IT IS BEAUTIFUL

 Someone took the time to combine PornHub comments and stock photos. [h/t RR]

MANNEQUINS ARE BUSTING OUT

If you know my photography, you know I'm a fan of mannequins. Today's New York Times has a story on how mannequins in Venezuela are extra curvy. The ideal Venezuelan body shape is Jessica Rabbit-esque and influenced by a culture that is deeply into plastic surgery.   

Each day, Yaritza Molina arranges several mannequins at the entrance to the small clothing shop she manages in Coro, a city in western Venezuela, always careful to place two ahead of the others. “These are the princesses,” she said, “because they have the best bust.”

“I have lots of clients that come here and say, ‘I want to look like that mannequin,’ ” Ms. Molina said. “I tell them, ‘O.K., then get an operation.’”

This trend is mirrored in America in the African-American community, where you see MediaTakeOut stars like Nicki Minaj and Blac Chyna sporting the same crazy shape.  

GRACE UNDONE

Steven Klein has an extremely cool and totally NSFW fashion spread in the November issue of Interview magazine. The model is Malgosia Bela, a Polish model and actress. In an interview with Into the Gloss, Bela says she is 36. She got married in Azzedine Alaïa and doesn't go the gym. The editorial is Helmut Newton-ish. I like the shots of her peeing like a man, just having strangled a man to death in the subway with a chain, after a terrible car wreck, fondling some meat, and doubling herself at the peep show. That's Steven Klein for you.

FUCK JOURNALISM

Columbia Journalism Review

Jim Romenesko reports that some journalists are up in arms because the Sep./Oct. issue of the Columbia Journalism Review features the word "fuck" on the cover. Actually, it's "fucking." As in "NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE." The phrase is from a quote by NPR's Ira Glass.

“How dare CJR include the F-bomb on its cover!” writes RAR president and former WGN-TV anchor Rick Rosenthal. “The F-bomb has no place anywhere in CJR! Putting it on the magazine cover was outrageously offensive!” 

PARKS AND RECREATION AND STRIPPING

Actor Chris Pratt tells BuzzFeed that he used to be a male stripper. Part-time. And he danced for someone's grandma. 

“I was always a very much naked person. I loved to always get naked. I was very free, so I thought, I may as well get paid,” Pratt, who stars in DreamWorks’ new comedy Delivery Man, admitted to BuzzFeed in a recent interview. He worked several gigs when he was 18, including a bachelorette party, but by far the most memorable job was taking it all off for his friend’s grandmother’s birthday party.

“It was a surprise,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know how it got around to them, but they paid me $40. I was never like Magic Mike, you know. I did go one time and audition on a stage for a club, but I don’t think I got the job. I don’t think I’m a very good dancer.”

TACTICAL GIRLS

Like girls? Like guns? Like girls with guns? Like sexy girls with big guns in the calendar format? Thankfully, the 2014 Tactical Girls Calendar has arrived. There are 13 months. Because that's how long the tactical girl year is.

Fill that 12" x 24" empty space on your Man Cave, garage, barracks or tent wall with 13 months of Girls With Guns.  Calendar includes the whisper-quiet AWC Amphibian pistol, the innovative IWI Tavor  battle rifle and the distance shattering .338 Lapua sniper rifle from Ashbury Precision Ordnance along with a variety of belt fed machine guns, battle rifles, AR platforms and pistols all with gorgeous models in realistic settings.

Bud likes his. 

BADA BANG

Over on my Forbes blog, SIN INC, where I dwell in the valley of vice, I consider "Why There's No 'Sopranos' About the Porn Industry." Apparently, Owen Wilson is developing a series in which FBI agents go undercover in the mob-owned porn industry of the '80s. Will it see the light of day? Here's hoping they don't hire James Frey to write the pilot.

The problem is that any TV show that attempts to faithfully represent the adult business has to show exactly what happens in said industry, and that is inescapably graphic. One could argue that violence is the money shot of “The Sopranos,” but in a TV series about porn, the hardcore aspect of its labor is difficult to dramatize. How do you shoot “porn” without it looking like porn? Well, you can’t.

CHINA'S SEX TOY STARTUPS

The IBT reports, c/o of a report in the South China Morning Post, that China's sex toys startups are banging out revenue left and right.   

Photo credit: Jason Lee / Reuters

"Demand is huge because most people prefer the privacy of shopping for sex toys online,” Li Chengze, another young entrepreneur, said. Starting her career as a journalist, Li eventually opened her own online store, Xiao Ye, after she realized the sex-toy market’s profitability while working in the advertising industry for a year. Li, 26, launched her store only last October, but says she is already receiving hundreds of orders every month.

[h/t: Tracy Clark-Flory] 

BANKING ON PORN

@stoya 

On Twitter, Stoya reveals that Chase not only denied her a bank account due to her work in porn, they won't stop spamming her.

Molly Crabapple deems it: a "whole narrative of sex workers as contaminants, not to be allowed near 'normal' people."

Chase wants to know: "Is there anything I can help you with?"

SLUT STYLE

Photo credit: Michael Nagle / New York Times

The New York Times has a style-oriented profile of Slutever in today's paper: "Karley Sciortino: In Her Own Words":  

LATEST PROJECT Ms. Sciortino has started a twice-a-month column for Vogue.com called “Breathless.” Her column, on dating and relationships, is more PG than she is known for. “American Vogue is actually pretty conservative,” she said. “I’ve already gotten in a long email exchange about not being able to say the word ‘sperm’ outside of a scientific context.”         

BEAUTY QUEENS

For the Telegraph, I covered the Miss You Can Do It Pageant: "No Tantrums, Just Tiaras." The terrific portraits are by Tealia Ellis Ritter. I had a great time traveling to Kewanee, Illinois, to meet the girls and get to know them backstage at the pageant. 

"Pete Santee, who works at a casino in Rock Island, Illinois ('When you hit a jackpot, I’m the guy who comes over and pays you'), is back for the third time with Shya Hughes, 18, the daughter of a friend, Dina Severtsgaard. He is gay and Shya is autistic, and when they first met eight years ago they clicked, he says.

'Shya recognised a difference. She knew, "Pete’s different, and I’m different," and we just connected right away, and it’s been a father-daughter love story ever since. We’re like the Will & Grace of Iowa,' he adds. 'Straight mom. Gay best friend. And Shya’s the autistic daughter.'"

GLAMOUR

The November 2013 issue of Glamour UK has a piece I wrote in it. It's part of a series of opinions by women on porn, ranging from a female porn director to an anti-porn activist. Check it out.  

I GET EMAIL

"Hi, how are you?  Was it hard to write that article?  It blows my mind..  What a difficult niche of media to follow and make since out of.  One would think that maintaining the position as porn star would be impossible..  Mr. Deen must have been charismatic and able to handle the interview well.  I am curious if it was like projected thoughts over emptiness when he was in the room or if you really felt strong and 'as self' or empowered when he was there or if that came after... Regardless, I wanted to thank you for helping me notice that in business or social situations depending on what your leaving, its wise for a male to be the last to enter/leave the room.  Though the article, upon my second reading, doesn't mention it.. it seems convied somehow.  Powerful peace.  Anyway.  thanx."

SMOKING, DRINKING, STRIPPING

The strip club was my favorite part. The conversation with the bouncer looking for love. The plumes of dollars stuffed in garters. The weird intimacy of sitting with a group of people watching a girl take off her clothes. 

"DC Is the Real Sin City"

The club is narrow, like a Louisiana shotgun house. There’s a half-moon stage and a naked woman dancing on it. Upstairs, there are two men sitting at the bar. The backs of their blue jackets spell P-O-L-I-C-E.

WILL WRITE FOR FOOD

Today, I arrived in Washington, DC. I wasn't sure where to go. In a way, I'm not sure why I'm here. 

I found myself at the Newseum. I thought it was a museum about journalism but it's not. It's a museum about news.

That's fine. It makes you realize how important the media is. That it's what matters. That it's the vessel through which the national conversation is conducted. 

After, I wondered if the media or the news is more important. I don't know the answer to that question. 

There was a section on the third floor where kids could pretend to be journalists. Well, not journalists, really. They could pretend to be a news reporter. Which is sort of the glamorous version of a reporter. There was a gaggle of kids running around, and they stood on sets in front of projected images of the White House, and they read scripts, and then they watched videos of themselves telling the news to America.  

I spent some time in the Pulitzer-winning photographs section. The photos were arresting; although, the presentation was very weak. The smaller photos were so small you couldn't see them very well, and the bigger photos were not every well printed. I liked that the cameras that had taken some of the most memorable images of the time had been donated, so you could see the camera that took this famous shot. An artifact. The thing that created the thing was the prize. 

I didn't even see everything. I have to go back tomorrow. 

Out front, a young man was pretending to be a newsboy at a newsstand. He said the news was bad. I asked him what he meant. He said the President had been killed. He was talking about JFK. It wasn't until later that I realized the newsboy and his newsstand were a promotional tool for a movie that's coming out soon. In a way, it was confusing. Was the news happening or had it happened already? For a minute, I wasn't sure. 

THE GUN SHOW

In January, I'll be covering the SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Prior to the start of the event, there's a Media Day at the Range. The video gives you a feel for it.