After yesterday's scare that Page 3 boobs were gone, it turns out it was all a prank - Page 3 was back in its original glorious form today. The return was much to the chagrin of those who had thought they had won their protest against Page 3, so their fight against the showing nudity alongside tales of violence, corruption, and cruelty goes on.

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It's Banned Books Week here in the U.S., where underpant superheroes and hog warts are somehow destroying society. For a bit of reflection on how far we've come, though, here's an article from The New Republic in the 1930s, an interview with the book censor himself. Of course he found them titillating, but the children! He's protecting children from smut! The more things change, the more they stay the same - although today 'banned books week' is in a sense about how far we've come, because the books aren't being stopped at the border anymore, intercepted in the mails, it's the individual shelves in a school or library where the battle rages on.

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If you've browsed the ads in the back of most sex-oriented magazines, you've probably seen an ad for Adam & Eve. I hadn't thought much about the company, but it turns out there's more to the company than just pink dildos and porn DVDs. Adam & Eve has been around since the 70s, and started as a way of distributing birth control, and in the 1980s fought the government crackdown on porn that has helped porn-lovers through today.

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For those among you who are so curious, depicted below is the bingo card from the last orgy I attended. No, wait, my mistake: it's the uncensored version of the Honi Soit 'vagina dialogue' cover from earlier today.

Religious types have called for an online boycott of pornography, and they're calling it the One Million Men Porn Free movement.

I tried, oh, God above, I tried to stand with my fellow man and not look at pornography, but then I realized I wasn't a fucking religious nutcase and got over myself.

As has been proven, over and over, Christians partake in a whole lot of porn. Just in terms of population percentage -- it's not like American is 80% atheist who need to clean up their act. And places where the numbers of loud Christians are highest have the highest porn usage, too. It's obvious that fear of God does little to prevent porn enjoyment.

So, what this whole movement is about is this: you, Christians! Yeah, you guys, wanking to the internet - you're making Jesus sad! So, they've made a public announcement that good Christians should step up and agree to not look at porn.

Um, because if there's one thing good Christians do now is admit that they're watching porn, huh? Why do they think that these one million men are going to not keep doing what they're doing already and just give lip service to giving up on masturbating and porn?

So, keep at it, frustrated religious leaders who fear they've lost control of their follower's penises. No worries; the porn industry has been doing awesome for decades thanks to your follower's poor self control. Getting men to claim they're giving up porn isn't going to help, because they're still doing what they've always done: they tell you the porn is gone, when it's still shoved between the mattress for a little self-abuse when Jesus isn't looking.

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After MiKandi released their porn app for Google Glass, the powers-that-be at Google quietly rewrote their TOS to exclude adult content from Google Glass applications. For being the "cool" kid, Google is being just as lame as Apple when it comes to adult content. C'mon, Google, don't be that guy.

Anyhow, MiKandi now has to trash all their hard work and come up with an app with fewer boobs. Like it's even worth the effort. If you can't carry around douchey electronics and watch porn in public, I don't know why I'd even buy technology at all.

So, tell me: is a girl whose boobs are as smooth as a Barbie doll still a sexy woman? Photographers Loretta Rae and Geoffrey Rittenmyer (who no longer have a website, and have presumably broken up their portmanteau studio "Loreffrey") decided to provoke some weird boners by photoshopping the nipples off women as a statement on what makes women sexy: is it the woman, or just that two-square-inches that the photoshop 'star' stamp covering them up on the celebrity gossip website? And, at least they have their teeth. Provided these ladies' crotches aren't as smooth and featureless as Barbie, I don't think I'd mind. Just ask all the men who still love their ladies after breast cancer surgery causes a nipple to disappear...but the amount of time and effort in restoring nipples goes to show that they do have more importance than photoshop can affect.

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Sorry, sexy Facebookers: Facebook thinks oral sex is way too sexy-sex for Facebook friends. What's a little cunnilingus between friends, anyway? I guess Facebook is just for underaged girls to post sexy pictures of themselves, and for people to hook up with people they haven't seen from highschool, two entirely wholesome aspects of online culture. Wouldn't want people to learn anything akin to sexual education online, would we Facebook?

The Folsom Street Fair, "the world's largest leather event", will be taking to the streets this September, subjecting the world to a culture of happy, self-aware people who tend to do things that the average person would find scary. As sort of a 'poke' at the average, nuclear family, Folsom's advertising for this year features an average, nuclear family...made up of an interracial conglomeration of hotties and beefcake, each decked out in a different genre of fetishwear. Oh, boy, do the "Family Values" nerds not like being poked: It's homosexual! People are nude in public and nobody's stopping them! Perversion is perverse! "San Francisco also features a homosexual organization whose members dress up as nuns." Dear God, what is happening in the world?!? It is completely unacceptable that one of the more sex-friendy (with limitations, of course) religions, Catholicism, would be mocked by a sexual minority - hell, Catholicism should be embraced by the sexual subculture for recognizing sex is supposed to be fun. Christian evangelical politicos? They definitely need to be mocked. You see, it is completely impossible for a family to include both a black woman and a U.S. Marine and a guy with tattoo sleeves. Stifling religious control is required to imitate those social icons which represent the truth of American culture: imaginary families invented for television during the censorship of the Code years. When these religious types attend a leather fetish event, they do not deserve to be offended so. Remember, everyone: family values are designed to exclude and punish those with differing worldviews than this imaginary construct of an appropriate family: without guilt, how else would people know that getting kinky at an approved, sanctioned kink event was wrong?

Mattel has released a new Barbie, complete with tattoos that can be put - and some articles emphasize this - anywhere on her body. The Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie has parents up in arms, because allowing kids to give Barbie a tramp-stamp is only going to turn their precious daughters into whores. Mattel tried in 1999, selling a Barbie with stickers that resembled tattoos, but those got pulled as well. Will Mattel never learn: women are only supposed to get tattoos when their bodies are ridden with sexually-transmitted diseases, their vagina visits a stranger's dick every couple hours, and they spend most waking hours drunk. It is completely irresponsible to show an attractive, self-assured woman getting a tattoo because she thinks it's beautiful. But, isn't that what most people's problem with Barbie is? Beauty is to be rejected, unless you're naturally so.

...or, rather, that's their worry. British censors are worried that, if they were alone during their porn viewings, they'd be more likely to get aroused and distracted from their jobs. Until lately, they've always watched porn in a group, but the rough economy might mean censors having to view Teen Ass Cum Sluts XXIV all on their lonesome. If I were a censor, I'd agree - I'd like to have somebody with when porning it up. Oh, no, they wouldn't be another censor, but she'd appreciate the film anyway, if you know what I mean.

Gracie has wrangled a who's-who of erotica and sexuality to discuss the political climate of porn today. They all had relatively similar responses, and all in line with what you'd expect from the oppressed side, but that doesn't make it less relevant. Because of the murky realm of what pornography and obscenity are, in today's US legal climate it's up to an observer to decide if any item meets the definition of 'obscene.'

While that might not scare you, you might want to consider it from a logical standpoint. This means that the creation or ownership of an item itself is not the illegal event -- the accusation by the observer(s) who determined the condition of obscenity is the event that makes the item illegal.

Accusing someone of speeding is expected to be accompanied by evidence -- a radar gun, a police observer, or an expert who measured tire skid marks and impact results -- that shows factually that the event meets a legal threshhold for legality. Simply saying, "I think they were driving too fast," is not enough to cause conviction for speeding, even if you can find people who agree with you and can make a good point for the appropriate driving speed. Even if the accusation of driving too fast results in a speed limit change, the driver will not be punished for speeding.

Obscenity, however, works this way: the opinion of the observer is the key decider, and how convincing their accusation is will either get their opinion upheld or denied. A business transparently and openly selling nudie magazines for years could find themselves on the recieving end of an obscenity accusation, regardless of the number of customers who partake or the lack of objections until that point, simply due to how eloquent their accuser is. In fact, a key aspect of the obscenity law covers anything that a person could masturbate to - the definition of 'prurient interest'. Take a long, hard look at the 'prurient' things you partake of on a regular basis, or are available to you if you chose. The other defining points of literary/artistic value and community standards are nebulous at best...and change based on public opinion, not on legal definitions.

This establishes sexuality as an inherently illegal act, awaiting discovery by an offended observer willing to prove lack of artistic value and violation of community standards.

It is a sinisterly slow-moving process by which Hefner could find himself, after decades of support, twisting on the recieving end of an offended population's short stick. It would be ignored, because today they started with the animal porn, and then the obscenely large vibrators, and then the anal sex...and then the strip clubs that go panty-free...and then companies taking pictures of legally naked adults but neglected to obtain verification of age...and then the companies that photograph naked women at all...and then what? Well, if it's as bad as animal porn, then it must be horrible -- all the sick, horrible, obscene things that need to be made illegal. And who would defend Playboy against an obscenity definition? Defending Playboy when it's an obscene, disgusting publication as bad as beastiality! Not so, but the pursuers of obscenity are leaning in that direction.

Videotaping you and your partner having sex is prurient and lacks artistic value - and do you think it'd be hard to find someone to accuse you of violating societal standards? Phone sex lacks artistic value, is prurient in interest...and if your community decides it's unaccaptible, you are no longer protected by the 1st Amendment -- obscenity is not protected speech. You may think that you can live without strip clubs and the Spice channel, but they are not so far separated from the things that arouse your sexual being.

Extreme? Yes, but we've all done naughtier things than phone sex and videotaping sex: Kinsey has told us so. The common attitude is, "if it might be illegal and you don't want to defend it in court, don't do it." However, take a look at how your sexuality influences your life: they are ingrained with each other, you obscene thing.

My solution: obscenity should be limited to definable harm: public nudity could cause emotional harm to the unexpecting viewer, child pornography and beastiality cause harm to participants that cannot give consent, and rough sex should be subject to the same definitions that assault cases are subject to. This does not criminalize the sexual act -- it criminalizes the direct effects the sexual act has on the participants and society.

A group of doctors and psychiatrists have dubbed the phenomenon as the "David Syndrome": people get destructive urges when looking at great works of art. The name was inspired by a person who smashed the foot of Michaelangeno's David at an exhibition. It pops up in the news from time to time: a person slashes a Picasso, someone splashes paint on another painting...it happens to regular art, too: statues in town are often targets of graffiti. Not just names or symbols painted on, like on a wall, but in a way meant to disfigure or alter the art.

Reading about the Syndrome makes me draw a connection to book burnings and the hostility towards pornography. If the deep emotion caused by art can overcome a person (called the Stendhal syndrome), possibly pushing them to a violent reaction -- the David syndrome -- consider the effect of artistically offensive material. The David syndrome may be rooted in humanity's instinctive understanding of creation and destruction, life and death -- procreation and extinction. Most people own pornography of some sort, have read a banned book or two...but many of those same people are the ones advocation destruction of erotic & offensive materials.

Is it possible that the opposition to pornography and censorship of books is rooted in the David syndrome? The book connection might be a bit more specious, but when you consider the passionate, emotional nature of most of the banned books, you can see how this emotional explosion could induce the David effect. In Farenheit 451, the result of a world devoid of books, passionless and passive. Bradbury could see that the art of a well-crafted book resulted in passion. If this passion triggers violent anger, it is no wonder the book burners are so ready to grasp at straws to validate their hatred for inanimate books.

Pornography has an even deeper instinctual response -- in fact, it doesn't work right unless there's a deep, carnal outpouring of emotion. The orgasmic release caused by viewing a porn, reading erotica, or flipping through Penthouse, could easily be the trigger needed to cause the violent feelings that are symptoms of the David syndrome.

I know there is a flaw in this association: the David syndrome does not seem to be premeditated, nor an ongoing hatred of art. It manifests itself instantly, at the time of the event -- not something that a person harbors their whole life. However, if up to 20% of society would react violently towards the statue of David, without warning, it is not impossible to believe that there is a less spontaneous driving instinct that is behind the hatred of obscene art, despite the minimal impact on most opponents' lives. An unconscious desire for violence against art, much like a person's unconscious desire for sex, could be an emotion that most humans are unable to cognitively understand, yet drives their motives without their knowing why exactly it is happening.

A blow-up sex doll activates in the mail -- causing a bomb scare. The mailer said he's returning the doll because "it kept turning itself on at the wrong moment."

A survey by tootimid.com says people often fantasize about exes, co-workers, and celebrities WHILE having sex with their partner. Only 57% actually think about their partner; celebrities came in at the lowest, while exes were the top non-partner. Ex-partners!

UK distilleries are to be barred from making advertisments suggesting that alcohol can get you laid -- what, the only good part of getting drunk can't be a selling point?

British Telcom has put child-porn blockers on their networks and are shocked -- shocked -- by the number of perverts hitting the firewall. "The exact number of people trying to look at the sites is unclear because some may be making repeated attempts."

What do you get when you mix nudes, body paint, and the zodiac into one thing? You get the Nude BodyPaint Zodiac!