Gloria's Oversexed Mind

Transgender transformation of the mind

A fascinating little mind game played out in a researcher's lab has produced astonishing results that should be of particular interest to perverts and people who enjoy role-play.

Researchers using closed-circuit televisions to create an illusion have made volunteers virtually swap bodies, even making women believe they were in a man's body and vice-versa.

The experiment, reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE on Tuesday, shows it is possible to manipulate the human mind to create the perception of having another body, the Swedish researchers said.

Swedish researchers create body-swap illusion.

Imagine being able literally to transform your mind temporarily so that you could absolutely believe you were the (fill-in-the-blank) of your wildest dreams.  Imagine if the transformation was so real to you that not for a second during this experience would there be any underlying awareness that you were anything but what your mind says you are.

To a sadomasochist, the ramifications are staggering. If you can fool a brain into believing one is a member of the opposite sex, can you fool the adult brain into believing one is a piece of furniture? a four-legged creature? a child?

One of the toughest parts of being a kinky person with a transformational fetish (where you become something or someone other than you are in your daily personae) is verisimilitude. Even when you look the part, even when you believe in the part, sometimes it may still seem like a part.  It's hard to block out what the mind knows.  But with such a gadget, the mind only knows what the person running the test wants it to know.

My depraved imagination reels at all the possibilities this research opens. 

Flash Sperm

Thanks to Mike for pointing me to this medical conference freebie. 

And Now for Something Completely Different: www.medgadget.com

Is McColo behind penis spam too?

Regular readers know I've occasionally graced the blog with "found poems" based on hilarious spam mail for fake penis enhancement pills. Apparently, some bots found out I like sex and my mailboxes were hammered with improbable claims from those who have made a mint on men who think their dicks are small.

Recently, however, the tidal wave of snake oil PR has turned into a trickle and I'm wondering if I can thank a hard-working reporter at the Washington Post for this spam relief.

According to the article clipped below, 75% of all US spam mail was hosted by McColo. Is it possible that my mailboxes are feeling cleaner lately because these dirtbags are on the run, now that their ISPs have shut them down? I'm even getting fewer Nigerian bank scams and "you've won the lottery" emails. Have you noticed a drop in the amount of spam you're getting?

Host of Spam Groups Is Blocked From Internet Access.

The volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide may have dropped drastically yesterday after a Web-hosting firm, identified by many in the computer security community as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity, was taken offline.

McColo, a San Jose Web-hosting company that, according to computer security experts, serves as a U.S. staging ground for international firms that sell a variety of items, including counterfeit pharmaceuticals and child pornography, ceased operations after two Internet providers blocked Web access.

SecureWorks, an Atlanta security-services provider, estimates that McColo was responsible for 75 percent of all spam sent in the United States each day.

The good news is that McColo is temporarily out of biz. The bad news is that experts believe McColo will relocate and do it all over again.

By the way: the next time law enforcement shuts down a BDSM club, ask yourself why no agencies seem to be going after McColo, which also hosted child porn. It took the reporter at the WaPo to piece together McColo's trail of slime across the web.

Voyeurs' Delight

via Gizmodo, the ultimate toy for voyeurs. (Though, of course, the machine doesn't REALLY give you X-ray vision....)

Have you ever wondered what somebody looks like under their clothes? I'm guessing you have! Well, so have researchers at Brown University. That's why they've developed some fancy software that creates models of what people look like naked based only on pictures of them in their clothes.

Ultimate Perv Tech Creates Model of Your Naked Body Using Photo of You Fully Clothed.

Sex, cybersex, and joysticks

Interestingly (and erroneously), according to the Salon reviewer (clip below), the author of this book, dates cybersex texting back to AOL. Huh? I believe that credit should go to Compuserve or Prodigy (or possibly as far back as the BBS systems and the Source, where much of the conferencing/networking/chatting madness began). Nor is there mention of UseNet's important role (at least not in this review). But Compuserve and Prodigy for sure pre-dated AOL when it comes to cybersex chat rooms. (Bonus points for those of you who remember the CB area on CIS in the 1980s.) Hope the author's history of gaming software is more accurate.

Interview with Damon Brown, author of "Porn & Pong".

In 1972, our sexual landscape was forever changed by the release of two pop-culture legends: the skin flick "Deep Throat" and, months later, the arcade game "Pong." Since then, pornography has greatly influenced how sex and sexuality are explored in gaming, which in just three decades has ballooned into a $9.5 billion industry. From early '80s sleaze fests like "Leisure Suit Larry" to the porny moans of pneumatic "Tomb Raider" heroine Lara Croft to the teledildonics that are changing the way we have -- and think of -- sex, video games have evolved with an understanding that humans crave sexual interaction, whether with a virtual character or a fellow human with high-speed Internet....

Brown explores how virtual sex has gone from the crude, joystick-controlled adult games on the Atari 2600 and text-only cybering in early-'90s AOL chat rooms to bumping uglies (fully customizable, by the way) in the virtual world "Second Life" and banging prostitutes in "Grand Theft Auto." He also examines how video vixens went from having bodies practically built out of Lego blocks to becoming ever more realistic -- at least, as much as porn-industry bodies can be called "realistic."

Double-Click your Dominatrix

I'm laughing on the outside, but I'm crying on the inside.

techPowerUp :: OCZ Dominatrix Gaming Mouse Review

Canadian porn for Canadians

Our neighbors to the north are apparently tired of seeing frolicsome foreigners (that would be us Americans) in adult movies. So some patriotic entrepreneurs are banking on local talent to tantalize adult consumers.

New porn channel lets Canadians strut their stuff

Canadians who may have become tired of being passed over as porn stars will have a new, home-grown outlet to showcase their erotic talents.

Federal regulators have granted Alberta-based Real Productions approval to launch a new digital pornography channel, which promises to serve up at least 50 percent domestic content.

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved the Category 2 pay-television service on Wednesday, allowing Northern Peaks to become "Canada's first adult video channel offering significant Canadian adult content."

"I think as Canadians there is a bit of a tiredness in seeing all American stuff," Shaun Donnelly, president of Real Productions...."There is always that thrill for something that is local and you get the sense that these are people you can meet at the supermarket."

Personally, I'd be scared to see some of the people at my local supermarket in the buff, but I wish them best of luck.

Google forced into court again

I have to agree with commentators on a post about Google data being used in court -- in that case, the cause was good.

But what worries me is that so many lawyers are hauling Google into courts and forcing them to release data of all kinds. One day it seems harmless...and the next day it could translate into witch-hunts.

Judge Orders YouTube to Hand Over User Data

In a potentially huge blow to the fight for privacy on the Internet,a judge has ordered that Google must hand over data about every video viewed by YouTube users to Viacom, including usernames and IP addresses. Viacom is suing Google for allowing its copyrighted content to be posted to YouTube, and hopes to use this data to prove that copyrighted material is more popular than user-generated content on the site.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has already called the decision a violation of the Video Privacy Protection act, and you can bet Google will fight the ruling tooth and nail.

I think and hope that Google attorneys can figure out a way to protect the data. Sure, it's great when it can be used to help people for the right reasons. But the US Courts' belief that the data is a treasure-trove of American secrets scares me.

Spore Sex

Spore is coming!

And boy is it coming. And coming.

The pre-release of teaser technology to get people hooked on the game is already turning some otherwise reasonably mature adults (blinking at my ketzl) into freaky-sex-crazed Spore-aholics. I checked out some of the colorful characters people have uploaded to YouTube. As you'll see, they're totally cocked up.

The new "Google defense" in obscenity trial

Gawker reported on an obscenity trial in Florida where the defense will be using Google stats to prove that everyone's got a bit of the perv in them.

Obscenity: Google to Prove You're a Sex-Fiend In Court

This is why Google has spent a decade collecting and preserving all the information it can gather about everyone on Earth: so it can prove in a court of law that your neighbors are perverts. There's an obscenity trial going on down in Florida, where life itself is generally obscene, against an icky hardcore pornographer (first they came for CumOnHerFace.com, and I said nothing, because I preferred alt-porn). In an obscenity trial, the prosecutors must prove that the material is in violation of "community standards." This is, obviously, a ridiculous yardstick. Everyone who watches movies knows that just below the friendly surface of American Suburbia lies violence, depravity, secret gay neighbors, and Dean Stockwell in eyeshadow. But jurors like to pretend that they've never enjoyed a little Skinimax. This is where Google—and your deepest, darkest secrets—come into play!

In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.”

Clever defense -- but does this open the door to other lawyers in future cases demanding that Google cough up data, for example prosecutors who want to track down people who type in terms that might suggest users are seeking illegal info on-line?