Planet Manu

We have launched a new version of the Literotica Favorites Portal.

The new design matches up more closely with the rest of the Literotica site. We’ve also moved the stories to the left side of the page and the authors to the right side of the page and made a few other minor changes.

Some recent projects, like the new Literotica Tags portal and Search, are intended to improve the functions of the page/feature. In this case, with the Favorites Portal, the changes are more about making it look like a part of Literotica.com. There are so many different pages and features on the site, each designed at various times over the last 10 years. One of our goals for 2008 is to try to bring everything together to give the site more of a unified look and feel. In theory, the site should be easier to use if all of the pages are similar. We’ll see!

As always, please let me know your thoughts on the changes and more updates coming soon.

This news isn’t earth shattering, and I wouldn’t call it a new feature, but it is something that we’ve been working toward for a few years. After many designs and re-designs and re-re-designs, we have finally launched a new version of the Literotica story background. You should be able to see it on the newest stories on Literotica.com right now, and on all stories within the next few days.

Here is an example of a new story with the new background.

In case you don’t notice the difference, look at the blue area to the right of the story. Now compare that background image to the old one, which you can still see on the Literotica Story Index page.

Some Literotica readers have been making requests for a less bright background just about since we launched the site. Others have asked us not to change it because they are used to it. We hope that this new version is a balance between the requests of those two groups of users. The new background definitely is a change, but we think it’s a pretty subtle change.

Also, the fact that the new background design is a bit lighter than the old one seems to go nicely with the addition of the Similar Stories feature, the first Literotica feature that appears to the right of the main story area. Computer monitors have gotten a lot bigger since Literotica first launched, so there is some room over to the right of the story area that could be used by new features (like Similar Stories) in the future.

Please have a look and let us know what you think. Thank you for the continued feedback, as always.

From AVN News:

John Stagliano (aka Buttman) has launched a new Website at DefendOurPorn.org in response to federal obscenity charges filed against him and his company Evil Angel. The site includes news updates, links to media coverage of the case and a ‘Contact Your Congressman’ page.

The full AVN story is here.

The latest updates on the charges against him can be found in this AVN story.

In 2008 the government is still wasting time and tax payer money trying to stop adults from viewing videos of other consenting adults. How sad.

The Literotica Story Tags portal has been updated. The new version of the feature is live on the site now. This version is redesigned and includes the ability to browse stories using multiple tags and a way to easily add and remove tags from your search.

Please take a look and let us know what you think and report any problems you find. As with other updates, we’d also like to hear/read suggestions for the next version.

Thanks and enjoy!

Just a quick update on the latest Literotica features. In the next few days we are getting ready to roll out a few new things in BETA. The first of those just went live on the site: Similar Stories

Take a look at this Literotica story to see what it looks like.

At the bottom right of the story, below the voting element and to the right of the comment element, there is a small section showing stories that are related or similar to this story.

Please take a look at the feature and let me know what you think. We hope that it will be another tool to help readers find what they are looking for within the ever-growing collection of published fiction at Literotica.

More new feature launches coming very soon. Check back!

Here is another one of those stories that you wouldn’t believe except that you expected it all along. The Texas District Attorney who argued that gays have no right to privacy in their own bedrooms had to resign amid a growing scandal involving racism and sex. Here is a little bit of the article from AVN about the situation:

Rosenthal had also retained sexually-explicit video clips and love notes to his secretary (who’d been his mistress during his previous marriage) in his “saved” mail.

And a quote from his arguments before the Supreme Court:

…there is no protected right to engage in extrasexual — extramarital sexual relations…

You can check out the full article to see the rest of the details. Let’s just say that “hypocrite” isn’t a strong enough word for this guy.

Just a quick update to let you know about a cool newspaper article someone sent me a link to. The Stanford Daily is an independent newspaper produced for Stanford University. In the paper a couple of days ago, one of the writers shares her love of Literotica.com. Here is a short excerpt of the article by Roxy Sass:

There are many places a girl can have fun, but Roxy’s personal favorite is literotica.com. Oh, Literotica, with your carefully indexed stories in easy-to-understand categories, how Roxy loves you. As best as Roxy can figure, the authors are all amateurs who take time out of their days to help keep her hot and bothered.

You can read the full article at the Stanford Daily website.

Thank you to the person who sent me the link and more updates coming soon.

For those of you who are fans of internet message boards — like the Literotica Forums — this article may be of interest:

Anonymous trolls on the Internet are allowed to remain anonymous, a judge in a California appeals court ruled yesterday. Not only that, but they’re allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights and speak their minds, no matter how scathing their comments may be.

10 anonymous individuals posted on Yahoo’s message boards in 2005 about Lisa Krinsky, her company (SFBC), and two other officers at her company. These posters regularly made what the judge described as “scathing verbal attacks” against these officers. This included referring to the trio as “a management consisting of boobs, losers and crooks,” and with one poster (Doe 6) describing Krinsky when he said “I will reciprocate felatoin [sic] with Lisa even though she has fat thighs, a fake medical degree, ‘queefs’ and has poor feminine hygiene.”

According to the full article, the court ruled that the trolls were insulting the woman and her company, but they were not, under the law, making statements of “actual fact”. Therefore, they could not be found to have committed libel under the law.

I guess that’s like when people post comments like “eat a dick, tranny!” or “get a life, loser!” Should people be made to pay damages for libel for making silly insults online? Is that the same as saying that Tom Cruise is gay in a tabloid? I’m not sure what the right answer is in all cases, but I’d say it’s probably better to err on the side of free speech. That opinion is coming from someone who has been called many horrible things online by many people - and a few of them weren’t even true!

There is a major sex scandal going on with Hong Kong celebrities right now. According to various articles, famous HK singer / actor Edison Chen took his computer in for repairs. The problem is - he left his collection of nude and sexual pictures and video of famous and non-famous female Hong Kong celebs on the computer - and someone copied the pictures and videos. Some of the HK girls include pop singer and actress Bobo Chan, hot actress Cecilia Cheung, and the cute singer / actress Gillian Chung (on of the Twins).

Once pictures like those are in the wrong hands, it’s only a matter of time until they end up on the internet - and that time has arrived. So far, only twenty something pictures have been released, but Hong Kong police, who are investigating the theft of the images, have said there are over 1000. There has also been talk of videos, though none have been released yet.

Speaking of the Hong Kong police, they have already arrested eight people in relation to the sexy pictures. There has been no final word on why the person took and then posted the pictures, but the main theory seems to be possible blackmail of Edison Chen. Celebs have money. Some computer repair guy needs money. The world gets another celeb sex scandal?

Enough details, though, how about those Hong Kong girls (Bobo Chan, Cecilia Cheung, and Gillian Chung) naked? Not wanting to be arrested, I will just give you links to other sites hosting the pictures. You can see them here or here. If those links go down, let me know and I’ll see where else the pictures are posted. You shouldn’t click on those links while at work - unless you work somewhere very cool.

Finally, Edison Chen himself has posted a video on You Tube asking users not to share the pictures. So, if you do have to look at them - please don’t share them with your friends and relatives. Keep them to yourself and make Edison Chen happy - just like he made millions of people happy with those pictures and videos.

On the free speech front, here is a story that would be funny - if it wasn’t scary - from Virginia:

The manager of an Abercrombie & Fitch store is facing obscenity charges after customers complained to the city about two racy murals that were on display last week in Virginia Beach.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that police seized two large photographs on Saturday and cited the manager with violating a local ordinance.

Here is the full article from USA Today. And here is one of the “obscene” pictures that the police were so upset by:

It’s a little hard to believe that someone is getting in trouble for that picture in 2008. But maybe it was the other picture - the one where you can see the side of a woman’s breast. That sounds quite shocking.

Update: Prosecutors in Virginia have decided to drop the obscene posters case which police were seeking against Abercrombie & Fitch. The full article about the case being dropped, and an image of the “racy” woman poster, can be found here. The police didn’t get their case, but Abercrombie definitely got their free publicity - and free speech wins out again.