Is Super-Chic, James Franco-Approved Bondage Site Kink.com Just Another Shady Porn Company?

Adrian Chen · 02/18/13 01:31PM

A cocaine bust doesn't typically cause much of a stir in the porn industry. But when news broke last week that Peter Acworth, CEO of upscale San Francisco fetish porn giant Kink.com, had been arrested for cocaine possession, it came as a surprise to many. Though it produces some of the more extreme hardcore porn on the internet, Kink.com has built a reputation as a kinder, gentler porn company. Now former employees and models are speaking out to Gawker about drugs, guns, and mistreatment at Kink, suggesting that the operation that ostentatiously bills itself as a progressive sexual shangri-la is in fact just another shady porn company.

Leah Beckmann · 02/18/13 12:09PM

L.A. Lakers owner Jerry Buss died this morning at 79. Buss had been battling an undisclosed form of cancer for months.

Two Girls, One 'Japanese Condom Ice Cream'

Neetzan Zimmerman · 02/18/13 11:35AM

Japan-based university student Sharla and her BFF Mira attempt to demonstrate how to properly consume "Japanese Condom Ice Cream," and inadvertently capture "the highest number of unintentional sexual innuendos you'll ever find in one place."

Hamilton Nolan · 02/18/13 10:45AM

Today in People Who Are Getting Divorced a Lot: drunks, old people. Today in Eligible Bachelors: divorced old drunks.

Urgent New York Times Trend News: Middle-Aged White People Have Jobs, Move Out of the City

Tom Scocca · 02/18/13 10:40AM

The Sunday Styles section of the New York Times exists to make folks mad, to be sure (and to sell handbag ads), but it is not really worth getting mad about this past weekend's paired section-front irritants—a profile of BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith, and a trend piece about people forsaking Brooklyn to hipsterize towns in the Hudson Valley—at least not at face value. Each hits the obvious flabbergasting or infuriating notes as it is designed to: OMG LOL BuzzFeed b/w Aren't Hipsters Awful. As far as the intentional content goes, there's nothing to do but roll one's eyes and move on. Let's go ahead and do that, shall we? First BuzzFeedBen:

What We Can Learn from 10,000 Porn Stars

Max Read · 02/18/13 10:35AM

Like most of us, writer Jon Millward has spent the last few months thinking about porn on the internet. He's been crunching numbers taken from 10,000 profiles of porn stars on the Internet Adult Film Database, compiling the data—heights, weights, and bra sizes; roles, movie titles, and sex acts; names, races and birthplaces—into an impressive infographic that finally answers burning questions like what is the average age of a "MILF"? and what is more popular, butts or boobs?

Does PepsiCo Need a New, Snackier Name?

Hamilton Nolan · 02/18/13 10:00AM

It's a classic American hero story: PepsiCo was flagging, so it did a lot of research in its top secret BEVERAGE LAB, and started spending more money on ads, and now it's doing better. What could be more American than that? High fructose corn syrup water, ads, corporate earnings—it's everything that symbolizes this great nation. But does PepsiCo need even more rebranding in order to achieve its goal of "A Sierra Mist in every hand, and a Frito in every mouth?"

Photographer Says Alec Baldwin Called Him 'Coon' and 'Crackhead'

Max Read · 02/18/13 08:55AM

Alec Baldwin: regular asshole, or racist asshole? This is the question raised this morning by the New York Post, and a photographer in its employ who claims that Baldwin called him a "coon," a "crackhead," a "drug dealer" and "Ralston":

Country Star Mindy McCready Becomes Fifth Celebrity Rehab Participant to Die

Max Read · 02/18/13 08:17AM

With country star Mindy McCready's Sunday-afternoon suicide, the total number of Celebrity Rehab deaths has reached five. Sixth months ago, The Daily Beast wondered if the VH1 reality show was a "death trap"; last year, the show dropped the celebrity angle and became just Rehab with Dr. Drew, because if anyone's better-equipped than celebrities to deal with treatment in public, it's regular-Joe addicts. Self-promoting host Dr. Drew Pinsky, revealed by a 2012 Justice Department settlement to be a shill for big pharma, told Buzzfeed he was "deeply saddened by this news." (Last night he was deeply saddened all over CNN.) [Gawker | The Daily Beast | WaPo | BuzzFeed | CNN]