Here’s an excerpt from a surprisingly endearing article in the NY Press by Jessica Wood, erstwhile Pro-Domme wannabe:

‘…Mark lived with his new girlfriend, who worked as a professional dominatrix, and when I walked into their apartment that day, Mark’s girlfriend was there. She looked up at me from her typewriter, and her eyes lit up. Besides being a famous dom, she was also a very well-known author of fetish and S&M books. “Hey, you’re hot, young and blond, how much you making at your job?” asked Mark’s girlfriend.

She was something. Fire engine red hair down to her waist, huge breasts, tiny waist (in corset) and 7-inch, black stiletto heels. She walked over to me and circled like she hadn’t eaten in awhile. “Nice to meet you, too. Mark, you here?” I said peering around their dining room table. I was still out of breath from the five-flight walk up and now I was nervous I’d have to be alone with this lady. “Mark’ll be right out… What was your name, darling?” She had a voice like Catwoman, deep and smooth and suddenly I wanted to relax and get to know her. “I’m Jessica, it’s nice to meet you finally. Mark’s told me so much about you.” I felt dwarfed. “He sure didn’t tell me you were such a dish,” she said, sounding like a Russ Meyer movie…’

Read more here.

You could be arrested for sending sexy text messages in China. It is also illegal to dance in your underwear in Indonesia. However, it is perfectly legal to depict a woman dressed as a schoolgirl being violated by alien tentacles in Japan, though woebetide any producer who fails to pixelate her ravaged vulva – showing naked male or female genitalia, even in cartoon form, is strictly forbidden under Japanese law.

If you’ve ever been curious about Asian obscenity laws, look no further. CNNGo.com has compiled a “Hide Your Hard Drive” guide to what’s allowed – and where – in Eastern Countries. View it here.

From TheMystica.com:

“It is a very old belief, although buttressed by numerous tales of apparitions, that the Devil always appears with a cloven foot as a distinguishing mark. A suggested reason for such appearances is that the Evil One, having fallen to a level lower than any man is not be permitted to take the perfect human form, but must have some deformity such as the cloven foot. Others think there is a more likely explanation, the early Christians superimposed on the concept of the Devil the image of the pagan goat-footed god Pan. A.G.H.”

…Which is the first thing I thought when I saw these marvellous shoes! Never before have religious superstition, fertility worship and lethal phallic symbolism been brought together in the form of fabulous fetish footwear:

Picture (incongruously) discovered at PoorlyDressed.com.