Some perv at Mashable noticed that LinkedIn just barred an entire profession from using its social network.
The social network updated its user agreement terms on Monday, adding an interesting clause, which caught the attention of one of our readers. Under a section entitled “Don’t undertake the following,” LinkedIn now includes this statement:
Upload, post, email, InMail, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that: Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.
A LinkedIn spokesperson contacted by Mashable explains, “In the old [user agreement], we had it covered by saying that one could not use a profile to promote anything ‘unlawful’. However, in some countries, that activity actually is lawful.”
That raises the question, How many other legal professions are barred from using LinkedIn?
Via Hong Wrong and thousands of other sources comes this photo –
– accompanied by this angry posting to the Facebook page of Starbucks Hong Kong:
This is my sister’s cuppa from your HKU branch. Fancy your staff not being able to spell an American name like Virginia. Forgiving she has been with every misspelled cup. Her cup was once ‘Virgin’. Every Starbucks experience for her has been coupled with fear and anticipation. But THIS is just UNACCEPTABLE. Starbucks HK, you have to buck up or just not spell your customer’s name anyway. It is a derogatory attitude even if it is unintentional. What do you have to say about this?
I can sympathize with the embarrassed customer, though “coupled with fear” is a bit over-the-top. I can sympathize with the hapless barista too. How many Americans would nail the correct spelling of unfamiliar Chinese names after hearing them once? And I assume that working behind the counter at Starbucks is low-paying drudgery in Hong Kong just like everywhere else.
Because this is the internet, there are sites devoted exclusively to the “funny names on Starbucks cups” phenomenon: starbucks cup love and starbucks spelling and probably others.
“Love Land” is a sex education theme park on Jeju Island (sometimes spelled Cheju) in South Korea, opened in 2004. Der Spiegel ran a travel piece about the “salacious Disneyland” in 2006, available in English here: Sex Education in Korea: A Phallus Garden in “Love Land”.
Just behind the entrance to Love Land, an acrobatic, oral-sex ensemble greets visitors. It shows a man and two women — one woman has her legs wrapped around the man’s neck and looks like she’s going to break her own neck any minute. The acrobatic threesome is illuminated at night, just like the other exhibits here: the nipple mountain crowned with pink nubs or the sturdy erect penises that rise up from the goldfish pond like a fountain. The sculptures are so explicit you can’t help stopping in front of them with a mixture of disbelief and amusement — even as a jaded Western tourist.
Jeju Island has been a traditional honeymoon spot for South Korean newlyweds since the late 1940s.
During the last few decades, many of these marriages were arranged by the parents of the spouses. The lucky ones might have had a brief chance to meet each other — under the watchful eyes of relatives — before exchanging vows. And then, after their wedding, they were immediately flown off to the south — to Cheju Island. As they got used to the notion of being bonded for life, they spent their wedding night and the following days on the Honeymoon Isle, which thereby also became a kind of “island of sex ed.”
In the evenings, the hotel would offer an entertainment program featuring lap dances and others raunchy or risqué highlights. Its purpose was to help the intimidated, freshly married novices relax — and perhaps to give them some ideas for later.
Love Land fits into this “island of sex ed” theme, though one would imagine that more couples nowadays commence their honeymoons with some sexual experience or at least knowledge.
The Windsor Star website has a gallery of 40 snapshots from Love Land. Most of it strikes me as tacky or silly, not especially erotic, but the visitors all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely.
People magazine named Gwyneth Paltrow the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World”. Its most recent “Sexiest Man Alive” was Channing Tatum. Meanwhile Mila Kunis has been named the “Sexiest Women Alive” by Esquire, the “Most Fuckable Celebrity” by Details, and the “Sexiest Woman In The World” by FHM.
Here’s my question: why always actors? Nothing against these three, who are all objectively attractive people, but what’s so exceptionally sexy about actors? Hollywood actors generally exude a blend of self-importance and shallowness that I find grating and unsexy. Plus Kunis is sleeping with Ashton Kutcher and Paltrow is sleeping with the Coldplay guy, which further undermines any fantasy element for me.
The most beautiful woman in the world today is probably a recent high school graduate in the Ukraine or Ireland or South Korea.
Worth a read: “Most Gwyneth!” by Paul Rudnick in The New Yorker.
New York magazine ran a hot trend piece this month: Why are a bunch of men quitting masturbation? So they can be better men. The article’s research consists almost entirely of browsing the NoFap forum on Reddit, which the article does not link to.
The piece is getting much supportive response. Up at The Frisky: Why It’s A Good Thing That Men Are Reflecting About Masturbation The piece is also getting much skeptical response. Up at Gawker: In Defense of Masturbation.
Count me in the skeptical camp. I’m a great believer in moderate vice, whether drinking alcohol or smoking pot or masturbating to porn or gambling or playing videogames or whatever. All of these things can be harmful if taken to extremes or done compulsively, but all can be very enjoyable parts of a balanced and productive life in moderation. Occasional masturbation has definite health benefits, both physical and emotional. Excessive self-denial can be just as harmful as excessive indulgence.
I’m also skeptical about Gary Wilson, the guy whose TEDx talk and website YourBrainOnPorn.com are frequently cited in movement circles. He makes grand claims about internet porn causing erectile dysfunction and “rewiring” your brain, but these claims have no scientific basis. Other skeptics are skeptical too.
This no-fap subculture may help some guys get control of their lives. For others it may lead to needless anxiety and shame. Disclaimer: Daze is neither a licensed therapist nor an expert on anything whatsoever.
Wood Rocket brings whimsy and smarts to a usually crass genre, the porn tube site. And the site produces much original content rather than simply recycling or stealing old porn.
My favorite series there is Topless Girls Reading Books. It’s exactly what it sounds like: video clips, mostly around two minutes each, of topless girls reading aloud from books. The reading choices range from The Art of War to Tom Sawyer to Clockers to They Call Me Baba Booey.
The most recent installment features London Keyes reading Beowulf. I really wanted to like this one — great book, great boobs — but it exemplifies two flaws in the series. First, stumbling delivery. Reading aloud cold is difficult, and you can notice the difference when the performer has read through their passage once or twice before the camera rolls. Second, half the point of topless girls reading books is lost if the topless girl holds the book directly in front of her breasts while reading.
