study published in the journal Sexual Medicine. As reported in the Independent:
“What’s new about this study is that marijuana is framed as being useful for sex,” said Joseph Palamar, a population health researcher at NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York...He added: “Typically, drugs are investigated as risk factors for sex. I think this paper signifies that times are changing.”
You can read the rest at the Independent!
The Fabulous
- It’s pretty common for performers who have left the adult entertainment industry to either disappear completely, eager to leave their past behind them…or to badmouth it for headlines. We saw this clearly last week, when Mia Khalifa told media outlets that she’d hardly made any money in the industry despite her massive popularity, and that she’d left porn because she was ashamed of what she was doing. Yowch. So the Daily Beast interview with retired p0rn royalty Bree Olson was particularly refreshing, coming just on the heels of Khalifa’s repudiation. She told reporter Marlow Stern:
I was in a really tough life circumstance, and because of the industry, I was able to get a house, I’m now building my second custom house, and I’ve traveled all over the world. Coming from such a small town…the mindset when you haven’t traveled, seen different types of things, taken in different cultures, you can be more susceptible to being closed-minded. But being able to get out and see the world was so educational to me, and it gave me growth that I truly believe I would not have found otherwise.
Read the whole thing at the Daily Beast! - I really enjoyed this profile of Chelsea Poe by Sandra Song in Paper. Poe is a whip-smart performer, creator, and activist. Thus, the article fittingly touches on trans issues in p0rn, art, and punk. A taste:
“I saw it as, ‘I can be a person who does these extreme things, but still be vocal,'” Poe explains. “There’s a way you can do this and have it be an artistic expression, rather than have it be something that just destroys your life, which is such a pre-set way of how people view being in p0rn for a few years.”
Get the rest at Paper!
Lynsey G. Links (Because This Is My Blog, And It’s August, That’s Why)
Coaching and Editing
- In August, I’m accepting clients for autumn 2019 via my coaching page. I’m offering 15% off my novel-writing workshop to encourage folks to get in there and do the work when the days start to shorten. And I’m always looking to work with authors who need help with the book-creation or -editing process. Hit me up, and let’s make this thing happen!
My Books!
- This August (and early September), I’m Kickstarting a book I edited, and you might think it’s pretty cool. It’s called War & Horses, and it’s part of a massive fantasy universe I’ve been helping to create with a group of amazingly talented individuals. It’s a weird-western dime-store novel written by Peter Lampasona and co-illustrated by Jayel Draco and Chris Covelli. And it’s not just about the book—we’re also releasing never-before-heard music to backers! Composer Jack Schell created a soundtrack to go along with the Children of Gaia universe, and we’re releasing tracks at funding milestones. Check it out and pledge or share if you can!
- I write books!
- Watching P()rn is my memoir about being an adult entertainment journalist…but really it’s an informative text about the adult entertainment industry and how it works. It’s out in hardcover and updated paperback and digital…and soon it will be an audiobook, too, as of this August!
- Tracy Queen, Volume 1 is the first issue of my epic, sex-positive, sci-fi graphic novel about a socially awkward indie camgirl with a cyborg-clone army to protect her from the clutches of the p*rn industrial complex.
- And PACK #1: Humility is the first of a comic series about vigilante dogs who fight crime, corruption, and gentrification!
And More!
- Did you know I read chapters from Watching P0rn live on Facebook every other weekend for almost a year? And did you know you can watch ALL of the videos so far on YouTube and Facebook? Well. You can. (And you can “like” them in either place, which would help me out a lot.)
- Or that you can support my work comics creation and publishing company, Oneshi Press, on Patreon? Guess what? You can do that, too! If you sign up in July, you’ll get our next comics anthology when it comes out!
I hope these links and tidbits get you through the end of August…or to my next blog post…in style!
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