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Web Log Archives: August 10, 2003 - August 16, 2003

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Gary eyes the competition, Arnold's got what it takes.

Friday, August 15, 2003

Lessley Anderson at San Francisco Weekly also covers the Friendster vs. fakesters battle. "Though they are some of Friendster's most ardent fans -- many spend several hours a day on the site -- fakesters do everything they can to create anarchy in the system. They are not interested in finding friends through prosaic personal ads, but through a big, surreal party where Jesus, Chewbacca, and Nitrous are all on the guest list. To fakesters, phony identities don't destroy the social experience of Friendster; they enrich it."

Texas surgeons recently cut off a patient's penis and testicles during what was supposed to be surgery for bladder cancer. The doctors thought the cancer had spread, but a lab exam afterward showed the penis and testicles were cancer-free. Describing his reaction upon waking up and hearing the news, he says, "And I was one mad dude, you know." . . . Elsewhere, a German man cut off his own penis in order to cure himself of sex addiction.

A Utah polygamist has been convicted of bigamy and unlawful sexual conduct with his third wife, whom he married when he was 32 and she was 16.

At Salon (probably subscriber-only), Katharine Mieszkowski looks at Friendster management's campaign against "fakester" profiles.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

The US Justice Department is appealing to the Supreme Court to reinstate the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), the 1998 law which "requires that operators of commercial Internet sites use credit cards or some form of adults-only screening system to ensure children cannot see material deemed harmful to them." An appellate court has twice ruled the law unconstitutional.

Howard Hampton reviews Traci Lords' memoir. "Underneath It All combines minor celebrity autobio with recovery narrative and de facto parental advice. Mothers, don't let your underage daughter stay with a drug-dealing, child-molesting ex-boyfriend, get a fake ID, do nude modeling, score a ton of coke with the fees, move in with her own abusive leech of a boyfriend, drift into hardcore ('It just kind of happened,' which I can believe, though I'm less convinced she didn't realize they were filming her first sex scene—the lights, camera, and boom mic should have been giveaways), score even more coke, or form her own X-rated production company at 17 with her next suitcase pimp boyfriend."

Meghan O'Rourke reviews two recent books dealing with sex tourism, Michel Houellebecq's Platform and Jill Nelson's Sexual Healing.

Ultimately, both authors make the argument—for different reasons—that sexual tourism is not necessarily a form of cultural imperialism. For Houellebecq, sex tourism is an antidote to the ills of free-market capitalism, a fantasy about a purer way of living. For Nelson, it's a rejection of the notion that black women are the chattel of the world and that sex today must necessarily be tied to the sexual identity of yesteryear. Both want to suggest that it is possible to have happy, respectful, non-exploitive, commercially transacted sex that owns up to (and partakes in) most supposedly "dirty" fantasies. (S&M is pointedly differentiated from these.) Inescapably, it's much easier for us to buy this notion when it's Nelson describing Acey fantasizing in the bath about three men pleasuring her. Her daydream seems to right some essential power imbalance; its graphic details may be read as a useful form of social forwardness. When Houellebecq writes about Thai prostitutes eagerly snuggling up to Michel, though, it just sounds like he's reinscribing old Western power structures.

The irony is that Houellebecq has a far less sunny vision of prostitution than Nelson does; at one point a Thai prostitute talks unhappily about how she ended up a prostitute, while Nelson's male prostitutes are generally like the three basketball players who are delighted to get paid to "bone" all they want, like kids asked to taste-test candy bars. Even accounting for the difference between Thailand and America, and the whore's life versus the gigolo's life, Nelson's vision of prostitution is far more transformative and optimistic than Houellebecq's. ("A Sister's Spa is becoming like the national headquarters of a vast, vibrant sorority," Acey blissfully tell us.) Nelson's vision of prostitution is far more transformative and optimistic than Houellebecq's. Oddly this also makes it the more troubling of the two: Although the book is a lighthearted romp, and has been welcomed with warmth by critics, it lacks the self-loathing that makes Houellebecq's satire multidimensional.

The brilliant mimi smartypants writes:

From the horseshit files: "So I'm hoping that people don't lose their perspective, because I still think pornography's kind of a rotten thing to do to women, and it's not the way men and women get along with each other. If we ever want to have couples have true love and respect each other's rights, it's not going to be this way." [quote from an interview with anti-porn activist Bruce Taylor]

No, of course pornography is not the way men and women get along with each other. But neither is Sleepless in Seattle, Notting Hill, numerous meet-cute chick-lit books, or any other dumb-ass fictional representation of heterosexual relationships. If Miss Trixie can have a big-budget film fantasy of true love conquering all, some horny guy or girl should be able to have a grainy video fantasy of group groping. I think it is the people who parent who have the ultimate responsibility to show, by example and with words, how sex (uh, better stick to the words in that case, mom and dad) and love should happen, and then porn can remain in the fantasy realm where it belongs.

Yeah, every once in a while you meet a guy whose preferences and expectations in the sexual arena seem kind of damaged by too much porn. But I tend to call those guys "jerks." Most people understand the differences between sex with real-live non-pornstar people, with all their lumps and hairs and weird noises, and jerking off to fake people on a screen. People who grow up with bizarre expectations about romantic love, or who have disastrous relationships with boyfriends or girlfriends who are evasive about their feelings or who insist on categorizing every stage in a relationship, are far more damaged than the average intelligent porn consumer. In my experience. Big disclaimer.

Yeah, what she said. Lots more great stuff there. (I tried reading Middlemarch a while back and gave up after 30 pages. Nice to know I'm not the only one.)

Technology Marketing magazine ran a long article recently about the Acacia patent battle. Acacia is a tech firm that claims to hold patents covering all forms of streaming audio and video. The company tried to enforce the questionable patents by demanding royalties from internet radio stations and pornsites, but dozens of porn companies have banded together to fight back. Acacia's lawyer whines, "These [porn] companies are so used to people challenging their business on first amendment grounds that they constantly feel victimized. They're not sophisticated enough to realize that this patent action is just standard procedure in mainstream businesses." But the article's author notes, "the real indicator that Acacia's strategy is stalled is the company's moribund stock (Nasdaq: ACTG), which has been hovering at under $1.50 a share, cumulatively less than Acacia's cash on hand. The strategy isn't flying with investors." That was early June. ACTG is currently up to $1.68, but Acacia's second quarter report is ugly: revenue of $25,000, net loss of $6,774,000.

General Media, publisher of Penthouse and a subsidiary of Penthouse International, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday. More.

Bankruptcy sign of hard times for porn mags. "The traditional men's magazine market has gone limp as readers desert pornographic magazines for the less-sex-and-more-lifestyle 'lads' titles or adults-only websites. The worldwide trend was illustrated this week in the US as the company that publishes Penthouse filed for bankruptcy."

The new Rolling Stone has a cover story about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, calling them "America's favorite fantasy." The online excerpt notes both their wholesome appeal for preteen girls and their jailbait allure for older guys, and traces their attempt to make the Olsen Twins brand a little more grown-up.

Still, seventeen is a dangerous age for a child star -- not to mention a child mogul. In some ways, it's easy to craft an image of ideal girlhood. Almost everyone agrees that little Missy should be sweet and spunky and pretty. But once you get to be eighteen, everybody has a different idea: One part of the audience might have gone goth; the other might have taken the cheerleader route. The idea is to slowly turn Mary-Kate and Ashley into actual movie stars without alienating their young fans, who once crowded 20,000 strong into Minnesota's Mall of America when the twins made an appearance, chanting, "Olsen! Olsen!" as the floor vibrated and seven bodyguards attempted to keep order.

Rolling Stone also has a slideshow gallery from the cover photo shoot. Link snagged from this Metafilter thread, which is full of simplistic handwringing about how repulsive it is that anyone would find teenage twins sexually appealing. Cmon, fantasy is not reality, and most people can tell the difference and have fun with both. Playfully transgressive sexual fantasies about celebrities do not preclude appreciation of real sex with real women.

The History of Contraception Museum in Toronto surveys devices and methods through the ages.

One of the first-ever written prescriptions for a contraceptive device is a 1550 B.C. papyrus sheet from Egypt on display, which describes a tampon made of seed wool moistened with ground acacia, dates and honey. Despite its primitiveness, the tampon worked in part because acacia ferments into lactic acid, an ingredient in today's spermicides.

Three thousand years ago in India and Egypt, dung from animals thought to possess mystical powers, such as crocodiles and elephants, were inserted into the woman's vagina prior to intercourse to prevent pregnancies. While the smell may have crushed the mood, the dung actually acted as a crude blocking agent and its high acidity was thought to provide some spermicidal reaction, the museum noted.

Superstitions also played a major role in trying to ward off pregnancy in the Middle Ages, but many were ineffective. Women strapped amulets containing mule's earwax, weasel's testicles and a bone taken from the right side of a totally black cat to body parts to avoid pregnancy.

The museum opened in 1966 and is located at the headquarters of pharmaceutical company Janssen-Ortho. Past articles about the museum appeared in Urban Desires (with great illustrations from the museum collection), Salon, the National Post and Eye.

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Ben Affleck denies everything, but the National Enquirer is sticking by its story about the wild sex party with Vancouver strippers. This week's edition has stripper Tammy Morris on the cover with the headline "Ben Cheated With Me".

Inside there's a detailed account of the festivities based on an interview with Tammy. The Enquirer website presents only a teaser, but I read the full article last night in a grocery store checkout line. A synopsis:

<enquirer>
Ben arrives at strip club with unidentified female friend. They join Tara Reid, Christian Slater and Slater's wife Ryan at the club. The group hires four strippers for a private dance, during which Christian and Ben caress the strippers. They pay the strippers $1500 and invite them to a party at the Slaters' house. At the party, Ryan urges Tammy to go upstairs and check out the wild scene. Tammy finds Ben's female friend and two strippers naked on a bed, with Affleck standing alongside watching and directing the action. Tammy gets naked and joins the group. Affleck climbs onto the bed, the girls take off his clothes. Ben performs cunnilingus on all three of the strippers. Tammy moves to reciprocate on Affleck, but he stops her.
</enquirer>

Tammy described the head as "not the best I've ever had, but it was from Ben Affleck!" — not a ringing endorsement for the "Sexiest Man Alive." Then again, if this story is true (a big if), he really really likes to lick pussy, which counts for a lot.

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Slate media critic Jack Shafer picks apart Newsweek's bogus trendspotting in the "marked increase in teen prostitution" story. (Thanks, Cowboy X.)

The legal battle over teen and preteen model sites claims a victim in Tennessee.

A McNairy County man has been found guilty of exploiting his daughter by posting photographs of the scantily clad teenager on the Internet. [...]

Nude and nearly nude photos taken of the girl when she was 12-14 years old were meant as art, and leather bikinis, chains, martini glasses, stuffed animals, as well as the men's room urinal at a Selmer park, were props for the photographs, Yurick testified last week during the trial in U.S. District Court.

Both father and daughter testified during the six-day trial that none of the photographs was meant to suggest sex. Defense witnesses said the same thing.

Dozens of photographs were shown during the trial, including some showing the girl in various poses stretched across a dining room table, her father's bed and posing in a thong bikini in front of a mirror. [...]

The daughter said the Internet posting was her idea and she wanted to become a professional model. She said she chose her clothing and poses for the photo shoots, often copying what she had seen in magazines or books.

The father faces 180 years in prison and $2 million in fines.

Monday, August 11, 2003

Newsweek has an article about the rise of teen prostitution among nice, white, middle-class girls from good homes in the suburbs. Sounds very much like the "compensated dating" phenomenon in Japan.

From the archives: Paul Klemperer and Spike Gillespie ponder the issue of breast implants. Fake titties, that is. They start their research in a local strip club. "After several hours of noshing and staring, we learned two things: 1) Dancers with big breasts seemed to make more money, both in tips and in lap dances, and 2) if you're going to scarf down a mountain of peel-and-eat shrimp, you don't want a table right next to the stage. It just gets messy, both physically and mentally." Spike Gillespie has a new book out, a collection of essays called Surrender (But Don't Give Yourself Away).