The 50 Shades Countdown
Whether or not you’re a Fifty Shades of Grey fan, it’s hard not to admit that the books, and now the movie, have changed and opened up peoples’ sexual interests and desires. That isn’t a bad thing. As part of their Fifty Shades Countdown, Em and Lo have chronicled those changes in an article, How Fifty Shades has Changed Sex Over the Past Several Years .With plenty of notice of the movie’s release on Feb. 13, the sex toy industry created a lot of new BDSM products designed for curious beginners. According to XBiz, Lovehoney predicts that the Grey craze will create a €75 million ($86 million USD) boom in 50 Shades related sales for Valentine’s Day throughout the industry.
Has the world’s 50 Shades obsession made BDSM the new standard for hot sex? Is vanilla sex too boring?
Cara Sutra’s suggestion for a really alternative Valentine’s Day is to go vanilla. Not that the Domme blogger plans on going vanilla. However, she says, "Personally, I do enjoy having a day to make an extra fuss of my partner as well as break out the bubbly and Belgian chocolates. I’ve also got a weakness for red roses, so it’s all good with me."
Yet, there are people who can’t get their heads around why things like getting flogged and spanked are so sexy. Charlie Glickman addresses a lot of reasons in great detail in a recent blog post Q&A: Why Do People Do That? just in case you were curious.
What if the Fifty Shades of Grey movie gets panned by movie critics and bombs at the box office? Writing for Defamer, Kelly Conaboy suggests that it could be a strong possibility. She chronicled lead stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson’s press tour and concluded, "Simply put, romantic leads Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan do not like each other. They dislike other things as well—the press; sex; the film in which they are starring—but it is clear their distaste for each other is the most keenly felt of all."
The Fun of Flirting
With this being the "Greyest" Valentine’s Day of all, have people forgotten about the fun of flirting? In case you need a refresher, a reminder, or don’t think you don’t know how to flirt well, Dr. Jessica O’Reilly shares some tips on how to flirt from her book, The New Sex Bible, in Evoke. If you’re into the idea of flirting but want an easier way to get your point across, E! Online has some recommendations of emjois you might want to add to your sexy text messages.What’s in a Domain Name?
There haven’t been many hot stories in the sex world about cybersquatting lately, but two came up last week.Are you surprised that Porno.com isn't a top video site? It’s because Rick 'Domain King" Schwartz kept his $42,000 investment that he picked up in 2007 in safekeeping until he found the right buyer. According to XBiz, Schwartz finally accepted an all-cash $8,888,888 offer from a Prague-based company that owns Swingers.com and PornoTV.com. It’s the fourth highest URL sale in history.
That’s not to say that Schwartz hasn’t made any money on Porno.com in the past eight years. He’s made $10 million in parking and redirect fees without ever showing any adult content. Despite the difficulties so many adult video sites experience in attempting to turn a topic these days, perhaps showing no nudes is good news?
Then, there’s C.J. Phillips and Charlie Rainwater who own one of the hottest political URLs of the 2016 presidential campaign: JebBushForPresident.com. A story in AlterNet says that the high-tech bear couple from Portland, Oregon bought the URL in 2008 at a time when Texas legislature was either planning to pass or had already passed a bill that made the legal documents created by any couple in a relationship that mimicked marriage null and void. At that time, Bush 3.0’s name had been bandied about as a presidential hopeful one day, but he hadn’t stepped up to the challenge until recently. Even though the former Florida governor has recently softened his stance against same-sex marriage, C.J. and Charlie say that they’re going to use the domain name to educate the public about LGBT issues.
