British Porn Director Swaps Sex For Politics

A woman who has directed 300 “female-friendly” sex films is to test the liberal-mindedness of British voters and run for parliament in an election due within weeks.

Anna Arrowsmith, 38, whose works under the name Anna Span include “Be My Toy Boy,” “Hoxton Honey” and “Uniform Behavior,” is standing for the opposition Liberal Democrats in the Kent constituency of Gravesham in southeast England.

Her last-minute selection for the seat after the previous candidate dropped out made headlines across Britain over the weekend as the opposition party met in the midlands city of Birmingham ahead of the election expected in May.

Even the normally august Times newspaper put her picture on its front page above the caption: “The woman who is sexing up the Lib Dems.”

Burglar Uses Church Equipment To Watch Porn

Second-degree burglary charges have been filed against an Ames, Iowa man who broke into a church where he allegedly used the institution’s electronic equipment to watch pornography.

Police allege the 55-year-old man broke into the First Christian Church on Thursday.  After gathering items from around the building, he is believed to have gone to the basement to spend the night.

Police summoned to the church Friday by staff, found the man trying to haul away a garbage can filled with food, kitchen utensils, clothes, electronic equipment and a 26-inch flat-screen television.

Police Cmdr. Mike Brennan said the man used the electronic equipment to watch pornographic movies that were found on him when he was arrested.

The man was being held at the Story County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond.

Puppet Cleavage A No-No In Colorado

Puppet cleavage has been ruled out for advertising posters in Colorado Springs bus shelters. Lamar Advertising rejected posters for a touring production of the Broadway show “Avenue Q” because they show the cleavage of a fuzzy pink puppet.

Lamar account executive Jeff Moore says the company takes a conservative approach in Colorado Springs. The city is known for its political conservatism, and some conservative Christian groups have headquarters in the city.

The poster has been replaced by one showing the face of another puppet.

“Avenue Q” is a Tony-winning musical about twentysomething New Yorkers, both human and puppets, searching for life and love.

Giant Screen Shows Porn On Moscow Street

Russian police said they have arrested a prankster who hacked into a computer system to show a pornographic movie on a giant advertising screen, causing havoc on a busy Moscow thoroughfare.

The two-minute clip, displayed on a video screen above a main road south of the Kremlin, caused midnight traffic jams and a frenzy of excitement across the Russian blogosphere.

Police said the hacker gained control of the screen by breaking into an online company’s server in the volatile southern region of Chechnya as “he didn’t think the police would go looking for him there.”

“(The hacker) is a highly-educated, temporarily unemployed and extremely advanced Internet user,” police said. “The scandalous film was the talk of the town.”

The 40-year-old man said he wanted to “give people a laugh,” the popular daily Kommersant reported.

Rossiya-24 television said an elderly motorist suffered a heart attack at the wheel after seeing the scenes.

Porn Star Sasha Grey Poses For PETA Ad

Animal right group PETA has stepped up its advertising campaigns by getting Sasha Grey to pose nude for their new poster.

The porn star, who recently acted in the mainstream film The Girlfriend Experience, shed her clothes to promote the animal rights group’s campaign to have pet cats and dogs desexed.

PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – usually uses actresses like Eva Mendes, Christina Applegate and Pamela Anderson for its campaigns.

In the poster, a naked Grey is barely concealed by a white sheet under the words: “Too Much Sex Can Be a Bad Thing: Have your cats and dogs spayed or neutered.”

Grey said she was a big fan of the animal rights group and wanted to support their desexing campaign.

“I think it’s something very simple that pet owners can do … If you want to have a pet you need to take the time to look after that pet.”

Are Airport Scanners Generating Low-Grade Porn?

The proliferation of airport body scanners will spark a flurry of low-grade porn, internet conspiracy theorists claimed last week.

But officials at Manchester Airport, where full body scanning is already due to be tested, have been quick to dismiss this as urban myth. Who to ignore?

A number of websites have suggested it is a simple enough matter to transform the slightly abstract, solarised images currently taken by airport scanners and turn them into slightly fuzzed smut.

This was the story that started to appear last week on sites such as Prison Planet, and which has been gaining ground across the world by the usual process of internet osmosis.

Manchester’s officials have countered, pointing out that the images being bounced around the net as examples of the alleged threat to personal privacy are nothing like the images created by scanning – and that no images are ever saved within the system.

“There is simply no potential for images captured by the scanners to be reversed,” a spokesman stated. “This very much looks to be a scare story. Besides, images taken by the scanners are not ever saved to any form of permanent medium, so there is no scope for images to be played with in this way.”

The spokesman also confirmed that the scheme currently being piloted at Manchester airport will not involve the scanning of any children under the age of 18.

Over 3,000 Detained In Chinese Porn Crackdown

Chinese police have detained some 3,470 people so far this year during a crackdown on online pornography and closed thousands of pornographic websites, state media said.

In August, China formally backed down on a plan to pre-install Internet filter software on all new computers sold in the country after an international and domestic outcry.

But the government maintains tight controls over the internet, saying it has to do so to protect young people from bad influences. Activists say it is more to do with stifling criticism of the ruling Communist Party.

The official Xinhua news agency, citing the Ministry of Public Security, said “more than 1.25 million items of online lewd content and nearly 7,000 pornographic websites and columns” had been removed from the internet this year.

“The police also cracked more than 3,500 erotic cases,” Xinhua said, without elaborating.

The aim of the campaign was to “purify (the) social environment and protect minors’ mental health,” the report said.

Despite the harsh words and action, pornography remains relatively easy to obtain in China, mainly in the form of pirated DVDs hawked on street corners.

City Advertises Porn On Official Website

Authorities in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen accidentally advertised porn among the services on offer for residents on its website.

“It was a mistake,” said a spokesman for the city authorities. “There was never any intention of the city providing pornography as a service.”

The administrative error arose when an employee compiling the list thought that brothel owners might type “porn” into the search box to find out about the city’s sex tax, he added.

The city has now removed the word from the list.

Pair Accused Of Playing Porn DVD At Wal-Mart

Two Oklahoma men have been arrested for allegedly playing a pornographic DVD on display televisions at a Fort Smith, Arkansas Wal-Mart.

Sebastian County jail records show 20-year-olds Cody Allen Sexton and Kenny Dean Andrews were arrested on a felony obscenity complaint.

Police said the two put the pornographic DVD into a player that was connected to six televisions on Sept. 3. The DVD was removed after a customer notified a store manager.

It wasn’t clear whether the two have an attorney. Police Sgt. Levi Risley said the two thought they were just pulling a prank.

Blunder Lets Porn Be Sold Legally To Kids

Retailers who sell children violent or pornographic videos will be immune from prosecution for the next three months after the discovery of a government blunder 25 years ago.

Britain should have notified the European Commission of the existence of the Video Recordings Act 1984 (VRA) — which regulated the industry — but failed to do so.

“Unfortunately, the discovery of this omission means that, a quarter of a century later, the VRA is no longer enforceable against individuals in United Kingdom courts,” said Barbara Follett, Minister for Culture and Tourism.

Follett said people currently being prosecuted under the act would not be convicted until a new act can take legal effect in three months, the period required for consultation with other EU member states.

In the interim, people will be able to sell pornographic and violent videos to children under the age of 18 without fear of prosecution.

However anyone previously convicted for offences under the act will not be able to appeal their case.

The British Video Association said distributors would continue to submit their works to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and asked its members to comply with the provisions on a voluntary basis.

Britain’s Entertainment Retailers Association, which represents more than 90 percent of the UK video market, said “This is extraordinary. For 25 years retailers have been faithfully administering the system and now this happens.”