Sex

Across Instagram, Facebook META 5.11%increase; green up pointing triangle and WhatsApp, Meta Platforms is racing to popularize a new class of AI-powered digital companions that Mark Zuckerberg believes will be the future of social media.

California Democrats are once again getting pulled into the sex trafficking quagmire — this time, though, it’s through legislation from one of their own.

And Gov. Gavin Newsom is again intervening at the eleventh hour, issuing a statement moments before publication of this edition calling out Assembly Democrats for maneuvering this week to exclude older teenagers from an existing law that increases penalties on people who solicit minors for sex.

California lawmakers in the Assembly Public Safety Committee blocked an effort that would have made soliciting 16 and 17-year-olds for sex a felony. Former prosecutor and current Democratic Assemblymember Maggy Krell proposed Assembly Bill 379, saying perpetrators who sell or buy children for sex deserve harsher punishment.

Last year, the Golden State passed a measure making it a felony to purchase children 15 and younger for sex. That law went into effect in January.

California lawmakers gutted a bill Tuesday that would have made paying for sex with 16- and 17-year-olds a felony charge.

Under current state law, creeps who buy sex from minors under 16 face extra fines, jail time, and either a misdemeanor or felony charge.

A new bill meant to protect sex trafficking victims, AB 379, would have upped that age to 18, but Democratic committee members demanded the clause be cut before they let the bill move forward in the California State Assembly.

The online dating landscape has evolved significantly since the launch of Tinder in 2012.

Over a decade later, the dating app industry reached a market size of over $6 billion in 2024, marking a 15.7% increase from the previous year, according to data from Business of Apps. iOS users accounted for approximately 80% of mobile revenue generated within the sector.

While some people anxiously watch the stock market for signs of a recession, others look for more subtle cues that the economy is in trouble.

One of them is Catherine De Noire, a manager of a legal brothel, a Ph.D. candidate in organizational psychology and an influencer. When business at her brothel unexpectedly dips, De Noire takes it as a sign that the economy is in trouble.

AI bots will soon be rolled out on dating apps to flirt with people, craft messages on users’ behalf and write their profiles for them.

But depending on artificial intelligence to foster budding relationships risks eroding what little human authenticity is left on dating platforms, experts have warned.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has given all intelligence agencies until Friday to identify the employees participating in pornographic chats while on duty, revoke their security clearances, and terminate their employment. In a memo released Tuesday evening, Gabbard responded decisively to revelations that numerous employees who were members of a National Security Agency chat system used it to discuss fetishes, kink, and sex as part of the agency's DEI program.

It’s prime-time Friday night one week before Valentine’s Day and outside of a packed bar in Downtown Manhattan, two fire trucks are flanking the door. The building, thankfully, is not on fire: the bar is hosting a “Rescue Me” singles party, a dating event for people who want to meet firefighters and other first responders — including a few who’ve been ferried there by their enormous red trucks.