US Sex Sells News

An Alabama appeals court has struck down a law banning consensual oral and anal sex between unmarried persons. All over the state, people celebrated by continuing to mind their own goddamn sex-business in the privacy of their own homes.

The now-vanquished statute mandated that a person is guilty of sexual misconduct if they engage in [a]ny act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another . Under the statute, consent is no defense against prosecution -- if it involves a genital + mouth or anus combination, it's illegal no matter what.

Since gay couples can't wed in Alabama, then all gay sex would automatically fall under the ridiculous umbrella of sexual misconduct. And that was the point, of course: official commentary on the statute shows that it was specifically enacted to make all homosexual conduct criminal.

The appeals court pronounced the law unconstitutional because it contradicts the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision , which ruled that criminalizing private sexual activity between consenting adults violates the 14th Amendment.

Meanwhile, anti-sodomy laws remain on the books in eleven other states.

The Justice Department's Operation Choke Point initiative has been shrouded in secrecy, but now it is starting to come to light. It is so named because through strangling the providers of financial services to the targeted industries, the government can choke off the oxygen (money) needed for these industries to survive. Without an ability to process payments, the businesses, especially online vendors, cannot survive.

The general outline is the DOJ and bank regulators are putting the screws to banks and other third-party payment processors to refuse banking services to companies and industries that are deemed to pose a reputation risk to the bank. Tom Blumer's extremely informative post summarizing what is known to date about Operation Choke Point reproduces the list of businesses affected, which includes things such as ammunition sales, escort services, get-quick-rich schemes, on-line gambling, racist materials and payday loans. Quite obviously, some of these things are not like the other; moreover, just because there are some bad apples within a legal industry doesn't justify effectively destroying a legal industry through secret executive fiat.

There are also reports that porn stars (and here) have had their bank accounts terminated for moral reasons related to the reputation risk of banking individuals in the porn industry. So far, one of the porn stars has sued to try to determine why his loan application was denied.

The larger legal and regulatory issue here is the expansive use of the vague and subjective standard of reputation risk to target these industries. In a letter to Janet Yellen, the chair of the Federal Reserve, last week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling expressed concern over the growing use of reputation risk as a vehicle for attacking legal businesses.

The California Assembly has advanced a measure requiring the use of protection like condoms in pornographic movies.

Assembly Bill 1576 garnered the bare minimum 41 votes necessary for passage. Abstaining from voting were several Assembly members from the Los Angeles area, where the porn industry is a significant force.

Opposing the bill is California's powerful adult entertainment industry, represented by a group called the Free Speech Coalition. Rigorous testing for sexually transmitted diseases makes the bill unnecessary, they contend. They warn that new restrictions would muffle an economic engine that generates $9 to $13 billion a year, according to a committee analysis.

Los Angeles County already requires condom use for adult movies filmed within county lines. If the rule blankets all of California, according to opponents like the Valley

Californian Charlie Powell claims to have invented a new kind of condom that he is calling the Galactic Cap . Instead of a latex sheath covering the full length of the penis, Powell's condom encases only the tip. That way, semen is trapped without dulling sexual sensation, according to Powell.

Prodded by a competition funded by Bill Gates, who believes more people will wrap it up if condoms are more pleasurable to use, some engineers are turning their attention to building a better condom. After failing to win a funding prize from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Powell is trying to raise money for making his condom through an IndieGogo campaign.

The cap is made up of two parts: a U-shaped polyurethane adhesive film and a reservoir tip that sticks to the adhesive. The film can be worn for hours or even days before sex. The cap is added immediately before sex.

While the cap has yet to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it is worth noting that this condom-alternative is lacking for the exact reason it seems appealing. Regular condoms cover the length of the penis because many sexually transmitted infections are spread through skin-to-skin contact. These include genital warts, genital herpes, HPV, syphilis and molluscum.

Powell recognizes the possible implications for the adult video industry. He says a couple of folks from that business have even expressed interest in investing:

If you use this you might overcome the problem of using a condom on camera. A lot of people might not like the look of the thing going in and out. It's transparent, on the head, so it doesn't look so gross.

A customer is  suing the city of Sandy Springs in Georgia over an ordinance that requires people to have a prescription, or a medical or scientific reason, to buy a sexual device.

Melissa Davenport and her attorney, Gerry Weber, filed the suit because they want the government out of the business of regulating private lives.  She told a reporter that the sex toys saved her marriage and that's why she filed the lawsuit.

The ordinance in question prohibits the selling of sexual devices unless the customers have a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose. This means people need a doctor's prescription, or some kind of proof of medical need before being able to buy sex toys.

Weber says the ordinance violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides a right to privacy.

Upcoming US porn producers WoodRocket.com has signed the team of director Lee Roy Myers and writer A.J. Slater to reunite and create Doctor Whore -- The XXX Parody , a spoof of the Dr Who and his sexy companions.

According to Myers and Slater, great attention to detail was paid when choosing the costumes, script, special effects and sets. Now all that's left is the sex!  Myers said:

We love 'Doctor Who' and want to pay homage to this brilliant series. And add space vaginas,

US Adult performers across the industry are reporting that JPMorgan Chase has sent hundreds of letters to performers informing them that their accounts will be closed May 11.

While Chase has yet to comment on the story, the company has a history of enforcing a quasi-morality clause, prohibiting some businesses deemed adult in nature.

This story was supplemented by reporting by Perez Hilton, who spoke to several sources inside the adult industry, one of whom sent a screenshot of the letter. We recently reviewed the account and determined that we will be closing it on May 11, 2014, the letter from Chase wrote. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

After the Perez Hilton story went live, other porn performers, including Layton Benton and Teagan Presley, began posting similar letters from Chase Bank on Twitter. Benton's account was actually closed on April 11.

And these aren't isolated incidents. According to XBiz, Chase Bank has actually been shutting down porn performers' accounts over the past few months.

BEST PORN MOVIE   Family Business Earlier this year, Digital Sin made the jump into family-style porn (aka incest) with their Tabu Tales line. In the months since, TLA's seen it's sales of this forbidden genre skyrocket into the heavens (or depths of hell, most likely), lead by this gem from director Jacky St. James. Jacky and her partner in crime, visual virtuoso Eddie Powell, manage to make taboo porn that's still classy enough to make you almost forget that the characters on the screen are supposedly related, proving once again that TLA RAW's customers really have no boundaries whatsoever.

BEST PORN PARODY The Walking Dead: A Hardcore Parody Kind of a no-brainer. You take the most popular show on television and add penetration to it. Voila! You've got a bonafide hit! Not that the Burning Angel crew didn't do their homework by giving us all a great flick that stayed true to the source material without skimping on the pussy. Good work, you tattooed freaks!

BEST SEX COMEDY Band Sluts Let's face it. There's no a lot of laughs to be had in pornography anymore. While there's no shortage of sweet gaping bungholes or jizz-basted faces, the idea of actually finding a porno movie hilarious is pretty slim these days. So when a script from POPPORN's own Spock BUCKTON ends up in the hands of Joanna Angel and her inked-up pussy brigade finds its way to your TV screen, you consider yourself lucky that the gods of hilarity have smiled upon you. Also, this thing won the AVN award for best jokes, too, and those guys know what they're doing, right?

SICKEST PORN   My Handiwork 4: God's Work Frankly, we thought this movie was sort of tame when compared to a lot of the stuff that the church actually gets up to behind closed doors. But that sentiment apparently isn't shared by the legion of voters who overwhelmingly chose this movie to be more gross than two different incest flicks, a piss movie and a brutally uncomfortable bondage film. We're scared to imagine what people will think next year, when Pop One Productions' Nazi handjob movie is sure to weasel its way into this very category.

FEMALE PERFORMER OF THE YEAR   Siri God damn it, Siri's fucking gorgeous. That's been the TLA stance since we first laid eyes on here in last year's Big Girls Are Sexy , and it makes us feel vindicated to see that the fans feel the same way, as they gave Siri over 500 votes more than they gave any of the other nominees.

STUDIO OF THE YEAR   Girlfriends Films We can't say we're all that surprised by this one. Month after month, Girlfriends movies continue to rank among the most popular DVDs on our site. The fans love the ever-loving fuck out of them, and they've shown it with their votes. Hell, folks seem to be even more gaga over Girlfriends now that they've begun releasing movies that feature dicks going in! While we don't want to worry any of the worthy opponents of this groundbreaking studio, we've heard whispers of some big developments for Girlfriends in 2014, which is putting them in a pretty sweet position to win next year's award, too.

BEST FEMALE NEWCOMER   Bonnie Rotten It's been a while since we've witnessed a debut as unrelenting as Bonnie's. This tattooed sex goddess from hell arrived on the scene practically pre-gaped, setting the stage for a year's worth of the most brutally relentless assfucking, gang banging and squirting action we've seen in years.

BEST DIRECTOR   Mason At the start of 2012, we saw Mason's hasty departure from Elegant Angel, where she made a name as one of the best pornographers in the business. After a few months of worried, stressful masturbation to lesser directors (no offense to any of them, obvie), Mason re-emerged at the helm of not one, but two fantastic new studios: the romantically-themed Erotica X and the rougher, tougher, no-holds-barred gonzo outfit, Hard X.

The 30th annual X Rated Critics Organisation (XRCO) Awards have been announced. Here is a  selection of winners:

• Best Release: The Submission of Emma Marx , New Sensations Erotic Stories
• Best Epic: Underworld , Wicked Pictures
• Best Parody (Comedy): Grease XXX , Adam & Eve Pictures
• Best Parody (Drama): OMG...It's The Leaving Las Vegas XXX Parody , Septo/Paradox/Exquisite
• Best Parody (Comic): Man of Steel XXX: A Porn Parody , VividXXXSuperheroes
• Best Gonzo Movie: Remy LaCroix's Anal Cabo Weekend , LeWood/Buttman/Evil Angel
• Best Gonzo Series: Wet Asses , Jules Jordan Video
• Best Girl/Girl Series: Women Seeking Women , Girlfriends Films
• Best POV Series: POV Pervert , Mike John/Jules Jordan
• Best Ethnic Series: Asian Fuck Faces , Jonni Darkko/Evil Angel
• Best Director (Features): Jacky St. James
• Best Director (Non-Features): Mason
• Best Director (Parody): Will Ryder
• Best Actress: Remy LaCroix, The Temptation of Eve , New Sensations Erotic Stories
• Best Actor: Richie Calhoun, The Submission of Emma Marx, New Sensations Erotic Stories
• Female Performer of the Year: Remy LaCroix
• Male Performer of the Year: Manuel Ferrara
• New Starlet: A.J. Applegate

Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Manhattan is suing to keep the taxman at bay by claiming the state violated the club's First Amendment rights by levying fees against dancing routines while letting operas and Broadway shows skirt sales tax.

The government's 8.5% take from the club is an impermissible taxation upon constitutionally protected expression, club lawyers claim in a new Manhattan civil suit.

A state tax rule exempts any roof garden, cabaret or other similar place which furnishes a public performance for profit. Performance is defined as live dramatic, choreographic or musical performance.

When determining what type of venues are taxed, auditor Renel Saint-Amour said:

It is related to dramatics, things that are preformed at an opera house and not in terms of a social club that provides exotic dancers or the so-called gentleman's club.

What is performed at the club is entertainers that perform laptop dancing. We don't view that as a dramatic event.