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Kickstarter’s guidelines make it very clear that any “pornographic” project is not allowed on its platform — they feel so strongly about adult content that they lump it with hate speech and political mudslinging. Indiegogo, another very popular crowdfunding service, limits projects that feature “obscene or pornographic items, sexually oriented or explicit materials or services.” They lump those in with bullying and harassing items. Basically, if you had an adult-themed project, you’re out of luck. And then came Offbeatr.

Pornography is work that deserves to be safe. Like nursing, boxing, and other bodily-fluid-intensive jobs, that safety is going to be complicated. What I do know from my brief time as the Nancy Drew of dick identification is that a lot of the laws that get proposed to make porn safer have unexpected side effects—some of which are just as bad as the original problem. We’re far more likely to help porn performers if we treat them less as victims in need of protection and more as workers with a stake—and an interest—in their own safety.

Over the summer, the Pentagon put those American tax dollars to work and took a long hard look and determined that girlie magazines were not, as a whole, explicit material and could still be sold on military bases. Unfortunately for the magazines, they were removed anyway due to an 86 decline in sales. This is a roundup of what’s going on at the parent companies of some of these American adult classics: Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler. It smells like the end of an era.

The story about Kenji, the robot programmed to love that turns into a stalker will continue to make the rounds no matter how many people reveal the hoax. This tale is reassuring. The fact that Kenji so terrifyingly goes over the line pacifies us — no, it reminds us. Robots are not like us. But robots are all around us. And they’re getting better and better at passing for human. This is the story of two men. And the bots they might have loved.

Adult performer and The Canyons star James Deen has been working on a web food porn series with the digital adult studio WoodRocket since the beginning of the year. There’s nothing really pornographic about it — James Deen Loves Food, which usually runs between five and 10 minutes, features Deen procuring, making and eating his way around Los Angeles. This week, Deen set out to McDonald’s, all geared up to explore its menu until a manager killed the fun — and the $89 order.

The number of porn stars who swear by Eat24 got the company thinking about porn — they dug in and found that a completely unsurprising 30 percent of all web traffic hits porn sites. Even less surprising, because so few brands are willing to put their products next to porn, Eat24 discovered that advertising on these sites was one tenth the cost of advertising on Google or social sites like Facebook and Twitter. They went for it, and their story is going to go down in history as an advertising coup — but will other mainstream brands follow suit?

Sex educator Allison Moon is working on a book for queer women, lesbians, bisexuals and those who might be curious. Part story, part how-to guide, this book emphasizes pleasure-positive and consent-oriented sex, and is filled with the insights of over 15 other sex educators such as Tristan Taormino, Reid Mihalko and Carol Queen. It’s being illustrated by kd diamond, founder of the queer and beautifully-illustrated Salacious magazine. But the two need your help to make it happen!

Most people who end up in the adult industry don’t dream about it since they were little kids, and Dave Levine was no different. Growing up in Boston, his father had his own business, and Levine grew up with similar aspirations. When the web came around, Levine knew it was the right platform, if he found a way to harness it. “Everyone said I was stupid,” he recalls. “In their defense, my original idea to use the internet to sell high-end art wasn’t that great. But I was willing to try a bunch of stuff and see which one worked.”

The annual Ig Nobel gala happened last night at Harvard and among the winners were some fearless researchers taking a long, hard look at how “beer goggles” affect us. Conventional wisdom goes that the more you drink, the more attractive everyone seems to be. But what about the person drinking? Do beer goggles improve self-assessments of attractiveness? The award-winning findings suggest that not only does alcohol make us feel more attractive, just thinking that we’ve had a drink makes us feel more attractive than we are.

Meet Austrian artist Chio Maisriml, creator of the most dazzling sci-fi pinups this side of LV-426. Maisriml got his start with this type of art in 1995, using airbrushing on cardboard, but eventually migrated his workspace onto his PC using Artpad. Never have we seen such beautiful monsters, aliens, tender space violets, insects, amphibians, heroines or rulers. You’re welcome.