Sam Sugar, of Sugar Bank and related fame, is a very funny man. His post yesterday on 10 Lies Pornographers Tell had me in stitches. I was particularly amused by “1. Porn stars are breaking into the mainstream” and “9. Art Porn,” the latter of which included the beautiful explanation “Bach was a better composer than Yanni, and Monet was a better painter than Thomas Kincaid. If you disagree that’s not an opinion, it’s proof you’re an imbecile.” Now I’ve seen art which I felt appealed to the prurient interest, or at least made me wet, and I’ve seen adult material which I felt attained a higher level.

But naturally the debate in the comments section on SugarBank is not about the nature of art. The debate is about “8. Alt Porn. Traditionally porn performers get paid a fixed daily rate, don’t get any residual pay and have no real control over the product they’re in. The product itself features skinny white girls from the flyover states who get hired because of how they look and how they fuck. Or is that alt-porn? Janine’s been rocking tatts and attitude for a decade while raising two kids without ever being labeled ‘alt’ anything, while ‘alt porn’ darling Joanna Angel recently said on camera “…does the fact I’ll let any stranger cum on my face but won’t fuck a black guy make me a racist?” Er… yes it does Joanna. A tattoo and a bad dye-job is not going to upset ‘the system’ and the ‘alternative’ to traditional porn is independence, control and new ideas not haircuts, piercings and hip records.” But what about a really good tattoo and a really good dye job?

But the debate isn’t about how good a dye job it would take to facilitate true change. Someone named FurryGirl starts going off about how she disrespects her affiliates and mainstream porn. Never mind that on her site she openly states that the only photographers she would work with are those “emailing from a major adult entertainment company.” On SugarBank, she continues to slag everyone within striking distance with “don’t get me started on how painfully cliche most of the photography is on goth/punk porn sites. Haven’t we all had enough of pale goth chicks licking knives menacingly or masturbating in cemeteries?” First off, I will never get enough of pale goth chicks with weapons or tombstones. Secondly, I’ve seen a good number of what would count as the goth or punk porn sites on the web and I’ve never seen a set of someone actually masturbating in a graveyard. This suggests to me that, at the very least, the execution of such sets can hardly be trite, them not existing and all. So Forrest Black from gothic punk erotica icon Blue Blood jumps into the fray stating that FurryGirl “can kinda fuck off” and “There is an air of irreverent DIY independence connoted by the ‘altporn’ term or label, and I simply can’t accept the idea that traditional corporate product can live up to that notion. Then again, I think that term was originally coined by corporate interests eager to exploit the tattooed and pierced teen market space.”

Once the dust settled, Sam Sugar and Forrest Black had agreed that Janine Lindenmuller and Belladonna have got it going on and the brilliantly insightful Sam Sugar had coined the expression altsploitation, saying, “just like blacksploitation movies had little to do with changing the role, or perception, of blacks in Hollywood. Alt is only as ‘alt’ as the system that produces it and most of it’s as mainstream as anything.”

And I’m left really annoyed that FurryGirl is just a girl from the amateur porn niche who only shaves a little bit and not, as I’d hoped from her moniker, a women who has sex in a colorful furry animal costume.

How very pleasant to be finishing up the week here with news of Fatal Beauties, featuring some nice artsy photos of some very cute tattooed girls. (via SpookyBlog)

If only there existed a private video of Catherine Chandler and Vincent getting it on, no doubt Mr. Skin would have it in their collection of Linda Hamilton’s more naked cinematic moments.

Happy birthday to actor Vince Vaughn, best known in science fiction circles for his turn as the White Rabbit in Sex and the Matrix. Okay, not really. Really happy birthday, but not really best known for that particular MTV spoof of The Matrix and Sex and the City.

Marcus Severus Didius Julianus (133 or 137–193) was emperor of the Roman Empire from 28 March until 1 June 193. He ascended the throne after buying it from the Praetorian Guard, who had assassinated his predecessor Pertinax. This incited the Roman Civil War of 193–197. Julianus was ousted and sentenced to death by his successor, Septimius Severus.

Julianus was born to Quintus Petronius Didius Julianus and Aemilia Clara, a noble family from Milan. His date of birth is given as January 30, 133 by Cassius Dio and February 2, 137 by the Historia Augusta. Didius Julianus was raised by Domitia Lucilla, the mother of Marcus Aurelius. He was consul in 175.

After the murder of his predecessor, Pertinax, the throne was sold by auction by the Praetorian Guard. Didius Julianus offered every soldier 25,000 sestertii, outbidding City Prefect Titus Flavius Sulpicianus. Threatened by the military, the Senate declared him emperor. His wife, Manlia Scantilla, and his daughter, Didia Clara, both received the title Augusta.

The auction proved highly unpopular, and three generals in different parts of the empire (Pescennius Niger in Syria, Clodius Albinus in Britain, and Septimius Severus in Pannonia) wasted no time in taking advantage of the situation by rising in rebellion. Septimius Severus marched on Rome, ousted Didius Julianus and had him decapitated. He dismissed the Praetorian Guard and executed the soldiers who had killed Pertinax.

(via Wikipedia and CNGCoins)

The modern waffle has its origins in the late middle ages. Waffle irons consisted of two metal plates connected by a hinge, each plate was connected to a wooden arm. Some plates had imprinted designs such as a coat-of-arms or landscape, while some had the now-familiar honeycomb/gridiron pattern. The iron was placed over a fire and would need to be flipped manually to cook both sides of the waffle. These irons were used to produce a variety of different flat, unleavened cakes (usually from a mixture of barley and oats, not the white flour used today). Some were rolled into a horn or tube, others were left flat. In many cities, waffles were sold off carts by street vendors. Judging from extant illustrations, these vendors gave people their money’s worth, as the waffles in question were about the size of a small pizza, although there was a hidden cost: because of stone grinding methods, there was so much grit in flour that teeth were often worn to the gum-line by middle age.

In medieval French, the term for this pastry was “oublie” (from Latin “oblata”), sold by “oubloyeurs” in the streets of Paris and other major cities. (via Wikipedia)

International Waffle Day was started in Sweden where it is known as Våffeldagen. It is annually held on March 25.

The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary was once called “Vårfrudagen” (Our Lady’s Day) in Swedish. In certain dialects, the word “Vårfrudagen” was pronounced as “Våfferdagen” [1], Over time the word became “Våffeldagen” (Waffle Day), giving rise to the tradition of eating waffles on this day. (via Wikipedia)

On this day in 1909, Clyde Barrow was born. He would become famous, or at least notorious, for his bank robberies and romantic luring of young Bonnie Parker to a life of crime. Contrary to what one might assume, he was not much of a cocksman.

Alienware’s new leader is Austin’s favorite college dropout, Michael Dell. According to a press release on the Dell site yesterday, Dell has confirmed their intent to acquire Alienware, the computer gaming system company which brought us all the nifty Star Wars pimped out boxes. The plan is for Alienware to continue to operate as a somewhat independent entity, while enjoying the advantages of Dell’s economies of scale. Dell claims to sell more computer systems than any other company in the world and is number twenty-eight on the Fortune 500. Those cyberpunk day traders among you will find that the NASDAQ symbol for Alienware’s new daddy is pleasingly predictably DELL.

Ethnorotica waxed most eloquent on the topic of drawing manga females.

“I have to come clean here. You see, in junior high I fell in with a bad crowd, a group of multi-racial misfits who studied martial arts, collected manga and anime, went to comic-cons and traded duffel bags full of illicit hentai. Luckily for me I eventually discovered girls and thus spared myself a lifetime of collecting little figurines and living in my parents’ basement. Others weren’t so lucky.

It amuses me that years later the fodder for my adolescent fixations has suddenly acquired coolhunting cachet. We in America like to poke fun at the Japanese for their use of Engrish and their appropriation of the most ridiculous bits of American culture, but I’m quite certain they feel the same way regarding our fetishizing of “deviant” Japanese sexuality and otaku culture.” (via Ethnorotica)

Sugar Click is a new site reviews blog. The writing style is lively and personable. The reviews are in-depth without being boring, which is very rare. Essentially, SugarClick.com has the intelligence you wish Fleshbot had. (via Blue Blood)

The queer horror site is a free resource for people who identify as both part of the GLBT community and as horror fans. The site’s web design is a bit out of date, but I think this site’s mission makes that unimportant. The basic concept is that anyone with a marginalized sexuality has experienced some form of horror in his or her real life, yet a lot of horror further marginalizes and demonizes homosexuals and trans people. I would tend to agree with this assessment. It puts the lotion on its skin, anybody? Yet there are also appealing queer characters in horror literature and being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered does not mean you cannot enjoy the genre. The point of QueerHorror.com is essentially to tell others they are not alone. Which is pretty much the best thing any web site can do.

Altporn.net was one of the first sites I ever linked from Sexy Fandom, so odds are that regular readers have probably checked it out before. You have probably noticed the new tagging system on the site here. The tags are the little key word links beneath various posts which lead you to related posts when clicked. Tags are another way for people to navigate a web site and to find web sites with content of interest. I understand that Ed Roth from Altporn was responsible for my exciting new tagging system and I wanted to send him a big Sexy thank you.

I promise you, gentle readers, that I am going to be writing more often than just on holidays. I managed to stay away from the green beer and I have nearly completed a rather soul-sucking screenwriting project. So I should be able to get back to business as usual very soon. Blue Blood ran an entertaining St. Patrick’s Day photo set which inspired me to make a post and share the link for their digital St. Patrick’s Day card.