sex

If you love robots so much, why don't you marry one?

This may be possible in the future, according to artificial intelligence researcher David Levy. According to Levy's Ph.D thesis, titled "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," robots will become so humanlike and pseudo-emotional that we won't be able to keep from falling in love and making out with them. Aw yeah.

The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands liked the thesis paper so much that they married it awarded Levy a doctorate.

Silly and pervy as the idea of marrying a robot sounds, the … Read more

The following was originally posted on the new MP3 Insider blog.

Could the next frontier of gadget interface design be modeled after female sexual arousal? Multimedia artists Matt Ganucheau, Kyle Machulis, and Kelly Moore have designed a female mannequin that uses strategically placed sensors to control audio playback. The mannequin, affectionately named Moaning Lisa, was unveiled at the recent Arse Elektronika conference, as part of a showcase of emerging erotic-based technology. While Lisa is currently programmed to only play a catalog of more than 200 female moans, her open-source architecture is capable of handling anything from an MP3 music library … Read more

Could the next frontier of gadget interface design be modeled after female sexual arousal? Multimedia artists Matt Ganucheau, Kyle Machulis, and Kelly Moore have designed a female mannequin that uses strategically placed sensors to control audio playback. The mannequin, affectionately named Moaning Lisa, was unveiled at the recent Arse Elektronika conference, as part of a showcase of emerging erotic-based technology. While Lisa is currently programmed to only play a catalog of more than 200 female moans, her open-source architecture is capable of handling anything from an MP3 music library to advanced audio synthesis.

It may sound like Weird Science, but … Read more

A bill just approved by a U.S. Senate committee would slap steeper fines on Internet service providers that fail to alert authorities when they obtain knowledge of child pornography on their servers.

Federal law already requires ISPs to file such reports "as soon as reasonably possible" to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tipline--although they're not required to proactively search for the illegal images.

The Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, which the Senate Commerce Committee cleared by a unanimous voice vote on Thursday afternoon, would triple the fines for … Read more

A New Jersey police officer in charge of the department's Web site and computer systems has been locked up on child porn charges.

To hear prosecutors tell it, Pennsauken Township police officer John Schenberger was a sick fellow who sent 1,071 still images and 11 movies to (whoops!) an FBI agent that included depictions of bestiality, child bondage and child pornography.

Schenberger allegedly engaged in this vice while on duty and using Pennsauken Township's computers. He's accused of writing to the FBI agent, who pretended to be about to engage in sexual acts with a 5-year-old … Read more

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Eric White believes the future of sex technology lies in a 16" red-and-black cylindrical device that he sells for $439.69 from his office in rural Pennsylvania.

White's device is aimed at men and, to put it delicately, is designed to provide pleasure through an ingenious combination of a vacuum pump, a back-and-forth motor, and a stimulator at the business end that he says "adds a little extra zing."

Similar devices have been around for years -- there's the perennial gag of an inflatable sheep, of course, and the non-programmable Venus 2000 … Read more

HOLLYWOOD, Fla.--In the long ago heyday of adult magazines, Screw publisher Al Goldstein was one of the undisputed porn kings.

Now the onetime multimillionaire and foul-mouthed sex celeb has turned his talents to hawking Booble.com here at the Internext conference organized by adult trade publisher AVN Media Network.

Booble, which features some topless photos and isn't entirely safe for work, is an adult search engine and "sex search directory." It also features a "Booble Porn Minute" and the ability to search by porn star name and by sex-cam name.

During a lunch break … Read more

Here's another bill to add to the heap of congressional proposals offered in the spirit of combating child pornography and keeping kids safe from predators on the Internet.

It's called the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, and it was proposed on Thursday by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)--along with Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

But this one doesn't seem to be as aggressive as some previous approaches, which called for requiring everything from labeling Web sites containing sexually explicit content to wiping out access to social-networking sites and chat rooms on school- and library-based computers. … Read more

Update: I added more detail from the study itself and some of the reasons it spotlights.

No doubt we all oversimplify the world a bit, but University of Texas-Austin researchers have found that there are way more reasons people have sex than one might expect.

Specifically, 237 reasons.

Helpfully, the researchers did boil the list down to four major factors--physical, goal-based, emotional and insecurity-based--and 13 minor ones, the university said Tuesday. Researchers David Buss and Cindy Meston described the motivations in the August issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

"Why people have sex is extremely important, but rarely … Read more