A coalition of porn stars, strippers and other adult entertainers protested at the California State capitol on monday to oppose a so-called porn tax.
Assembly Bill 1551, drafted by ghastly Assemblyman Charles Calderon of Whittier, would impose a fee on businesses that support the adult entertainment industry. Live dancers, videos, DVDs and strip clubs would all be affected.
Among the porn stars that lobbied against the bill was Mary Carey, who ran for governor of California in the 2003 recall election.
She argued that taxing adult entertainment would actually force the state to lose money. "People will just order more online or from other countries and that's not going to benefit California in any way," Carey said.
Adult industry representatives said they generate $3 to $4 billion a year.
Calderon said the bill is not about morals (sure, sure), but a way to balance the budget. The money raised would go to the 'Adult Entertainment Venue Impact Fund.'
Hey moron, how about taxing gun stores? Their 'impact' seems a lot worse than any strip club's could ever be...

The founder of the Girls Gone Wild video empire pleaded guilty to contempt of court on Monday and was sentenced to 35 days in jail.
Joe Francis, who was sued by seven women who were minors when filmed, apologised to the judge for yelling at the plaintiffs during settlement talks.
"I am sorry for my behavior. It was wrong. I had heard about appeals and things and I was confused. I am sorry, I really am," said Francis, 34.
Francis drew the charge during negotiations to settle the federal lawsuit brought after his production company filmed the women at Panama City Beach in 2003.
Francis - who makes a reported $29 million a year from his series - lost his temper in negotiations and yelled obscenities at them.
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak ordered Francis to settle the case or go to jail for contempt of court. When talks fell through, Francis lashed out at Smoak in the media, calling him a "judge gone wild" and questioning the judge's authority to order a settlement.
Francis has since reached an undisclosed settlement with the seven women. Francis had told The Associated Press that they wanted $70 million to settle the case.
Francis has said the women lied about their ages.
His attorney, Jan Handzlik, said being in jail had changed his client.
"He is a different man. Undoubtedly he is a different man," he said.
Meanwhile, the Girls Gone Wild series has debuted in UK shops, with six titles already on release. Expect reviews on Striporama soon!

A 40-year-old office clerk caused a sensation at Rome's Trevi fountain when she went for a swim naked - in front of a crowd of tourists.
"The water is everyone's. I was hot," Roberta (who did not give her last name) gaver as the reason for her unusual behaviour. Snapshots of her appeared in all Italy's major newspapers on Monday (sadly, all we've managed to track down is this blurry effort - not censored by us!).
Swimming in the fountain is prohibited and Roberta, from Milan, now risks a hefty fine for both violating that rule and for public indecency.
The Trevi famously featured in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita, in which Anita Ekberg went for a dip in the fountain wearing a skimpy black dress.
In 1995, German supermodel Claudia Schiffer also waded into the fountain for an advertising campaign for designer Valentino, and later is cropped up again in the thoroughly mad horror movie Fatal Frames.

What sort of backwards hellhole is Bahrain? Apparently, it's the sort which gets upset about 'provocative' shop window dummies.
The Muharraq Municipal Council has initiated a crackdown on what it claims are sexually explicit posters and provocatively dressed mannequins. Chairman Mohammed Jassim Saleh Hamada said the council had received many complaints from residents, especially women, who believe that these fly in the face of their traditional (i.e. repressive religious) values.
The council has already ordered municipal authorities to make daily inspections to identify violators.
'The mannequins are wearing see-through clothing that show their breasts," he said.
"And the posters that are on display at video stores are very offensive.
"There are pictures depicting men embracing women, kissing them, with their breasts uncovered. Others show singers wearing skimpy clothing. It seems that baring breasts has become a normal thing in our society these days," continued Mr Hamada, who presumably thinks all women should be covered from head to toe.
He warned that licences of any violators would be revoked.
He also welcomed a demented parliamentary proposal to outlaw men working at women's lingerie shops.

A full-page ad in a college student newspaper promoting dancing jobs at a strip club is drawing strong protests from repressed students.
The ad is for Toys Topless in nearby Gorst and features a photo of five scantily clad young women.
A pitifully tiny group of about 25 students (out of the newspaper's 2000 circulation) demonstrated on campus in the rain last week, holding signs and chanting. Olympic College is a community college that serves Kitsap and Mason counties.
"This isn't about Toys, this isn't about the college, it's about the newspaper," said student Tracy Kendrick of Bremerton, who is president of the college's Black Student Union.
Kendrick said the student newspaper is partly supported by fees paid by students, and the ad is exploitive and demeaning.
The ad began running on the back page of The Olympian of Olympic College in February. It's paid to run through May on a total of six issues of the bi-monthly student-run periodical.
Olympian editor-in-chief Anthony James said he approved the ad and stands by his decision because Toys Topless is a legal business and also because of the $3,500 in revenue the ad brought into the paper.

Table dancing and pole dancing will be on offer in Devizes at a new nightclub in the former Rising Sun pub. The pub's lease has been bought by Andy Waters who is renaming the premises Connections.
By day it will be a pub but in the evenings it will become a nightclub.
Waters said "Connections will be based on Stringfellows nightclub. It's going to be a good experience for Devizes. There will be a bit of table dancing and there might be the odd pole around. It will not be a full-time thing."
Which doesn't sound all that much like Stringfellows to me, but no matter.
He added "I don't think it will be a bad thing. Swindon has got it along with lots of major towns. It will be done in the best possible taste and I can't see any harm in it. Devizes is a growing town and it's got some smashing pubs. I like the town but thought there was something lacking and thought it could do with another nightclub."

Italian police have said they think the husband of porn star and political campaigner Moana Pozzi helped her die 13 years ago so she would not suffer a slow death from cancer.
Prosecutors in Rome opened an investigation into the actress' death in France, in which her husband, Antonio Di Ciesco, is suspected of euthanasia, the Italian news agency ANSA has reported.
The action comes after Di Ciesco told a Rome newspaper he injected air into his wife's intravenous medicine drip after she asked for help to end her suffering.
Di Ciesco said he was airing the details to stem persistent rumors that Moana was alive, having faked her own death.
"It was a decision we took with serenity," he said, adding it was "the right choice, because there was no other way out, but one which cost me a lot."
The day after Di Ciesco's revelations, Pozzi's former manager Riccardo Schicchi accused him of murdering the 33-year-old actress, saying "she had no intention of asking for euthanasia."
Now, prosecutors have said they want to question Di Ciesco, Schicchi and Pozzi's mother. They obtained medical records from the French clinic where Pozzi died.
If the account is confirmed, Di Ciesco could be charged with "killing a consenting adult," police said.

Stripping has been approved for Weymouth's Dusk nightclub.
The licensing committee of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council approved the application at a meeting last week.
Chairman of the licensing committee Councillor Hazel Bruce said the application was granted as a result of several extra conditions offered by Dusk following a mediation meeting.
The nightclub has promised that one door supervisor will be present on the second floor during each performance of dance, and 'lap dancing' will only take place between 9pm and 4am daily. There will be no advertising outside the premises or visible from inside, and no leafleting will take place before 9pm. A final condition was that the flat on the top floor of the club would be used as a changing room and rest area for the dancers.
Previously the club had offered conditions such as prohibiting physical contact between the customers and dancers (so much for 'lap dancing' then), and banning audience participation, and the committee decided these must still apply.
Dusk representative Eric Windsor of Dorset Licensing said Dusk would remain primarily a nightclub and the concept was just to utilise one small room for stag and hen nights and birthday parties. He said the room would only accommodate six or eight people at a time.

Australian beauty queen Carly Hanson was forced to withdraw from the Miss Universe contest last week after semi nude photos emerged.
Hanson withdrew from the notoriously prudish contest after it was revealed she had posed topless for men's magazine Ralph.
The magazine featured two pictures of Hanson in their 'Babes'section, and claimed "Perth Hottie Carly Hanson, 20, likes bikinis that show off her breasts, kissing girls, men who can kiss well and sunbathing topless. And that's why we like her."
We like her too, but the revelations were too much for contest organisers.
National event coordinator Grant Good said to be eligible to enter the event, contestants must not have posed nude in photographs or films.
"We've only just found out that she had topless shots in Ralph," Good tutted. "It's just not suitable. We had that problem with Erin McNaught last year and we can't go through that again."
Last year's Miss Universe Australia winner Erin McNaught was embroiled in similar controversy after it was revealed she had posed for Zoo magazine.

After noting a curious sudden rise in our hit rate, and for words and phrases which we have never used, a little investigation revealed that Striporama has been hacked, and some parasites have placed links and files onto our ISP without our knowledge.
These links are especially unwelcome as they contain material which we have no interest in and in some cases actually find unpleasant - we won't go into further details here.
We're doing our best to clear them from the site but would appreciate any information on (a) how to prevent this happening again and (b) any instances where readers see the Striporama name attached to unlikely material on search engines.

International speedskating star Nicole Begg is hoping to lift her international profile and that of her sport by posing nude.
Begg has had several teasing nude photographs taken for international magazines and websites.
The world champion said she was a bit nervous at the start of the shoot but decided it was no worse than what could be seen on most European beaches.
"Lots of sports stars, both male and female, have done this sort of thing" she commented.
Begg's motivation is to raise her profile in the hope of attracting a sponsor and also to promote inline skating. She is frustrated that her efforts go largely unnoticed in her home country of New Zealand, commenting "not too many people are into speedskating here, but it is huge elsewhere."

A Brooklyn law student who appears naked in a Playboy TV series may face the end of her planned career.
Adriana Dominguez, a third-year student at Brooklyn Law School, happily strips naked, gets spanked and holds gavels up to her bare breasts in the clip from Naked Happy Girls.
"I wanted to do something a little crazy before I graduate and do become a lawyer ... do something kind of out of character," Dominguez comments during the clip as she strips.
The episode, called Rock Star and the Lawyer,aired in January - and was barely noticed.
But in the past three weeks, a 45-second clip spread on the Internet among students at almost every New York law school.
When she made the video, Dominguez naively didn't think it would affect her career.
"I'm not that shy, so it wouldn't bother me if, say, the opposing counsel has seen these pictures of me. I wouldn't care," she comments in the clip. But now she might just be regretting it, even though it is hardly explicit and certainly not illegal.
If she applies for the New York State Bar this year, Dominguez could face tough questions from the Committee on Character and Fitness, which examines the personal character of future lawyers.
"It may have an effect. It's a possibility in the worst-case scenario that the person does not get admitted," a committee representative said.

MORE PHOTOS HERE!

Just when you think the cretins who control every aspect of life in Britain couldn't get any pettier, here comes a story to make you want to weep.
A beer bottle featuring a model wearing a removable swimsuit on the label has been banned for promoting the idea that drinking leads to sexual success.
Labels on Rubbel Sexy Lager feature a blonde in a blue swimsuit which could be scratched off to show her naked.
However, the Belgian beer has now been banned from British shelves after complaints from the idiots at Buckinghamshire Trading Standards (who clearly have a lot of time on their hands) that the naked girl and the name 'Rubbel Sexy Lager' implied that drinking could mean that you had more sex. Unbelievable.
The Independent Complaints Panel found that the beer's image associated itself with sexual success, which is banned under the Portman Group's pathetic Code of Practice on the naming, packaging and promotion of alcoholic drinks.
Taking hyperbole to new heights, David Poley, chief executive of The Portman Group, said that linking alcohol to sexual success was responsible for problems including the rise in teenage pregnancies and STDs. Yes, you read that correctly. All our sexual problems are due to the way beer is packaged.
He said: "The fact is that alcohol is not like other products, and it has the capacity to lower people's inhibitions, and affect their judgement and behaviour.
"It is often associated with problems like teenage pregnancy and a rise in STDs. These problems are often attributed to people drinking too much and making bad choices.
"Implying alcohol is linked with sexual success is going to give rise to unhelpful attitudes and behaviour. If it was a soft drink it would be different because soft drinks don't affect people's behaviour.
"I know that people might say 'Well, what's the harm?', and wonder if the world's gone mad, but we do have a very strict rule concerning associating alcohol with sexual success."
Geoff Cook, general manager of Beer Paradise Ltd, said that no-one had complained before in the seven years they had imported the beer.
Attempting to bring a note of common sense to the asrgument, he said: "It's a storm in a beer bottle really.
"The amount of the beer that's sold is minimal. We've bought it in for the last seven years, it's always had that label and no-one's ever complained about it until now.
"There are other things that encourage sex more than that. Perfume and aftershave advertising shows people fondling each other in bed together on national TV, and no-one complains about that.
"The beer has been made an example of. They told us if we carry on selling it we'll be warned and they'll take the license away, but I don't agree with it at all."
We at Striporama had never heard of Rubbel Sexy Lager before, but now are keen to track some down. After all, beer, naked girls and the decline of western civilisation all in one bottle - what could be better?

Glamour model Lucy Pinder has finally bared (almost) all.
Pinder, who has become popular in UK lad's mags by posing nude without actually revealing any nipple, has finally gone properly topless in Nuts.
To the surprise of no-one, her nipples - nice as they are - are nothing that we haven't seen before, but it's good to see her ridiculous modesty finally thrown to the wind. Only the bottom half to go now...

Lucy Pinder - Lace Poster (36 x 24 inches)

Lap dancers may be coming to Club Sky in Ware - a revelation which predictably has the lunatic fringe up in arms.
The owners of the club have applied to introduce 'adult entertainment'.
The plans came to light after the club applied to East Herts Council to change its premises licence so that doors can stay open until 3am on Fridays, Saturdays and bank holidays.
Ware Town Council has objected to the application and neighbouring householders expressed concern this week.
Churchgoe, Julie Pope, without any evidence, said "this is not the place to run a strip, lap dancing and table dancing club. It's going to bring in gangs of men for stag evenings. We can't have that sort of thing in the town. It's unspeakable.
Morally, this is wrong. If they want to do something like this they should do it in London, not in a lovely market town like Ware."
A council spokesman said the club currently has a licence for performance of dance, which already covers it for adult entertainment such as stripping, lap dancing and table dancing. He explained that outside London, licensed premises do not need a licence for adult entertainment. Which is interesting, as many towns and cities claim otherwise.

Lara Bingle, the Australian model who fronted the controversial and unsuccessful 2006 Australia Toriusm campaign, has attacked photographer Gavin O'Neillafter nude photos of her turned up. Bingle is already suing Zoo Weekly for suggesting she was a nude model.
"This shoot was done with the full knowledge and support of her agency who set up the initial meeting to discuss the shoot in the first place," O'Neill has stated.
"So they are well aware of the exact purpose of publishing them in European magazines, as agreed, so I find it all a bit confusing as to why her agency would now slander me in the media, accusing me of cashing in."
Last week, Bingle's manager Priscilla Leighton-Clark claimed the publishing of one of the photos on GQ Germany's website were a betrayal of trust.
"[O'Neill]'s cashing in. He has betrayed Lara and her family," she said.
"He lulled the family into a false sense of security."
O'Neill denied the accusations, stating he has the full support of Bingle and her family, as well as full copyright co-signed by Bingle.
"The images were shot when she was over 18 and fully able to make up her own mind, and will be published in Europe in due time, as intended from the beginning," he stated.
The photo has since been removed from the GQ website, replaced by a blurb: "Welcome to GQ Germany, Australia! It's always nice to have visitors from Down Under, but our servers were not prepared for this sudden rush. So our work here was done, before it even started. Cheers mates!"
Zoo Weekly revealed it would be using the photos in their defence of legal action brought by Bingle for defamation, misleading conduct and breach of copyright after the magazine used photographs of her in a bikini on a beach after she turned down their requests for a nude shoot.
Bingle said the spread defamed her by implying she consented to pose in a G-string bikini for a smutty men's magazine, was the sort of model who would invite readers to achieve sexual pleasure from her photographs and was prepared to demean herself for money by being photographed scantily clad for a smutty men's magazine. Jeeze, what a stiff she sounds.
In response, the magazine's publisher, Emap Australia, said: "Emap rejects completely the allegations made by Lara Bingle and will defend this claim with the utmost vigour."

A new lap dancing club has opened in Huddersfield. Wildcats has taken over the former USB Bar at Kirkgate.
It becomes the town's third lap dancing club, folllowing Centrefolds and La Salsa.
Wildcats owner Matthew Haycox has spent £250,000 renovating the building to cater for 400 customers, who will be entertained by his 30 dancers.
The club will open from 9pm to 2am from Sunday to Thursday and from 9pm to 4am on Fridays and Saturdays.
Haycox said "we want to change the face of lap dancing and offer the perfect alternative late night club that will appeal to both men and women. It's not just a place for lads and stag dos - we are now seeing more groups of girls and couples who are craving something different from their night out.
"We are excited about opening the club in Huddersfield and hope to position it as the most chic and exclusive venue in town."