Club Seventeen was the first porn site I ever joined, back in the late 90s. They were an innovator from the ultra-horny land of the Dutch; they had great stuff at a time when we Americans were still diddling around with stupid, crappy San-Fernando-Valley-wannabe material.

The Club Seventeen website actually grew out of a magazine that started in the 1970s. It has one of the most robust porn pedigrees in the world.

For a while Club Seventeen was vague about the age of their models. They had a disclaimer that said that all models were “of legal age in the Netherlands”. If you looked up what that age was– and there are lots and lots of sites on the Internet that list “age of consent” by country– you come up with a number that showed that seventeen-year-old models would have been alright.

But then the American government declared for the world that the legal age of porn would be 18. How did they do it? By way of Visa and Mastercard! The American authorities made clear to the credit card companies that they couldn’t process transactions from porn sites unless the sites complied with the 18-year-old minimum age and U.S. record-keeping requirements. It didn’t matter one bit what country the porn site and its models were in.

It is a good solution tho’. Having a hard and fast rule that 18 is the age of consent for porn is helpful– it eliminates any uncertainty that might be in your mind when you are running a porn site. Does this model look too young? Is it OK if we put her in a high school cheerleader costume, and then have her get fucked while doing the pom-pom thang??? Sure can… as long as she is 18.

But this rule meant that Club Seventeen had to go through and clean out any of their seventeen-year-old and younger models. And now there are no more 17-year-olds to be found there. Still a great site tho’.

Club Seventeen

You might have heard that porn starlet Sasha Grey is staring in a new, relatively-mainstream film. The Girlfriend Experience is directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Part-time sex blogger Ann Althouse links to an article about the film… and pulls out this great bit on “feminism”:

[Sasha] says she wouldn’t call herself “a crusader,” and she thinks the term “feminist” is useless. “Every woman is a feminist in her own right,” she says. “Whether you’re anti-porn or pro-porn or somewhere in between, feminism has become such a generalized, watered-down viewpoint. Someone can say, ‘I’m a feminist because I believe in sexually empowering women.’ That’s my view on feminism. Someone else’s opinion might be, ‘Having sex is just wrong no matter what.’ And both sides might call themselves feminists.”

And the post elicits all sorts of interesting comments.

It’s fascinating to read these comments and see how differently people view the porn world. There is one guy, “John”, who seems to be hell-bent on the notion that porn cannot be anything more than the most base and empty images of people fucking.

But porn has evolved from the seedy-theater films of the 1970s. Especially in the last few years. It’s not just pornstars fucking anymore. The newer stuff pushes boundaries and is much more real. Is Abby Winters just about people fucking? Is Sex and Submission? I could go on and on…

And there are people who can’t stand this! They want to hold onto their notion that porn is dirty… the fact that it might not be dirty, or that it might be more than dirty and have something worthwhile to offer the viewer, just doesn’t compute.

Violet Blue, for one, appreciates this. From her SF Gate column last week:

For me, Sasha Grey is “The Girlfriend Experience” (trailer) personified. A “girlfriend experience” (as shown in the film) is an expensive branch of sex work where a groomed, cultured, and pedigreed escort is the client’s companion: physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Yes, there is nudity in the film, but there is no hardcore or explicit sex, as many assumed would be when it was made known that Soderbergh cast an adult actress in the role of sex worker. This just glares the “girlfriend experience” Hollywood perception in the face — do you want to see Grey naked and having sex? You can. Go right ahead. Big f-ing deal. It’s as if Soderbergh and Grey are both saying now that that’s out of the way, let’s say something interesting about the so-called “girlfriend experience.”

Yup, the fucking is cheap. Pictures and video of that are available all over. But Soderbergh’s got something more interesting for ya’ if you want it… Do you want it? Or do images of non-naked porn people scare you?

Via The Legal Satyricon: A Nevada company has filed suit against a Canadian man who created knock-offs of their line of male chastity devices.

Apparently the Canadian has “penetrated” the American market illegally.

I wonder whether the judge will promptly issue a “restraining” order…

Smart girl goes to college and gets taught the truth about virginity:

Like most little girls, I was raised to believe that virginity is a sacred gift a woman should reserve for just the right man. But college taught me that this concept is just a tool to keep the status quo intact. Deflowering is historically oppressive—early European marriages began with a dowry, in which a father would sell his virginal daughter to the man whose family could offer the most agricultural wealth. Dads were basically their daughters’ pimps.

Combine that insight with a solid dose of can-do American entrepreneurship, and Voilà!– the next thing you know, a bidding war has broken out with the help of Howard Stern and the Bunny Ranch:

When I learned this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that? It is mine, after all. And the value of my chastity is one level on which men cannot compete with me. I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men. I took the ancient notion that a woman’s virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism.

But wait… she started this whole thing back back in September. So when is she going to get on with the fucking??? Seems a little unfair to make the horny bidders wait so long.

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