Look for sex, go to jail

Bangkok Post : General news

Assume it is true what an undercover officer claims about his encounter with Senator Larry Craig in an airport men's room: Mr Craig was asking for sex. What we would have is an adult propositioning another adult. If that is a crime, then an entire industry of singles bars across the nation should be raided. If Mr Craig can be booked, then haul off the thousands of men across America who routinely hurl lascivious suggestions at women who happen to cross their lines of sight.

In Mr Craig's case, no words were uttered, lascivious or otherwise. No one gestured obscenely or touched anyone else, unless you count one guy's shoe touching another's. To get arrested in a bathroom, you generally have to do something sort of sexual. Expose yourself. Grab somebody. In Mr Craig's case, no one claims he bared a private part, groped the cop, had public sex. Or any sex. In fact, throughout the encounter, a stall divider separated the senator from the officer. Whatever else Mr Craig says about his arrest, this much is undeniably true: he should have called a lawyer.

''We never would have advised him to plead guilty to that,'' says Julie Loftus Nelson, a Minneapolis criminal defence lawyer at the firm of Frederic Bruno & Associates. ''It's a bad case to begin with.''

Police no doubt scrambled to come up with a halfway appropriate charge against Mr Craig. They dug up two misdemeanours, disorderly conduct and interference with privacy. That last one, dropped when Mr Craig pleaded guilty to the first one, might have applied because Sergeant Dave Karsnia said Mr Craig first peered through the crack in the stall door at him.

But that's a thin charge and hard to prove. Sgt Karsnia was obviously waiting for something more. He got it once Mr Craig sat down in the stall next to his and tapped his foot, a signal widely known among gay men as a sexual invitation. The senator then ran a hand, palm up, under the stall wall separating them, according to Sgt Karsnia's report. Finally, Mr Craig edged his foot into the next stall, touching the officer's foot.

That's when Sgt Karsnia flashed his badge, and Mr Craig uttered his first word, which was ''No.''

Mr Craig defends his conduct as perfectly innocent and completely misunderstood. I'm not buying it. I also don't get why what he did is a crime. I understand that public bathrooms shouldn't become sex parlours, and that police must patrol them to protect children, especially, from happening onto sexual acts. But, again, Mr Craig wasn't having sex.

If he had found someone amenable to the idea, would the senator have done it in a public bathroom? I doubt it. In any case, you can't arrest someone for what they haven't done. Sure, you ought to be able to use a public bathroom without someone peering at you or invading your space. But let's be honest. That isn't the real wrongdoing alleged here. If it were, the police report wouldn't keep saying that Mr Craig's conduct matched signals gay men use for sexual invitations.

The crime Mr Craig admitted was disorderly conduct. Minnesota law says that is committed when someone ''engages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy conduct'' while ''knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know, that it will, or will tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others''.

The worst that can be said of Mr Craig's conduct is that it was ''offensive'' and would tend to ''disturb others''. Think for a moment how much everyday conduct that covers, conduct no one would dream of criminalising.

Sex in a public men's room can be prosecuted for what it is. Police at the world's busiest airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson, have this year arrested 45 men for public indecency in bathrooms there, according to airport spokesman Herschel Grangent.

But they don't arrest on the basis of foot-tapping and hand signals.

''In all the cases where arrests were made, the individuals were engaged in an act or getting ready to engage in an act,'' Mr Grangent says. That usually means they are exposing themselves, he said.

The law says they aren't publicly indecent unless they are engaged in public sex, are partly naked or are lewdly fondling someone else. That's the kind of conduct worthy of arrest.

I believe Mr Craig when he said he pleaded guilty just to get it over with. Ashamed and worried for his career, he no doubt hoped the whole thing would go away. Contesting it wouldn't have accomplished that, empty as the charges seem to be. That is the most disturbing element of his arrest. If homosexual conduct is even alleged against a closeted man, he has to either choose the quickest and quietest resolution possible or risk revealing the truth. That would probably mean losing his job, his family, the respect of his community.

The charges against Senator Craig were ''most definitely'' overreaching by police, says Ms Nelson, who is the new chairman of the criminal law section of the Minnesota State Bar Association. She doubts a jury would have convicted him.

But challenging the charges would have guaranteed exposure. And yet, his guilty plea offered no safe haven either.

From the moment of his arrest, Mr Craig's career as a conservative Republican senator from Idaho was over.

For him, there simply was no defence to the real ''crime'', which wasn't disorderly conduct. That, his constituents probably could have managed.

Mr Craig's problem is that he now appears to be what he vehemently denies: a gay man. BLOOMBERG

US Government proposing regulations that would kill adult social-networking sites

outinamerica.com - US Government proposing regulations that would kill adult social-networking sites

The federal government is proposing regulations that would effectively kill adult social-networking sites. This is being done under the guise of fighting child pornography. You have until September 10 to object to these regulations. The Department of Justice is proposing regulations to implement a federal law designed to combat child pornography, known as Section 2257. The law was first enacted in 1998 and was amended in 2006 and significantly expanded to include regulation of the Internet. While many of the regulations pertain to companies that produce adult entertainment magazines and videos (and are extremely burdensome), they would also affect anyone who uses an adult social-networking site. Here's how: The regulations would require the people running a site to get and maintain personal information from every user (that means you) who posts a "sexually explicit" photo, including your photo ID (driver's license, passport, or military ID). The regulations would allow the Attorney General to conduct warrantless searches at will on the sites' records, including your personal information. There are few safeguards over what the FBI can do with the information it obtains. If a site operator fails to comply with the regulations, he or she would face a prison sentence of up to 5 years. Obviously, none of this has anything to do with child pornography. Instead, it is a blatant attempt to end the ability of consenting adults to use adult social-networking sites to meet other people for sex. Obviously, if these regulations go into effect, they will kill this industry.

Thieves steal cargo of underpants

BBC NEWS | England | Coventry/Warwickshire | Thieves steal cargo of underpants

Police are asking for anyone who sees a cargo of stolen underpants for sale to get in touch.

Twenty pallets containing about 25,000 pairs of pants were taken from a Polish lorry driver on Cosford Lane in Rugby, Warwickshire last month.

Police said the offenders sprayed the driver with an "unknown substance" which knocked him unconscious.

The "Jules" pants, which are worth £50,000, are described as being in several colours and styles.

Man pays the price for being a good samaritan :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

Man pays the price for being a good samaritan :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

It was Rocio Palacios who first noticed the woman who appeared to need help.

It was 8 a.m. when she and her husband, Erasmo, dropped their 6-year-old daughter off at school and had picked up their 22-year-old daughter to go out for breakfast when they saw the woman waving her arms at 53rd and Kedzie last November.

» Click to enlarge image

"I'm so lucky I was with my wife," Erasmo Palacios (seen with wife Rocio) said of his arrest on prostitution charges.
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times)

» Click to enlarge image

Erasmo Palacios, 51, explains how he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute with his wife and daughter in his car.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)

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The couple laughed, realizing this wasn't a woman in distress after all.

But within seconds, Chicago Police swarmed the family car, hauling Erasmo Palacios out in handcuffs. He was charged with solicitation of a prostitute

His daughter, who had just run in to exchange her coffee for a hot chocolate, screamed, while his wife cried in fear.

Eight hours later, Palacios, who has no criminal record, was released from custody. And weeks later, charges against him were dropped.

Now, Erasmo Palacios is suing the city and the officers involved in his arrest, saying they violated his civil rights during an incident he described as both frightening and ridiculous.

"I'm so lucky I was with my wife -- imagine if I had to try to tell her and she wasn't with me," he said, before laughing at the image. "She'd never believe me. Never."

A Chicago Police report offers few details, saying only that it was Erasmo Palacios who asked for sex, never mentioning his wife in the car or his daughter nearby.

Attorneys Lonny Ben Ogus and Joe Cavanaugh also want to know what happened to the family's 1983 Mercedes. It was impounded that November day and, Palacios said, his wife and daughter were even threatened with arrest as they tried to stop police from taking it, as they were left stranded that morning.

The city wants more than $4,700 in towing and storage fees if he wants the car back.

City officials declined to comment on the status of the family's car and the Palacios case, while the undercover female officer involved in the arrest couldn't be reached.

Manatee man pleads no contest to porn-related charges

Bradenton.com | 08/28/2007 | Manatee man pleads no contest to porn-related charges

BRADENTON --

BRADENTON -A 19-year-old man, who detectives say distributed a nude picture of his underage ex-girlfriend on fliers and on the Internet, pleaded no contest today to child abuse and attempted child abuse, both third-degree felonies.

Anthony Daniel Rich Jr., of the 7200 block of Eighth Avenue Loop West, had initially been charged with sexual performance by a child, a second-degree felony, and a charge of computer porn, a third-degree felony.

Rich is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 1. Under the plea deal, Rich faces 30 days in jail, to be followed by 12 months community control and four years of probation.

Had he gone to trial and been convicted of the original charges, Rich could have faced up to 20 years in prison.

The former couple, who dated for almost two years, was involved in an argument in January, eight months after they broke up, Manatee County Sheriff's Office detectives said. After the fight, Rich retrieved a nude picture of her from a computer. The photo had been taken with her consent when they dated.

At the time, Rich was 17 and his girlfriend was 15, according to Assistant State Attorney Jeff Quisenberry.

Rich then used a computer to type her name underneath the nude picture, and printed it on 200 fliers and uploaded it to her Web page hosted by MySpace.com, Quisenberry said.

Rich reportedly posted the nude picture as her main profile picture and sent out a bulletin asking approximately 500 of her friends on MySpace.com to view the photo.

Secret Signals: How Men Cruise for Sex

ABC News: Secret Signals: How Men Cruise for Sex

While many Americans may only be vaguely familiar with the idea of "cruising," there is a secret world of sex between men that exists in public places across the country.

The police officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis airport for allegedly looking to engage in gay sex wrote in his June report that he "recognized a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."

Craig tapped his foot up and down and swiped his hand underneath the bathroom stall in which the undercover cop was sitting, according to the police report.

Those actions led to Craig's arrest by Detective Dave Karsnia and the senator's guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge. Craig told reporters today that he did nothing inappropriate and said his guilty plea was a mistake.

Public places like men's restrooms, in airports and train stations, truck stops, university libraries and parks, have long been places where gay and bisexual men, particularly those in the closet, congregate in order to meet for anonymous sex.

Over time, people familiar with cruising told ABCNEWS.com, gay men began using a codified system of signals to indicate to others that they were interested in sex. In an effort to curb lewd acts in public  or as some gays argue, in an effort to persecute gay men  undercover police began sting operations in places known for sex soliciting and employed the same codes.

"Tapping of the foot is pretty standard for men who cruise in toilets," said Keith Griffith, owner of Cruisingforsex.com, a Web site on which visitors post locations popular with men looking for anonymous sex.

"They will usually go to the stall at the far end of the strip of toilets. They will see each other and usually decide to go someplace else. The vast majority have no interest in being seen. They may be meeting in public locations, but they will be as discreet as possible," Griffith said.

Cruising areas traditionally have been those parts of town "women and children are told to avoid," but through word of mouth, bathrooms at places like Wal-Mart or Home Depot can become cruising locales, he said.

Griffith said that officers involved in such stings tend to be young and that anecdotal posts on his site indicate the local arrest rates increase around the time of elections or when media attention focuses on the issue.

Because much of the signaling is itself benign behavior, some gay rights activists and lawyers have admonished police departments for arresting men who have done little more than tap their feet.

"Citizens have a right not to confront lewd activity in public places," said Steve Sanders, a lawyer and gay rights activist. "But if there is evidence that a sting is motivated by anti-gay animus, that may represent a more troubling issue."

At trial, Sanders said, police would have to prove that actions such as foot tapping were known signals for soliciting sex.

"What constitutes probable cause to arrest someone? If a case like this went to trial, police officers would have to produce evidence to say here is how we can say with certainty this is was really a lewd act," he said.

Craig pleaded guilty to the charges and therefore opted against a trial.

Today, Craig denied being gay and said he made a mistake by pleading guilty.

Police officers, for the most part, only investigate an area after members of the public have complained about it being used for sex, said Rich Gregson, executive director of the California Peace Officers Association.

"Police officers will investigate areas that have known histories of this sort of activity. They rely on their own knowledge and experience to tell what is happening. Most officers know the difference between an intentional signal and a stray motion," he said.

The public has a right to enter public areas without worrying about inadvertently seeing lewd acts, Gregson said. The 35-year veteran police chief said he believed this sort of activity took place "in every jurisdiction" and heard stories of "off-duty officers and even judges being caught and arrested."

With many other options available for gay men to meet each other, Gershen Kaufman, a professor emeritus of psychology at Michigan State University and author of the book "Coming Out of Shame," said public cruising is practiced mainly by deeply closeted men.

"Cruisers are not sex offenders. They are deeply, deeply closeted. There is a lot of self-hatred and shame and they can't allow themselves to come to terms with their sexuality. There is also the added element of danger and being discovered," he said.

Judge: Iowa gay marriage ban unconstitutional

Sioux City Journal: Judge: Iowa gay marriage ban unconstitutional

DES MOINES n Gay rights advocates won a major victory Thursday when a Polk County District Judge ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage violates the Iowa Constitution.

"This court has yet to hear any convincing argument as to how excluding same-sex couples from getting married promotes responsible reproduction in general or by different-sex couples in particular. So far as this court can tell (the law) operates only to harm same-sex couples and their children," said the ruling from Judge Robert Hanson.

The ruling says the law must be rewritten in a gender neutral manner to allow same-sex couples to enter into civil marriage.

"This decision brings to life the Iowa Constitution's promise of equality for same-sex couples and their families in Iowa," said Camilla Taylor, attorney for Lambda Legal, the gay rights group that argued the case.

Sen. David Johnson, an Ocheyedan Republican, said he was disappointed but not surprised. He was one of the co-sponsors of a bill that would have put the gay marriage ban before voters as a proposed Constitutional amendment. He said the ruling underscores the need to resolve this issue with voters, not the courts.

"We should get this issue on the ballot as quickly as we possibly can," he said.

The case will almost certainly be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Fake money doesn't fool Tenn. strippers - Yahoo! News

Fake money doesn't fool Tenn. strippers - Yahoo! News

SMYRNA, Tenn. - A man who authorities say used his computer to make fake $100 bills to buy lap dances at a strip club has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting charges, federal prosecutors said.

Strippers at Deja Vu in Nashville were suspicious of the bills and called police after Damon Armagost spent $600 of the fake money April 16, authorities said.

When officers arrived, Armagost first told them he got the money when he sold gold coins for $1,400 to an unidentified person.

U.S. Secret Service agents later determined that counterfeit bills with the same serial number had been passed in other parts of the country. When they went to Armagost's Smyrna home, about 20 miles southeast of Nashville, a family member told agents that an image of a $100 bill had been on a computer there.

Armagost then acknowledged that he had downloaded the image from the Internet and printed 14 of the bills, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty Friday to manufacturing and passing counterfeit currency and has a sentencing date of Nov. 5.

Monkeys sexually harrass humans

Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted): Wild Vervet Monkeys Wreak Havoc in Kenya

If you live in the small village of Nachu in Kenya, watch out, because a group of approximately 300 marauding monkeys is out to steal your food, sexually harass your women and attack and kill your livestock! In a truly amazing incidence of interspecies communication, a group of vervet monkeys, Cercopithecus aethiops, is using sexual harassment to intimidate women and children, who are responsible for growing maize, potatoes, beans and other crops for their farming community, causing them to lose their main food supply so they now are dependent upon famine relief to survive.

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Sandy

Bar Will Go Full-Nude After Being Denied Liquor License - News Story - KNBC | Los Angeles

Bar Will Go Full-Nude After Being Denied Liquor License - News Story - KNBC | Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES -- A man who planned to open a topless bar near downtown says he will make the club bottomless after being denied a liquor license.

A Superior Court judge rejected Moe Ahmadi's appeal of a city decision to deny a liquor license to Little Tokyo Showgirls at Commercial and Vignes streets, disagreeing with his assertion that the alcohol permit application was a free speech issue.

Ahmadi and his brother, Max, said Little Tokyo Showgirls will open in about two weeks and feature full nudity while they appeal the judge's ruling.

State law prevents alcohol from being served in clubs where complete nudity is featured, but proprietors of topless establishments can apply for liquor licenses.

Carmen Electra's ex Dave Navarro turns porn film director

Carmen Electra's ex Dave Navarro turns porn film director


Carmen Electra at the Polaroid Beach House, Malibu Beach, California. (Sunday, 12 August 2007). Photo Credit: Russ Einhorn / Splash News

London, Aug 24 (ANI): Carmen Electra’s ex hubby Dave Navarro is changing professions. He’s going from being a rocker to a porn flick director.

And, he’s already tried his hand at the new job by shooting a feature-length adult movie titled ‘Dave Navarro: Broken’.

According to The Sun, the movie is part of an idea by porn star Tera Patrick and her heavy metal singer husband Evan Seinfeld in which celebs are roped in to direct adult films.

Dave's film is set to be released on September 27.

The Jane’s Addiction rocker and Electra wed on Nov. 22, 2003. But after just three short years of marriage they announced that they were amicably separating.

Electra then filed legal papers in Los Angeles Superior Court last August citing irreconcilable differences. Their personal belongings were split up as previously agreed upon in a prenuptial agreement.

The couple’s divorce was finalized on Feb 20 this year. (ANI)

Ozzie Porn Filter Cracked

AdelaideNow... Porn filter proves useless

A MELBOURNE schoolboy has cracked the Federal Government's new $84 million internet porn filter in just a matter of minutes.

Tom Wood, 16, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the filter, which was released on Tuesday. Tom, a Year 10 student at a southeast Melbourne private school, showed The Advertiser how to deactivate the filter in just a handful of clicks.

His technique ensures the software's toolbar icon is not deleted, leaving parents under the impression the filter is still working.

Tom feared any computer-savvy child could work out the bypass and put it on the internet for others to use. Tom, who spoke to Communications Minister Helen Coonan about cyber safety during a forum in May, said the Government should have developed a better, Australian made, filter.

"It's a horrible waste of money," he said.

"They could get a much better filter for a few million dollars made here rather than paying overseas companies for an ineffective one."

In response to inquiries, the Government hastily added an Australian-designed filter, Integard, to the website yesterday afternoon, which Tom cracked within 40 minutes.

Senator Coonan said the Government had anticipated that children would try to find ways to get around the NetAlert filters, and suppliers were contracted to provide ongoing updates.

"The vendor is investigating the matter as a priority," Senator Coonan said.

The $189 million NetAlert scheme includes $84.4 million for the National Filter Scheme, plus funding for online policing, a help line and education programs.

Under the Government's filter program, homes can download the filter from netalert.gov.au or have it sent out to them.

Vida: Officer Nailed My Ass, Asked to See It - TMZ.com

Vida: Officer Nailed My Ass, Asked to See It - TMZ.com

Asstastic swimsuit model Vida Guerra claims she could have gotten out of a parking ticket in West Hollywood last night -- if she would have let one of the meter maids see her naked!

After two starstruck parking cops bragged that they had nailed Hayden Panettiere a few days before, the serial celebrity citationers swooped in on Vida's white Range Rover and planted a ticket on her windshield. When the cheeky chick got back to her ride, she told our photog that the parking officer made one thing clear -- if she forked over some naked pics of herself, she would get off (or he would).

Vida, claiming she usually doesn't carry that kind of junk in her trunk, took the ticket instead.

Carnal Knowledge | Condoms: A look at their place in history | Inquirer | 08/20/2007

Carnal Knowledge | Condoms: A look at their place in history | Inquirer | 08/20/2007

This summer, in what some may consider the end of civilized society, mainstream drugstores started stocking the 4Play vibrating ring - a battery-powered, next-generation, "pulsating" condom accessory. And to think that only a couple of years ago they hid regular old rubbers behind the pharmacy counter. "There is an overall demystification of the sex industry going on in the country," says Carol Carrozza, vice president of marketing for LifeStyles, the brand behind 4Play. Those who fear for our collective innocence needn't worry: Condoms have been out of the closet before. Take the 17th century, when they were sold openly to men and women by tailors and taverns or through special shops, says Aine Collier, a University of Maryland professor and author of a book on prophylactics through the ages. Casanova "was passionate about condoms," she says, and would often entertain women by blowing the condoms up, which also tested for holes. She maintains that the 18th-century libertine was particularly diligent when having sex with nuns, although his autobiography mentions one nun who supplied her own.

FEDS' PORN ULTIMATUM | By JANON FISHER | National News | US News | Current National News

FEDS' PORN ULTIMATUM | By JANON FISHER | National News | US News | Current National News

August 19, 2007 -- Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson - get ready to stand and be counted.

The Department of Justice wants to come up with an official list of every porn star in America - and slap stiff penalties on producers who don't cooperate.

The new rules, proposed under the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act, would require blue-movie makers to keep photos, stage names, professional names, maiden names, aliases, nicknames and ages on file for the inspection of the department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

"The identity of every performer is critical to determining and ensuring that no performer is a minor," according to the new proposal.

The adult film industry plans to challenge the new rule as a violation of the First Amendment, said Paul Cambria, a lawyer for Hustler and other adult film companies.

He sees it as a way to harass legitimate stag-film producers.

"If they can't get you for obscenity, they'll get you for violating record-keeping," he said. Such a violation would carry a five-year penalty.

The proposed rule would require porn producers to give the title of the video or magazine, or the Web address where the actor appears.

The Department of Justice has shown some sensitivity for the performers' privacy, however. All information not essential to proving their age and identity, like phone numbers and addresses, can be withheld.

Distributors of foreign pornography aren't off the hook - they must still produce a copy of the foreign actor's identification card. The department estimates that there are 500,000 Web sites, 200 DVD producers and 5,000 businesses nationwide that would be subject to the new rule.

The department did not respond to requests for comment, but in its proposal suggested that the benefits outweighed any negative impact on the porn industry.

"The benefit of the rule is that children will be better protected from exploitation in the production of visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct by ensuring that only those who are at least 18 years of age perform in such depictions. The costs to the industry include slightly higher record-keeping costs," the agency argued.

Print Story: Naked TV news stripped of subsidy, carries on on Yahoo! News

Print Story: Naked TV news stripped of subsidy, carries on on Yahoo! News

An embarrassed Japanese government has cut the subsidy, but a Tokyo TV company said on Friday it would carry on making a striptease news show with sign language for hearing-impaired viewers.

The government made grants totaling 400,000 yen ($3,500) to help cover production of the weekly five-minute program on satellite TV, which features a newsreader who removes her clothes between news items that she delivers in sign language.

The funding dried up when the government, under fire for supporting "Naked Sign Language News," changed funding guidelines for programming aimed at the disabled to exclude pornography, local media reported.

"Of course we will continue making the program," said Shinichiro Fukuyama, a spokesman for makers Paradise Television. "We weren't doing it for the subsidy, we just wanted to make something viewers would enjoy."

Most people who had contacted the station about the program were supportive, saying deaf people had the right to enjoy the same programs as other people, he added.

Church bans broadband over porn fears

The Local - Church bans broadband over porn fears

A church in southern Sweden has refused to allow a wireless broadband antenna to be installed on its tower, after fears were raised that parishoners would stay home surfing for porn instead of attending services.The proposal to install broadband equipment at the church in Hylletofta, 200 kilometres east of Gothenburg, would have brought high speed internet access to the community, where residents currently have to struggle with dial-up connections. But the Church of Sweden decided that the ability to download high quality images and videos could harm the morals of the local population. "The diocese has formally taken the position that this type of equipment would cause trouble, and could even lead to some people not coming to church," said Torbjörn Sjögren, curator for the Diocese of Växjö, to TV4 Jönköping.

Upskirting appals MP - By Callan Date

Star News Group - Upskirting appals MP - By Callan Date

A local Australian MP has spoken about her disgust for upskirting and the need to introduce tougher laws against those found guilty of the crime. Judith Graley told State Parliament last week that the move to outlaw upskirting – the practice of taking photos up the skirts of unconsenting women – was desperately needed. She was speaking during debate on a bill that creates three new offences covering upskirting. The Narre Warren South MP said reports of this type of behaviour occurring at this year’s Australian Open Tennis Championships were disturbing. “That was a revolting description of some quite deviant behaviour,” Ms Graley said. Under the new law perpetrators of upskirting can now be charged with three new offences with a maximum penalty of two years’ jail.Publish

Federal Effort on Web Obscenity Shows Few Results - New York Times

Federal Effort on Web Obscenity Shows Few Results - New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — Tom Rogers, a retired Indianapolis detective, toils away most days in his suburban home office reviewing sexual Web sites and other Internet traffic to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

Robert W. Peters of Morality in Media, recipient of a grant.

His work is financed by a Justice Department grant initially provided through a Congressional earmark inserted into a spending bill by Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia.

The grant, about $150,000 a year, has helped pay for Mr. Rogers and another retired law enforcement officer in Reno, Nev., to harvest and review complaints about obscene matter on the Internet that citizens register on the Justice Department Web site.

In the last few years, 67,000 citizens’ complaints have been deemed legitimate under the program and passed on to the Justice Department and federal prosecutors.

The number of prosecutions resulting from those referrals is zero.

That may help explain why no one — not Justice Department officials, not Mr. Wolf, not even the religious antipornography crusader who runs the program — seems eager to call the project a shining success.

The department Web site invites citizens to report material that they believe is obscene so it can be investigated and, perhaps, prosecuted. Clicking on the site to make a report takes the user to ObscenityCrimes.org, which is run by Morality in Media, the grant recipient.

Morality in Media is a conservative religious group that has worked since 1962 to “rid the world of pornography” and whose headquarters is, improbably, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Morality in Media has received two annual grants from Mr. Wolf’s earmarks and is hoping that Justice Department officials decide on their own to award a third, as Mr. Wolf’s ability to obtain an earmark for the program has apparently waned with the Democrats’ control of Congress.

Department officials, however, seemed less than keen to talk about ObscenityCrimes.org. Spokesmen for the criminal division said officials there had nothing to do with the program, which they had been obliged to start because of the earmark.

In the seven years of the Bush administration, the department has prosecuted about 24 obscenity cases, several centered on film producers who failed to keep proper records showing that their models were not minors.

Although the Justice Department seems not to take ObscenityCrimes.org very seriously, the Web site suggests that prosecutors scrutinize the complaints so carefully that it warns people considering filing a complaint that false statements could expose the filer to federal criminal prosecution.

Would-be complainants are also advised not to trawl for obscene Web sites, noting that “men are particularly vulnerable to pornographic addiction.” Identifying Internet smut, the site advises, is best left to professional law enforcement personnel.

The president of Morality in Media, Robert W. Peters, expressed disappointment with the department’s failure to act on any of his group’s complaints and acknowledged that he understood why some people might say the program had been of little value.

“We’d like to see some prosecutions that arose from the complaints submitted to the Web site,” Mr. Peters said in an interview. “But it’s ultimately up to the Justice Department, and I can’t tell the Justice Department what to do.”

Like the outlook of many antipornography campaigners, Mr. Peters’s combines disappointment in the government’s performance and optimism that the situation will soon change. Mr. Peters said he was confident that officials would eventually assume their responsibility and go after what he described as a prime threat to society, the growth on the Internet of sexual material involving consenting adults.

Child pornography is dealt with through separate laws that have been upheld by the courts, which have had far greater difficulty in evaluating when adult sexual material may be classified obscene and prosecutable.

Stephen G. Bates, a Harvard-trained lawyer and journalism professor, said he was appalled when he discovered that the Justice Department was outsourcing a search for obscenity.

Although sexual material may be distasteful to many, it is not necessarily obscene, which the Supreme Court defined in 1973 as material that, taken as a whole, lacks artistic merit, depicts certain conduct in a patently offensive manner and violates contemporary community standards.

Professor Bates, who teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, filed a Freedom of Information Act request that helped him discover the program by ObscenityCrimes.org.

In an op-ed article last month in The Washington Post and other newspapers, Mr. Bates said Morality in Media’s religious cast, the sensitivity of the constitutional issue of free speech and the outsourcing together made “a mockery of the First Amendment, chilling freedom of expression.”

Mr. Wolf would not comment. Over several days, his aides said he was too busy to do so.

'Law and Order: SVU' Actor Charged With Having Child Porn - News Story - WNBC | New York

'Law and Order: SVU' Actor Charged With Having Child Porn - News Story - WNBC | New York

WAYNE, N.J. -- An actor who once played a lieutenant on NBC's "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" has been charged with possession of child pornography, authorities said Tuesday. Albert Insinnia, 57, of Bloomfield, turned himself into the Passaic County Sheriff's Department in Wayne on Monday and was released on bail Tuesday morning, said sheriff's spokesman Bill Maer. Insinnia was charged with two counts of possession of child pornography after authorities allegedly discovered 180 images of child porn on the hard drive of the actor's laptop computer. Reached at his home Tuesday afternoon, Insinnia told The Associated Press he had no comment, but his lawyer, Joseph Portelli, said he planned to plead not guilty at an arraignment Tuesday afternoon. "I understand what he's been charged with, but I do have to say that based on my conversations with him and the authorities involved, I sincerely believe he's not guilty," said Portelli, who mentioned that his client also works as a real estate agent. According to Portelli, the hard drive on Insinnia's computer has been transferred various times in the last few years and a variety of people have had access to it. "Any images that may have been on that computer are not his," Portelli said, adding that there are no allegations that his client purchased or sold any of the images. The sheriff's department has not ruled out additional charges for Insinnia and its investigation is ongoing, Maer said. "If you exploit a child in Passaic County, you will be hunted down and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale said in a statement. The investigation began after Insinnia took his computer to a Best Buy electronics store in West Paterson for repairs. A technician found the images, police said, and alerted a police detective working security at the store. According to his biography on a Web site for the film "Over the GW," Insinnia has been acting for more than 30 years. He's appeared on Broadway and played Lt. Pizelli on a couple episodes of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit."

As A Working Mom, It's Hard To Find Time To Masturbate | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

As A Working Mom, It's Hard To Find Time To Masturbate | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

As a single mother of three with a full-time career, I've got a lot on my plate. Between making the children's breakfast in the morning and making sure they brush their teeth at night, I hardly have any time to take care of myself. Sometimes, I just get so darn busy that I'll realize it's 6 p.m. and I haven't even eaten yet! Can you imagine? Not that I'm complaining, though. I love being a mom. But I'll tell you what—sometimes I find it just about impossible to find a spare moment to stimulate my clitoris until I reach glorious climax.

From the moment I wake up, I'm always worrying about someone else. I've got to make the kids' lunches, get them on the bus—no easy task when it comes to Melanie—and then race around to get the house straightened up so I can leave for work. And after a grueling eight-hour day, I've got to turn around and go grocery shopping, stop at the bank, and pick up the kids after their extracurricular activities. I'm telling you, sometimes it feels like I barely have a second to breathe, let alone 20 minutes to writhe beneath my bedspread with the passionate thoughts of sensuous lovemaking until I gasp with the force of my full-body orgasm.

Of course, I can't blame that entirely on the kids. Sure, there are times when I'm picking up dinner, and I think about how easy it would be to sneak off to the restroom and rub off a quickie. But then a special on that cereal the kids like distracts me, or I happen to run into a chatty neighbor, or I'm just too pooped out from work to take that special "me time." And that's really no one's fault but my own. I just keep telling myself, "That's okay, Sheryl. Tomorrow you can take the afternoon off and run a bath, light some candles, and tease your engorged vulva to thoughts of that carpenter who put in our basement molding. Tomorrow."

But I never do.

I'm not usually one to whine about such things, but my work isn't doing me any favors either. All day long I'm in meetings or filling out expense reports or trying to fix the work that that damn Carol didn't do right the first time. Even if I do take my lunch break to slip off into the handicapped stall, hike up my skirt, and start pleasuring my body with two, three, sometimes four fingers at a time, inevitably my cell phone will ring or someone will walk in and distract me, and eventually I just give up and go back to my desk having never shuddered uncontrollably with the powerful release only my dexterous hands can provide.

No one tells you when you're young, but having kids just upends your whole life. One minute, you're more than willing to lie on the couch for two or more hours, rubbing massage oil over your breasts and inner thighs until your primed body is aching for that last gentle stroke that will send it over the edge. And then the next minute you have a few children and all of the sudden the only thing that gets you excited is not finding another cavity at the dentist's office. It's all about priorities. And, until the kids go off to good colleges and I save up enough vacation days to make it worthwhile, I guess getting down on all fours in front of the full-length mirror and slowly working my trusty purple vibrator in and out of my dripping love canal with increasing speed and intensity will just have to wait.

I only wish I still had a husband to take some of this work off my hands. If I had a man around the house, I bet I could find all sorts of opportunities to masturbate.

Ah, well. No rest for the weary, I suppose. I'm certainly not going to win any points with the feminists by saying so, but maybe we women simply can't have it all. Maybe we have to make the choice between being a working woman who occasionally coaxes her pussy into such a lather that her hands are slicked with love juices, or a mother who spontaneously pulls over to the side of the road on the way to pick up the kids from day camp and swirls her fingers over her love button over and over and again and again, faster and faster until she's screaming, "Yes! Yes!" and slamming her fists on the car horn.

Because sometimes when you try to have it all, you end up losing what's most important to you: earth-shattering, toe-curling multiple orgasms.

Perez Hilton discovers Bear Force One

Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton » Blog Archive » The Most Amazing Thing Ever!

Big, burly, hairy gay men have formed a band....

Joe Francis Gets a Push From "The Tush" - TMZ.com

Joe Francis Gets a Push From "The Tush" - TMZ.com

No buts about it -- or one really big butt, that is -- Kim Kardassian is a Joe Francis supporter!

The curvaceous queen donned a tight, white tee reading "Free Joe" in the most visible place possible while snapping up some essentials at an L.A.-area Walgreens over the weekend.

iafrica.com | loveandsex | news Japan’s first sex toy exhibition

iafrica.com | loveandsex | news Japan’s first sex toy exhibition


LOVE & SEX NEWS
Japan’s first sex toy exhibition
Harumi Ozawa
Tue, 14 Aug 2007

Unlike the eager car fanatics or concertgoers who usually frequent the gigantic trade fair site here in suburban Tokyo, visitors at Japan's first sex toy exhibition looked a bit uneasy.

The predominantly male crowd, perusing shelf upon shelf of gadgets, fetish DVDs and costumes, would have been even more nervous had they noticed that a few of the booths aimed to increase sexual pleasure for — not with — women.

Japan has a major sex toy industry, estimated to be worth some four-trillion yen ($34-billion) a year, but female customers are a neglected market.

Industry is changing

Not so at last weekend's three-day Adult Treasure Expo 2007, where women visitors had their pick of brightly coloured vibrators, accessories and other sex aids.

"Compared with 11 years ago, the situation for girls has improved greatly," says Minori Kitahara, 36, a feminist activist who is trying to change things in her own small way.

She runs LovePieceClub, a sex toy shop for women in Tokyo.

Unlike the other exhibitors here, Kitahara's display is not in-your-face. Her vibrators are mostly pastel colours of pink, light blue, or white and are round and smooth.

She was also selling vibrating tiny plastic ducks, both yellow and pink — offering women a bit of naughty fun for the bathtub.

The most aggressive item she was offering was probably handcuffs — but decorated with soft fur.

Women becoming more open

While men are far more frequent buyers of sex toys in Japan, Kitahara says that women have also become increasingly open about fulfilling their sexual desires since the time she opened her shop in 1996.

"I specifically select items that are free from harmful chemical substances and do not make loud noises," she explains.

Kitahara's booth was hardly the norm at "Sexpo", where nearly 160 companies exhibited products and services otherwise traded underground, most of them all about — not for — women.

One stand offered a line-up of dummy women with child-like faces and disproportionately huge breasts, wearing only tiny pieces of fabric or leather.

Koji Uchida, an advisor at the Plum company, said he was selling DVDs featuring sex with "amateur" girls, not professional pornographic actresses.

"Of course the target is men," Uchida said. "People like to watch these amateur girls because they show their virginal naivete."

Sex toy vendors in Japan are hoping to take their cue from the United States, where the growth of the female market has been a major driver of the multi-billion-dollar sex toy industry.

No more Tupperware parties…

In the 1970s, women hosted Tupperware parties in suburban America. Today, they invite girlfriends over for "passion parties", where plastic vibrators and lubricants — not ice-cube trays and soup containers — are on offer.

Takako Kimura, a manager of software provider Hotesseshop, said women's demands for sexual items had increased over the years here.

She said many of her female customers had even resorted to buying gay porn due to the dearth of material geared towards heterosexual women.

"Many videos made for men show sex that is too animal-like. Women like to fantasise about good-looking men, about something unrealistic," she said.

Kitahara acknowledges that the industry is still "all for men", but is pleased that the options open to women have vastly improved.

"It wasn't so long ago that a girl had to summon all her courage to buy a vibrator. Now she can choose an item that's friendly to the female body," she says.

Nigerian Sex Video Scandal

Sex video causes outrage in Nigeria's Muslim north - Yahoo!Xtra News: "ABUJA (Reuters) - An amateur video of a northern Nigerian film actress in a sex scene has caused a public outcry in the Muslim north, prompting a movie industry body to expel actors deemed 'immoral', a local newspaper reported on Monday. Leadership newspaper said the eight-minute video clip, recorded for private use on a mobile phone by the actress's boyfriend and showing the two of them naked, had circulated widely among mobile phone users across the north. 'This was the first time such exposure involving Hausa-Fulani persons was witnessed in the country,' Leadership said, referring to the dominant ethnic groups in the generally conservative north."

Girl sues porn firm over pic

The Sun Online - News: Girl sues porn firm over pic: "A TEENAGE photographer is suing a US porn film company after it used a photograph of her aged 14 on the cover of one of its DVDs, her lawyer said. Lara Jade Coton, now 18, of Tamworth, Staffordshire, said she was 'absolutely horrified' that her self-portrait, which was on the internet, had been used as the DVD cover and face art for the sexually explicit film Body Magic without her permission. Miss Coton is now suing the firm, TVX Films of Texas, after she complained and received an email blaming her for disappointing sales of the DVD, her lawyer Richard Harrison said."

Ron Jeremy almost hit by drunk

Is this how a porn star is welcomed in Boston? A drunk driver swerved in front of Ron Jeremy's tour bus as he and his friends with the Porn Debate were leaving town early Saturday after holding their Porn Debate at the Middle East. Luckily, no one got hurt, but Ron Jeremy and his posse were rattled.

Jeremy, anti-porn activist and self-described "porn pastor" Craig Gross, and members of the Porn Debate tour crew were driving along on the Mass Pike when the incident happened. According to a post from Gross at his website, xxxchurch.com, everyone went tumbling toward the front of the bus, and the debate moderator injured his ankle.

The Porn Debate crew also busted the drunk driver, who tried to swap seats with a passenger in his car. Classy. Police arrested the driver and were rewarded with the opportunity to pose with one of the most prolific porn stars in history.

Australia declares war on net porn

Australia declares war on net porn | The Register: "Within the last 24 hours the Australian Commonwealth Government announced that they would be spending AUS$189m (US$162m) on a range of packages and programs designed to protect Australian Internet users against all that the Internet has to offer