Safe (Senior) Sex

Social conventions change slowly… but they do change. This means that we need to keep abreast of the latest trends in order to provide support when and where it’s needed.

What am I going on about? Old people are having sex. No, seriously.

More specifically, unmarried old people are having sex without the awareness of the precautions that younger people now take for granted. The rate of senior citizens with Sexually Transmitted Diseases has skyrockted over the last ten years, with no appearance of slowing down for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, some people had the foresight to get on this. Safer Sex for Seniors is a new website offering up tips, advice, and information for seniors interested in pursuing an active sex life. It’s an example of a good, informational website that doesn’t presuppose that all of it’s users will be cis-gendered straight married couples; the sidebar informational links to PDFs on topics ranging from Bisexuality, to Transgender issues, to condom use, to one’s sexual rights while in institutional care, to using adult toys.

Safer Sex for Seniors produced a short video that highlights the issues of “safe sex” STD prevention, while keeping a light-hearted tone that’s not patronizing. Apparently, we’ve learned something since the big sexual education programs of the 1980s.

I know that some of you are looking at these pictures of what are, frankly, older and out-of-shape people posing in what might be some of your own favorite positions, and are wondering if you’ll ever feel comfortable around your parents or grandparents again. You need to keep in mind that there is no age at which one suddenly loses sexual desire. You also need to learn that the images that you’re looking at in this post, and on the SS4S’s cute poster are pretty much what all of us have to look forward to when we’re past retirement age.

Personally, I find that as I get older, I’m still attracted to women my own age, and occasionally find myself wondering what lies ahead, sexually speaking, when I’m in my 70s or 80s.

The only drawback about the SS4S website (and their Twitter account) is that I’m having a hard time imagining enough seniors savvy enough with the internet to access their website. That is, are the seniors who are not familiar with the internet the same ones that could benefit the most from this information? And does anyone have any ideas on how to promote this message to those who really need it?

The Internet Was Made for Porn

While the opinion has surfaced any number of times, finally there’s some confirmation.

The internet was made for porn.

Think that’s only a song?

From The Elite Daily

Study: Top Porn Site Gets 4 Billion Hits A Month

‘The internet is for porn,’ is the title of a song on hit musical Avenue Q. And it turns out the lyricists had touched on a home truth, because researchers have discovered that a staggering 30 per cent of all internet traffic is pornography.

The biggest porn site on the web – Xvideos – receives 4.4billion page views and 350million unique visits per month, according to a report on the ExtremeTech website.

The only sites that surpass this in size are the likes of Google and Facebook.

The report uncovered the viewing figures for Xvideos from Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner, which uses cookies to gather information about users.

It then used these figures – and actual data from the third biggest porn site, YouPorn – to extrapolate how much data is being transferred out of the site’s servers.

And it’s a huge amount.

It based the first calculation on the average length of time spent on Xvideos, which is 15minutes, and assumed a low resolution video was being streamed.

From this it estimated that around 29 petabytes of pornography is being transferred a month, or 50 gigabytes per second.

However, it upped this estimate to 35 to 40PB per month after learning that YouPorn hosts over 100TB of porn, gets 100million page views and transfers 950 terabytes per day.

That’s the equivalent of 10 dual-layer DVDs per second.

At peak times, it speculates that Xvideos is streaming 1,000 gigabytes per second (or one terabyte), which, the report points out, is one fifteenth of the total amount of connectivity between London and New York.

So, roughly a third of internet traffic is porn, and that probably doesn’t include the various adult-oriented WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr traffic, nor the handful of specialized web forums, etc.

I mention this because this report comes just after the hint that several of the Republican frontrunner candidates have come out as being against internet pornography. This strikes me as interesting because candidates usually claim to be acting on what their supporters want, but in this case, the statistics would indicate that a pretty significant number of their supporters are consumers. There’s a certain irony, too, in that last year there were news reports about the largest demographic for porn consumption was in the southern and south-western US, the same areas that traditionally seem to be the most conservative.

More interestingly, those kinds of numbers point out just how large the porn business must be; and from there, it’s not a stretch to imagine that such an industry must contribute to some pretty decent tax revenues, and add to the coffers of the local economies.

While I’m not a big porn consumer, myself, I support the right of other people to view what they want. So, yeah. Porn. It’s good for you, and good for the economy.

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And now here’s something to get your mind off of politicians.

How to Cure a Feminist

Now that Edge of Vanilla has a new following among Men’s Rights Activists, and with Pick Up Artists, I have to find some content that appeals to a wider range of readership. Fortunately, I can find almost anything I need right in Maxim Magazine. For those old married guys who had to give up Playboy when you got engaged (which you only had for the articles, anyway, right?), Maxim is a cross between Playboy and Esquire, with a little bit of GQ tossed in, because for some reason even manly men need to know where to buy those $1,200 Burberry overcoats and $90 Hermes silk pocket hankies.

Of course, the typical Maxim reader can’t afford the things advertised, but they can follow along with the helpful tips sections. Now, I know that this particular tip is kind of old, but it’s no less worthwhile; any possibility to save a feministy woman from a life of collecting cats and eating frozen yoghurt in front of the Lifetime Channel is always appreciated.

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To my women readers: No need to thank me for helping to save you or your sisters. Consider this one of my many public service contributions.

Thanks and a tip of the vibrator to Jen at “The Sex Reports“.

Sunday Comics

I’ve tried to keep Edge of Vanilla focused on sexuality without introducing politics and religion. This is because I don’t want to handle the constant arguing and bickering that inevitably follows crossing into those territories, which tend to detract from the original topic. Also, politically I tend to be libertarian (fiscally conservative and socially liberal) and while not religious, I am somewhat spiritually inclined. This means that I already get into arguments with my friends over pretty much everything, so I don’t need one more venue for that type of discussion.

Politically, I’ve been disappointed with both major parties for some time, which has caused a rift with some of my friends who are actively involved with them. Over the last ten years or so, I’ve seen several close friends and family members become more fundamentalist/literal Christian oriented, and I often feel like they are getting sucked into a cult, because conversations about normal things often are stonewalled when they drop the “But God said” card.

So, once in a while it’s nice (for me) to run into something that helps to put a humorous spin on the situation. My US readers will probably get a chuckle from this, so my apologies to those elsewhere who may not have been following our recent political circus.

These ‘toons are from the webcomic “Doomed to Obscurity.” It’s mainly a geek-oriented strip, but this week they have branched out a little.

Unfortunately, I can’t scale these for this blog layout; you’ll need to click them to see the full view.

Reference: Santorum.

Of course, now I also get to analyze the use and stereotypes of the Dominatrix in the Media; in this case, note her typical leather gear and the innate sadism. Also, the elements of non-consent and latent homoerotic thoughts of the sub (Perry).

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And now, some eye/mind bleach to get rid of those nasty thoughts of religious politicians.

The Sex-toy Olive Garden

Remember last week when the internet went crazy because a 85+ year old woman wrote a great restaurant review about the new Olive Garden that opened in North Dakota? At first, a lot of bloggers were laying on the snark, but after a few days the normal people woke up and realized “Hey, *I* go to the Olive Garden!” and came to her defense (not that she needed any, since she barely uses email). The point here is that it’s easy to snark on something that you think is behind the curve. Those of us that live on the internet tend to get news more quickly, and probably become a bit jaded.

So, here’s something that could easily become a snark target, but I would hope that it didn’t:

Covenant Spice.

For those who haven’t clicked on the link, here’s a snippet from their home page.

Welcome to Covenant Spice! We are a Christian sex toy shop and romance site for married couples, offering high quality, feature-packed products that enhance lovemaking — at unbelievably low prices. Our goal from our inception has been to offer Christian sexual aids that help foster intimacy and strengthen relationships within the bonds of a healthy marriage.

And I have to admit that when I ran across this, my first thought was “Christian sex aid? Is that like Jumbo Shrimp, or Microsoft Works?” So, I spent a few minutes exploring the site with the intention of making a bit of a joke about it. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I do most of my online adult shopping at the Stockroom, Blowfish, and Extreme Restraints; Covenantspice, in my mind, was only one step above those stupid adult shops that you see that sell jelly dildos and plastic “luv cuffs”.

But looking around for a bit showed me that the purpose of this shop isn’t to sell sex toys. Rather, it’s to help consenting partners enhance their intimacy. And isn’t that what I’ve been writing about for the last umpteen years — enhancing intimacy?

I didn’t find any chastity devices, which really is a bit ironic, but I did find a surprisingly wide array of vibrators. No dildoes or strapons, but interestingly enough they had sleeves for men (for those times when your wife isn’t available). No hand cuffs or restraints, but they have a respectable line of lubricants.

I’m not sure I understand how the toys were selected for taste and propriety. The lack of insertables for women was pointed up by the availability of several models of the Aneros prostate massager, and a number of different sleeve style toys. However, the handful that they did offer for women seemed to be the more quality, higher end toys that I see other bloggers reviewing.

The ambiance, er, I mean the site colors were light and friendly, making this the kind of website that your mom would feel comfortable with. Should you, umm, you know, need to suggest it.

And now, here’s the part where I’m going to be not snarky.

Religious folks in the West, and specifically in the US, have a difficult time reconciling sexuality with what their church seems to teach. Every day they are exposed to media images that suggest that sex is healthy, normal, and sometimes even fun. Unfortunately, they often have to view this from inside a paradigm which tells them that sexuality is a negligible, if not an actual sinful part of human nature, that is should be reserved for marriage, and that it is so sacred that one shouldn’t mess it up by involving toys, kink, or anything that makes it overly lustful – lust being a sin, and all that. Back some decades ago, many Protestant denominations loosened up and tried to remind their members that sex was a loving, sacred act to be enjoyed within the bonds of marriage. Unfortunately, many churches misread the memo, and focused on the “sacred” part, and had no idea of how to get people to understand that it’s enjoyable. This led to a generation of church goers who grew up confused as to how to remain pure, sacred, and sexual. Simply telling them that they need to lighten up isn’t going to work.

Sometimes people in the kink-friendly or sex-positive community forget that people who live a religious life have parameters within which they are obliged to live; they do not feel comfortable just picking and choosing some proscriptions and ignoring others. And since most people living religiously feel enriched by doing so, it’s not inclusive nor positive when the rest of us poke fun at them for the few, little steps that they do make.

In a way, this reminds me of the Christian Nymphos, the small group of women who are trying — within the parameters they have — to let God-fearing women know that it’s okay to be sexy and seductive for their husbands. Or of the handful of other Christian bloggers (men and women) who have surprisingly large followings (and in some cases, syndicated columns) writing about how to follow their religious principles and still have intimate, sexual lives.

North Dakota now has an Olive Garden.  So, instead of insulting the people in that out-of-the way state, let’s be happy that someplace that’s a bit off the normal trade routes is now attracting more mainstream culture. And by the same token, let’s be happy that those people who want to — who choose to — adhere to the principles of their religion can now enjoy some other aspects of mainstream culture that many of us have long taken for granted.

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And for those of you who want to avoid feeling lust in your hearts, I’m not putting up a picture of a naked woman. Instead, here’s a picture of a woman wearing clothes — a lot of them, in fact. So, no bare skin, so there’s no reason to feel lustful.

See? No skin. And she looks to be standing near a church, so this is really a very not-lust-inspiring picture.  Which you could see on Tumblr if you clicked here.

The Paypal Morality

Some of you are already aware that Paypal, the largest online independent financial transaction service, is now strong-arming has asked small, independent online bookstores to drop items that do not conform to Paypal’s list of acceptable content. Specifically, these would be be books that contain descriptions of sexuality having to do with incest (not my thing, but it’s pretty popular), bestiality (a problem for furries, werewolf fans, and shape-shifter sex), non-consensual sex (too bad for people with rape fantasies), and of course, BDSM. Because, you know, that’s just sick.

Some online book bloggers are framing this as a censorship issue, but they are mistaken. Censorship is when your government enforces policies on what can or can’t be published. This, rather, is a private company – a very large private company that controls most of the online transactions – so it’s not actually censorship.

At least, not yet, anyway.

Unfortunately, this is what happens when we, the consumers, go crazy for a free service that makes our lives easier, and then promote it into a very large service. There are alternatives to Paypal, and hopefully, in the wake of this even more will spring up. The problem is that, while large retailers can afford their own transaction processing and the higher fees for major credit cards, Paypal is designed for small resellers – a reason that it became so popular with the early Ebay users. In fact, Paypal became so popular that Ebay, themselves, purchased the company.

What amazes me, though, is that so many people seem to be taken by surprise at Paypal’s action. For years I have read stories on various blogs and web sites, and message boards about Paypal’s poor customer service, their penchant for holding money back in reserves, their tendency to deactivate accounts for little or no reason, and their ability to do all of this with impunity because they are not subject to the regulations of normal banks or other credit card companies.

Anyhow, the damage is done. Small online businesses have been going with Paypal because it’s fast, easy, and cheap (i.e., like most of my readers). But if there is enough backlash from interested consumers, maybe those businesses can set up accounts with other transaction companies. If you’re interested in discovering which other services are worth looking into, here’s a Lifehacker article from last July which highlights a few of them.

There are a lot of kinksters in the geek community… or maybe it’s a lot of geeks in the kinkster community. Either way, I urge all of you to think about the big, free online services that you use, and start thinking about alternatives to those services — either finding existing ones or developing new ones. This week it’s Paypal. Maybe next week, some large internet company might decide to do something crazy, like sell your online search history to marketers.

Naw, that probably wouldn’t happen. But still, let’s start looking now, before the “policy” of a private company actually does become censorship.

ETA: More — much more — outrage reading on this can be found on S.V. Rowle’s blog Erotica Book Banning Roundup.

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And now, something that’s not BDSMy, incesty, or bestial:

Tumblr post (and links to more “Fetish Queen Heike”) is here.

To boldly curve where no woman has gone before

Levis, the most popular denim jean in the US, is under fire for retooling their advertising, in which they target “curvier” women, and which aims to attract women of all proportions. The ad motto itself is “Hotness comes in all shapes and sizes.”

This sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? So, what’s the problem? I mean, who could possibly object to this kid of inclusiveness?

Well, take a look at one of their recent ads:

Oooh, look at that booty! Hmm, I’m loving all those different shapes and siz… Umm… that’s not the same woman Photoshopped in different positions, is it? Because I’m having a hard time telling those asses apart right now.

Alright, maybe it’s just me. How about if I look at one of the other ads?

Okay, that’s three different women; I can tell because they have different hair. The one with the blue jeans seems to have a rounder ass than the one in orange, but maybe it’s just a trick of the light. I know, I’ll try one of the silhouette ads — that should give me a better picture.

Oh, look — here’s an ad in which they specifically call out the shapes:

Wow, those are fine lookin’ women, Levis.  Oh, my, yes indeed. Why, if I had to pick one for an afternoon frolic, I don’t know if I would go for the woman with the, umm,  slight curve… or the woman with the, ehh,  slightly less of a slight curve… or the one with the, er, slightly more of a slight curve.

Not that it matters, because:
a) I’m probably too old to be thinking about getting together with advertising models, and
b) They’re all the same freakin’ size in the first place!

Really, Levi Strauss? Nobody in your marketing division has ever run across a woman larger than a size 6?

I know that some of you will be able to distinguish the models because of slight variances in size and shape, but the point is that for a company that’s advertising “Bold Curves”, you would think that they’d have, oh, I don’t know, a woman who’s a size 12 or 14, if only to show a body that’s more than marginally different from the lineup they currently feature.

Okay, okay — before we get the pitchforks and torches, props to Levis for at least publicly acknowledging that there are women who are not stick-thin models, and who might want to have some attractively, well-designed casual wear. That’s great. But after putting millions of dollars into the advertising, it’s a bit disappointing to see that they weren’t (ahem) bold enough to feature some of women for whom they are designing those jeans.

And since I’m thinking about curvy women in jeans, how about a shot of some women who are probably not a size 6:

Again Ashley

Well, another Valentine’s Day has come and gone (unlike many of my regular readers), so it’s time to see how Ashley Madison is doing. No, not Ashley Graham; Ashley Madison is the now-infamous “dating” site for married people looking to expand their range. Or, as their new advertising motto goes, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

Yes, if you’re looking to hook up with a MILF (or if you are a MILF), then a few minutes registering at AM could put you in touch with hundreds of potential partners.

The reason I mention this now is because a few years ago we learned that Valentine’s Day (actually, the day after) is when AM gets the largest number of new signups from women. The second busiest day, by the way, is the day after Mother’s Day. Partners, especially women, feel underappreciated by a poor showing at those holidays, which spikes their curiosity, or sometimes, simply confirms their ideas that they need somebody new and exciting in their lives.  While men tend to sign up in fairly steadily, holidays tend to see a spike in women’s numbers.

I haven’t run across any numbers for AM signups this year, but since Valentine’s Day was only yesterday, they may not have added it up yet. One think that is adding up, however, is the dollars.  AM charges $49 for 100 messaging tokens. Recent articles suggest that the business may be generating as much as $60 million dollars per year.

Why pick AM when there are so many other options for personal ads? Probably because Craigslist doesn’t have a screening process, and most people don’t want the hassle of buying a secret, non-traceable cell phone; not to mention the fear of giving out personal information to random internet strangers.

I don’t have anything else to add to this post, so I’m going to leave a picture of Ashely Graham, from a 2010 photo shoot for Madison Plus. No, not that Madison — a plus-sized clothing and style magazine.

The Herbivore Men

I spotted this article about a sexuality study in Japan last week, but haven’t had a chance to read it until just now.

A startling number of Japanese youths have turned their backs on sex and relationships, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had “no interest” in or even “despised” sex. That’s almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.

If that’s not bad enough, The Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 59% of female respondents aged 16 to 19 said they were uninterested in or averse to sex, a near 12% increase since 2008.

Normally when you see those kinds of numbers of people uninterested in sex, you expect it to be about older, married couples. Oh, snap!

But this is an interesting turn of events, especially coming on the heels of a recent study which suggested that most teenagers no longer care if they get a car or driving license. Apparently the internet has made the previously unobtainable pleasures in life so commonplace that there’s no longer any pleasure in acquiring them.

Oh, wait – I may have made a hasty assumption. In Japan, the problem seems to be that young men are too busy eating salads.

Many commentators in the Japanese and international media have laid the problem squarely at the feet of soshoku danshi — “herbivore men” — a term coined by pop culture columnist Maki Fukasawa in 2006. It refers to Japanese young men who have rejected their culture’s traditional definition of masculinity, and seemingly eschew relationships with the opposite sex as part.

CNN spoke to a Midori Saida, a 24-year-old Japanese woman who described “herbivore men” as “flaky and weak.”

“We like manly men,” she said. “We are not interested in those boys — at all.”

For some reason, every time I hear the term “manly men” I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. For guys of a certain age, being accused of the somewhat vague “unmanly” tag is a sure-fire way to escalate any argument into a brawl. And lately, I’ve been hearing those undertones in the discussions about “sub” inclined men.

But moving on…

BBC News spoke to one such “herbivore” man (see video above). The man, Yusaki Yakahashi said: “Building a relationship seems like too much effort. To get her to like me and for me to like her… I’d have to give up everything I do at the weekend for her. I don’t want to do that.”

Dude, I’m totally hip to that.Like, they want you to, you know, go shopping with them, look at curtains, talk about their friends, and, like, you know, do girly stuff. Don’t they know there’s more, well, manly stuff for us to be doing? Things like, umm, updating the video drivers in our PCs so we can play the latest version of Skyrim, for example.

But yeah, for some reason I’m not surprised at the idea that it would be the Japanese that would make sex somehow too inconvenient for real life:

Another theory that seeks to explain Japan’s shrinking population is that Japanese youth spend too much time engaged with technology, living in virtual worlds or settling for virtual girlfriends rather than real ones.

Now, that’s difficult to believe… isn’t it?

More chastity in the news

Seeing as how many things that first show up in porn make it into the mainstream, I’m wondering when male chastity devices will start showing up on bad sitcoms.

I mention this because at last week’s AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and Adult Novelty Expo, the Millers (or more correctly, AL Enterprises) was there to show off their now well-known line of chastity devices. I missed it this year, since the budget here at Edge of Vanilla Labs didn’t seem to allow for “travel” in the research category; fortunately, the Las Vegas Review Journal had a few things to say:

In equally positive news, depending on your perspective, Las Vegas-based AL Enterprises is marketing a male chastity device that retails for $150. (Answer to obvious question: plastic tubes in various sizes, locking rings and padlocks.)

“It puts control of the couple’s sexuality into the key-holder’s hands,” said Nikki Yates, co-corporate director.

I really like the matter-of-fact reporting, as opposed to some of  the “WTF is this?” reporting seen last year.

They have a really nice looking booth, by the way.

They touched on something that I’ve wondered about, though: The sales numbers.

About 80 percent of the company’s customers are couples, she said. About 95 percent of the devices are purchased by men, but usually because the man’s partner thinks it’s a good idea.

AL works with five distributors, in addition to direct sales through its website, cb-6000.com.

I’m curious as to how they get those kinds of numbers. If 95% per cent of buyers are male, how do they know that 80% are married or partnered? I don’t remember seeing any survey on their website.

But wait – how many are they selling? The answer is still elusive.

Christi Morrell, co-corporate director, said the 13-year-old company’s sales increase 12 percent to 15 percent each year.

“The economy hasn’t affected us,” Yates said, adding that buyers at AVN seem more receptive to different products than in previous years.

I have noticed, though, that compared to 5 or 6 years ago, it’s fairly easy to find online porn (pictures or videos) with a man in a chastity device. They are still primarily in BDSM situations, but during a  long afternoon   few minutes on Youporn, Redtube, Xhamster, etc., it doesn’t take much effort find male subs wearing chastity devices for their cruel mistresses. When you think of some of the other things that have transitioned into more mainstream media (vibrators, dildos, fetish gear, etc.) then maybe it’s not such a stretch to imagine plastic and steel devices being hinted at by consumers hoping for the cutting edge of fetish fashion.

For those of you who doubt the feasibility, consider the cable-only channel Showtime has been airing a “reality program” called “Gigolos.” I haven’t seen it (I don’t have extended cable), but there is an episode from last year that you can find by doing a Google search on “Cock cage episode.” Seriously.

Here’s an interesting tidbit that you’ll find: Jimmy is asked to wear a cock cage, and the longer he wears it, the more he’s paid by a dominatrix.This episode aired last year.

Hah hah hah hah! Oh gosh, that’s so funny. Because, you know, with so many guys out there who seem to be begging to wear these devices, one of our gigolos manages to find the one domme in Las Fucking Vegas who can’t find a man to wear one for free, let alone who would pay her to hold a key.

There was a video of this part of the episode a few weeks ago, but it was apparently hosted on a Megaupload affiliate. But what I saw was a 20-something guy who was locked into a Curve. Of all the devices to portray, they picked the Curve. That’s right, a cable TV show featured a dominatrix who is paying a guy to wear what is arguably the bulkiest, ugliest,  most obtrusive, and least convenient chastity device on the market.

But that’s okay, because hey, it’s a chastity device on TV. Next year, maybe one will be on a more raunchy network show like Two and a Half Men, and a year later will pop up as a side plot on House. And when, one day your work friends are talking about the “kinky cock cage” that they saw on Big Bang Theory, you can give your hipster smirk and tell them that you  knew about those things before they went mainstream.