There is a lot of porn out there and a lot of it is crap. Sadly, many porn reviews come from people who are paid to sell that specific title. This makes it really hard to get an honest review.

Luckily for you, you’re got two places to go:

1) Babeland (of course). We’ve watched every title we carry and we’ve picked it because we think there’s something in it that our customers will enjoy. If you want to find the right kind of porn for you, just ask us and we’ll talk you through your options.

2) Susie Bright’s Random Honest Porn Reviews. These are reviews by people who aren’t in the business, just people who watch porn. They have detailed plot and scene information and give you sense of the viewer’s expectations going into the film and what they did or didn’t like about it. Here’s an example:

See, in the midst of all the zany Tolkien-in-Vegas costumes and sets and
makeup jobs, someone forgot to come up with the zany sex. The sex in
“Dream Quest” is the same old goddamn mainstream porno sex that you’ve
seen a million times. Since the premise of the video is about the
importance of fantasy and how awful life gets when it disappears, you’d
think they’d come up with some sex scenes that are more.. well, fantastic.

I’ve never seen that movie but now I think I’ll steer clear of it.

I’m planning on writing a review soon. I just have to decide which movie I’ll review. Any suggestions?

There are thousands upon thousands of nude photographs on the internet these days. I get my digests from Fleshbot’s Babelogs when I don’t feel like hunting them down myself. Most nude photographs are of models with size 2 bodies who are less than 22 years old. They’re airbrushed and have fancy photography and shading to accentuate some parts and hide others. These women also look as if they’ve always been perfectly comfortable naked in front of a camera.

Nate Smith at his website, Driven By Boredom just completed a fantastic nude photography project called “Awkward Nudes” (NSFW). This project is an attempt to desexualize nudes by taking photographs of people who are uncomfortable being nude. What’s funny about it, though, is that these models are just acting like they are uncomfortable. The false emotion is clear and ads a bit of humor to what would probably otherwise be a bit sad. Here’s what the photographer has to say:

These photos were a project to desexualize nudity and try to do the exact opposite of what would be expected in standard nudes. I wanted my models to look as awkward as possible. This project grew out of my topless Polaroid collection. Everyone looked so funny in the Polaroids I wanted to see if I could recreate that in some funny portraits. I actually ended up using the ones where the models were trying to look uncomfortable over the ones where people looked actually uncomfortable. I found them funnier and that was sort of the point.

I’ll admit, as a New Yorker that the New York Post is the kind of paper that makes me change my opinions of people (“oooh.. that person is really cute but they’re reading the New York Post so nevermind”). The sensational headlines and obvious grabs for sales over facts leave me frustrated. Beyond looking at the front page to see what crazy thing they’ve come up with on any given day, I never read it.

However, a friend of mine alerted me to this article on sex toys, published in the New York Post last week. I have to say, it’s basically accurate and not too biased. It might have helped that they interviewed Claire from Babeland – clearly that’s an opinion I’m going to agree with! The article lays out the basic problem with the unregulated sex toy industry without making people who use sex toys sound like freaks which is what I would expect out of the New York Post. It’s a great basic article on phthalates that doesn’t sensationalize the issue.
Check out the article and write to the New York Post to say thank you for sex positive reporting!