World Sex Sells News

Russian courts have ruled that two popular adult websites, Pornhub and YouPorn, will be banned in Russia. With access to the troves of free porn suspended, Russian social networks exploded with sarcasm.

Both sites were added to the blacklist of Russian media by internet censor Roskomnadzor on Tuesday.

The agency did not specify why the courts ordered the sites to be blocked, but reiterated its advice from the last time it banned Pornhub in 2015. Answering a person on Twitter who asked whether the watchdog offered any alternative to the adult site, it said the alternative is to go out and meet somebody in real life. [Maybe try Pattaya!].

PornHub also humorously asked Roskomnadzor about the ban:

@Pornhub: if we give you guys a Pornhub Premium account, will you un ban Pornhub in Russia?

@roscomnadzor replied: sorry, we are not in the market and the demography is not a commodity.

Rocco is a 2016 France documentary by Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai.
Starring Rocco Siffredi, Abella Danger and James Deen.

A behind-the-scene account of the porn world and its stars as they've never been seen before - and the no-holds-barred portrait of a true giant.

The world premiere of Rocco was held on Monday night at the Venice International Film Festival. The AVN Hall of Fame performer said there was enormous media interest for the documentary three years in the making that captured him during the final stages of his legendary performing career in 2014-15. He announced his retirement in April 2015 just a few months before doing his last sex scene -- a group session with Dahlia Sky, Maddy O'Reilly, Kelly Stafford and James Deen shot by Evil Angel founder John Stagliano, who is Siffredi's longtime mentor. Rocco commented:

This movie is not acting, it's real.

It was great because there was a lot of press and a lot of interviews, a lot of people were interested.

But truthfully, there is a situation that is a bit embarrassing for me. This is supposed to be the end of my career but I'm already thinking of coming back.

The film will be distributed in Italy starting in October with additional plans for it to be available in France, Spain, South America and Asia.

An amendment to Maltese law regarding allowing the opening of sex shops will most likely not lead to a surge in the number of sex shops as people seem to prefer to buy such products online.

Ranier Zammit, the owner of the Maltese online sex shop toysfourplay.com , says he would be reluctant to open an actual shop because of the cultural mentality of the Maltese. Zammit manages his business online and offers free deliveries to all localities in a discreet manner. He set up his business over 14 years ago and it is still going strong today.

A new law approved by Parliament earlier this week allows for the opening of sex shops, as long as a clear warning sign is visible upon entry. The required notice reads:

Persons beyond this notice will find material on display which they may consider indecent. Persons under 18 years of age are not admitted.

A sex counsellor from Willingness, Matthew Bartolo, believes that a percentage of the Maltese population would not have a problem visiting such shops and buying from them. But he said sex is still an uncomfortable topic and sometimes regarded as dirty , but thinks that society has managed to move on from the taboo.

The Maltese parliament has approved, at the third reading stage, amendments to the Criminal Act that repeal legislation that censured the vilification of religion, decriminalises pornography and criminalises revenge porn.

The law punishing the vilification of the Roman Catholic religion had been in place since 1933 and was used by the authorities to censor works of art, theatre productions and prevent films from being screened.

When he originally presented the proposed amendments in February, justice minister Owen Bonnici sought to allay fears that the law would not allow people to incite religious hatred, noting that the incitement of hatred based on religion, gender, race, sexuality, gender identity or political belief was already illegal as per a more recent law and would remain so. He said:

In a democratic country, people should be free to make fun of religions, while not inciting hatred.

The Nationalist opposition had been opposed to the proposed amendments and had accused the government of political atheism , and of adopting policies of forced secularisation .

On his part, Archbishop Charles Scicluna tweeted his dismay at news that MPs had, as expected, successfully passed Bill 133:

Demeaning God and man indeed go hand in hand. A sad day for Malta. Lord forgive them: they do not know what they do.