From the monthly archives:

May 2010

0 NYC Weekly Leather Dates: May 27 June 2

Thursday, May 27
TES Queer SIG: ‘‘Sex, Grease, and Leather − Bootblacking’’ with Jim

Friday, May 28
NYC TNG Meeting
DSF: “Wet and Wild BDSM party“
Paradise Lost: “Unholy- AntiVirtues”

Saturday, May 29
Submit
Wicked NYC

Sunday, May 30
LSM New Member Safety/Orientation
Instigate: “Notes of a Reluctant Daddy” w/ Nayland
NYC TNG Meeting
Suspension

Monday, May 24

Tuesday, June 1
TES: ‘‘‘Roleplay: Everything from Sick to Silly’’ with Mistress Coraline

Wednesday, June 2
Pleasure Salon
TES Dominant Men/submissive women’s SIG: ‘‘NYC TNG & DM/sw’’
Vendetta “Meet and Beat” NYFM Opening night party

25 NYC Weekly Leather Dates: May 27 June 2

Bobbi Starr and Katie Kox on WhippedAss.com

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

e[lust] #13

by Lolita Wolf on 05/24/2010

in sexbloggers

3 e[lust] #13

Welcome to e[lust] - Your source for sexual intelligence and inspirations of lust from the smartest & sexiest bloggers! Whether you’re looking for hot steamy smut, thought-provoking opinions or expert information, you’re going to find it here. Want to be included in e[lust] #14? Start with the rules, check out the schedule in the site’s sidebar and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

~ This Week’s Top Three Posts ~

Stuck – Since I first saw the picture he sent me I have had this visual stuck in my head, like a sweet thing lingering in the mouth…. wrists bound, tied to headboard–ankles bound, tied to baseboard– naked, exposed

Animalistic - I grabbed the back of your ponytail like I owned you. No protest. Only a moan. Fuck, how aroused were you? Even your kiss was desperate, wet, passionate; your body was on fire and it showed.

A Hot Afternoon – She took Grady’s hand and guided it between her legs. Grady’s instinct kicked in as soon as she touched Hatty’s tender clit and felt the wetness gathered there.

~ e[lust] Editress ~

Confessional: Fixation/Addiction – In porn, both video and photo, I have little interest in the men. It’s the women who get my full attention, who arouse me. I seek them out. I flick past hetero couplings, bored. Blow jobs? Meh. Oh wait, close-up of her pussy? Her coming? Ok I’ll watch now.

~ Featured Post (Lilly’s Pick) ~

Thanks for the mansplanation, but I greatly prefer my vibrator – His views on female masturbation (derived, clearly, from absolutely nothing legitimate) are so fucked up, so irritating, and so detrimental, that I want to punch him in the face. It is, truly, mansplaining at its finest.

See also: Pleasurists #75 and #76 for all your sex toy review needs.

All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy!

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

A Pondering
An I thought us girls were supposed to be the confusing sex?
I get ragingly horny watching gay porn
Menopausal Body
Over-Rated
Snotty Blowjob
The Ethical Slut
What counts as kinky?
What Is Romance
Why We Swing

Sex News, Interviews, Politics and Humor

Strip Club Series – Part One – Club Super Sexe

Kink & Fetish

An Anal Fairy Tale
How I Turned My (Ex)Husband Into a Pervert Pt.1
In Her Place
Kinky
Love that Thang He Does
On Productivity, Insanity and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Rights and Responsibilities
Shoe shopping
Show Me Your Teeth
The Greek Slave
Voice

Erotic Writing

A Recurring Fantasy
almost
Awakenings
A Helping Hand
Bite me
challenge
des fumes
Exposed
Frankie Says Swallow
For your prompt review
Gardening
Glass Elevators
Haze
In The Boardroom With Brock
Microfantasy Monday, week 77: Rain, part 2
Monday Morning Flash – “Homebaking”

One of the Hottest Moments I Had as a Prostitute
Seven
the feast
Unexpected Pleasures
Used
Wet

20 e[lust] #13

Steve Holmes and Mia Lelani on SexandSubmission.com

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Zoe Margolis, the writer behind the Girl With a One Track Mind blog and books, has won libel damages after the Independent on Sunday called her a “hooker” in a headline.Margolis launched a libel action against the newspaper after it referred to her as a “hooker” in a headline on an article on 7 March that she wrote for them, which was in the paper and online.The article, which was published with the headline “I was a hooker who became an agony aunt”, was about attitudes to women and sex.Margolis launched legal proceedings against the title's then-owner, Independent News & Media. The parties have reached an out-of-court settlement.

Congratulations, Zoe!

Link

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

tsv Sale at The Sensual Vegan

The Sensual Vegan is original eco-sex store! Shop for vegan condoms and safer sex supplier, organic & natural lubes, vegan BDSM and fetish gear, quality eco-friendly sex toys, natural body care, candles, and books – made for herbivores and those who prefer vegan, organic, natural products. The Sensual Vegan only carries the quality sex products that are free from animal testing and animal ingredients.

Furry Girl is running a sale until June 2nd:

From now until the end of June 2nd, use the coupon code MEXICO at checkout to take 20% of all orders places at TheSensualVegan.com, my little vegan/natural/eco sex shop.

Tired of your Hitachi’s cord not stretching far enough?  Get the cordless rechargeable Acuvibe, normally $80, for $64.  Into G-spot toys?  My very favorite is the silicone Faerie, normally $50, which you can now get for $40.  Want to make your pussy all strong and amazing?  Try the Kegelcisor, normally $85, on sale for $68.  Looking for a nonleather strapon harness?  I have the 5 most awesome ones, like the Joque in black and white, all reduced from $90-100 to $72-80 when you use the coupon code MEXICO.  Plus, all these prices include shipping (US only).

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

  • Can a Pill Help Women Reach Orgasm? – Barbara Kantrowitz – Newsweek.com – Canner hit on the topic after years of doing documentaries on subjects like human-rights abuses, police brutality, and poverty. Looking for something more upbeat, she was researching female sexuality when she got a call from the pharmaceutical company Vivus, which wanted her to create erotic videos to use in their clinical study of an “orgasm cream” for women.
  • Good Vibrations And The Clitoris Saving Alien Cult: News: SFAppeal – The furor boiled to the rim when in late March, Good Vibes got angrily and publicly called out by a feminist Facebook group, a professor of African politics at USF, feminist email lists and a significant number of sexual health professionals and sex educators in multiple countries. Why? It seems that the venerable retailer, with its reputation and history for championing empowered female sexuality, had publicly aligned its brand with, and intended to raise money for an organization called Clitoraid.
  • Protecting Your Privacy Online | The Beautiful Kind – It’s one thing to be far too public on the web and voluntarily offer more information than necessary, but it’s another when other sources are the culprits. Even the most smug of people who refuse to use Facebook, Twitter or even the internet itself are just as much at risk of having their personal information and identity leaked via the web. Knowledge is power when being proactive about protecting your personal privacy, and I’d like to go over a few of those areas.
  • Swinger Tests China’s Sexual Morals – NYTimes.com – On Thursday, a court sentenced the randy Mr. Ma to three and a half years in prison, a severe penalty for a crime that the Chinese government calls “crowd licentiousness.” Mr. Ma, now China’s most famous swinger, remains defiant and plans to appeal, saying his sex life is his own business, not subject to the law as long as he causes no social disturbance, according to his lawyer, Yao Yong’an.
  • Getting Down and Turned On: Pornography and Society Today | StealingKitty – We are here, we are horny, and our perversions are pushing the envelope of sexual boundaries. Better get used to it. The best place to start the discussion is defining what is porn, erotica, or obscenity in our culture today.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Because of the possibility of a cease and desist order,  I’m reproducing MayMay’s post in full.  I’m not a programmer, but I do understand that gaming Google page rank is verboten. I had no idea you could redirect links in such a fashion. I have many links, both inbound and outbound on my blog, because I am all for sharing the link love, and providing context. AAG was very helpful in obtaining some donations from EF for Jefferson and his custody battle. I have a number of affiliate accounts, but have never had an EdenFantasys affiliate account.   I have never signed up, because of the way they worked with and then did not pay, Always Aroused Girl. This company’s inability to work professionally with sex bloggers is troubling.

Please feel free to cross post MayMay’s post with the correct attribution.

A lot of discussion is happening on Twitter.

To report website spamming or any kind of fraud to Google, use the authenticated Spam Report tool.

Update:  When reviewers started asking questions on the EF and on Twitter, their accounts got locked down, as part of a “cooling-off” period.  And a new hash tag sprang up: #Edenfallacys. There’s also an EdenFallacys site.

-Viviane

===========================================================

A few nights ago, I received an email from Editor of EdenFantasys’s SexIs Magazine, Judy Cole, asking me to modify this Kink On Tap brief I published that cites Lorna D. Keach’s writing. Judy asked me to “provide attribution and a link back to” SexIs Magazine. An ordinary enough request soon proved extraordinarily unethical when I discovered that EdenFantasys has invested a staggering amount of time and money to develop and implement a technology platform that actively denies others the courtesy of link reciprocity, a courtesy on which the ethical Internet is based.

While what they’re doing may not be illegal, EdenFantasys has proven itself to me to be an unethical and unworthy partner, in business or otherwise. Its actions are blatantly hypocritical, as I intend to show in detail in this post. Taking willful and self-serving advantage of those not technically savvy is a form of inexcusable oppression, and none of us should tolerate it from companies who purport to be well-intentioned resources for a community of sex-positive individuals.

For busy or non-technical readers, see the next section, Executive Summary, to quickly understand what EdenFantasys is doing, why it’s unethical, and how it affects you whether you’re a customer, a contributor, or a syndication partner. For the technical reader, the Technical Details section should provide ample evidence in the form of a walkthrough and sample code describing the unethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques EdenFantasys, aka. Web Merchants, Inc., is engaged in. For anyone who wants to read further, I provide an Editorial section in which I share some thoughts about what you can do to help combat these practices and bring transparency and trust—not the sabotage of trust EdenFantasys enacts—to the market.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Internet sex toy retailer Web Merchants, Inc., which bills itself as the “sex shop you can trust” and does business under the name EdenFantasys, has implemented technology on their websites that actively interferes with contributors’ content, intercepts outgoing links, and alters republished content so that links in the original work are redirected to themselves. Using techniques widely acknowledged as unethical by Internet professionals and that are arguably in violation of major search engines’ policies, EdenFantasys’s publishing platform has effectively outsourced the task of “link farming” (a questionable Search Engine Marketing [SEM] technique) to sites with which they have “an ongoing relationship,” such as AlterNet.org, other large news hubs, and individual bloggers’ blogs.

Articles published on EdenFantasys websites, such as the “community” website SexIs Magazine, contain HTML crafted to look like links, but aren’t. When visited by a typical human user, a program written in JavaScript and included as part of the web pages is automatically downloaded and intercepts clicks on these “link-like” elements, fetching their intended destination from the server and redirecting users there. Due to the careful and deliberate implementation, the browser’s status bar is made to appear as though the link is legitimate, and that a destination is provided as expected.

For non-human visitors, including automated search engine indexing programs such as Googlebot, the “link” remains non-functional, making the article a search engine’s dead-end or “orphan” page whose only functional links are those whose destination is EdenFantasys’s own web presence. This makes EdenFantasys’ website(s) a self-referential black hole that provides no reciprocity for contributors who author content, nor for any website ostensibly “linked” to from article content. At the same time, EdenFantasys editors actively solicit inbound links from individuals and organizations through “link exchanges” and incentive programs such as “awards” and “free” sex toys, as well as syndicating SexIs Magazine content such that the content is programmatically altered in order to create multiple (real) inbound links to EdenFantasys’s websites after republication on their partner’s media channels.

How EdenFantasys’s unethical practices have an impact on you

Regardless of who you are, EdenFantasys’s unethical practices have a negative impact on you and, indeed, on the Internet as a whole.

See for yourself: First, log out of any and all EdenFantasys websites or, preferably, use a different browser, or even a proxy service such as the Tor network for greater anonymity. Due to EdenFantasys’s technology, you cannot trust that what you are seeing on your screen is what someone else will see on theirs. Next, temporarily disable JavaScript (read instructions for your browser) and then try clicking on the links in SexIs Magazine articles. If clicking the intended off-site “links” doesn’t work, you know that your article’s links are being hidden from Google and that your content is being used for shady practices. In contrast, with JavaScript still disabled, navigate to another website (such as this blog), try clicking on the links, and note that the links still work as intended.Here’s another verifiable example from the EdenFantasys site showing that many other parts of Web Merchants, Inc. pages, not merely SexIs Magazine, are affected as well: With JavaScript disabled, visit the EdenFantasys company page on Aslan Leather (note, for the sake of comparison, the link in this sentence will work, even with JavaScript off). Try clicking on the link in the “Contact Information” section in the lower-right hand column of the page (shown in the screenshot, below). This “link” should take you to the Aslan Leather homepage but in fact it does not. So much for that “link exchange.”
edenfantasys company contact information 300x266 EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed)
(Click to enlarge.)
  • If you’re an EdenFantasys employee, people will demand answers from you regarding the unethical practices of your (hopefully former) employer. While you are working for EdenFantasys, you’re seriously soiling your reputation in the eyes of ethical Internet professionals. Ignorance is no excuse for the lack of ethics on the programmers’ part, and it’s a shoddy one for everyone else; you should be aware of your company’s business practices because you represent them and they, in turn, represent you.
  • If you’re a partner or contributor (reviewer, affiliate, blogger), while you’re providing EdenFantasys with inbound links or writing articles for them and thereby propping them up higher in search results, EdenFantasys is not returning the favor to you (when they are supposed to be doing so). Moreover, they’re attaching your handle, pseudonym, or real name directly to all of their link farming (i.e., spamming) efforts. They look like they’re linking to you and they look like their content is syndicated fairly, but they’re actually playing dirty. They’re going the extra mile to ensure search engines like Google do not recognize the links in articles you write. They’re trying remarkably hard to make certain that all roads lead to EdenFantasys, but none lead outside of it; no matter what the “link,” search engines see it as stemming from and leading to EdenFantasys. The technically savvy executives of Web Merchants, Inc. are using you without giving you a fair return on your efforts. Moreover, EdenFantasys is doing this in a way that preys upon people’s lack of technical knowledge—potentially your own as well as your readership’s. Do you want to keep doing business with people like that?
  • If you’re a customer, you’re monetarily supporting a company that essentially amounts to a glorified yet subtle spammer. If you hate spam, you should hate the unethical practices that lead to spam’s perpetual reappearance, including the practices of companies like Web Merchants, Inc. EdenFantasys’s unethical practices may not be illegal, but they are unabashedly a hair’s width away from it, just like many spammers’. If you want to keep companies honest and transparent, if you really want a “sex shop you can trust,” this is relevant to you because EdenFantasys is not it. If you want to purchase from a retailer that truly strives to offer a welcoming, trustworthy community for those interested in sex positivity and sexuality, pay close attention and take action. For ideas about what you can do, please see the “What you can do” section, below.
  • If you’ve never heard about EdenFantasys before, but you care about a fair and equal-opportunity Internet, this is relevant to you because what EdenFantasys is doing takes advantage of non-tech-savvy people in order to slant the odds of winning the search engine game in their favor. They could have done this fairly, and I personally believe that they would have succeeded. Their sites are user-friendly, well-designed, and solidly implemented. However, they chose to behave maliciously by not providing credit where credit is due, failing to follow through on agreements with their own community members and contributors, and sneakily utilizing other publishers’ web presences to play a very sad zero-sum game that they need not have entered in the first place. In the Internet I want, nobody takes malicious advantage of those less skilled than they are because their own skill should speak for itself. Isn’t that the Internet and, indeed, the future you want, too?

TECHNICAL DETAILS

What follows is a technical exploration of the way the EdenFantasys technology works. It is my best-effort evaluation of the process in as much detail as I can manage within strict self-imposed time constraints. If any of this information is incorrect, I’d welcome any and all clarifications provided by the EdenFantasys CTO and technical team in an appropriately transparent, public, and ethical manner. (You’re welcome—nay, encouraged—to leave a comment.)

Although I’m unconvinced that EdenFantasys understands this, it is the case that honesty is the best policy—especially on the Internet, where everyone has the power of “View source.”

The “EF Framework” for obfuscating links

Article content written by contributors on SexIs Magazine pages is published after all links are replaced with a <span> element bearing the class of linklike and a unique id attribute value. This apparently happens across any and all content published by Web Merchants, Inc.’s content management system, but I’ll be focusing on Lorna D. Keach’s post entitled SexFeed:Anti-Porn Activists Now Targeting Female Porn Addicts for the sake of example.

These fake links look like this in HTML:

And according to Theresa Flynt, vice president of marketing for Hustler video, <span ID="EFLink_68034_fe64d2">female consumers make up 56% of video sales.</span>

This originally published HTML is what visitors without JavaScript enabled (and what search engine indexers) see when they access the page. Note that the <span> is not a real link, even though it is made to look like one. (See Figure 1; click it to enlarge.)

Figure 1:

figure 11 300x241 EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed)

In a typical user’s browser, when this page is loaded, a JavaScript program is executed that mutates these “linklike” elements into <a> elements, retaining the “linklike” class and the unique id attribute values. However, no value is provided in the href (link destination) attribute of the <a> element. See Figure 2.

Figure 2:

figure 2 300x241 EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed)

The JavaScript program is downloaded in two parts from the endpoint at http://cdn3.edenfantasys.com/Scripts/Handler/jsget.ashx. The first part, retrieved in this example by accessing the URI at http://cdn3.edenfantasys.com/Scripts/Handler/jsget.ashx?i=jq132_cnf_jdm12_cks_cm_ujsn_udm_stt_err_jsdm_stul_ael_lls_ganl_jqac_jtv_smg_assf_agrsh&v_14927484.12.0, loads the popular jQuery JavaScript framework as well as custom code called the “EF Framework”.

The EF Framework contains code called the DBLinkHandler, an object that parses the <span> “linklike” elements (called “pseudolinks” in the EF Framework code) and retrieves the real destination. The entirety of the DBLinkHandler object is shown in code listing 1, below. Note the code contains a function called handle that performs the mutation of the <span> “linklike” elements (seen primarily on lines 8 through 16) and, based on the prefix of each elements’ id attribute value, two key functions (BuildUrlForElement and GetUrlByUrlID, whose signatures are on lines 48 and 68, respectively) interact to set up the browser navigation after responding to clicks on the fake links.

var DBLinkHandler = {
    pseudoLinkPrefix: "EFLink_",
    generatedAHrefPrefix: "ArtLink_",
    targetBlankClass: "target_blank",
    jsLinksCssLinkLikeClass: "linklike",
    handle: function () {
        var pseudolinksSpans = $("span[id^='" + DBLinkHandler.pseudoLinkPrefix + "']");
        pseudolinksSpans.each(function () {
            var psLink = $(this);
            var cssClass = $.trim(psLink.attr("class"));
            var target = "";
            var id = psLink.attr("id").replace(DBLinkHandler.pseudoLinkPrefix, DBLinkHandler.generatedAHrefPrefix);
            var href = $("<a></a>").attr({
                id: id,
                href: ""
            }).html(psLink.html());
            if (psLink.hasClass(DBLinkHandler.targetBlankClass)) {
                href.attr({
                    target: "_blank"
                });
                cssClass = $.trim(cssClass.replace(DBLinkHandler.targetBlankClass, ""))
            }
            if (cssClass != "") {
                href.attr({
                    "class": cssClass
                })
            }
            psLink.before(href).remove()
        });
        var pseudolinksAHrefs = $("a[id^='" + DBLinkHandler.generatedAHrefPrefix + "']");
        pseudolinksAHrefs.live("mouseup", function (event) {
            DBLinkHandler.ArtLinkClick(this)
        });
        pseudolinksSpans = $("span[id^='" + DBLinkHandler.pseudoLinkPrefix + "']");
        pseudolinksSpans.live("click", function (event) {
            if (event.button != 0) {
                return
            }
            var psLink = $(this);
            var url = DBLinkHandler.BuildUrlForElement(psLink, DBLinkHandler.pseudoLinkPrefix);
            if (!psLink.hasClass(DBLinkHandler.targetBlankClass)) {
                RedirectTo(url)
            } else {
                OpenNewWindow(url)
            }
        })
    },
    BuildUrlForElement: function (psLink, prefix) {
        var psLink = $(psLink);
        var sufix = psLink.attr("id").toString().substring(prefix.length);
        var id = (sufix.indexOf("_") != -1) ? sufix.substring(0, sufix.indexOf("_")) : sufix;
        var url = DBLinkHandler.GetUrlByUrlID(id);
        if (url == "") {
            url = EF.Constants.Links.Url
        }
        var end = sufix.substring(sufix.indexOf("_") + 1);
        var anchor = "";
        if (end.indexOf("_") != -1) {
            anchor = "#" + end.substring(0, end.lastIndexOf("_"))
        }
        url += anchor;
        return url
    },
    ArtLinkClick: function (psLink) {
        var url = DBLinkHandler.BuildUrlForElement(psLink, DBLinkHandler.generatedAHrefPrefix);
        $(psLink).attr("href", url)
    },
    GetUrlByUrlID: function (UrlID) {
        var url = "";
        UrlRequest = $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: "/LinkLanguage/AjaxLinkHandling.aspx",
            dataType: "json",
            async: false,
            data: {
                urlid: UrlID
            },
            cache: false,
            success: function (data) {
                if (data.status == "Success") {
                    url = data.url;
                    return url
                }
            },
            error: function (xhtmlObj, status, error) {}
        });
        return url
    }
};

Once the mutation is performed and all the content “links” are in the state shown in Figure 2, above, an event listener has been bound to the anchors that captures a click event. This is done using prototypal extension, aka. classic prototypal inheritance, in another part of the code, the live function on line 2,280 of the (de-minimized) jsget.ashx program, as shown in code listing 2, here:

        live: function (G, F) {
            var E = o.event.proxy(F);
            E.guid += this.selector + G;
            o(document).bind(i(G, this.selector), this.selector, E);
            return this
        },

At this point, clicking on one of the “pseudolinks” triggers the EF Framework to call code set up by the GetUrlByUrlID function from within the DBLinkHandler object, initiating an XMLHttpRequest (XHR) connection to the AjaxLinkHandling.aspx server-side application. The request is an HTTP POST containing only one parameter, called urlid, and its value matches a substring from within the id value of the “pseudolinks.” In this example, the id attribute contains a value of EFLink_68034_fe64d2, which means that the unique ID POST’ed to the server is 68034. This is shown in Figure 3, below.

Figure 3:

figure 3 300x199 EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed)

The response from the server, shown in Figure 4, is also simple. If successful, the intended destination is retrieved by the GetUrlByUrlID object’s success function (on line 79 of Code Listing 1, above) and the user is redirected to that web address, as if the link was a real one all along. The real destination, in this case to CNN.com, is thereby only revealed after the XHR request returns a successful reply.

Figure 4:

figure 4 300x199 EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed)

All of this obfuscation effectively blinds machines such as the Googlebot who are not JavaScript-capable from seeing and following these links. It deliberately provides no increased Pagerank for the link destination (as a real link would normally do) despite being “linked to” from EdenFantasys’s SexIs Magazine article. While the intended destination in this example link was at CNN.com, it could just as easily have been—and is, in other examples—links to the blogs of EdenFantasys community members and, indeed, everyone else linked to from a SexIs Magazine article or potentially any website operated by Web Merchants, Inc. that makes use of this technology.

The EdenFantasys Outsourced Link-Farm

In addition to creating a self-referential black hole with no gracefully degrading outgoing links, EdenFantasys also actively performs link-stuffing through its syndicated content “relationships,” underhandedly creating an outsourced and distributed link-farm, just like a spammer. The difference is that this spammer (Web Merchants, Inc. aka EdenFantasys) is cleverly crowd-sourcing high-value, high-quality content from its own “community.”

Articles published at SexIs Magazine are syndicated in full to other large hub sites, such as AlterNet.org. Continuing with the above example post by Lorna D. Keach, Anti-Porn Activists Now Targeting Female Porn Addicts, we can see that this content was republished on AlterNet.org shortly after original publication through EdenFantasys’ website on May 3rd at http://www.alternet.org/story/146774/christian_anti-porn_activists_now_targeting_female_. However, a closer look at the HTML code of the republication shows that each and every link contained within the article points to the same destination: the same article published on SexIs Magazine, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5:

figure 5 300x199 EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed)

Naturally, these syndicated links provided to third-party sites by EdenFantasys are real and function as expected to both human visitors and to search engines indexing the content. The result is “natural,” high-value links to the EdenFantasys website from these third-party sites; EdenFantasys doesn’t merely scrounge pagerank from harvesting the sheer number of incoming links, but as each link’s anchor text is different, they are setting themselves up to match more keywords in search engine results, keywords that the original author likely did not intend to direct to them. Offering search engines the implication that EdenFantasys.com contains the content described in the anchor text, when in fact EdenFantasys merely acts as an intermediary to the information, is very shady, to say the least.

In addition to syndication, EdenFantasys employs human editors to do community outreach. These editors follow up with publishers, including individual bloggers (such as myself), and request that any references to published material provide attribution and a link back to us, to use the words of Judy Cole, Editor of SexIs Magazine in an email she sent to me (see below), and presumably many others. EdenFantasys has also been known to request “link exchanges,” and offer incentive programs that encouraged bloggers to add the EdenFantasys website to their blogroll or sidebar in order to help raise both parties search engine ranking, when in fact EdenFantasys is not actually providing reciprocity.

More information about EdenFantasys’s unethical practices, which are not limited to technical subterfuge, can be obtained via AAGBlog.com.

EDITORIAL

It is unsurprising that the distributed, subtle, and carefully crafted way EdenFantasys has managed to crowd-source links has (presumably) remained unpenalized by search engines like Google. It is similarly unsurprising that nontechnical users such as the contributors to SexIs Magazine would be unaware of these deceptive practices, or that they are complicit in promoting them.

This is no mistake on the part of EdenFantasys, nor is it a one-off occurrence. The amount of work necessary to implement the elaborate system I’ve described is also not even remotely feasible for a rogue programmer to accomplish, far less accomplish covertly. No, this is the result of a calculated and decidedly underhanded strategy that originated from the direction of top executives at Web Merchants, Inc. aka EdenFantasys.

It is unfortunate that technically privileged people would be so willing to take advantage of the technically uneducated, particularly under the guise of providing a trusted place for the community which they claim to serve. These practices are exactly the ones that “the sex shop you can trust” should in no way support, far less be actively engaged in. And yet, here is unmistakable evidence that EdenFantasys is doing literally everything it can not only to bolster its own web presence at the cost of others’, but to hide this fact from its understandably non-tech-savvy contributors.

On a personal note, I am angered that I would be contacted by the Editor of SexIs Magazine, and asked to properly “attribute” and provide a link to them when it is precisely that reciprocity which SexIs Magazine would clearly deny me (and everyone else) in return. It was this request originally received over email from Judy Cole, that sparked my investigation outlined above and enabled me to uncover this hypocrisy. The email I received from Judy Cole is republished, in full, here:

From: Judy Cole <luxuryholmes@gmail.com>
Subject: Repost mis-attributed
Date: May 17, 2010 2:42:00 PM PDT
To: kinkontap+viewermail@gmail.com
Cc: Laurel <laurelb@edenfantasys.com>

Hello Emma and maymay,

I am the Editor of the online adult magazine SexIs (http://www.edenfantasys.com/sexis/). You recently picked up and re-posted a story of ours by Lorna Keach that Alternet had already picked up:

http://kinkontap.com/?s=alternet

We were hoping that you might provide attribution and a link back to us, citing us as the original source (as is done on Alternet, with whom we have an ongoing relationship), should you pick up something of ours to re-post in the future.

If you would be interested in having us send you updates on stories that might be of interest, I would be happy to arrange for a member of our editorial staff to do so. (Like your site, by the way. TBK is one of our regular contributors.)

Thanks and Best Regards,

Judy Cole
Editor, SexIs

Judy’s email probably intended to reference the new Kink On Tap briefs that my co-host Emma and I publish, not a search result page on the Kink On Tap website. Specifically, she was talking about this brief: http://KinkOnTap.com/?p=676. I said as much in my reply to Judy:

Hi Judy,

The URL in your email doesn’t actually link to a post. We pick up many stories from AlterNet, as well as a number from SexIs, because we follow both those sources, among others. So, did you mean this following entry?

http://KinkOnTap.com/?p=676

If so, you should know that we write briefs as we find them and provide links to where we found them. We purposefully do not republish or re-post significant portions of stories and we limit our briefs to short summaries in deference to the source. In regards to the brief in question, we do provide attribution to Lorna Keach, and our publication process provides links automatically to, again, the source where we found the article. icon smile EdenFantasys’s unethical technology is a self referential black hole (Maybe Maimed) As I’m sure you understand, this is the nature of the Internet. Its distribution capability is remarkable, isn’t it?

Also, while we’d absolutely be thrilled to have you send us updates on stories that might be of interest, we would prefer that you do so in the same way the rest of our community does: by contributing to the community links feed. You can find detailed instructions for the many ways you can do that on our wiki:

http://wiki.kinkontap.com/wiki/Community_links_feed

Congratulations on the continued success of SexIs.

Cheers,
-maymay

At the time when I wrote the email replying to Judy, I was perturbed but could not put my finger on why. Her email upset me because she seemed to be suggesting that our briefs are wholesale “re-posts,” when in fact Emma and I have thoroughly discussed attribution policies and, as mentioned in my reply, settled on a number of practices including a length limit, automated back linking (yes, with real links, go see some Kink On Tap briefs for yourself), and clearly demarcating quotes from the source article in our editorializing to ensure we play fair. Clearly, my somewhat snarky reply betrays my annoyance.

In any event, this exchange prompted me to take a closer look at the Kink On Tap brief I wrote, at the original article, and at the cross-post on AlterNet.org. I never would have imagined that EdenFantasys’s technical subterfuge would be as pervasive as it has proven to be. It’s so deeply embedded in the EdenFantasys publishing platform that I’m willing to give Judy the benefit of the doubt regarding this hypocrisy because she doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a search query and a permalink (something any laymen blogger would grok). This is apparent from her reply to my response:

From: Judy Cole <luxuryholmes@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Repost mis-attributed
Date: May 18, 2010 4:57:59 AM PDT
[…redundant email headers clipped…]

Funny, the URL in my email opens the same link as the one you sent me when I click on it.

Maybe if you pick up one of our stories in future, you could just say something like “so and so wrote for SexIs.” ?

As it stands, it looks as if Lorna wrote the piece for Alternet. Thanks.

Judy

That is the end of our email exchange, and will be for good, unless and until EdenFantasys changes its ways. I will from this point forward endeavor never to publish links to any web property that I know to be owned by Web Merchants, Inc., including EdenFantasys.com. I will also do my best to avoid citing any and all SexIs Magazine articles from here on out, and I encourage everyone who has an interest in seeing honesty on the Internet to follow my lead here.

As some of my friends are currently contributors to SexIs Magazine, I would like all of you to know that I sincerely hope you immediately sever all ties with any and all Web Merchants, Inc. properties, suppliers, and business partners, especially because you are friends and I think your work is too important to be sullied by such a disreputable company. Similarly, I hope you encourage your friends to do the same. I understand that the economy is rough and that some of you may have business contracts bearing legal penalties for breaking them, but I urge you to nevertheless consider looking at this as a cost-benefit analysis: the sooner you break up with EdenFantasys, the happier everyone on the Internet, including you, will be (and besides, you can loose just as much of your reputation, money, and pagerank while being happy as you can being sad).

What you can do

  • If you are an EdenFantasys reviewer, a SexIs Magazine contributor, or have any other arrangement with Web Merchants, Inc., write to Judy Cole and demand that content you produce for SexIs Magazine adheres to ethical Internet publication standards. Sever business ties with this company immediately upon receipt of any non-response, or any response that does not adequately address every concern raised in this blog post. (Feel free to leave comments on this post with technical questions, and I’ll do my best to help you sort out any l33t answers.)
  • EdenFantasys wants to stack the deck in Google. They do this by misusing your content and harvesting your links. To combat this effort, immediately remove any and all links to EdenFantasys websites and web presences from your websites. Furthermore, do not—I repeat—do not publish new links to EdenFantasys websites, not even in direct reference to this post. Instead, provide enough information, as I have done, so visitors to your blog posts can find their website themselves. In lieu of links to EdenFantasys, link to other bloggers’ posts about this issue. (Such posts will probably be mentioned in the comments section of this post.)
  • Boycott EdenFantasys: the technical prowess their website displays does provide a useful shopping experience for some people. However, that in no way obligates you to purchase from their website. If you enjoy using their interface, use it to get information about products you’re interested in, but then go buy those products elsewhere, perhaps from the manufacturers directly.
  • Watch for “improved” technical subterfuge from Web Merchants, Inc. As a professional web developer, I can identify several things EdenFantasys could do to make their unethical practices even harder to spot, and harder to stop. If you have any technical knowledge at all, even if you’re “just” a savvy blogger, you can keep a close watch on EdenFantasys and, if you notice anything that doesn’t sit well with you, speak up about it like I did. Get a professional programmer to look into things for you if you need help; yes, you can make a difference just by remaining vigilant as long as you share what you know and act honestly, and transparently.

If you have additional ideas or recommendations regarding how more people can help keep sex toy retailers honest, please suggest them in the comments.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Moth Moth Moth KinkySticks in on The Moth Podcast

So Lori B. has a midlife crisis, separates from her husband at age 43, her libido skyrockets, she meets Jefferson. Then she starts a blog: Kinky Stick Figure.

Then she goes to The Moth StorySlam. Organized in eight cities, The Moth is a storytelling event in which audience members are encouraged to stand up to tell a story on a given theme. The stories are limited to five minutes duration and must be told extemporaneously. Prospective storytellers put their names into a hat and are drawn at random; each open-mike night is limited to ten stories, so one can’t be sure of being picked. Storytellers are scored by judges, and the winner of each open-mike night goes onto to the next round of competition, The Moth GrandSlam, which invariable sells out immediately to audiences of several hundred people.

Lori tells a (rather awkward) story about her and Jefferson, and wins the StorySlam. Her winning story from that first StorySlam is now available on the The Moth Podcast. Want to hear the story that won? She goes onto the GrandSlam, and comes in second, telling a story about Dark Odyssey Winter Fire.

Lori has won a * second* StorySlam, and is once again a finalist in the Moth GrandSlam Championship, which is this Monday at B.B. King’s. Lolita and I will be there, cheering her on. Congratulations, Lori!

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

3 NYC Weekly Leather Dates: May 20 26

Thursday, May 20
Staten Island Kink Munch
Purple Passion workshop: “Rope Bondage for Beginners”

Friday, May 21
DSF: “Bondage class: Hogties & frogties” w/ Erin Houdini
Cercle des Dommes
LSM: “Caning – from “Ah!” to “Zowie!!!” with Lolita Wolf
Switch

Saturday, May 22
NyboL: Rubber Stamp Bar Night

Sunday, May 23
NY Bondage Club

Monday, May 24

Tuesday, May 25
TES: ‘‘Talent Show’’

Wednesday, May 26
TES Relationships SIG: ‘‘Commitment in the Scene’’ w/ August & Sue

22 NYC Weekly Leather Dates: May 20 26

Jessie Cox and Justin Long on PublicDisgrace.com

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

05/19/2010
8:00 PMto10:00 PM

polynyc Polyamorous NYC: Safer Sex 301: Group Sex

Location: LGBT Center, 208 West 13th Street. NYC
Cost: $10 admission; $5 youth/students.

Our monthly discussion meeting at the LGBT Center. This month’s topic will be Safer Sex 301: Group Sex presented by Beau Edmond, Volunteer Educator for Gay Mens Health Crisis.

Beau Edmond, Volunteer Educator for Gay Men’s Health Crisis will be presenting on safer sex with multiple partners both in group sex situations and with individuals sequentially. For many Gay/Bi men and even some Bi/Lesbian women, going to orgies and/or having multiple sexual partners is an important part of our way of life. It allows us a certain freedom of expression and personal fulfillment that can’t be realized any other way.

Last year, GMHC gave a presentation specifically on HIV/AIDS. This year we’re having GMHC back to refresh this topic & expand on it by giving general information on other STDs as well. This interactive discussion will concentrate on the practical aspects of safer sex as well as the importance of open, honest communication when negotiating boundaries. Finding the personal strength to protect yourself and your partners plays an essential role in maintaining your health and that of our entire community.

For more information check out the Facebook event page where you can RSVP and invite friends to come along. The entire GLBT community is welcome to participate. Whether one identifies as poly or simply enjoys non-monogamy this is a great way to learn how to do it better.

PolyamorousNYC meets monthly on the third Wednesday of every month at the LGBT Center, 208 West 13th Street

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

05/20/2010
7:00 PMto9:00 PM

web lolitawolf 300x241 Purple Passion Class: Rope Bondage for Beginners w. Lolita Wolf

Location:  Purple Passion, 211 West 20th St NYC

Tel: 212.807.0486

Cost: $20/per person. Prepaying and or preregistering  is advised. We are limiting the class size so that everyone will be able to learn. Because so many people have asked us to start doing workshops again, we are starting with our most popular one!

Learn some basics that will be the building blocks for creating ties that will give you versatility in the bedroom or the dungeon. Come with a partner or we will try to match singles up.

Supplies: Bring two lengths of 30 foot rope.

About our presenter: Lolita Wolf

She has been active in the BDSM community since the min 80′s. She has been active in many of the local groups TES, LSM, LPN, GMSMA.
Loves, loves, loves, bondage and has given numerous workshops around the country on this subject. She is very knowledgable in many other areas of BDSM, has won numerous awards and even produced some educational videos. If you are a novice and or someone who wants to learn the art of bondage, this is the workshop for you !!

Workshop Attendees get Special Store Discounts! All registered attendees get 15% off all merchandise before and after the workshop (except for sale items).

PP Purple Passion Class: Rope Bondage for Beginners w. Lolita Wolf

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

6 NYC Weekly Leather Dates: May 13 19

Thursday, May 13
Queens BDSM Munch
NYC TNG meeting
Impact party

Friday, May 14
DSF: “Make That welt: Straps, canes and implements that hurt” w/ Ted E.

Saturday, May 15
TES Spanking Group at Paddles: ‘‘Making Spanking Fun’’ w/ 007
TES Novice Excursion
TES: Gods and Goddesses: A Party of Mythological Proportions
SPAM

Sunday, May 16
fIXE Fetish Party

Monday, May 17

Tuesday, May 18
TES: “Hands On − Caning and Clothespins’’

Wednesday, May 19
TES Switchables & Other Polymorphous Perverts SIG: ‘‘‘The Romance of Cold Steel’’ w/ Paul NyghtOwl & Mark

26 NYC Weekly Leather Dates: May 13 19

Seda, Hollie Stevens, Tommy Defendi
and Dana DeArmond on divinebitches.com

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

met art sg 573 4 Rita G. by Goncharov (Met Art)

Full gallery

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I have a question and don’t know who else to ask: I need support under my scrotum in order to ejaculate. I am 52 years old, and this condition has gotten worse as I have gotten older. When I am having intercourse, I need a position that supports or raises my scrotum, and when I masturbate, I need to put something under it. Is this okay? Is there a solution to make coming during intercourse easier?
This Old Scrote

Before I touch on your sack, TOS, I’d like to briefly—very briefly—touch on George Rekers’.

Rekers is a towering figure in the religious right. He’s the cofounder of the Family Research Council; a member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, a group that claims it can cure homosexuality, and the go-to guy for “expert” testimony about how gay people threaten and endanger children. And last week, Rekers got busted coming back from a 10-day European vacation with a 20-year-old male escort he found on Rentboy.com. Rekers told two reporters from the Miami New Times that he “can’t lift luggage,” so what other choice did he have but to hire a 20-year-old with an eight-inch cock?

To mark the downfall of yet another crazy, hypocritical closet case, I propose that “whatever floats your boat” be immediately permanently retired in favor of “whatever lifts your luggage.” This will be George “Rentboy” Rekers’ legacy, his lexi-colonic gift to the English language. Help spread the meme. (My emphasis)

Back to you, TOS: First, talk about this with a doc—get your sack examined and your prostate checked. If there’s nothing medically wrong, rest assured there’s nothing wrong. Some guys have large, loose sacks and sensitive balls, and the slap, slap, slap of intercourse or masturbation can be uncomfortable, and lifting your luggage spares you the slap, slap, slap. Alternately, TOS, let’s not forget that your dick, balls, sack, and taint compose one big erogenous zone. Lifting your luggage may provide you with a little bit of extra ball/sack/taint stimulation, added stimulation that helps put you over the top, and naturally you rely on that zap more at 52 than you did at 32. So instead of viewing your need for a ball lift as a problem that needs solving, why not view ball support as the solution to a problem. Or to put it another way…

Whatever lifts your luggage, TOS, whatever lifts your luggage.

Link

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Sexually Able aims to bring light upon sexuality and dis/ability, and create a path for peoples’ voices to be heard.

What is it? It’s a large scale survey of self identified people with disabilities and their partners.  Eventually, it’ll be turned into a book for people to read, enjoy and see the rich and diverse sexuality that is within the disability community.

Why is this needed? As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, there is still a large gap in people’s minds when they think about sexuality as it relates to people with disabilities, whether cognitively or physically. While some studies have been performed regarding the potential for differently-able people to lead satisfying sexual lives, in which satisfying seems to center around the ability to orgasm, very little has been written about the experiences involving the sexualities and experiences of people who identify as people with disabilities/ handicapped/disabled/differently-able, as well as their partners.

People of all ability levels are sexual beings. Sex is hard enough to navigate and negotiate when one fits in with society’s notions of what a sexual being is, but once you add in the concept of ability, it can become quite challenge. This book, through these surveys, seeks to bring forward the stories, challenges and experiences of people of various ability levels and their partners, putting a face on the trials that so many valuable members of our society must face and the positive experiences as well. By sharing the experiences of the dis/ability community in relation to sexuality, Sexually Able hopes to challenge people’s viewpoints, foster discussion and conversation, and open doors towards a shift in the social constructions surrounding sexuality and disability.

What does it involve?

Just fill out one of the surveys (for people with disabilities or for partners of PWD), send it in, and have your voice and experiences heard. You’re welcome to take your time, and fill in as much or as little information as you’d like. If you need assistance in completing your survey, please let us know. Please feel free to pass this site/these surveys on to your friends, lovers, support groups, therapists, doctors, caregivers, and anyone else that may identify as having a disability or as a partner of someone with a disability.

For more information and/or to fill out the surveys, please visit http://sexuallyable.wordpress.com. Questions? Email SexuallyAbleBook@gmail.com.

Who is behind Sexually Able?

Shanna Katz M.Ed is a full spectrum sexuality educator with a Master’s of Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is currently based in Phoenix, AZ, is the resident sexuality educator for Fascinations, and a member of AASECT (the American Association of Sexuality Educator, Counselors and Therapists). As a sexuality educator, she travels the country teaching workshops at colleges, sex toy stores, dungeons, sexuality conferences and more.

Shanna has a special interest in working in sexuality and dis/ability, and runs workshops and discussions about the intersection of these identities, how to build sex positivity in communities of PWD, negotiating disability in a BDSM context and more.  She’s also working on an anthology regarding sexuality and dis/ability, entitled Sexual Ability.  Please see the call for submissions to submit an essay.

Note on definitions of disability (or the lack of): This survey is for those who identify as someone with a disability, someone who is disable, someone who is differently able, any other such identity and the partners of the former. There is no hierarchy of disability, nor is there any exact definition. If you identify as one of the aforementioned, please feel free to take the survey.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

pleasesir Rachel Kramer Bussels Please, Sir

Please, Sir cover photo by Christine Kessler

rkbpleasesir Rachel Kramer Bussels Please, Sir

Rachel Kramer Bussel by Laura Boyd

Multi-talented writer, columnist, reading series host, social media maven and cupcake blogger Rachel Kramer Bussel has another come out with another steamy and pleasing erotica collection with the publication of Please, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission (Cleis Press). Over the years, she has been adept at introducing us to fresh voices (some of whom are my good friends). These stories explore submission from the submissive’s point of view:

If you ask me, submission is an art form. It requires dedication, focus, commitment and desire and there’s no single way of doing it. It’s about unlocking something within yourself so you can reach beyond your normal limits, exposing your body and soul in order to go somewhere you cannot get to alone.

The lesson there, and in all of these stories, is that there is risk involved in submission. I don’t mean the physical risks, but the emotional ones, the ones that require a leap of faith, a knowledge that what you are doing may unnerve you, confuse you and scare you, even while it makes you wet and eager and ready for more.

I’m partway through the book, but I keep flipping back to re-read “Veronica’s Body,” and the ritual Veronica and her husband enact each night before bed…

At night, Veronica sleeps chained to the bed she shares with her husband. Her slender  wrists are cuffed together and then locked to the canopy above with a long length of chain, the better for her to sleep. Just before midnight, Veronica washes her face, brushes her teeth, performs her other evening ablutions. She dabs a bit of perfume on the points of her collarbone. As she goes through her routine, her stomach flutters and a flush of heat starts crawling across her skin. ‘when she’s ready she takes a deep breath, slips out of her silk robe and lies on the bed where Vince is waiting. He stretches himself along her body, covering her thighs with his, the hair on his legs tickling her. Slowly he drags his fingers between her thighs, traces her pussy lips, presses his hand against her mound, then up her torso, flat and firm. As he lowers his lips to her breasts, she gasps every time. He sinks his teeth into each nipple, rolls the soft flesh between hard enamel. He kisses the hollow at the base of her throat, the tip of her chin, her armpits. He licks lazy circles along the underside of her arms. Finally, he places a moist kiss one each inner wrist before fastening the cuffs around them and chaining his wife to the bed. He tells her to sleep well. He turns off the light and settles in next to his wife, a possessive arm draped across her stomach. He falls asleep smiling.

Rachel’s set up a companion blog, so you can read more about the book. Lots of good stuff – interviews with some of the contributors, a video trailer, and you can read the introduction and some excerpts.

Please, Sir can be ordered from:

{ Comments on this entry are closed }