Do not date with a porn star

I should first say that I don’t have any problem with Internet pornography or adult film actresses. There is a very substantial list of reasons why dating a porn actress would possibly be one of the most awesome things to happen in your life. For starters, you can get that “My other ride is a porn star” bumper sticker you always wanted to slap on your Jetta! And I’m sure there are other (mind-blowing) things that would be make a relationship of this sort both exciting and fascinating (maybe terrifying). Yet, from a male perspective, I feel like doing so would be a burden on your sanity. There are a lot of things to consider before entering into a relationship with an adult film actress.

8 Every guy will hit on her

There is something mysterious about a woman that attracts us to them in the first place. History tells us that most men will treat a woman differently after sleeping with her. However, porn stars seem to unlock what we’ll call the “I’ve seen you naked” Paradox. Consider how many men watch porn (according to studies, it’s somewhere around 100%) and factor in the fact that the people who have seen you girlfriend naked will literally be everywhere you go. Most men would see an attractive woman who is way out of his league and would simply leave her alone or halfheartedly hit on her. But this man has seen your lady do the nasty so many times that through the transitive property of the horny male mind, he has a shot with her no matter his looks, location, or social status.

The fact that someone is a porn star is often misconstrued by men as “she’ll be most likely to have sex with me because it is her job, after all.” And while you may be basking in the thought of sleeping with one; you probably couldn’t be more off-base. But, if you were dating an adult actress, men would hit on her everywhere she went. Of course this happens with every beautiful woman, but coupled with the delusion that every guy that hits on her in a grocery store probably thinks shes going to immediately take them to their car and change their life sexually in the back row of the Trader Joe’s parking lot — you have a makings of a potentially volatile situation every time you go out in

public.

7 You are going to get into fights with other dudes

No guy likes when other dudes are creeping on his girlfriend, but when guys at in the line at 7-11 start using the opening line “I’d like to give you like a footlong? And it’s not the one in my hand…” What the hell are you supposed to do? Obviously, you would have to confront the guy. But can you blame him? That was an awesome line and I mean come on, when is this guy gonna get another chance to use a gem like that? Answer: Probably never.

But that’s your girl. You have to do the “Hey, Buddy. Who you talking to?” routine and more than likely a scuffle of some sort will end with either fisticuffs or an exchange of sharp language in the parking lot. And this would happen all the damn time. Everywhere you go someone will say something crude or grab her ass. In simple terms: The inappropriate level that your woman brings out in people of the general public will be off the damn charts. So go out and purchase a pair of boxing gloves, a Bowflex, and the most comprehensive health insurance plan that you can afford; you are going to need to be fit and ready to fight at all times.

6 Everything she does will be “well documented”

It’s not like she used to be stripper and you can maybe keep a lid on or keep a low profile. Once you go into porn, you are always in porn. There will be pictures, films and Web sites all devoted to her and what she does for a living floating around for the rest of time. It is the least discreet occupation a person can have. And it will more than likely be an inescapable part of her life. If you decided at some point that you wanted to move somewhere and get a fresh start, you’d still probably find people that knew who your girlfriend was. The internet is, like, everywhere. They even have it in Delaware.

5 She will be probably be hot. People will notice that. They will whisper…

Many adult film actresses have had ample work done on their faces and maybe boosted a few key areas with some silicone during their time in the Valley. How you look on camera is more important than anything else in the porn industry. So other men and women are going to notice her as you are out and about. Not all of them, but enough to catch you attention and maybe make you a little paranoid. It’s the good kind of paranoid until you realize what people are thinking about when they see her. Probably most embarrassing if she has had some work done on her chest area and the stewardess mentions flotation devices and everyone looks at your girlfriend’s chest and whispers, “Well, she’ll ain’t drowning.”

4 You will almost never want to talk about her day at work

No guy ever wants to ask, “Hey Beautiful, what did you do at work today?” and hear “An entire football team.” That talk your girlfriend has about the bitchy girl in her office is annoying, certainly. But it probably can’t compare to hearing your porn star girlfriend talking about how she can’t see out of her right eye due to Johnny Sinz’s errant aim.

3 Shame

I said before that I personally don’t think of adult film stars as bad or sinful people. However, a lot of people you encounter on a day-to-day basis do. The stigma of having sex for a living is still a very touchy (no pun intended) subject. And by that, I mean, most people (guessing mostly female in nature) will judge your girlfriend adversely once they find out what she does for a living. She will probably be called a slut or a whore behind your/her back at most turns and when she is dressed for work… people will know what she does. They just will. Nobody dresses like that at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon.

Is it embarrassing? Well, that would be up to you. Some people wouldn’t let the situation affect them, but I’m guessing sometimes you’d feel a bit ashamed. Sure, sex is great and we live in liberated times, but if your lady’s number of sexual partners possibly numbers into the hundreds…well, sex is supposed to be a shared bond between two people (maybe three if you get her drunk enough). But, if you love this person and don’t care about anything else, then you aren’t worried about people staring and whispering when they see her. I congratulate you and can say without question that you are a better and more progressive man than I. Love conquers all. However, good luck telling Grandma what your lady did in her last project “Blondes Under the Big Top 4: Clowns on Patrol” during Thanksgiving dinner.

2 People are going to want pictures and autographs from her

This is probably going to be uncomfortable and borderline inappropriate. “Can I see your piercings?” and “Will you sign my ass?” and “Now, tell me this isn’t the biggest one you’ve ever seen?” will become the questions you will start to hear in your sleep.

1 She will have award shows and film openings that you will have to go to

Imagine a room filled to the brim with people from the adult film industry. Men and women of various shapes and color all coming together to celebrate their achievements in the film industry. You look around and maybe take a few laps with your lady. Now, when you meet guys from her past, you sometimes get “the look.” That look is basically a guy insinuating that he’s shared a bed with your girlfriend in a Biblical sense. It’s the worst look a guy can give another guy. Now, imagine the next 3 hours of your life, where you go up and shake someones hand and every time you do, you get that look. And remember, in this situation it’s not just men who give you that look. And while that fact is kinda sexy, I imagine that you would probably just drink heavily and try not to ask too many questions.

And then you realize that “the look” isn’t the worse thing that could happen to you tonight. You ask yourself, “I wonder how many of these people have slept with my girlfriend” and then an hour later you have that question is passionately answered on a 30 foot movie screen as a room full of people watch and cheer the screams of your one-and-only in the throws of passion with one or several strangers. Not a fun prospect.

Ah, who the hell cares!! You only go around once in this life, right?

Japan Sex Niche: Elder Porn

Besides his glowing complexion, Shigeo Tokuda looks like any other 74-year-old man in Japan. Despite suffering a heart attack three years ago, the lifelong salaryman now feels healthier, and lives happily with his wife and a daughter in downtown Tokyo. He is, of course, more physically active than most retirees, but that's because he's kept his part-time job — as a porn star.

Shigeo Tokuda is, in fact, his screen name. He prefers not to disclose his real name because, he insists, his wife and daughter have no idea that he has appeared in about 350 films over the past 14 years. And in his double life, Tokuda arguably embodies the contemporary state of Japan's sexuality: in surveys conducted by organizations ranging from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the condom-maker Durex, Japan is repeatedly found to be one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world. A WHO report released in March found that 1 in 4 married couples in Japan had not made love in the previous year, while 38% of couples in their 50s no longer have sex at all. Those figures were attributed to the stresses of Japanese working life. Yet at the same time, the country has seen a surge in demand for pornography that has turned adult videos into a billion-dollar industry, with "elder porn" one of its fastest-growing genres. (See pictures of Japan and the world.)

Tokuda is rare among Japanese porn stars in that his name has become a brand. The Shigeo Tokuda series he has just completed portray him as a tactful elderly gentleman who instructs women of different ages in the erotic arts, and he boasts a body of work far more impressive than most actors in their prime.

Tokuda's exploits have proved to be a goldmine for Glory Quest, which first launched an "old man" series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led the company to follow up with Tokuda starring in Forbidden Elderly Care in August 2006. Other series followed, and soon elder porn had revealed itself as a sustainable new revenue stream for the industry. "The adult-video industry is very competitive," says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. "If we only make standard fare, we cannot beat other studios. There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new. A relationship between wife and an old father-in-law has enough twist to create an atmosphere of mystery and captivate viewers' hearts."

Director Gaichi Kono says the eroticism of elders is captivating to younger viewers. "I think that, as a subject, there is this something that only an older generation has and the young people do not possess. It is because they lived that much more. We should respect them and learn from them," says Kono passionately.

But Tokuda stresses the appeal of his work to an audience of his peers: "Elderly people don't identify with school dramas," he says. "It's easier for them to relate to older-men-and-daughters-in-law series, so they tend to watch adult videos with older people in them." The veteran porn star plans to keep working until he's 80 — or older, as long as the industry will cast him. Given the bullish market for his work, he's unlikely to go without work. (See pictures of self-injury in Japan.)

"People of my age generally have shame, so they are very hesitant to show their private parts," Tokuda says. "But I am proud of myself doing something they cannot." Still, he says, laughing, "That doesn't mean that I can tell them about my old-age pensioner job."

Japan's adult-video industry is believed to be worth as much as $1 billion a year, according to industry insiders, with the largest video-store chain Tsutaya releasing about 1,000 new titles monthly, while the mega adult mail-order site DMM releases about 2,000 titles each month. Although films featuring women in their teens and 20s are the mainstay of the industry, a trend toward "mature women" has become evident over the past five years. Currently, about 300 of the 1,000 adult videos on offer at Tsutaya, and 400 out of the 2,000 at DMM, are "mature women" films.

Ryuichi Kadowaki, director of Ruby Inc., which specializes in mature-women titles, says that when the company started offering the genre a few years ago, the term referred to actresses in their late 20s, and that last year it was expanded to those in their 70s. The company believes the advantage of mature titles is their enduring appeal. "Adult videos with young actresses sell well only in the first three months after the release," Kadowaki explains. "On the other hand, mature-women films enjoy a steady, long-term popularity, which after 10 years or so might lead to a best seller." And then there are the cost savings. A popular young actress can earn up to $100,000 per film, while a mature actress is paid only $2,000.

The market for elder porn has doubled over the past decade, according to Kadowaki. "In view of [Japan's] aging society," he adds, "I think that in the future, we will see a steady increase in demand."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815509,00.html#ixzz1FCl1itNC

Can we keep up our progress on AIDS?

Editor's note: Watch "Hope Survives: 30 Years of AIDS," an AC360° special, at 9 p.m. ET Friday. Phill Wilson is the president and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, a national HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on black people. Follow him on Twitter. 

(CNN) -- I was infected with HIV in 1981, the year the disease was discovered.

Back then, most people died in six to 12 months from horrible diseases like Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin cancer normally found in older men of Semitic descent; pneunocystis carinii pneumonia, a fungal infection in the lungs; cryptococcal meningitis, which causes the lining of your brain to swell; or toxoplasmosis: You got that from cat feces, and it turned your brain to Swiss cheese.

There were no treatments, really. A "long-time survivor" was someone who lived 18 months.

I was 24 then. In April, I will celebrate my 54th birthday.

I almost didn't make it. In 1996, my doctor at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles called my mother in Chicago to tell her that if she wanted to see me alive again, she should fly to Los Angeles immediately. They had given me less than 24 hours to live. I was in a coma in the ICU.

I eventually came out of that crisis, and my doctor prescribed something brand new: a three-drug regimen, commonly referred to as "the cocktail." I recovered from that crisis and went on to found the Black AIDS Institute, an organization I still lead.

What a difference three decades can make. We have gone from no drugs to a few very toxic drugs that didn't really work to more than 25 antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV. The new drugs are highly effective, and the side effects are much reduced.

And the breakthroughs continue. Last year, scientists identified three new HIV antibodies that might contribute to the development of a vaccine. A gel that women can apply before sex, known as a vaginal microbicide, demonstrated efficacy in a clinical trial in South Africa, and research released last month indicates that some antiretrovirals, when taken as prophylactics, can prevent HIV infection.

Also last year, Congress passed and President Obama signed health care reform legislation that protects people with HIV from being discriminated against in getting health insurance, eliminates lifetime caps on health insurance coverage and expands access to prescription drugs.

And finally, we have a national AIDS strategy that if properly implemented could dramatically reduce new infections, increase the number of people who know their HIV status and increase the number of people in appropriate care and treatment.

The AIDS battle appears to be one we could win.

But we are not winning it yet. Since the advent of the cocktail that saved my life, AIDS deaths in America have dropped from about 50,000 a year to 18,000 a year. That's a huge advance, but 18,000 deaths a year is six times the number of people we lost on September 11. Our AIDS toll is still horrific and unacceptable.

I'm alive today for two reasons: I have access to appropriate care and treatment, and I have the love and support of family and friends. Unfortunately, too many people living with HIV/AIDS have neither.

Stigma threatens to derail our efforts to win the battle against HIV. It contributes to misconceptions and fuels irrational fears that keep people infected with HIV from taking action that could save their own lives and the lives of others.

Focus groups conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation last year with black Americans across the nation revealed a strong perception that life for those living with HIV/AIDS is a shameful and lonely existence. When faced with discrimination, alienation and marginalization, people will not disclose their risk factors, use condoms, get tested for HIV, seek treatment or talk openly about HIV/AIDS.

The therapies, while effective, are very expensive (approximately $12,000 to $14,000 per year, not including the other costs of care). Without health insurance, many people living with HIV/AIDS cannot afford them. Many state-run, publicly funded AIDS drug assistance programs have waiting lists and are not able to accommodate everyone who needs these life-saving drugs.

The new Congress is threatening to repeal health care reform, which would leave many people with AIDS and other diseases at the mercy of insurance companies who could go back to their old ways of denying coverage to people with "pre-existing conditions." And without funding, the new national HIV/AIDS strategy is just a bunch of good intentions and pretty words.

Every day I live to be Greater Than this disease. That's why I founded Greater Than AIDS with the Kaiser Family Foundation. As we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first AIDS cases identified in the United States, we have the tools to end this epidemic.

The question is: Do we have the moral and political will to use those tools compassionately and expeditiously?