Sex Toys In The Subway And Other Lowdown Delights

Immediate tease disclaimer: I blog about copyright-related issues. This is that.

Sex Toys for boys but not for girls?

How fair is that, in an advertising context, in the underground? Well, there was a law suit by Dame.com against the MTA. Apparently, the MTA's rules have or had no issue with advertisements targeting erectile dysfunctional males, but they drew the line at displaying inserts for ladies.

Among other things, Dame claimed:

“The MTA was disproportionately applying their anti sexually-oriented business clause to women’s pleasure advertisements, which is unconstitutional. They allowed erectile dysfunction advertisements to run while denying us…”

Legal blogger Jeff Greenbaum for the law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein and Selz PC  offers legal analysis. It looks like the court may still be out (to coin a phrase) on whether MTA patrons will be treated to mind boggling illustrations of fun stuff for ladies anytime soon.  There appear to be illustrations on the fkks post.

Lexology link:  

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ab7aa941-372e-48cb-8c8e-538b29d576a8

Original link: 

https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102hbky/selling-sexual-pleasure-on-the-subway

 

The Illogic of tracking-based advertising.

Upon reading Seth Zawila's legal blog for the UK-based law firm Robins Kaplan LLP about how the UK's supreme court blocks a multi-billion class action suit, this writer's mind wandered to a personal peeve.

Lexology link: 

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c7fe7d8e-992e-4a63-a9d4-48e534c982c2

 

Original Link:  

https://www.robinskaplan.com/resources/blog-posts/2021/11/united-kingdom-supreme-court-blocks-multi-billion-dollar-class-action-suit-against-google

"The claimants alleged that Google misused the data of millions of iPhone users under the DPA by tracking user internet usage even when users were assured in notices that they would be opted out of such tracking by default."

Apparently, to pass the smell test of the supreme court in the UK (and no doubt in other supereme courts) one has to show actual, provable financial harm, not merely annoyance or exposure to the risks of identity theft.

It seems to me, the wrong people were suing.

How often have you purchased a product online (happily, voluntarily, without clicking on anyone’s ad), only to be bombarded later with adverts for the exact same product?  Where is the return on investment for whoever makes Origins Bar Pulls in paying AdNonsense to show ads to a client who has no further interest in buying more of what they already bought? 

Once one has made a purchase, paid reminders are a waste of the producer’s budget. They can lawfully and appropriately email the customer directly.

Why not further personalize the obvious result of purchaser-stalking by posting “Thank you, Rowena Cherry, for buying 30 of these exact bar pulls. We hope you don’t return them! (As you did the Glide-Rites).”

It would have made more sense if Celeste had stalked me with ads in the footer of an online newsletter.

I wonder whether authors who pay Facebook and their like for pay per view targeted ads are wasting their marketing budget in similar fashion? Perhaps one should pay for click-throughs, and not for "impressions". 

Bar pulls, by the way are not sex toys. In no way do they resemble a Prince Albert piercing.... but one simply had to get that (link) in.  One will do it again. 

https://metro.co.uk/2018/04/27/prince-albert-piercing-7502229/

Does mentioning a couple of products make this writer an influencer?  Highly doubtful! For a start, one is not being paid, and one receives no perquisites.

Bad??? Influencers:

https://www.squirepattonboggs.com/-/media/files/insights/publications/2021/11/brands-influencer-marketing-practices-in-regulators-crosshairs-on-both-sides-of-the-atlantic/brandsinfluencermarketingpracticesbrocure.pdf

An international ensemble cast at Squire Patton Boggs has developed an 8-page .pdf about the influence of influencers, and on what regulators are cracking down. Or should that be "down on what regulators are cracking"?  That sounds too Yoda to be natural.

The lawyerly writers on influence peddling of the marketing kind are Marisol C. Clark, Daniel Carlton, Alan L. Fricl, Rosa Barcelo, Kyle R. Dull, Natasha Marie (none of whom to my knowledge have anything to do with anything seamy-/sex toy-/or subway-related other than a familiarity with what is in the regulators crosshairs). For businesses they dryly and most professionally recommend a comprehensive review of online advertising practices.  (One agrees.)

Problems with regulators mostly result from misleading advertisements or claims, or from misleading by omission.

Writing as a questionable logomanic, this writer would say that almost ALL advertisements by their very nature meet the definition quoted by Squire Patton Boggs lawyers of causing the average consumer to take a transactional decision that they would not otherwise have taken.

Weaselly words and claims abound on television.  So, too, does execrable grammar. More of that another time.  A great deal of good would be done for literacy and education if advertisements were required to be copy-edited by a grammarian. Moreover, for the sake of critical thinking, rather than the government suing advertisers, there ought to be community service spots parsing some of the adverts. It would be far more amusing.

For instance, ranting a tad here, if a new Medicare Part C program offered crowns, caps, implants, bridges, deep root scaling and/or planing, they would surely say so.

Thus when a very attractive nonogenarian male croons at you about fillings, extractions and dentures, and so much more, you should realize that you are getting Amish level dental coverage free with your seductive-sounding plan.

On the other hand, some of these FRRRREEEEE  programs being advertised with benefits varying by zip code appear to be very thinly veiled income redistribution program. Color me critical.

Critical thinking is a valuable defense against the dark arts of advertising.

By the way, SFWA and AG are probably still offering LIG Insurance consultations to SFWA members.

https://www.ligmembers.com/sfwa/

Parting word:

Delightful word of the day: logorrhea

If you know someone who likes both words and poop jokes, pass it on.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Robot Caretakers

Here's another article, long and detailed, about robot personal attendants for elderly people:

Meet Your Robot Caretaker

I was a little surprised that the first paragraph suggests those machines will be a common household convenience in "four or five decades." I'd have imagined their becoming a reality sooner, considering that robots able to perform some of the necessary tasks already exist. The article mentions several other countries besides Japan where such devices are now commercially available.

The article enumerates some of the potential advantages of robot health care aides: (1) There's no risk of personality conflicts, as may develop between even the most well-intentioned people. (2) Automatons don't need time off. (3) They don't get tired, confused, sick, or sloppy. (4) They can take the place of human workers in low-paid, often physically grueling jobs. (4) Automatons are far less likely to make mistakes, being "programmed to be consistent and reliable." (5) In case of error, they can correct the problem with no emotional upheaval to cloud their judgment or undermine the client-caretaker relationship. (6) The latter point relates to an actual advantage many prospective clients see in having nonhuman health aides; there's no worry about hurting a robot's feelings. (7) Likewise, having a machine instead of a live person to perform intimate physical care, such as bathing, would avoid embarrassment.

Contrary to hypothetical objections that health-care robots would deprive human aides of work, one expert suggests that "robots handling these tasks would free humans to do other, more important work, the kind only humans can do: 'How awesome would it be for the home healthcare nurse to play games, discuss TV shows, take them outside for fresh air, take them to get their hair done, instead of mundane tasks?'” Isolated old people need "human connection" that, so far, robots can't provide. The article does, however, go on to discuss future possibilities of emotional bonding with robots and speculates about the optimal appearances of robotic home health workers. A robot designed to take blood pressure, administer medication, etc. should have a shape that inspires confidence. On the other hand, it shouldn't look so human as to fall into the uncanny valley.

As far as "bonding" is concerned, the article points out that "for most people, connections to artificial intelligence or even mechanical objects can happen without even trying." The prospect of more lifelike robots and deeper bonding, however, raises another question: Would clients come to think of the automaton as so person-like that some of the robotic advantages listed above might be negated? I'm reminded of Ray Bradbury's classic story about a robot grandmother who wins the love of a family of motherless children, "I Sing the Body Electric"; one child fears losing the "grandmother" in death, like her biological mother.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

An alien's view of make-up and human health care

Greetings, my brother.

There is no point in asking whether or not you are in good health, and obliging you to reply. By the time your reply reached me, your answer would be several cycles old.

I'm on a planet called "earth" by the sentient species of animals with whom I've communicated. "Earth" means "dirt" or "soil" to them. Illogically, this planet consists mostly of water (salt water).  I digress. This is a distracting environment.

No doubt, you remember our discussion about the question, "Do wild animals mutilate themselves?" We thought that the answer was that animals only mutilate themselves if demented by boredom or stress, perhaps in captivity. We don't include defensive shedding of tails or other appendages as a means of distracting a predator.

Well, brother. I've found an exception to our rule. I haven't figured out what causes these animals to mutilate themselves, and their offspring, and their companion animals. In some cases, they seem to find it attractive in spite of the practical drawbacks.

For instance, in stressful urban settings, they take colored inks and powered needles, and stab themselves until words or images are "tattooed" (as they call it) permanently on their skin. This is not a punishment for criminal activity, as you might expect. I could understand it if antisocial individuals had a warning of their bad habits written on their faces or arms. Instead, animals appear to pay other animals to torture and mark them.

This can be monotonous. Greater variety can be achieved through the messy daily application of colored paints and powders and grease. These chemicals often contain poisons and carcinogens. Nevertheless, some working animals, mostly females, are forced as a condition of "employment" to smear these poisons on their faces and are often expected to pay for their own care if and when the poisons cause illnesses. "Employment" is what these animals do to obtain tokens which they exchange for food and other necessities.

To digress again, this payment for health care business doesn't strike me as fair or reasonable. There are exceptions, of course, but there are no penalties for self-induced problems. That baffles me.

The prudent, abstemious, provident and healthy are forced to pay for the care of the wasteful and self-destructive, as well as for the unfortunate who might deserve help. Thus, some animals spend all their discretionary income on liquid pleasures, or expensive things to chew, or stinking weeds to burn in their mouths, or on dangerous sex. Then, when their lifestyle catches up on them (or on their mates and offspring), they cannot pay for the care they need to restore them to health. So, others who have not spent all their money on sick-making habits, are forced to pay for their fellows. If they object, they are savagely punished and impoverished.

On our world, we'd expect this sort of stupidity to lead to social unrest, wouldn't we, brother? But on our world, the healthy outnumber the sick. It's the reverse on this earth.

This will shock you. If these animals don't know what a certain body part is for (or don't like what it's for), they will go to great expense and trouble to cut it off or out... parts of the gut, organs in the throat, even parts of their genitalia!

I've heard, but have not yet found a way to eyewitness this, that there's a very large country where they routinely cut off part of a newborn male child's positor which they consider superflouous and unattractive. This cruel procedure is done without pain remediation, and the child suffers agonies. Later in life, the positor is not as sensitive as it ought to be, adult males require drugs. Some of these drugs, I hear, are not without unpleasant side effects.

Ludicrously, after all this suffering and trouble, the results of the cosmetic surgery are seldom displayed. Even when in use, the positor is covered in a thin synthetic glove. When I find out why they bother, I will let you know! That is not the most unnecessary of surgeries, but it is one of the most routine, and is one of the few that is forced upon a baby animal that cannot consent to it.

Captured, display and companion animals cannot consent. Some have parts of their tails hacked off. Others have parts of their ears cut off. Some types with sharp, retractable claws have their claws pulled out by force so that they cannot defend themselves.

This is a dangerous and illogical world, my brother. Fortunately for us, our mind control abilities are effective. The most intelligent and dangerous animals are relatively easy to brainwash.

I'll write again when I have something interesting to share.

Your brother,
Thor-quentin.

The future of Health Care

The most ridiculous health care system I've seen in my reading of alien romances and futuristic romances is to put an injured or sick person into a smart box for a short time.

Like magic, they recover completely with no explanation. All the hero has to do is carry the heroine to the nearest box. Or vice versa!

Superheroes and new agers require crystals. What else have you seen in speculative fiction?

Could an MRI or the combination of radioactivity with a psychically attractive meditation object really stimulate the body to regenerate itself?

Or will doctors and nurses always be with us? And if they are, will they dress differently... because those white coats or scrubs that are worn all day long might be the modern equivalent of the unwashed hands that went from dissecting cadavers in the morgue to the childbed in the maternity ward.

It would be nice if Go To Meeting Dot Com technology could be adapted for sick patient consultations, wouldn't it?

Go-To-Doc dot com.

We could sit at our computers with the camera on, and the doctor would be at his computer. We could show him our tongues, throats, nostrils, spots and rashes, hemorroids (I never could spell that!), or anything else that bothered us.

I dare say it wouldn't be too hard to have a DIY stethoscope, ECG, and blood tester. Also a DIY urinalysis, and occult blood test. Pharmacies could sell kits.

My vision is that this would be like Triage. If the patient wasn't satisfied, or if the doctor was suspicious of his or her own diagnosis, a referral could be made. In many cases, we go to a walk in clinic, the doctor pays close attention, prescribes an antibiotic or an over-the-counter remedy, admonishes us to rest and drink lots of non-alcoholic liquids, and tells us to come back in ten days if the condition does not improve.

There's already Ask-A-Nurse by telephone and probably in chat forums. Why not have Doctor-Zoom (with apologies to Legal Zoom) ?

It seems to me that medicine is Socialized on the USS Enterprise, on Babylon 5, and on Rebel alliance starships. Did Luke have to pay for his bionic hand? Would Mr. Spock be required to pay privately if he elected to have a medically irrational ear job?

Being sick is bad enough, without it being financially ruinous. On the other hand, perhaps we don't all have the right to be as beautiful and sexy as modern medicine could make us... at least, not at taxpayers' cost.

What would happen to society in the future if the person who communicated a disease was financially responsible for the treatment of those he or she infected? Unworkable? Unenforcible?

Look at H1N1. Some cities closed the schools.

It's a fact of life. Some parents will send their children to school when they know that child has a fever and is infectious... even with H1N1. There is no economic disincentive to endangering the community, but there is a financial incentive. If the child is kept at home, the parent cannot go to work and may lose wages.

Some people have a cock-eyed view of social responsibility. We had a school camp. One parent allegedly (so others said) left the bedside of a husband who had a 104 degree fever and alleged swineflu to come to camp and take her turn serving food at the snack table.

If the health care system is in financial trouble, will the elders of the future seek to encourage and even reward "self-quarantine"? Or, in the future, would the spread of a deadly disease be seen by government as a cost-effective way to eradicate the most expensive and non-productive members of society?

(Playing Devils Advocate, here. That is not what I endorse.)


My Fictional Future Health Care Plan

1. Private Pay. Walk-In clinics. Doctor-Zoom.com

If anyone wants to see a doctor in the walk-in system for cuts, scrapes, colds, flu, bronchitis, drug testing, rashes, broken toes/fingers, flu shots, prescription refills, (the sort of things that the uninsured take to the Emergency Room, and everyone else "walks in" and claims on their insurance, which cannot possibly be efficient in terms of paperwork time in relation to face-time with the doctor)

Flat rate of $10 for up to 10 minutes face-to-face online, or $30 in a facility.
(Or whatever AMA deems reasonable... Perhaps tax CREDITS could be an answer to the discrepancy in what people can afford to pay, and what is fair compensation for long, expensive training.)

Cash payment before being seen (on the spot or online).
Medical PayPal model?
Sign medical waiver, so there is no insurance/malpractice issue.
No insurance forms to be filled out, or claims to file. No exceptions. Just like walk in flu shots.


This will save doctors a lot of paperwork.
This will put the onus on patients to turn up at the clinics or online with all their own records and a list of their symptoms.


2.
Health Care Spending Account. PayPal for Medical costs.

Everyone (even children) may set up a tax-free, personal, individual Health Care Spending account, on the same principal as a college account. Possibly, the state could match savings for the lowest income individuals. The dollars would "roll over" and never be lost (unless spent.)

Employers could "buy out" existing health care, by transferring cash into their employees' Health Care Spending Accounts.

This would be a private pay system. Those who keep themselves in good health would not be subsidizing those who have unhealthy lifestyles.


3.
Private Insurance. (Like the British BUPA)

Individuals could opt to buy private, annual, term insurance for operations and other expensive procedures, also for elective and cosmetic procedures. This would be for patients who did not wish to wait for hip replacements, and other elective procedures, or who wished to have annual physicals at "resort" hospitals such as the Mayo Clinic instead of in their local physicans' offices with "participating providers".

It could work like car insurance, with cash back for people who do not make claims, and reduced premiums for those with clean health records. Premiums (at the Health Care Account owner's sole discretion) could be paid out of the Health Care Savings Account.


4.
State System.

Everyone is covered for everything requiring a referral from the $30 walk-in or $10 online clinic and upwards. Everyone waits their turn. No penis or breast enlargement (or reversal of medically successful cosmetic surgery) etc.

Only prescriptions that are necessary for pain, life preservation, treatment of infections, functioning of tests, etc would be provided. (No self-esteem drugs, no birth control, no viagra, no fertility drugs.)

Catastrophic care would be covered.

What's on your future wish list?

Rowena Cherry