#cocksinsocksshocks

Awareness raising charities have never been more prevalent than they are now – see recent hubbubs over Lady Gaga’s youth empowerment-focused Born This Way Foundation and Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vaccine Generation Rescue and that whole Pink Ribbon for breast cancer campaign started by the Susan G. Komen organization – but until recently it had seemed most campaigns that took to social media for disbursement were mainly spread and supported by women posting make-up-free selfies and supposedly leukemia-focused cleavage parading. The fellas have finally joined in the fun of (reported) fundraising, snapping selfies that, save for a well placed sock, would be utterly, totally naked. And it’s all in the name of raising awareness of testicular cancer… or prostate cancer… whichever one you like, I guess. (As a movement, it does seem a little unfocused.)

Cocks in Socks

Now, far be it from to claim a double standard when there are so many held against women but not us men, but why does it seem perfectly acceptable in the eyes of so many vocal Instagram and Twitter users (and, if you believe they’re legitimate, Buzzfeed commenters) that all men depicted in the celebratory articles are tall, fit, muscular, and, largely, tattooed and sporting some kind of hip hair style, cranial or facial? Isn’t spouting “Hot damn… Um.. please excuse me while I change my panties ;p” in regard to the valiant effort of brave, selfless men exposing their most vulnerable states to an anonymous global audience a little, well, sexist? Wouldn’t the same comment be downvoted to all hell if posted by a man in response to, say, #titsinmitts? Way to treat us like pieces of meat, ladies! And exactly how does Buzzfeed, HuffPo and other news and content aggregators racking up millions of page views (and advertising dollars) on the backs of these boys and their barely-sheathed tackle help fight… whatever cancer is allegedly the focus here?

#RIPVinePorn

Amateur (and often self-shot) pornography abounds on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, and pretty much any other online community of like-minded horndogs, but one service has decided to nix the homemade erotica for more family friendly values. Unfortunately, that service is also the one that brought us such delectable digital pleasures as a video Daisy Summers calls “Boobs Blunts and Bubbles”, Jessie Andrews joining Aiden Starr for a two-blonde blowjob (kinda), and Alina Li getting very, very comfortable with beer-drining bro on a sofa.

Boobs Blunts and Bubbles

Sucking Dick with Aiden Starr

Alina Li and friend

That’s right, fellas, Vine recently announced that it would no longer permit users to “post content that is pornographic or sexually explicit – even if it is of yourself or marked as sensitive,” effectively banning both pornstars and amateur exhibitionists from sharing their naked forms. It’s not a complete disaster, though. As history has well proven, repression of sexual expression simply forces the erotically inclined to move underground and to find other services. Curiously, Vine’s owner, Twitter, permits porn in abundance, as does Instagram (even if it claims otherwise), while Reddit is flush with dozens of sexy NSFW subforums where enthusiasts share their accumulated images and exhibitionists share their homemade porn without signing away their identity to some skeezy producer. Then there’s Pornstagram, a service that is basically Instagram for adults only. Isn’t that the beauty of living in the Information Age, though? As soon as one service or product disappears, three arise in its place. The Internet: it’s the hydra of porn!

Pornstars Eat 24/7

When you make a living thrashing around on a mattress or sofa until you’re nothing but a spent, sweating heap on the floor, it makes sense that you’d be constantly finding yourself famished at strange times of day. Pornstars are no exception to this rule and actually seem to be embracing their reputation as insatiably hungry women as they embrace a fairly new food delivery service called Eat24.

For its part, Eat24 has done what neither Foodler nor GrubHub managed to: use pornography and pornographers as a notable customer base and part of its marketing campaign. After all, when non-performers are browsing the ‘net in the wee hours of the morning and become inundated with pop-up and banner ads, it’s only the nudie ones that catch their attention. After Eat24 found pornstars tweeting compliments “@Eat24”, spreading the word to their fans, the company’s marketing gurus decided advertising on adult websites would be the most obvious way to spread their new brand far and wide to those who’d likely embrace it: porn fans!

Published on Eat24’s blog, How to Advertise on a Porn Website broke down the company’s reasons for heading into NSFW territory. Infographics abound in the post, giving us laypeople a clear idea of why putting burgers, sushi, and subs on sites like PornHub is a stellar marketing strategy. (And why bananas didn’t make the cut.) The data amassed by Eat24’s researchers brought some curious factoids to light, too. Check out the regional results of polls attempting to discern our nation’s “Horngriest” Cities and Most Sensual Foods, as well as more boring subjects only of interest to designers and marketers, subjects like which banner ads solicited the most click-throughs. (Hint: it was this one.)

Eat24