PHOENIX – In June 2013, Phoenix police raided what they called a “self-serve porn studio” near Sky Harbor Airport, charging William James Hartwell and six women with various prostitution-related crimes. Now, three and one-half years later, Hartwell’s trial is finally is poised to...

CHICAGO – A new player on the pleasure products scene has introduced what it believes is the world’s first Tantric pleasure toy. Tantriss’s designers created Umie “to bring the ancient art of Tantra [into] the 21st century.” Controlled by a 12-frequency/10-mode microchip,...

CYBERSPACE – A new report on TorrentFreak suggests the biggest platform for content piracy is not any of the usual tube site or torrent suspects. Instead, the elephant in the thievery room may be the original tube site itself: YouTube. According to the report, “Google’s servers...

SAN FRANCISCO – When I first heard about Kink.com acquiring the Mission District Armory in San Francisco some years ago, I thought of the moment as a potential watershed for the progress of the American adult entertainment industry. A porn studio poised to operate (openly!) in a...

CHATSWORTH, Calif. – The Diamond Products family of companies — Pipedream Products, Jimmyjane and Sir Richard’s — introduced refreshed product lines and new products during the ANME Founders Show in Burbank Jan. 14-15 in Burbank, California. Pipedream introduced a refreshed take...

BISMARCK, N.D. – For many years, I believed former attorney Jack Thompson, the man who once prosecuted 2 Live Crew for obscenity, spent years concocting and promoting flawed legislation that sought to regulate video games like pornography and was later disbarred for a variety of...

MUMBAI – Statistics indicate the worldwide pleasure products market generates $15.25 billion annually. Indian consumers account for only about 5-10 percent of that volume, but according to a 2014 Juniper Research forecast, India’s contribution to global pleasure-product revenues...

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – GayHub.com, a gay-first tube site built by gay studios for gay studios and powered by live-cam giant Flirt4Free, has launched. “GayHub is part of a larger objective that we have to service the online gay community a little bit better,” said Director of...

NEW YORK – Age-verification amendments to the U.K.’s Digital Economy Bill would violate international human-rights accords by exposing internet users to breaches of privacy and curtailing free speech online, a United Nations official has warned. Furthermore, the bill’s...

BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Larry Garland, founder and chief executive officer of Eldorado Trading Company, died Jan. 15. He was 66. An admired and respected member of the pleasure products industry for more than 40 years, Garland passed away unexpectedly while attending an industry...