sex

I have had several messages from people as far away as Venezuela this week wanting to know whether I've seen "this thing."

The thing is question turns out to be a charmingly named Facebook app called Bang With Friends. At its root, this is a dating app that eschews the "dating" part and rushes you headlong to the denouement.

There is a clear need for it. The New York Times reported only the other day that the poor and starving men of New York couldn't afford to take women on nice dates, so they resorted to asking them for a hangout. Not the Google Plus kind.

Bang With Friends merely removes the "h" from hangout and replaces it with a "b." Both parties are only notified when there is mutual interest. So there's no deep, direct rejection. … Read more

An Indiana law banning sex offenders from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled today.

The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a state law that made it a misdemeanor -- and, in some cases, a felony -- for registered sex offenders to use a "social networking Web site."

"The Indiana law targets substantially more activity than the evil it seeks to redress," the three-judge panel unanimously concluded in an opinion (PDF) written by Joel Flaum.

The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which restricts the government … Read more

Almost one in three teen girls ages 14 to 17 say they've taken a relationship they started online into the real world, according to new research out of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

The survey of 251 teen girls finds that 30 percent of them went ahead and met offline with people they'd initially met online -- and without first confirming those people were who they claimed to be.

Not all meetings end up being dangerous, of course, but Jennie Noll, lead author of the study, has discovered a disturbing trend among the girls she's surveyed. Those with a history of neglect or abuse (roughly half of the girls surveyed) were more likely to display their online personas in sexually provocative ways.… Read more

One new feature in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn lets avatars get married. When it launches sometimes next year, only opposite-sex avatars will be able to get hitched, but that may change.

Square Enix discussed the matter of same-sex marriage, among other topics, in a nearly two-hour video posted to YouTube. A representative from the company said Square Enix has been carefully considering allowing same-sex marriage, though no final decisions have been made.

Read more of "Square Enix considering same-sex marriage for Final Fantasy XIV" at GameSpot.

If you've ever wondered about that intimate thing where two Samsung Galaxy S3s touch each other in order to communicate, wonder some more.

For here is a quite brilliant exposition of the full breadth of possibilities afforded by the NFC hidden in this marvelous device.

Just when you thought married life was nothing more than a repository of drudgery, woe and sinking feelings, here is a family that truly knows how to share.

For it isn't just this lovely husband's little kids who have made a video for him to share. It is also his wife.

Though … Read more

Sex sells, and everyone knows how addictive cigarettes can be. But a new study suggests that for some Internet users, a little time alone with Facebook or Twitter is more alluring.

Well, make that some German Internet users.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the week-long study, conducted in Germany by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, showed that the temptation to tweet or post a Facebook status update is stronger than the urge to have sex or take a puff.

"Desires for media may be comparatively higher to resist because of their high availability," Wilhelm … Read more

After reviewing data from 1,839 14- to 17-year-old high-school students in Los Angeles, researchers are confirming what may otherwise seem obvious: sexting and sex go hand in hand.

But which of these activities comes first -- sex or sexting -- remains unclear.

"What we really wanted to know is, is there a link between sexting and taking risks with your body? And the answer is a pretty resounding 'yes,'" lead author Eric Rice, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, told Reuters Health.

Rice and colleagues, who just published their findings in the journal Pediatrics, … Read more

Yesterday, some were terribly excited that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was finally addressing the needs of the peculiar protuberances on Wall Street.

And yet his company still seems to struggle with its attitude to peculiar protuberances that are closer to our hearts.

For Facebook's long-standing objection to nipples has claimed another victim: The New Yorker.

Yes, that familiar peddler of pornographic piffle has had been tweaked by Facebook over a rancid display of nippledom. In a cartoon. In a cartoon depicting Adam and Eve.

As they say in Cockney rhyming slang: Would you Adam-and-Eve it?

The New Yorker itself … Read more

Amazon is the latest tech company to come out in support of same-sex marriage. And judging from the size of founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' whopping $2.5 million donation to defend same-sex marriage in Washington State, there's no mistaking how the e-commerce magnate feels about the cause. This is the largest-ever publicly reported donation to a marriage campaign, according to the Associated Press.

Bezos announced Friday that he was making the donation with his wife MacKenzie to Washington United for Marriage, a group working to uphold the state's same-sex marriage law. Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener told the … Read more