Come and celebrate the awarding of the first Sex-Positive Journalism Awards! The awards will be MCed by Lolita Wolf.

The first 100 attendees will get a gift bag of goodies from the Sexies sponsors. There will also be a silent auction and raffle to support the awards, which will include fabulous prizes including original art by Julio Aguilera, Sophy Naess, and David Steinberg; signed copies of books by winners, judges, and supporters; sex toys; gift certificates for sexy pleasures; and more!

Meet the judges and the winners. Judith Levine will talk about her experiences with media coverage of sexual topics when Harmful to Minors was released. Carol Queen will be there. See a full list of winners, judges and more.

The party will be Saturday October. 4, 6:30-9:30pm, in the downstairs lounge of Splash, 50 W. 17th Street, NYC. $5 cover.

Would you like to volunteer and get in free and be guaranteed a goodie bag? Volunteer shifts are only one hour. Contact Susan Wright at wrightnyc at aol dot com

Tom Carson reviews Andrew Wilson’s bio of Harold Robbins:

…So, duly making the beast with two hardbacks, Andrew Wilson — author of a well-regarded, as they say, life of Patricia Highsmith — has given us “Harold Robbins: The Man Who Invented Sex.” Besides answering nearly every question about its subject that any halfway brainy reader couldn’t be bothered to ask, it’s also better written than any of Robbins’s own behemoths, something I assume Wilson can’t help: he’s British. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I doubt any future biography of Robbins will equal this one, but make of that claim what you will.

Wilson is impressively if inexplicably determined to uncover the reality behind Robbins’s fabulations about his early years, some of which proved sturdy enough to show up in his obituaries. Not too surprisingly, the tales he fed compliant interviewers — about growing up in a Catholic orphanage before his adoption by a Jewish family, servicing lonely men for cash during his mean-streets adolescence and the like — turn out to have been fibs. The lone seedling of fact from which these Grade-Z Scheherazadisms sprang was that, unlike his siblings, young Harold Rubin (not Robbins, just his way of going Gentile into that good night, and in the heyday of the Jewish American novel, too) was the spawn of a previous marriage his father tried to conceal after Harold’s mom died young.

(more . . )

Caroline Moorhead has an extensive article about sex trafficking in the New York Review of Books.

Chelsea Summers: All I Really Need to Know About Dating I Learned From My Computer.

Nerve (the first sex site I read, lo those many years ago), is having a free preview of their premium galleries site.

Tess sent Mormon calendar boys.

A new blog, by and for fans of female wrestling.

The Australian OFLC will not give Ashley and Keisha a festival exemption so that it can be shown at MUFF: “Our Decision is Final.”

Belle du Jour’s blog is now a British TV show.

Ars Erotica: The Erotic Art Museum

Porn relief for your ADHD: Pornhorneo

Aliza, that Beautiful Creature, is BACK!!

Only 10 more days to the Arse Elektronika conference in San Francisco.

Margaret Cho is performing in NY until the 3rd week of October. Who’s coming with me?

Susan Mernit: When do you say the L (Love) word?

Will Ang Lee’s classy Lust, Caution break the NC-17 ratings barrier?

Plastic surgeons discuss the formula for perfect breasts.

Gridskipper’s Paris for the Thinking Perv.

Photo series peeping toms in Japan, circa 1970 (BoingBoing)

• Gothamist reports on the upsurge in syphilis cases in NYC.
• The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication has a new study on blogger anonymity and self-disclosure.
• Feministing’s Weekly Feminist Reader.
• Sexoteric links to the 15 best songs on masturbation.
• Gina Kolata of the Times does the math on the assumption that heterosexual men have substantially more partners than heterosexual women do.
• WSJ has an article on virtual polygamy in Second Life.
• A NY Times Sunday Magazine article about a couples therapy group.
• BlueBlood has a writeup of the Golden Girls Gone Wild gallery show.
• British author Ian Rankin has been criticized for suggesting that lesbian writers write the most violent crime novels.
• Science Daily press release: the HPV vaccine doesn’t appear to be effective for treating a pre-existing HPV infection.
• NPR has a transcript of Madeline Brand’s interview with transsexual sportswriter Christine Daniels.

Towelrod has breaking news about the Gay American Heroes traveling memorial exhibition, which will honor LGBT people murdered in hate crimes, inform the public about hate crimes and inspire diversity [via Joe.My.God]

The Great Happiness Space, a documentary about young Japanese male escorts, is now viewable online.

SexTV has a feature on Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls, the controversial and erotic comic, which retells the lives of Dorothy from Oz, Alice from Wonderland and Wendy from Peter Pan. [via BoingBoing]

Cara of Feministing wonders why don’t more unmarried women vote?

In No poly presidents, Cunning Minx writes about the #1 taboo of Presidential candidates: sexual non-conformism.

Expecting Executive responds to the Kathleen Deveny’s Newsweek’s rant about the mommy wars.

Cory Silverberg writes about the (disappointing) sexual politics of liberal bloggers.

The Freakonomics blog has relocated to the NY Times. Today’s post is about the science of insulting women.

EZ-Pass and other electronic toll collection devices are being used to prove infidelity.

When fetish diva Midori comes to town for her Rope Dojo, she’ll be speaking at MoSex and at LSM.

Contribute to $pread’s Next Issue

In the Flesh is moving to a new night.

Amber Rhea interviewed Karen Abbott, author of Sin and the Second City for the Georgia Podcast Network.

Joe.my.God and Wonkette have posts about the arrest of Glenn Murphy, newly elected chair of the Young Republicans National Federation, who sexually assaulted a 22 year old at the home of the man’s sister.

Happy birthday to Bad Man of A Bad Man in a Bad Place.

S/M at the movies: Thor just announced an encore screening on Nov. 30th of The Complete Marquis De Sade Film Festival in Ninety Minutes or Less.

If you scroll down and look at the right side of the blog, you’ll notice an “In the News” section. It’s the Google News Bar, which lets me select which keywords I want, and displays snippets of timely news articles from Google News Search. And when I loaded it up, it thoughtfully linked to both Dan Savage and Mistress Matisse’s columns.

See the keywords at the top of the news bar? Click on a word and then relevant stories will be loaded.

Here’s the page with a bunch of wizards that lets you add Google stuff to your blog or website.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer interviewed David Amsden about his New York magazine article about closeted gay men. Listen here.

Via Cinekinkster, the head of IFC has a blog post about the making of the Indie Sex series.

Cinekink is an event partner of the LA Erotica Film Fest.

Via Boinkology, a Village Voice article on the DIY of webcam sex.

NY City Councilman Dennis Gallagher has been indicted for alleged rape.

A recent EEOC informal discussion letter addresses transgender bias (CCH).

Babeland is throwing a Queer Porn night on August 8th.

Margaret Cho’s The Sensuous Woman show is coming to LA, Chicago and New York.

Good Vibrations is accepting submissions to its Amateur Erotica Film Competition until September 10th.

Bacchus has a perceptive post about cookie cutter porn paysites.

IFC is screening the “Indie Sex” mini-series, which examines “how filmmakers, the film industry, and special interest groups have attempted to both regulate and set free the images that filmmakers create and who gets to see them.” Lisa says last Fall’s Cinekink kickoff party is in one of the episodes (maybe #2 Taboos or #4/Extremes).

A federal judge has ruled that female drug sales workers have standing to sue in the Novartis class action gender discrimination suit.

AskAmber has a post on 8 Things Women Suck at in Bed.

In Why Young White Unmarried and non-cohabiting Humans in Psychology Classes Have Sex (In America), Elizabeth Wood looks at the survey group in David Buss’ and Cindy Meston’s study of why we have sex.

The latest issue of BUTT (“a pocket-size, quarterly magazine for and about homosexuals”) is out.

Sex and Blogs asks is there such thing as a phonetic Gaydar?

David Peskovitz of BoingBoing writes about Red Light Despatch, a new prostitution monthly published in Mumbai, India.

Lux Nightmare of Boinkology writes about why Flickr is the best online dating site.

Beautiful experimental video of Justine Joli, by Clayton James Cubitt. (Hosted on Veoh, tagged 18+ so you must agree to view the “deadly blurred boobies.” Thanks, Clayton.)

By JOHN TIERNEY

Scholars in antiquity began counting the ways that humans have sex, but they weren’t so diligent in cataloging the reasons humans wanted to get into all those positions. Darwin and his successors offered a few explanations of mating strategies — to find better genes, to gain status and resources — but they neglected to produce a Kama Sutra of sexual motivations.

Perhaps you didn’t lament this omission. Perhaps you thought that the motivations for sex were pretty obvious. Or maybe you never really wanted to know what was going on inside other people’s minds, in which case you should stop reading immediately.

For now, thanks to psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin, we can at last count the whys. After asking nearly 2,000 people why they’d had sex, the researchers have assembled and categorized a total of 237 reasons — everything from “I wanted to feel closer to God” to “I was drunk.” They even found a few people who claimed to have been motivated by the desire to have a child.

The researchers, Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, believe their list, published in the August issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, is the most thorough taxonomy of sexual motivation ever compiled. This seems entirely plausible.

Who knew, for instance, that a headache had any erotic significance except as an excuse for saying no? But some respondents of both sexes explained that they’d had sex “to get rid of a headache.” It’s No. 173 on the list. (more . . . )

Study: Meston, C., & Buss, D.M. (2007). Why humans have sex. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 477-507.

I’m finally getting back to posting – I’ve been saving up a lot of links.

Pornology New York will be shown tonight at the Pioneer Theatre.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer interviewed Dr. David Buss about his new study, Why We Have Sex.

Openly gay NY City Council Speaker Christine Quinn appeared yesterday on the Charlie Rose show (video).

Feministing’s Weekly Feminist Reader

Voting is still open in the PodCastAwards. You know you want to vote for Polyamory Weekly.

You saw the video where two of my favorite sexerati, Violet Blue interviews Audacia Ray about Naked on the Internet, right?

Susie Bright interviewed porn star Jamie Gillis for 10 Zen Monkeys.(“Don’t procure for your father. It’s a pain in the ass.”)

Violet Blue is really fucking pissed.

A news article about a study of ‘vegansexuals‘, vegans who shun sex with meat eaters.

Only one more day for You have until August 7th to submit to the Sugarbutch Star contest – Sugarbutch will write a story for you. Submit an erotica/sex scene scenario to her, she’ll pick five favorites, write them out, post them, and ask the readers to vote on their #1 favorite. the winner will then get a prize, hopefully involving drinks with her. How can you turn this down?

Helen Boyd has started the Trans Group Blog, a new group blog dedicated to trans issues.

Carnival contributor Jessica Gold Haralson responds to the AutoAdmit thread on calling her fat.

The New Yorker has an article on research those “hippie chimps” the peaceable and frisky bonobo.

The Pew Research Center published a study on cohabitation and its possible social impact.

Diah (Hegre)
Sex blogger files for bankruptcy (Yahoo)
a star-spangled booty (pretty dumb things)
Big numbers!
Danae (Met Models)
We’ve been nominated for the Erotic Awards 2007
Who Sleeps Around? Scientists Know (Yahoo)
Lara Is Not A Porn Star (Violet Blue, SFGate)
NYC Weekly Leather Dates May 31-June 6
Another bad penny turns up again: Naomi Wolf on porn (Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex)
Mass deletion of communities on LiveJournal sparks revolt (C|Net)
Calendar Project
Audacia Ray, Helen Boyd & Jessica Valenti Reading @ McNally Robinson
TES: The Bondage Group: Bottoms Up!
That wild BDSM party (Married Man’s Fucktoy)
Broadway Bares 17: Myth Behavior
Ivett (MC Nudes)
ErosZine: Latest Issue (Thomas Roche)
Masha | American Kitchen (Hegre Art)
Pregnant Nympho Sex (10 Zen Monkeys)
Ring Toss: Links for 2007-05-29
Sugasm #81
Fleshbot and Swimsuit Edition (One Life, Take Two)
Glenn Marcus’ S/M Conviction Upheld. (Alan S.)
For the Girls

Photo: Yalena

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act “have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
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The decision pitted the court’s conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

(Read more…)

Apparently some Hampton Roads, Virginia parents are not too thrilled with their high school age kids penning a sex section of the school newspaper:

…Several said they were especially offended by a photograph of two women kissing under the headline, “Why men love women who love women,” a quiz question about anal sex, and an interview with an unnamed custodian who said he had found a vibrator in the girls’ shower.

“Those articles offended me personally as a parent,” said Venus Merrill, a school board member. “It’s not something you want to read with your 10-year-old and it’s not something that should be going home.”

Principal Randy Zito said the Winnachronicle had crossed the line of responsible reporting and that he had dealt with the problem privately. He also said he had pulled copies of the paper that normally would have been sent to middle schools in the cooperative school district.

The newspaper’s faculty adviser defended the editors’ decisions and said the February edition of the paper was intended to inform students, not shock people, although they knew it would stir controversy.

“The kids wrote the articles and came up with the topic,” said adviser Carol Downer. “They didn’t go out to cause controversy, but the Winnachronicle is also not a P.R. piece for the high school. This is a place for students to express their view and talk about issues that are troubling the student body.”

(Read more...)

• Sex-saturated media arrives in China (Dallas Morning News)
• Doyle turns down $600,000 in federal abstinence money (TwinCities.com)
• Angry Ex Distributes Explicit DVDs Using Old-Fashioned Windows (Sex Drive Daily)
• Weekly Feminist Reader (Feministing)
• Attack of the Red-Carpet-Munchers! (Simon Doonan; NYO)
• My Date with Ann (Steven Weber; HuffPo)
• The Age of Mesploitation (Sugarbank)