The British are …

Earlier this summer Britain announced the online pornography would be blocked from people’s home unless requested by internet subscribers. Now another story has surfaced, as reported today by the BBC:

“More than 300,000 attempts were made to access pornographic websites at the Houses of Parliament in the past year, official records suggest. It is unclear whether MPs, peers or other staff are responsible, House of Commons officials said.

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“The figures were not all “purposeful requests” and may have been exaggerated by third-party software and websites that reload themselves, they added. About 5,000 people work on the parliamentary estate. The data was released following a Freedom of Information request by Huffington Post UK, which published the story under the headline “Oh Yes, Minister!” on its homepage. However, the figures vary wildly: in November, there were 114,844 attempts to access websites classed as pornographic, but just 15 in February.

“A Commons spokeswoman said: “We do not consider the data to provide an accurate representation of the number of purposeful requests made by network users.” This was because there was a “variety of ways in which websites can be designed to act, react and interact and due to the potential operation of third party software,” she said. Some of the hits may have been registered by websites that generate a number of views during a single visit, or those that automatically link to other sites via pop-ups, she explained.”

 

More at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23954447

 

Straight porn and gay marriage

Could watching porn make straight men support marriage equality?imgres-2

A story circulating in blogs today tells of sociologist Mark Regnerus’ latest assertion that porn watching confuses the straight mind about marriage and results in higher levels of support for greater diversity.

Regnerus got some attention earlier this year when he published a now widely discredited study that supposedly found children of gay parents are worse off than those of straight parents. As Huffington Post reports, “In his piece Regnerus states that porn ‘undermines the concept that in the act of sexual intercourse, we share our ‘body and whole self … permanently and exclusively’ and “reinforces the idea that people can share their bodies but not their inmost selves, and that they can do so temporarily and (definitely) not exclusively without harm.’ Continue reading “Straight porn and gay marriage”

LA law protects adult film industry workers

In a state famous for it’s detailed ballot initiative process, Los Angeles County yesterday passed a novel worker safety measure that supporters compare to regulations requiring construction workers to wear hard hats.

Henceforth,  performers in porn movies will be required to wear condoms while filming in LA, a decision that opponents say will leave consumers unsatisfied.

As reported in an article entitled Condom requirement for porn filming approved by voters,” in the Los Angeles Times:  “The initiative garnered 55.9% of the vote after a hard-fought campaign,’This is a major referendum on the subject of safer sex,’ said AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein. Continue reading “LA law protects adult film industry workers”