Points of Entry

I'm confused by Virginia Heffernan's latest column: "File-Sharing Fetish."

"The Internet is for porn. Since I spend days and nights watching online video, people frequently remind me of this maxim from 'Avenue Q.' A little too rapidly, I protest that YouTube, the Web’s most comprehensive video site, where people watch around three billion videos a month — fertile territory for pornography any way you look at it — has somehow kept itself (relatively) clean and outstripped the video-sharing competition."

Well, OK. So, her thesis statement is... Thank heavens there's no porn on YouTube? I just don't know how compelling that declaration is, especially considering "one in four search engine requests on an average day is for pornography." What all those searchers are really looking for may generate more interesting questions and answers.

Daily Intel contemplates the broohaha over the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook sex--I mean divorce trial of the moment, especially considering the revelations regarding Cook's purportedly excessive porn watching practices.

"Is porn really still something that's regarded as for deviants only? You'd think we all would have been tipped off to the fact that it's not — that all guys masturbate..."

Well, I'm not a guy, so I can't verify the veracity of that statement, but I think that "all" is probably in the ballpark.

Instead, Heffernan gets turned on by watching popcorn pop. "I was skimming thumbnails as usual when the popcorn video arrested my attention. I watched four times, transfixed... As I kept clicking and watching, I began to feel excited, even turned on."

To each his, or her, own video fetish, I suppose.

New York Times Calls Prostitutes "Whores"

I was surprised to read the tagline for today's New York Times review of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," which premieres on Showtime tonight. On the main Arts page, the blurb link to the review reads: "'Secret Diary' indulges the common male fantasy that whores truly enjoy prostitution." Generally, although not all the time, "whores" is used as a pejorative. Considering how careful (see: "From Huckapoo to 16 Pubed") the Times typically is about not offending anyone with its word choices, particularly when it comes to sex, this was a bit surprising. The line is a pull quote from Alessandra Stanley's review of the show, which isn't that much different from Edward Wyatt's think piece on the show. In sum total, they say the show glamorizes prostitution. Or, as Stanley states it: "it's X-rated chick lit."

"It’s a series that aspires to be a candid, incisive look at the oldest profession, but mostly it stares at it lasciviously, with all the seamier bits — sexually transmitted diseases, repulsive clients, police records, drug habits — airbrushed out. And in between comical depictions of Belle entertaining her clients and fulfilling even their silliest fantasies (in Britain they mostly seem to involve horses, bondage or both), there are many filmy, smoldering shots of Belle bathing, applying lipstick or even just writhing alone on her bed, bored and a little bit lonely."

So much for guilty pleasures. Or, for that matter, pleasure without guilt.

Related: Choire Sicha interviews Billie Piper.

If The New York Times Was A Man, It Would Never Get Laid

Oh, New York Times. You're so dull, you can make sex work boring. Sometimes, I think the Times is like a fifty-something guy with a bad case of erectile dysfunction, and I'm the girl who has been sent to fellate him. You know what? He's never going to come. Why the rag keeps venturing into sex waters with all their clothes on, angsting about feminism, waxing on dully about the culture and "what it all means," continuing to do the literary version of pushing PAUSE on a porn movie, I'll never really understand. Every time they "go there," they can't help but damn themselves--and us--for doing so.

The latest missive comes from Edmund White--oh, I'm sorry. I mean Edward Wyatt--rambling on about Showtime's up and coming hooker show, "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," which premieres on Monday. For those not in the know, the series is based on the book by Belle de Jour, a London call girl, and the series already aired in England. Wyatt describes it as "lighthearted"--and it pretty much is; you can watch the first episode here--and then starts wringing his hands over whether or not feminists and their icky ilk are going to get all up in arms over it in America.

First, Chris Albrecht--the ex-HBO exec who has stated publicly that his tenure at HBO was filled with personal longing to do a hooker show, a mission that was derailed when he got busted for assaulting his girlfriend at the time (now his soon to be his wife), and who brought the show to Showtime--backs away from defending the show's sexual politics: "I’m pretty sure there isn’t anyone associated with this show who thinks this profession is empowering to women." Then, British actress Billie Piper, who plays Belle, compares the call girl character to Tony Soprano, "a man who goes around killing people." Finally, just in case there's any desire, titillation, or curiosity left in the room, Wyatt dials up a feminist who declares the project does for "prostitution what HBO’s 'Big Love' does for polygamy." Shudder.

Of course, the Times story is pretty much bereft of sex. And that's part of what the show is about, isn't it? Why we do it. Why men pay for it. What it's really like to be a woman who sells it for a living. Not long ago, a friend of mine asserted that every woman secretly wants to be a "Pretty Woman." I agreed. Women want to be them. Men want to be with them. Too bad nobody's willing to admit it.

Manohla Dargis Hates "Sex and the City: The Movie"

The Times thinks "Sex and the City: The Movie" sucks balls. Manohla Dargis deems it "dumpy," "vulgar, shrill, deeply shallow," and "overlong." She reports that all the male characters get reduced to non-characters, adding: "I’m all for the female gaze, but, gee, it’s also nice to talk — and listen — to men, too." And she concludes: "this It Girl has become totally Ick." My guess is that the movie will be a hit, regardless.

Playboy Takes a Dump

The New York Times reports that Playboy Enterprises has taken another financial dump with another losing quarter. Christie Hefner, Playboy's current CEO, states the loss is due to "'the dual challenges of structural transformation in our traditional media business and a difficult U.S. economy,' while also citing 'unprecedented changes in the way consumers access and use media content.'"

And by "unprecedented changes in the way consumers access and use media content," she means: "Everyone's looking at porn on the internet now. Oops. I guess we really fucked up." Gee, Christie, you think?

I worked for Playboy TV from 1998 to 2003. I was, shamefully, a reporter on a show called "Sexcetera" that was like "60 Minutes" on Viagra. (Wow. The thought of Morley Safer on a little blue pill is a scary thought. Isn't it?) At the time, the story inside the bunny machine was that Playboy TV, which is basically porn, was carrying Playboy financially. Hef hates porn--his enterprise was built on the premise Playboy is everything porn is not--so he hated Playboy TV, even though that's what was keeping him in red satin robes.

As the Times states near the end, burying its lede once again: "Although Playboy Enterprises owns some cable channels that show X-rated material, like Hot Network, Hot Zone and Vivid TV, those are not presented as Playboy brands (though they do turn a profit)."

In recent years, Christie, a self-described feminist, has tried to drag her father into the future, seeking to compete with the World Wide Web of smut, buying up properties like ClubJenna in 2006.

Now, of course, it's far too little too late for Playboy.

(Also? I went to the Playboy Mansion three times. It was awesome.)

Shit Fuck Bukkake

Daniel Radosh reports the New York Times printed the word "shit" for the second time this year. Radosh declares that censoring dirty words, rather than just reporting the facts, is a "journalistic sin." He adds the word "fuck" has appeared in the Times once. And that, I would add, is the same number of times the Lady has published the word "bukkake."