CULVER CITY, Calif. – Like a lot of men, I’m not good at gift-giving. It’s a problem which mixes together many of my less-than-enviable personality traits, like abject laziness, chronic insensitivity, fundamental unoriginality and a tendency to procrastinate in all things. Being...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Maybe it’s presumptuous of me, but I’m guessing just about the last thing on your mind as you’re watching porn is the carbon footprint left behind by your viewing session. I’ll further surmise this is the case whether you’re watching porn on your phone, PC or...

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan – The more I look around at trending topics, videos gone viral and assorted social media hashtaggery, the more convinced I become the internet is robbing people of all empathy and capacity for identifying with the plight of others. How else can we explain...

PARIS – Say what you will about the internet age, it’s plusses and minuses, the ups and downs of social media and all that highfalutin crap. You can’t say it hasn’t changed the way we communicate or altered forever the ability of the common man to respond directly to the most...

LOS ANGELES – It’s Black Friday again, which means, of course, it’s time for the treasured national commercial ritual of sinking of the SS Carolina. Wait… No, that’s Black Sunday. Black Friday is the day when people stampede into shopping malls and big-box stores, trampling...

PLYMOUTH, Mass. – It’s the fourth Thursday in November, and you know what that means: The Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys and at least two other NFL teams are stuck playing football, while the rest of us are stuck at the airport. I’ve noticed this is a time of year during which a...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – While I can read at a level higher than some second graders and most college athletes, there are some circumstances in which a guy just shouldn’t be expected to read. You know, like when you’re agreeing to end-user license agreements on software or signing...

NEW YORK – Over the years, I’ve written literally millions of words about porn. Some of those words have appeared on box covers, others have been published on websites. Some have described, in occasionally cringeworthy detail, sex acts that made me throw up in my mouth just a...

CANBERRA, Australia – It never surprises me when a politician (or athlete or actor or any other manner of famous person) blames “hackers” for a wayward porn-like on one of his social media accounts. Still, there is something about the case of Christopher Pyne, Australia’s...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – In the days before algorithmic suggestion engines began giving tips on what else we might want to read, listen to, buy or think, we had to rely on far more questionable sources, like family members, friends and crazy people at bus stops. These days, helpful...