Hello everyone ! it’s been awhile since I updated this. I’ve been doing a lot! But it’s hard to explain or demonstrate. So I am posting this blog entry as a culmination of the three dozen or so things that I have been working towards. Enjoy! Introduction We no longer live in a world of original desire. If such a thing was ever possible, it was in the halcyon days before the bibilo-catalogo-taxomania of Linnaeus, Kraft-Ebbing, Hirschfield, Kinsey, and others.

I want to respond primarily to memory, (re)membering, and forgetting in two ways; 1) in institutional/historical/archival senses and in personal ones; and 2) in physico-cognitive and digital senses. Douglas’ article (appropriately) moved me in a number of ways, especially the descriptions she had of Montgomery’s creation, recreation, remembering and literal re/dis-membering of her self and her journals: The journal served, initially, as an “old friend” in whom she could confide and an outlet—her “only safe outlet”—for her “grumbles” ….

Reviewed articles:
(1) Dryden, Jean. “The Role of Copyright in Selection for Digitization.”
(2) Miller, Larisa. “All Text Considered: A Perspective on Mass Digitizing and Archival Processing.”
(3) Ogilvie, Brian. “Scientific Archives in the Age of Digitization.”
(4) Terras, Melissa M. “The Rise of Digitization: An Overview.”

At the recent serendipitous American Historical Association and Modern Language Association Annual Meeting/Conference/mashup that happened in Chicago in January of 2019, Session 40 happened to attract a lot of crossover members. The session, titled “The Future Is Now: Lessons Learned from Three Digital Dissertations in History” featured a mix of 7 historians, archivists, literature scholars, digital humanities and librarians discussing some of the promises and features of digital humanities, archives and research for PhD. projects.¹

If there was a theme that carried through each of these speakers and the panel as a whole it was the fearsome and oft-whispered term copyright. Indeed, this was a term that hung over and was carried through much of these conferences, as they took place amidst a major public domain copyright expiry.² Copyright is the spectre haunting the humanities—and it is the major limitation on what archives can achieve today and how much librarians and archivists are willing to go as a vast variety of authorities point out:

I am interested in any information pertaining to the library or archive of “Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.” The existence of the archive has been reported in a number of different sources. In an essay in Libraries, Erotica & Pornography (1991) Gwendolyn Pershing cites Elaini Garnder, a librarian at the Institute who claims that the Institute has a “large collection” of materials including a book in Italian written in the 1400s (Boccaccio?

Dildos, for the four people on the internet that are somehow not yet aware of them, are sex toys intended for sexual penetration (of a male or female) during recreational bedroom activities. They are very often phallic in shape—which is to say explicitly penis-shaped—sometimes down to minute detail, but more often in a sort of general, abstract way. A google search about the history of dildoes will turn up all sorts of =slideshows and pop-culture articles on the internet crediting the invention of dildos all the way back to the Paleolithic era, like these:

Today, the strangely-elongated bell shape of a condom is instantly recognizable. Condoms are the most-used sexual devices in the world, and in studies of sexuality and sex practices the vast majority of people report being familiar with condoms or have used one recently. The standard modern condom is made from latex and is used to prevent pregancy (with 98% effacacy if used correctly) and to act as a protection against most STDs.

This also appeared on Pornhub.com’s Sexual Wellness Project [SFW link, NSFW URL].  Often times, when people are growing up–depending on their parents–they are told that masturbation is unhealthy, sinful, or just plan immoral. This is still a very widespread attitude, especially in parts of the United States and Europe that are more conservative or religious.  But this hasn’t always been the case–in many places and times masturbation was seen as relatively harmless and painless, not particularly dangerous for an individual.

One of the most interesting recent developments in programming, the internet, celebrity culture and pornography is the recent explosion (and following suppression) of deepfakes. This development has all sorts of implications for the media, celebrities, politicians and, of course, just general reality. What interests me the most however, are the parallels with what we might term the Revolutionary Deepfake. Before I get too far ahead of myself though, a brief primer.

This was previously published here, on Pornhub’s Sexual Wellness and Education site. Too often it is taken for granted that everyone in the world falls into the different camps of heterosexual/straight or homosexual/gay/lesbian. Whether it’s when you’re signing up for Facebook or a dating app, you’re asked to choose on the spot if you’re into men or women. It splits the sexual world down the middle. Then there is “everyone else” on the sexuality spectrum – which includes groups who use terms as far-ranging as bisexual, asexual, or others that make people feel like they fall outside of the two ‘accepted’ sexualities and which can lead to struggles with identity.

[Image is a fresco from the House of the Centurion, Pompeii, first century BCE] This was previously published here, on Pornhub’s Sexual Wellness and Education site. What is porn? This seems to be a silly question, because the answer seems so obvious—you ‘know it when you see it.’ But you’d be surprised about the amount of ink spilled and the amount of time wasted over this topic. In fact, the more you think about it, the less clear it becomes!