Olives @olives@qoto.org

I wish we could collectively stop referring to someone's (tiny) blog where they post hot takes about current affairs as "news media". While I think people have the right to comment on current affairs, there is hardly even an editorial process.

If you have some thoughts on this, I'd be happy to hear them. I considered posting this more widely but I don't really want to make a loud statement about this matter in particular.

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/31/madonna-sued-for-pornography-without-warning-and-for-deceptively-marketing-her-world-tour/ Frivolous lawsuits.

Some thoughts on the term "hentai".

If you talk to someone from Japan, and you use this term, they might have no clue what you are talking about, unless they know a lot about the West.

It comes from part of a Japanese word which loosely means "sexual perversion" and is primarily used in the West. Even in the West though, it is more like slang than a formal term. Terms like animated porn, or if someone wants to exclude Western style content, anime porn are probably better in a more formal context. Or perhaps, it could be referenced as an erotic artform (one concern I've had is that someone might single it out in a rather racist / discriminatory fashion, rather than acknowledging it's artistic value as someone might any other form of art).

I'm not really arguing *against* using it, if you like using that term, but it's probably best used as a form of slang than in anything formal. And this is anecdotal, but from what I've seen, the term has actually been in decline (particularly in more formal settings) for a number of years.

If you'd like to see more of a bullet point style over a citation based free form text style, then please say so.

If you remember the earlier form of the post, it was basically a bunch of bullet points. As it gets longer, I might do more editing to make it flow better (and maybe add a few more citations, as the links wouldn't be as obtrusive).

If you are wondering, yes, I have considered using citations a lot more in this post. I'm just wondering if the links would be as accessible.

If you don't know him, Dr. Lehmiller is a renowned sex researcher. He recently did a study where he looked at the sorts of fantasies which people might have, and found that freaky fantasies are actually fairly common, and that it's not really a big deal.

That is slipped in at the end.

As a rule of thumb, I don't have the time to deal with people operating in bad faith in general, let alone, jumping through hoops for them.

I'm not going to *email* a bad faith person or whatever overly specific process they might like when they can read something perfectly fine.

Someone's pointed out that Google censoring adult ads pushes people to market on social media instead, and so, if someone has a problem with marketing on social media, then maybe they should take it up with Google.

Guardian U.S. tends to be better than some of their other branches.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/us-far-right-group-influencing-anti-gay-policy-africa There are some details I didn't know about but I can't say I'm surprised they'd be involved in this.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-024-00984-2
"Banning the purchase of sex increases cases of rape: evidence from Sweden"

"This paper leverages the timing of a ban on the purchase of sex to assess its impact on rape offenses. Relying on Swedish high-frequency data from 1997 to 2014, I find that the ban increases the number of rapes by around 44–62%."

"The increase reflects a boost in completed rapes both in the short- and long-run. However, it is not accompanied by a decrease in the number of pimps."
#sexology

And you have to think about how racist it is, they would never dare do that with pictures of the Holocaust. It's only entertainment at the expense of the people in Cambodia.

While they were sort of progressive, honestly, there were a number of better sites as far as progressivism went. I've avoided commenting on it before but since it's defunct and not really relevant any more I think it's alright to once.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/12/cambodia-vice-edited-photos-khmer-rouge-victims-smiling-tuol-sleng-prison-genocide
"Cambodia has condemned images published by Vice media group that featured victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide, colourised and with some apparently edited to add smiles to their faces."

"In the interview with Vice, now removed, Loughrey said he began working on photographs from Tuol Sleng when he was contacted by someone in Cambodia who wanted three photographs – including one ID photo taken inside the prison – to be restored."
While there are those who bemoaned the end of Vice Media, perhaps we could do with fewer edgy shock articles like this. How did he even come to their attention, what relevance does he have, why did they feel they should cover this in particular.

Also, I would like to see a move towards smaller models (and perhaps figuring out how to keep the quality good enough in doing so, if that is a concern). That would involve smaller data sets, probably less resource usage, and so on.

Also, is this gimmick really needed everywhere? Does it really improve things? If it is somewhere, maybe it could be an option, rather than a default.