Bayarea Playwrights Festival

‘Sun is shining, the weather is sweet, makes you want to move your dancing feet.’

As thousands of revellers across the UK head off to festivals up and down the country, Brigette Bard, CEO of BioSure UK, gives her advice on how to look after your sexual health while the beat goes on.

Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl, may have pulled out of Glastonbury but Florence and the Machine made up for that as far as the crowds were concerned – just don’t get me started on Kanye West’s ‘interesting’ take on Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

And the party looks set to continue: from Leeds to Loch Ness and from Reading to the Isle of White, this summer there’s a music or comedy festival for every taste, whether you like rock, dance, folk or classical.

And, although the heatwave (don’t ask me what the temperature is in our office today…) means the weather for the festival season could stay hot, we’ve already had health warnings from cynics that revellers at Glasto were at risk of getting trench foot from the mud.

My advice: shove on your shorts/hotpants [delete as appropriate]; put on your wellies; slap on your sunnies; hope for the best.

While you can’t predict the weather, you can prepare for it – and the same is true about looking after your sexual health.

But when it comes to sex at festivals, hoping for the best isn’t enough to prevent sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhoea or HIV.

One in five people under the age of 30 will head off to a festival this year, with the average age at about 26. It’s clear that a more than a few of these are young, free and single and just want to mingle – in fact according to a study by MSN of 2,000 festival goers, only 45% of revellers go for the music and 25% have slept with a stranger in a festival campsite.

‘Great’ I hear you say – ‘There’s a good chance I’ll hook up on the Isle of Wight this year’. It’s true – and if you search the internet you’ll find loads of magazine articles about how to lure your dream festival fox. But if they are a stranger – or even someone you know – there’s no way you can be sure if they have HIV from how they talk or how they look. HIV can affect everyone, no matter whether they are straight or gay, young or old.

In fact, more than a quarter of people who have HIV have absolutely no clue they’ve got it. There are hardly any visible symptoms for years and while HIV is not the same as AIDS it is critical it is treated, and unless people test they won’t know if they are HIV positive.

Nowadays the treatments for HIV are amazing and have made HIV just three letters, not a sentence!

But HIV is still a long-term condition – while it’s completely manageable with treatment and most people who have HIV live normal, healthy, long lives – it still doesn’t have a cure. People who have HIV usually take anti-retroviral medication (ART) every day and are monitored by specialist healthcare professionals for the rest of their lives.

Don’t put yourself at risk of HIV infection after having a few too many drinks at a festival this summer. If you do meet someone you like, use a condom (this is the only form of contraception that can prevent the transmission of HIV). To be honest, if it’s possible, it’s usually easier to have this conversation before you actually get down to it.

And for your piece of mind, if you, a new partner, a friend are worried because of taking a risk and having unprotected sex – test for HIV to be sure. You can either go to your nearest GUM clinic for a test, or if you would prefer to take a self-test, you can order one here, and have it sent discreetly to an address of your choice within 24 hours.

It’s really easy and only takes 15 minutes to test yourself wherever and whenever you feel most comfortable. You can have a result with 99.7% accuracy while you wait. It’s worth thinking about…

Remember though, the self test is only 99.7% accurate from three months after the potential exposure. Most rapid tests used in GUM clinics have the same ‘window period’ of three months but some other professional tests, including lab tests, can detect HIV earlier.

Anyway, if you are heading off to a festival (or a garden party at your nan’s for that matter) this summer have a blast. Go wild and crazy – but be safe and be smart.

And remember when it comes to sexual health, it’s your body, your life… your choice.

“No one makes any money if users won’t pay for porn.”

So now we know what our teenagers, or most of them, are doing when they’re sent to their room to study. They’re watching internet porn.

A study carried out by Unicef Ireland revealed that 58% of Irish teenagers “consume” pornography. More than one-third of them claimed it was educational.

The use of internet porn is not, of course, confined to teenagers. According to Alexa Research in the US, 60% of all web traffic is sex related. “Sex” is the most commonly searched-for word on the web.

A study of Google trends shows that, in Ireland, searches for “porn” or “free porn” are as common as searches for sites such as RTÉ (Ireland’s most popular site) and the Irish Independent’s website.

Porn is everywhere online. Soon, if Michael O’Leary has his way, you’ll be able to launch a porn app during your Ryanair flight. “Hotels around the world have it, so why shouldn’t we?” he said.

And speaking of hotels, 55% of hotel movie rentals are porn movies. The average time spent watching one is 12 minutes. The adult industry releases 11,000 film titles per year, over 20 times as many as Hollywood.

According to Adult Entertainment News, the porn industry in the US alone is worth an estimated $13bn a year, employs about 15,000 people and pays about $40m in taxes.

Yet, at the recent Erotica 2011 expo in London, and at the trade show XBIZ last month, the big question was this: how can an industry with so many customers be losing so much money?

The adult entertainment business used to be pretty straightforward. You made an X-rated movie. You sold it online and on DVD. You sold stills from the movie online. You made money.

Yes, there were always the high-end players, such as Playboy and Hustler, who paid more and had higher production values, but basically the porn market stratified like any other market.

And they paid well. Make-up artists got $200 an hour. Female actors got $1,000 per scene, with males getting about 75% of the female rate. A mid-rank porn star could make $200,000 a year.

Then came a twin-pronged attack on the industry: regulators started to clamp down on internet porn, and users started uploading their own content. For free.

The real game-changer, say industry insiders, was YouTube technology. The ability to upload short, low-quality video on to so-called “tube” sites has left a hole where the industry’s revenue used to be.

The tube sites started an explosion of pirated material. The scenes the movie-makers had spent thousands creating were being uploaded for free. The average viewing time for online porn is seven minutes. Consumers don’t “need” a longer movie and have largely stopped buying them.

Estimates of the fall in porn revenues at the XBIZ conference in London ranged from 50% to 80%.

Take porn star Savannah Stern. She told the LA Times that she used to earn ¢1,000 for a male-female sex scene and took home about $150,000 a year. She drove a CLK Mercedes 350 and often turned down work because she didn’t need extra money.

Now, she’s working one day a week and bringing in just $50,000 a year.

The adult entertainment industry has always been a Petri dish for other media industries — the mainstream movie industry and the press would watch to see how an experiment turned out.

“They led the way with internet business models,” says one Irish academic, “and now they’re seeing the decline in their industry before everyone else.”

“The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream,” says Bill Asher, co-chairman of adult industry giant Vivid Entertainment, who estimates that his company’s revenue is down more than 20% this year.

“We always said that once the internet took off, we’d be OK,” he added. “It never crossed our minds that we’d be competing with people who just give it away for free.”

Diane Duke is the director of the Free Speech Coalition, the porn industry’s trade association. “I asked my son once, ‘Do you pay for your porn?'” she told an XBIZ session. “I managed to get an answer out of him that was, ‘If you buy it, it’s kind of sleazy’.”

There is a generation of internet users out there who have grown up with the idea that content — whether it is porn, news, music or movies — should be free.

The music industry has struggled to regain control of its content, and the newspaper business is still unsure about how to proceed. Some newspapers have retreated behind paywalls, while others, such as this newspaper, give access to their stories for free.

And there are other parallels too. There is a boom in user-submitted and webcam porn, just as there is a boom in blogging and so-called “citizen journalism”.

The questions asked at the XBIZ conference are the same that might be asked at a newspaper conference: how can we survive providing quality content when other people are giving it away for free?

As any economist will tell you, nothing is ever “free”; someone somewhere is bearing the cost. For the porn industry, the trick is to get those 58% of teenagers to pay their way.

There is sex and all around festivals and concerts

It flows like beer from the concession stands.

But you don’t just show up and expect it to happen; you’ve got to work it and work it properly in order to find a companion for the night (or possibly beyond the night, for we have seen many a romance blossom as a result of one-night stands at concerts).

So here’s our guide to how to get laid at festivals & concerts, utilizing some very basic principals and methods that will have you singing as much as the bands.

This article is for the average person, not the rock star or wallet-thick VIP. It’s practical tips for practical people. While written by a man, the same philosophy can be adopted by women. Consider this the equivalent of that gaming instructional channel in the hotel room.

So, now with the stage all set, here are tales about scoring tail.

1.) See If There’s A Party Bus Or Pre-Party Event

If there’s a party bus or some other transportation headed to the venue, then get on it. This is a great way to meet people. First of all, you’ve immediately got a connection because you’ve got something in common: you”re both going to the festival or concert. Secondly, everyone is in a good mood. Third, there’s alcohol involved. All these element combine to make for a rich “planting the seeds” setting.

2.) You Don’t Get Laid At 2 O’Clock In The Afternoon

If you’e at a festival, then you’re there all day and most likely into the night. Don’t make your move too early. You don’t get laid at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, you get laid at 2 in the morning. Now is the time to plant your seeds, to walk around and meet people. If you’re at a concert, do this at the tailgate party (if there is one) or around the concession area. Obviously, with a concert, you’ve got to be more aggressive; beer lines are a great place to get things started at concerts.

3.) Planting The Seeds For Sex

During those first few hours of a festival walk around a meet people. Chat with them, talk about the acts the scene, where you’re from, whatever. If the other person is interested either get their contact information (Instagram, perhaps Facebook or even their cell number) and arrange to meet them later at a designated spot. Do this with a lot of people. They may show up or they may not, but if the DO, then you’re chances of getting laid have increased 10-fold. If you’re our of town for a concert or festival and are staying in a hotel or campground, offer meet up with them at one of those two places for a post-party; that’s the ideal scenario.

4.) Let The Alcohol Do It’s Job

Don’t rush right up to someone and immediately start hitting on them. Instead, let them drink first. The alcohol will eventually make it easier for you to make your move.

5.) And Finally, The Dollar Bill Theory

This is probably the most important element to getting laid at a festival or concert. You’ve got to live by “the dollar bill theory.”

What’s that, you ask?

Simple.

Say you are walking down the street. You see a dollar bill on the ground. Well, you’re going to pick it up, right? It’s the same with a girl or guy. If you see someone who is okay looking but certainly not a 10, are you going talk to her or him? You should, because you could be getting laid!

Now, sometimes you might find a five, 10 or even 20 ‘dollar bill’ and you’re sure going to reach down for that one. But there’s a lot more dollar bills laying around than those fives and 10s, so if you want to get laid you’ve got to be willing to pick up the dollar bills.

What you should not pick up (unless it’s the vey end of the night, nobody is left, the alcohol has taken full effect on you and you’re getting desperate) are the quarters, dimes, nickels or pennies.

But always look to pick up those dollar bills.

Comparing to the past days today is the era of interesting facts. It means that children’s, as well as an adolescent, is used with the touch of porn, as they can’t stay away from reading porn magazines and watching videos in porn websites concern with strange adventure. Children are using the internet in a unique way, and as they are watching these all in a manner of content depending on the mood and habits, you make to choose. Regarding the porn, there are so many festivals which are celebrated in all corners of the world, but bay area porn festival is one of them. If you are going t participate in the festival, then some essential things which are provided for it are necessary to be considered.

What are the pros?

• It is healthy: every individual wants satisfaction because of their own habits, considering to the sex and watching porn, it is much healthy for a human being because it increases our stamina and makes the body in shape as a fitness freak.
• Release stress: whenever a person is tired and full of laziness whether it’s physical or mental, the best solution to remove stress is to watch porn or do sex. For this issue, bay area porn festival plays an important role in our life to feel relaxed and make it feel happy.
• Beneficial for a relationship: porn, as well as sex, is useful for a relationship because this help to change your mood instantly and hence make your partner a romantic feel. As human always want a love from a woman as porn become very useful and much beneficial for us to make a healthy relationship
• Decrease aggression: Watching porn helps to relax and also provide aggression less attitude toward another. It is helpful for us because, mainly when we choose wrong direction then aggression is automatically made our life negative in nature.
• Satisfaction of desire: Desires, need and wants of a human being is a major part of their life as satisfaction from porn is better and satisfy their wishes.

What are the cons?

• Contributes psychological problems: The main problem of being addicted to porn effect on our psychological and mind issue as it changes our attitudes and feels distressed
• Effect on perception and mindset: Scientists proved porn can have negative effects on mental facilities. Porn always results on our attitude because excessive use of these habits may change your mindset, but if we control our feeling while enjoying in bay area porn festival then it might benefit.
• Feel uncontrolled: With the help of watching porn, it feels us be uncontrolled of mind and become harmful .As we are much addicted with porn, the main issue is in front of us about, are we doing right things or we are getting right path just because we want t remove stress and all.

Conclusion

Hence the result clearly shows that excessive use of porn is bad for health and our life as we should not cross our limits.