OS ANGELES — Acclaimed adult director Cass Paley, who helmed a vast number of 1990s titles under the artistic name Wesley Emerson, passed away today, friends and associates confirm.

The 73-year-old Paley had been on life support for the past few days, as industry friends said their farewells.

Besides a remarkable career directing adult films in the Golden Age of video production, Paley gained mainstream attention as the producer and director of “Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes,” an acclaimed 1998 documentary about porn’s first male superstar.

Paley’s “Wesley Emerson” IAFD page shows almost 200 titles made during an era in which big productions and not individual scenes were the measure of an adult filmography.

Born in New York City in 1948, Paley amassed the bulk of his credits between 1992 and 2007, overseeing productions for top companies of the era like VCA, Video Team, Odyssey, Adam & Eve, Jill Kelly Productions, Wicked and Sinsation Pictures.

From 1982 until 2001, Paley also produced documentary and music video material for artists such as Elvis Costello, Dr. John, Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Lou Reed, The Replacements, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young. His archive is now part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame collection.

In 2016, Paley co-produced the well-received “X-Rated 2: The Greatest Adult Stars of All Time!” documentary.

Industry Reactions

Kylie Ireland told XBIZ she had done over a dozen movies with Paley during her time as a contract performer with VCA, and later promoted his films as the company’s publicist.

“Cass was always very hands-on,” Ireland recalled. “Every movie was his pet project. He wanted to work with the dialogue so it would work the best for you. He’d get very excited about all his movies! He would put personal pieces of your own self in the characters and the dialogue.”

She especially noted Paley’s skill in working with performers. “He knew how to draw acting from you, even how to make you cry if the scene needed,” she recalled. “Cass had such a passion for making movies. And it’s rare now. We’re losing that in the business. But personally, I’m crushed. It’s hard to lose all these people. They’re family.”

Ireland said that she will always remember, with a smile, “how mischievous he could be and how his eyes sparkled when he teased you.”

Fellow VCA contract star Chloe Nicole described Paley as “one of the good ones,” saying that he “will be sorely missed.”

“My heart and prayers are with you all through this difficult time,” Nicole added. I hope he will finally find some peace, away from any pain or suffering now.”

Veteran director-producer and Paley collaborator Eli Cross told XBIZ that “Cass was one of the rare, great gentlemen of the home video era. He was kind, warm, funny and always ran a low-pressure set. Everyone loved working for Cass Paley. He’ll be missed.”

“We lost another legendary member of our industry this week,” wrote Alana Evans today on her Twitter account. “Cass was one of the sweetest men. He was so warm and kind, funny and talented. Rest in paradise, Cass.”

“My teddy bear, Cass Paley,” Alexandra Silk posted on Facebook during the director’s last convalescence. “Thank you for all your hugs and love and good times. I love you, Cass!”

LOS ANGELES — Blush Erotica’s latest release features Kyla Keys and Chris Cardio in a scenario developed by Megan Hussey and Stacy Lyle and shot by The Sinematographer with voiceover by Mary Cyn.

“The Divorce Party” features the newly separated Keys developing special plans for her friend (Cardio) that he is eager to enjoy.

“Kyla and Chris have such great onscreen chemistry,” The Sinematographer enthused. “This scene was amazing to produce and turned out so hot.”

A trailer can be found at BlushErotica.com; follow the studio on Twitter.

Follow Kyla Keys and Chris Cardio on Twitter.

LOS ANGELES — Retired performer Alicia Rio passed away on Jan. 17 at the age of 51, according to industry friends who spoke with family members.

Rio was a prominent performer throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, gracing several iconic box covers in the VHS and DVD eras with her signature buxom brunette looks.

Born in Mexico, Rio grew up in Pasadena and entered the adult industry in 1992. Her IAFD page shows over 300 titles for top studios of the era such as Heatwave, Moonlight, Gourmet, Caballero, Las Vegas Video and a plethora of others.

Describing her beginnings in the industry, Rio told an interviewer that after graduating from Cal State with a degree in finance, she worked in government in the San Gabriel Valley as deputy city treasurer. After being passed over for a promotion, Rio said, she answered an ad in the L.A. Express for nude modeling.

“I didn’t quit my job,” Rio told the interviewer. “I did adult movies for about three months, still working for the city. So, I was conservative, and wore glasses in the day, and then Alicia Rio wild and crazy at night, for about three months. Then I decided to really make the big jump and quit my job. But, it was normal. I’m literally made for this business.”

After a hiatus in the late ’90s, Rio returned in 2002, shooting for Elegant Angel, Vivid, Wicked and many other studios until the mid-2000s. In 2005, Rio received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Free Speech Coalition.

Rio was also a prominent, in-demand feature dancer billed as “the Latin Queen of Erotica.” Last November, when a fan praised her adult work on Twitter, she replied, “Thank you so much! I enjoyed all of my performances!”

In 2020, friend and rep James Bartholet reported that although Rio “no longer does traditional studio shoots in adult, she produces her own indie content and has also been in talks with mainstream companies for their projects.”

“I will always be thankful to the adult industry,” Rio said at the time. “I have so many good memories of working with all of these companies and performers, but mainstream is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

“My ultimate dream is to be in a feature film with Jennifer Lopez and Salma Hayek,” she added, “where they meet their girl crush — me.”

SINGAPORE — Lovense has partnered with VR studio SexLikeReal for the release of the fully integrated Calor, a new masturbator for penis-owners with a heating feature and depth sensors.

The integration also supports the Lovense toys Gush, Max 2 and Nora and “promises to bring incredible sensations and a sense of full presence in the hottest scenes from SexLikeReal,” explained a rep.

The integration works through the Haptics Connect app, available on Google Play and the App Store. SexLikeReal premium members will now be able to connect Calor and Max 2 masturbators, Gush glans massager, and Nora, touted as the first female sex toy integrated with VR porn.

“These interactive videos have a built-in script that makes toys react in sync with the action on the screen. The library of interactive videos on SexLikeReal includes over 650 titles suited to every fancy,” the rep said.

Calor is compact with a squeezable grip that accommodates most sizes and “stimulates while you stroke,” said the rep. “Depth-control sensors provide another unique experience; the deeper you’re inserted, the more intense the vibrations are.”

The heating feature provides “an even more realistic feeling through warmth.”

SexLikeReal CEO Alex Novak added, “Interest in interactive VR porn has been growing at a lightning speed in recent years, and our team is working tirelessly to make this experience as smooth and exciting as possible for our fans. We are incredibly excited to partner with Lovense to offer sensual and immersive VR experiences to an even greater audience.”

Calor joins the Lovense LDR line that also features Max 2, Mission and Nora.

“This is our first gift of the new year for our fans,” said Lovense CEO Dan Liu. “Partnering with the amazing SexLikeReal team to give an incredible new interactive experience to Lovense toy owners, including those who grab our new and shiny Calor, is our next step towards greater interactivity and expanding the variety of services Lovense offers.”

Calor is IPX7 waterproof and programmable with three vibration levels and up to 10 patterns and is fully integrated into the Lovense ecosystem. It can be remote controlled from any distance and syncs with multimedia content through the Lovense Remote App.

The toy supports the Lovense music feature and it is compatible with 3DXChat and Wildlife Demo games and allows users to download patterns from the free Lovense pattern library.

Click here for additional details about Calor and find details about the SexLikeReal integration here.

Follow Lovense and SexLikeReal on Twitter.

SEATTLE — Ball & Chain has announced the company is fully stocked for the Valentine’s shopping season.

“I know many companies are having a hard time getting the stock levels they need to supply their distributors; we have dealt with the same issues here in Seattle over the past several months,” noted company principal Dawn Phillips.

“However, Ball & Chain is now fully stocked with all the Valentines games you’ll need to make your customers happy,” she added.

Top-selling games available to ship include “Bedroom Blackjack,” “Bedroom Dice,” “The Bedroom Game,” “Bound By Love,” “Bring Sexy Back,” “Bedroom Truth or Dare,” “Foreplay in a Row,” “Full Disclosure,” “Get Nasty,” “Strip Bedroom Blocks,” “Naked & Naughty Dice” and “Sex Around the House Dice.”

For additional details, and to place an order, visit BallAndChainFun.com, email ballandchaindawn@gmail.com or call (253) 735-6217.

SAN FRANCISCO — A California appeals court sided with Salesforce last week and dismissed a lawsuit by 50 “Jane Does” claiming that the cloud-based software company was liable for their alleged sex trafficking because it had provided services to the now-defunct classifieds site Backpage.com.

The ruling dismissed the plaintiffs’ appeal on the basis of Section 230 protections.

The lawsuit, the Mercury News reports, had been “first dismissed in March 2020 in San Francisco County Superior Court, [also] on the basis that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects websites from liability for third-party conduct.”

Backpage.com was shuttered and seized by the FBI in 2018, shortly before FOSTA-SESTA was signed into law by President Trump. The prosecution of its former owners, Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin, is ongoing and resulted in a mistrial late last year.

The Jane Does allege that “pimps and human traffickers” had placed ads on Backpage.com advertising sexual encounters with them.

Using Lawfare to Create Chokepoints Against Adult Content

The Salesforce lawsuit’s dismissal is a step back for War on Porn and anti-sex workers’ rights crusaders, who have been determined to use different forms of lawfare to create chokepoints against anyone operating a sexually-oriented website.

By targeting purely technical contractors like Salesforce, the lawyers and lobbies fomenting the constant litigation against platforms for user-generated content were hoping to find more deep-pocketed, supposedly liable parties who would then think twice about providing solutions to adult websites.

Eric Goldman, a Santa Clara University law professor who studies Section 230 issues, spoke to the Mercury News about the case.

“It’s the right conclusion,” he said. “The plaintiffs in this case are alleging that pimps engage in sex trafficking, and that they were helped in doing so by running ads on Backpage, and that Backpage was helped in its operations by Salesforce.”

“The victims are three steps away from Salesforce,” Goldman added.

Goldman also explained that Section 230 protections are currently “a really murky area,” and that a another lawsuit in Texas against Salesforce resulted in a ruling “saying that Section 230 may not fully shield the company from legal liability.”

“No single ruling is going to clean it up unless it’s from the Supreme Court,” he concluded.

LOS ANGELES — A late-2021 U.K. survey of top parental control apps on Google Play found that practically all of them were blocking LGBTQ and sex-education sites as “adult content.”

Ninety-two percent of the 12 leading parental control apps surveyed by the U.K.-based Top10VPN review site effectively “blocked sites of leading LGBTQ organizations, including Stonewall, The Trevor Project and LGBT+ Switchboard,” Forbes magazine’s Jamie Wareham reported.

The apps that blocked the most LGBTQ content, according to the survey, were ESET Parental Control and MMGuardian, which blocked “trusted U.K. charities LGBT Foundation, Mermaids, Stonewall and Switchboard LGBT+.”

“Strikingly, despite blocking many LGBTQ sites, the apps had a 90% failure rate for specifically filtering out websites centered around conspiracy theories or misinformation, such as InfoWars,” Wareham wrote. “They also had a 73% failure rate for blocking extreme ideological content, such as the ‘r/TheRedPill’ subreddit and the racist far-right British National Party’s website.”

“Twenty percent of the apps also wrongly blocked educational content on subjects from government-recommended websites such as Planned Parenthood and NHS Sexual Health,” the article revealed.

The Lucrative Business of ‘Filtering’

Siyang Wei, policy coordinator at LGBT Foundation, told Forbes that “the over-censorship of LGBTQ+ content is a well-documented feature of private tech companies’ attempts to filter ‘safe’ content, whether this is done by parental control apps or by platforms themselves. This not only discriminates against LGBTQ+ content, but prevents young people from accessing information, services and communities that could be vital to their wellbeing.”

“As it stands, the [U.K. government’s proposed] Online Safety Bill would further incentivize this kind of discriminatory over-censorship, and codify it into law,” Wei added. “These findings add to the mountain of evidence suggesting that without a clear definition of ‘harm’ and written safeguards developed in consultation with representative organizations and communities, the Bill risks promoting rather than preventing harm to marginalized people.”

In the U.S., War on Porn crusaders have been campaigning for the default activation of parental control apps — known as “porn filters” — on every device that can access the internet. A Utah law instituting such a requirement passed last year, with an unusual amendment specifying that it would go into effect if a number of other states passed similar laws. A Mormon legislator in Arizona recently introduced a copycat bill.

“Porn Filters” are sometimes developed by overtly faith-based businesses, with the result that mandatory filtering laws pushed by religiously-inspired politicians end up generating lucrative government and private contracts for fellow anti-porn crusaders.

Jan 25, 2022 1:39 PM PST

NEW YORK — As part of her latest New York City media tour, Sexy Vanessa appeared on the podcast “The Bi Guys” hosted by Zac Amico and Ian Fidance.

In addition to playing a game called, “Guess the Butthole,” Vanessa discussed being the “first MILF” and the group talked about why people are attracted to older women. The interview also explored Vanessa’s time as a phone sex worker, as well as her varied career in adult.

On a more serious note, Vanessa also discussed how some performers have bigoted attitudes while she, in contrast, has open mindset and a love for variety.

“I had such a fun time on this show; Zac and Ian are so funny,” Vanessa said. “Plus, I won ‘Guess the Butthole.’”

Her episode of “The Bi Guys,” running approximately 67 minutes, can be found on YouTube and Gas Digital Network.

Follow Sexy Vanessa on Twitter.

PARIS — Jacquie et Michel has announced the launch of new cryptocurrency Jimizz (JMZ).

The Jimizz token promoted by the French studio will be initially available on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

The company is promoting the Jimizz as “the cryptocurrency that solves today’s problems” in the adult sector, including the encroaching limitations advanced by the traditional banking sector, fighting access by minors to adult content and confidentiality related to the access and purchase of content.

“It is to solve these structural problems and give new impetus to the sector,” a rep told French crypto site Au Coin du Bloc.

Jacquie et Michel — a marquee studio in the French market, alongside Dorcel — is counting on its millions-strong Francophone customer base as potential adopters.

The Jimizz token can be deposited in the Livret X (X Notebook), a smart contract on the blockchain. Based on the idea of “staking,” the Livret X will allow holders to participate in DeFi.

The Jacquie et Michel crypto ecosystem also includes Club 69, a closed club that requires holding one of 69 NFTs gradually put on sale on the MarketPlace NFT.

The NFTs will allow buyers to receive a percentage on purchases of services in Jimizz on the J&M ecosystem, to obtain unlimited access to all of the group’s websites, and other bonus benefits.

Expansion plans also include a collectible card game known as K-hard Game, allowing creators to directly offer their own content in order to monetize it, and which combines the NFT system and gamification.

Part of the K-hard Game will include options allowing users to interact directly with models.

Another feature is “Crowdfunding with Cum-unity.”

“Similar to crowdfunding sites,” the rep explained to Au Coin du Bloc, “a model can, for example, offer the community [the chance] to finance one of their videos and set up incentive levels. This will allow holders of the Jimizz cryptocurrency to support content creators and participate in the ecosystem. With such a system, creators will no longer need to rely on banks to start their activities. In addition, Jacquie et Michel will be able to buy the most popular content and offer it on the sites they own.”

For more information, follow Jacquie et Michel’s Jimizz on Twitter.

Jan 24, 2022 4:02 PM PST

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Doc Johnson is celebrating its win as “Manufacturer of the Year” from the 2021 Sign Magazine Awards.

“Doc Johnson is without a doubt a pioneer in terms of product manufacturing in our industry,” Sign Magazine Director of Sales & Marketing Patrick Mallaise said. “Not only the decades of experience passed down in the family business, but also the sophisticated manufacturing process that takes place primarily in the company’s homeland, the United States, set Doc Johnson apart from others. Their impact on the industry, and especially the millions of products sold worldwide, definitely speak to the company’s success.”

The award follows two consecutive wins as “Pleasure Product Company of the Year.”

“As an American-based company, Sign Magazine is one of the most-important ways we stay connected with our European customers, especially now while we cannot travel to see all our customers and friends face-to-face,” Doc Johnson VP of Sales and Marketing Scott Watkins said. “Apart from the award, it’s very humbling to know our colleagues in Europe are still enjoying our products.”

The Sign Magazine Awards, bestowed by the Euro-based trade magazine, annually honor outstanding achievement in the pleasure products industry.

For additional details about Doc Johnson, contact a preferred rep, email sales@docjohnson.com or visit B2BDocJohnson.com.

Follow Sign Magazine on Twitter.