This is, in more ways than one, kind of brilliant. First, it passes the Apple Comstock test — calling itself “PG-13″ and explaining “SuicideGirls is a community that celebrates alternative beauty and alternative culture from all over the world. Now you can interact with them right in your pocket.” Of course, you can do a lot more “interacting” over at the R-rated, and definitely not free, SuicideGirls.com. Second it combines sexiness proper with the sexy appeal of the iPhone itself. These ladies look good, but specifically they look good as brightly colored icons against white backgrounds viewed on a shiny, shiny screen.

What does it mean to carry around Suicide Girls in your pocket? What does it mean to, with a twist of the wrist, make them strip on your command? I love the interactive control of this app, simple and straightforward as it may be. Clothes on, clothes off, clothes on, clothes off. In trying to adapt the naughty pen model for the tech age (flip the pen and her bikini slides down, remember?), the app developer has added tension to the act of smut consumption by incorporating what’s quite nearly a game mechanic. Ladies and gentlemen, we have successfully salacious interactivity!

Now if only we could channel this tiny, tasty success into a full-blown successful sex game, I might have a Macworld review on my hands… not that it would ever pass by the puritan eye of Papa Apple. Those guys hate pleasure, I hear. Maybe that explains why all the kinksters I meet from the valley work at Google.

- “Bondage Sets and Miniskirts on a Tour of Kink’s Armory”

- “Dildo Storage and Quality-of-Life Orgasms at Good Vibrations’ Headquarters”

- “Habits, Heels, and Ear Brassieres Come with a Surprising Spirituality” (The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence)

- “The Best Dyke Porn Producer in San Francisco: At Pink & White Productions”

- “Ultimate Surrender: Erotic Wrestling at Kink’s Armory”

- “Where Glam Meets Business: Behind the Scenes at The Lusty Lady”

Photo above: the doodling of Kink.com porn stars waiting to go on set. Check out the full Sexy SF photo set for more visual — as they say — stimulation.

The article, as a reminder, was written for the experimental, community-funded journalism site Spot.Us, which raises donations from readers for local interest stories. Though I think the idea behind the site, and the dedication of its founder David Cohen, is admirable, I had a very mixed experience writing “Hard Times.” Because I didn’t want to demand too much of the community, I asked for a fee much lower than my normal pay rate. There were also ethics issues in terms of pinging the business featured in the story to contribute. Then there were the sheer number of delays that come with working with so many people in the publication process. What’s in store for the future of journalism, no one is sure, but I don’t think this model is it.

For the last few weeks, for my PC World piece on internet porn and whether it’s recession-proof, I’ve been researching the ongoing transition of porn from real-life to digital distribution. Soon it seems dirty DVDs will be like VHS tapes: relics of an older age sold in bargain bins for years after they become obsolete. Instead, the newest generation of porn consumers goes online for their fix, paying for downloadable content or site memberships, if they pay at all.

While I’m not one to stand in the way of progress, I can’t help but wonder how this sea change will effect the quality of adult entertainment. While the recession weeds out all but the best, most creative studios and force movies online, I still feel certain pornos deserve to be owned on DVD. The Opening of Misty Beethoven, for example, sits proudly on my movie shelf. By contrast, there are plenty of less intelligent adult films with a certain vapid quality that seems oddly well matched with the ephemeral nature of downloads and tube sites.

What to do with all those old porn DVDs? The same thing I do with my VHS tapes. Build an old-tech fort and sit inside it watching new-tech smut.

First, The Atlantic asked the question, “Is Pornography Adultery?” It’s a complicated topic, of course, made all the more current by examples of starlets and politicians who’ve had run-ins with the wonders of online smut. As an admirer of The Atlantic, however, I’ve got to say I was disappointed by their coverage of the topic. With pages and pages of content, they managed merely to go in circles with the moral issues of porn and cheating. Maybe I’ve finally made the transition from writing student to journalist, but honestly, I don’t want to know how the author rationalizes sneaking off to stare at theoretical Jenna Jameson videos. I want to hear how real people with real stories approach this issue. Whether you like it or not, America, this one goes deeper than hypothetical musing. People are facing this decision every day.

Even more unsettling was a piece in the The New York Times titled “Hopelessly Devoted to You, You and You.” In it, polyamory gets discussed like the bizarre but endearing arrangement of one particularly NYC couple (and one couple only) — who have to balance their secondary partners and their parents in a manner befitting a sitcom. Worse than this glib attitude toward what’s fast becoming a serious alternative to monogamy/norms for people of our generation is this quote from a sex researcher from the University of Chicago, which reads: “polyamorists are probably ‘just talking like that because they haven’t found somebody special.’”

Seriously? And gay people are just talking like that because they got dropped on their heads as babies? Sometimes it’s amazing how close-minded even the intellectual elite can be.

Anyways, on Friday I was pleased to have lunch with Gerald Jones, once a Gamasutra interviewee on violence in video games and now a writing buddy for those days when nothing goes with black bean soup like the over-analysis of aggression in contemporary society. After that I headed to Sandbox, a cool little PR company who’s singular purpose is to offer a cozy spot to hang out and test games (more on those soon). From there I hit up Kink.com’s release party for their new gay male bondage site Bound Gods. Then I ate a Mission burrito, some Bi-Rite ice cream, and promptly passed out full of happiness.

Screw the ice cream, you’re thinking, what about the gay male bondage party? Ah yes, that. It was held in what I’ve recently been informed is very much Kink.com’s building — the Armory — a giant, brick building that’s possibly the closest thing San Francisco has to a castle. As I discuss on Heartless Doll, it was a sexy but toned down affair, with only two screens showing hardcore porn and only two nearly naked go-go boys working the floor and then dancing on mini stages. Also, as mentioned, it’s really hard to hold a conversation with someone’s perfectly formed ass in your face.

According to Kink’s PR rep Thomas Roche, I might get to take a proper tour of the Armory sometime soon. Now to find an excuse — i.e. a publication that wants an article about my roaming sex studios and drooling.

The reason Click Me has been MIA: the Village Voice site got a makeover. From now on you can find my column here, in the sex section.

Also of interest in the realm of sex machines is this coverage of Regina’s from the Adult Novelty Expo. You too could buy a giant sexy toy that plugs into the wall and never gets tired. Now how to explain it to house guests.

Oh, and there’s also this week’s Clickable Clit. So much to read…

Update: check out the Fucking Machines gallery for shots of the machines doing there things.

I mentioned recently I read Audacia Ray’s Naked on the Internet, a great intro to issues of female empowerment, porn, and technology. One of the sections that really struck me was called “A Bloody Business: Independent Period Porn.” In it, Dacia talks about how a handful of female pornographers, including Heroine Sheik favorite Trixie, have used the open space of the internet to explore bleeding as part of their online sexuality:

“As a rule, menstruation is generally not something that’s seen in porn, which is a peculiar omission in an industry that fetishizes everything from shoes to stuffed animals to exeretory functions. Though credit card companies seem to have no problem with double- and triple-penetration sites, bukkake, and electrical play, most of them regard menstruation and other forms of blood play as out of bounds.”

While two of the three menstruation sites Dacia mentions have had to shut down (including Trixie’s Bloody Trixie) she reminds, “Period porn is a significant example of the power of the Internet for female pornographers who want to put something different into the world.”

Another interesting point: there are some male-run sites in this bloody vein (yes, ouch). However, “the vast majority… do not focus on menstruation as a sexual interest or fetish, but rather are sites run by men that focus on the refuge of menstruation: soiled underwear, dirty maxi pads, and tampons… Though this apparent disinterest may seem to some that the focus is in the wrong place, it is in keeping with the traditional trappings of fetishism, where an object becomes the erotic focus.”

Wait, we get to talk about Freud’s concept of fetishism? OMG, dork-out!

Okay, so according to Freud–who isn’t so much a valid psychological reference anymore as a really awesome person to use for literary and cultural analysis–a fetish object serves to both block and remind of a site of trauma. So, for example, a young boy first peers up a dressing gown and sees a woman’s genitals. Around them, he also sees her pubic hair. In response, he develops a fur fetish. Similarly, we could say the menstruation fetishist who focuses on the bloody tampon is both ignoring and returning to the original image: a bloody vagina.

Wait, is this getting too weird for you guys? Could anything really get weirder than Sporn?

Whorelore, the lovely people who’ve brought us episode after episode of World of Warcraft themed porn, are temporarily turning their attention to the recently released MMO Age of Conan. Their newest episode, The Rage of Bonan, adapts the game’s first training quest, in which players free a young woman held captive and lead her through the wilderness to safety. Of course, in the Whorelore version, the damsel in question is more than happy to reward her savior with an extensive blowjob and some disproportionate sex noises.

The episode, which is available to download for $7, involves not only the standard Whorelore attention to detail and dorky dirty talk, but also an opening sequence of CGI. Yes, CGI. Like previous episodes, The Rage of Bonan offers pretty standard, male-oriented sex fair. You know the formula: oral sex, vaginal sex, orgasm on face. Still, you’ve got to give these guys credit for the creative power of their fandom. These aren’t just parody videos. They’re acts of sweaty fan boy love.

According to the site’s founder and namesake, Abby Winters, what makes her models so enthusiastic—and her porn so sexy—is her emphasis on “naturalness.” Unlike most pornography, where even amateurs get dolled up with makeup and “six-inch plastic high heels,” Winters says her models have regular clothes, no fake boobs, and plenty of pubic hair. (“Shaving is so ’90s,” declares the “Be a Model” section of the site.) She only hires women between the ages of 18 and 25, and proportionate figures that promote “a positive body image” are a must. “We’re basically subverting the porn paradigm,” Winters explains. “All our models are just normal women.”

Thanks to Regina Lynn, who’s earlier column on the subject cued me in to checking out Abby Winters. Oh, also, two redheads making out: both strangely appealing and strangely wrong. Their are so few of us in the world, it seems like redhead incest. Anyone? Anyone?