Due to a change in EU regulations, for about three years CBD has been added to almost every personal wellness product. So it was just a question of time until they were added to lube. Howl, a British lube brand, exhibited at the Queer Venus. According to their founder, the lube will not make you high (CBD never does) but will make your sphincter both more relaxes and the sensations more intense. CBD is also said to make you a bit more in tune with yourself and the people around you. From the look of it, it sounds like an interesting product and I was given two sample sachets I will try out. From a scientific point of view, there is almost no academic research to the (sexual) effect of CBD. So I cannot judge the claims. But once I have tried the lube samples, I will let you know on my Insta and Bluesky!
Howl CBD Lube Samples in Both Varieties Silicone and Water Base Lube
Anuux has been in national German media recently. Their founders presented their product at the German version of Shark Tank. They have made a pill filled with psyllium husks, chia and flax seeds. Taking six of those per day should make cleaning out unnecessary due to the amount of fiber the swelling seeds create which should push all the feces down in one or two big dumps per day. They did not get the funding because the investors had doubts that large number of people would pay 1€ per day for being always read for anal sex. Like most gays I have been using psyllium husks as a clean out facilitating fiber supplement for years. It helps a bit but more important are the general diet and not snacking because any addition of food creates a new package that needs to move down the colon. So while my pure psyllium pills help me get clean more quickly, they are not making my rectum always fuck-ready. And we have not even started out talking about fisting.
For my pure psyllium husk pills I pay about 4.2 cents per pill. Anuux pills with added chia and flax seeds costs between 15 Cents and 16.6 Cent of which you should take three in the morning and three in the evening, so I see the point of the Sharks. Again I was given a sample for three days which should be enough for the effect to kick in. Next Saturday I have a fisting date in the books and I will use the pills to get ready for that. Again, watch my Insta and Bluesky for a short experience review.
A Three Day Sample of Anuux which are Supposed to Make you Always-Ready for Anal Sex
Another a bit concerning health trend that made its way to Venus are online prescription services for erectile dysfunction medication. The representative from GoSpring marketed their service as an online community where you can learn to manage the factors that can cause ED like stress, performance anxiety or bad nutrition. A part of this service is an online consultation with a doctor which will enable you to order Spring. This is a spray containing Sildenafil, the active agent in Viagra. Four pumps into your throat deliver 50mg, the same amount of one Viagra pill. Since the throat mucosa is very receptive for agents, it should work considerably faster than swallowing a pill which depending on your digestion takes 45 – 90 minutes to kick in. While on the one hand I see the market for such a service because many men have problems talking about their ED, even to their doctors, Sildenafil affects the cardio-vascular system. Because of that initial prescriptions of ED medication are usually given under close consultation with a GP after a physical check-up. Most only prescription services nudge the people to give the right answers which lead to a prescription; some even use dark patterns. I have not gone through the process of GoSpring so I cannot say how their process is designed. But I want to warn you not to take ED medication without a physical check of your cardio-vascular system. Otherwise sexy time can lead to a heart attack.
Maybe Next Year’s Trend- Welded Furniture out of a Nuts
What surprised me was the lack of trends that I guessed would be more present. After the VR hype a couple of years ago and the accelerating adoption of headsets, I was expecting more than just one company which offered VR porn. The same can be said about AI porn. There were only two companies. One company which offered animee style videos and pictures through simple user prompts. It looked cute and is probably a useful tool for the people who are into this kind of aesthetic, especially when you are into niche kinks. The other company was OhChat. They create digital avatars of porn models. The user can give them commands to create individual interactions and porn. The quality is spookingly good! A trained I can spot that the content is AI created. The bodies and surroundings are just too smooth and perfect and thus are easily identified as AI. But the movement is very natural, even the facial expression or the shooting of cum and squirting. The voice synthesis is almost natural with modulation and intonation being hard to distinguish from real humans. While creators can upload content and voice samples from themselves to let the AI create a digital twin, there a completely AI created avatars available on OhChat (easily identified as portraits lacking a checkmark) which almost look, act and sound human within the described limitations. Is that part of the future of porn where actors never age and do what you want them to do just for you?
Never out of Fashion: A Simple Spanking Bench
The Venus reflected the transition from big porn studios to self-employed adult performers and content creators. I only noticed two porn studios which sold and raffled away their remaining DVD stock. The stages and booths were from Pornhub, MyDirtyHobby, Darkfans and so on. Very noticeable was the absence of OnlyFans, probably the largest platform in the industry. Apparently they have entered the cultural zeitgeist so much that they don’t need to advertise. Everybody knows them already. The shift from studios with legal departments to single entrepreneurs created an entire industry of specialized legal firms, copyright enforcement agencies and privacy protectors. If you are a content creator, the Venus is a good space to get an overview of what is currently legally and technically possible to protect your livelihood.
Related to that topic, I talked to about two dozen adult creators about the shift to a sadly more conservative zeitgeist. While sex work is one of the oldest jobs in the world and will never go away, the random deletion of Instagram profile, the Tumblr purge or changes to Twitters recommendation algorithm can quickly destroy important advertising channels. In a bitter instance of irony was the Venus Instagram account taken down during the fair and has not been restored at the date of this publishing. While most of the fans and porn websites reside in Canada, the Netherlands or Cyprus and are thus somewhat shielded from direct US influence, IP blocks like Germany did to some websites for not complying with local age protection laws can quickly be implemented in one of the largest markets for adult entertainment in the world. To my surprise none of the creators were too concerned about that. While most had social media accounts deleted, having one or even several backup accounts have become the standard. Building a new following every couple of months has become part of doing adult entertainment business. But beyond the creators were not too concerned because, like I said, there will always be a demand for adult entertainment. Let’s see how easily it will remain accessible in the years to come and how the market will fragment.
Part I: An Expo Review – Part II: The Cool – Part IV: The Challenging – Part V: The Weird & Final Thoughts
