A sex shop in the Turkish province of Batman was forced to close after only two days of operation due to reactions from other local shop owners.

S.G., manager of the shop, gave out advertising brochures saying, Drop by for a healthy sex life, throughout the city for his shop in the.

Masum Padir, the local headman, said many people replied to him asking that the shop be closed: As soon as it opened we learned that the shop was selling sexual material. The shop owners and locals on the street complained about it. We made the necessary warnings since this is against our moral values and social structure. So the shop manager closed down his place.

The adult-entertainment industry is in a tailspin, shattering the notion that it is one of the few recession-proof industries.

The slump is especially stinging because technology — which helped adult-entertainment enterprises reap riches through innovations such as video streaming, webcameras and online payments — is contributing to the misery.

DVDs and online pay sites, which make up the majority of porn-related sales, are in a free fall largely because of the rise of so-called tube sites. Knockoffs of video-sharing site YouTube, the sites serve up snippets of free porn that is often pirated.

Some 1,000 tube sites — double those of a year ago — have put a sizable dent in the estimated $13 billion porn industry, prompting a flurry of copyright-infringement lawsuits. Most tube sites run ads to make money.

We're dealing with the perfect storm: declining DVD sales, rampant piracy, free content and a weak economy, says Steven Hirsch, founder of porn heavyweight Vivid Entertainment. He says its DVD sales plunged 20% last year. This is the worst I've seen in this industry in 25 years.

A recent report by market researcher XBIZ. It says initial orders of DVD titles by distributors have sunk, on average, to 1,500 to 2,000 now, vs. 5,000 to 6,000 in 2005.

Fifth Annual Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards

The Year's Best Film Screenings
8th April, Bloor Cinema, Bloor West, Toronto

Awards Ceremony
9th April
Berkeley Church (315 Queen Street East), Toronto

Good For Her is entering their fifth year as producers of the Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards, the largest and longest running celebration of feminist porn in the world.

See Award Nominations at goodforher.com

Kick off the Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards with a screening of scenes from Tristan Taormino, Shine Louise Houston, Nica Noelle, and April Flores. Followed by a roundtable discussion about porn and feminism, five years after the first Feminist Porn Awards, moderated by CoCo La Creme, with all directors/performers in attendance. Audience members will also be able to vote in our first ever Viewer's Choice Award.

Our special Fifth Anniversary celebrations are guaranteed to be unforgettable! Join us as we welcome adult performers and directors from far and wide including Nica Noelle, Shine Louise Houston, Tristan Taormino, April Flores, Dylan Ryan, Courtney Trouble, Judy Minx, Sophia St. James, Carlos Batts, Jiz Lee, Madison Young, Tina Horn, Carson, and many more. Featuring awards in categories including Hottest Kink Film, Sexiest Straight Movie, Steamiest Trans Movie and many more! Hosted by Morgan Brayton, this evening also includes entertainment from saucy and inventive burlesque babes and boys, silent auction and raffle, refreshments and more cuties than you can shake a stick at.

A legislator for Muslim-based National Awakening Party (PKB), Riki Solihin, has proposed collecting tax from the brothel industry.

Riki suggested a 10% tax be collected from every prostitution transaction in Batam.

He told The Jakarta Post that sexual transactions at the city's prostitution hub of Sinta yielded about Rp 180 million (US$19,000) a day. He added that there were about 40 bars operating in Sintai, each employing at least 30 commercial sex workers. Each sex worker, he said, could serve at least three customers with the lowest fee of Rp 150,000 per service.

Hendriyanto, secretary-general of Riau's PKB, said that prostitution fees were not included in the party's policy yet: In the spirit of democracy, Riki has the freedom to voice his opinion. But he does not voice PKB's.

Separately, chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council's (MUI) Riau Islands provincial chapter Azhari Abbas said that money generated from haram activity was also haram: We don't want Batam to be involved in using haram money. We are strongly against the plan and will soon issue an edict regarding the matter.

Meanwhile, head of Batam's public relation division, Yusfa Hendri, said that such proposal was legal in the era of democracy: It's only a proposal. Whether it is approved will depend on the municipal legislature's decision. Yusfa, however, admitted that Batam had limited income sources and therefore revenue optimization was needed in all sectors.

The exaggeration of numbers of trafficked sex workers and sex slaves has been going on for over a decade. Much of this stems from a general misunderstanding about the differences between sex work per se, sex slavery and trafficking…a misunderstanding amplified by the fact that in many countries, ALL of these activities are crimes, and ALL are under the gaze of a migration-sensitive and politically astute police force, media and government trying to jockey for brownie points among a difficult public landscape of financial crisis and celebrity sensationalism. Career politicians, conservative feminists and desperate journalists have exploited the public's penchant for stories about sex and the ethnic other to replicated the lie that all migrant sex workers are trafficked sex slaves.

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Nice n Naughty Director, Simon Prescott, has raised thousands of pounds for charity in recent years by pushing himself to the limit for a good cause. This time, though, he's going for the Big One - the London Marathon on 25th April.

The Virgin London Marathon is one of the great British sporting events, combining elite athletics, mass participation and record-breaking fundraising in one race. The course is a gruelling 26 miles 385 yards long, passing through the streets of London from Blackheath to the famous finish line at The Mall.

Since the first race in 1981, more than £400 million has been raised for charities and good causes. Last year alone a staggering £47.2 million was reached, making the event a Guinness World Record holder as the largest annual fundraising event on the planet.

Simon's target is a bit more modest than £47.2 million but it's a challenge nevertheless. He's setting out to raise at least £1500 for a very worthwhile charity - Vitalise, which provides respite breaks and other essential services for disabled people, visually impaired people, and carers.

Thousands of disabled people in the UK have complicated medical and care requirements that can make taking even a short break incredibly difficult and costly to arrange. Vitalise Centres across the UK make a real difference through their accessible respite care and short breaks. Guests can spend their time in a supportive and safe environment while carers can take some much needed time off from their 24 hour a day role.

Please help Simon reach his target by donating at uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SimonPrescott. Simon has pledged to get the ball rolling by contributing £250 personally and you'll be helping make life easier for a lot of people for whom every day is a challenge.

An area of Dublin city centre has remained cordoned off following an incident of suspected arson at a head (legal highs) shop.

Dublin Fire Brigade said that three shops, including a souvenir store and Utopia, a sex shop, will have to be demolished.

Firefighters tackling the blaze rescued almost half a million euro in cash from a safe in the basement before one building was partly knocked down. The €485,000 sum of money was found in the Nirvana head shop and kept by gardai over the weekend.

The money was taken to the Bridewell Garda Station with the consent of shop owner Jim Bellamy. The cash is believed to be takings from the lucrative trade in legal highs and the adult store.

Hacking attacks, dubbed Operation Titstorm, have targeted the websites of Senator Stephen Conroy and the Australian Parliament House, taking them both down with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) for a period of time.

Anonymous' Operation Titstorm is protesting Australia's upcoming Internet censorship legislation, in particular the proposed banning of images of small-breasted females and female ejaculation, and also claims it will follow up with pornographic emails, spam faxes and prank calls to government offices.

Australia's laws on internet censorship are already among the most restrictive in the western world. Their government filters more internet content than any other Parliamentary Democracy. For some elements within the Government, including Telecommunications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy, this still is not enough. Late in January of 2009 he proposed legislature that would lead to mandatory ISP filtering for all of Australia. The stated goal is to prevent Australia from viewing 'illegal and unwanted content' on the Internet, Anonymous said in an email release to Australian media.

The ambiguity of the term 'unwanted content' is completely unacceptable. No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be 'unwanted'.

Fiji's new Crime Decree will be harsher on prostitution, penalizing not only those who make a living off prostitution but also those involved in prostitution-related activities.

According to Fiji Times Online, under Fiji's new Crime Decree, those who make a living off prostitution are liable for a jail term of six months while people caught hiring prostitutes can get jail terms of up to 12 years. In addition, anybody found operating a brothel, or services which procure prostitution are liable for prosecution with the penalties being harsher when the crime involves people under the age of 18. Also, anyone residing with a prostitute is also liable.

The new Crime Decree comes into effect this week.