The Joy of Selling Sex

I don’t buy into the myth that sex industry workers as a whole are more emotionally damaged than your average Joe – perhaps just “damaged” in a different way. Regardless of whether you’re a Wall Street titan or a Times Square stripper, mental health is sacrificed when you’re seduced into letting your job define who you are. That said there are a vast variety of personalities drawn to the sex trade. In fact, professional S&M can best be described as the bastard child of the sex industry in the way that the transgender community is to the gay world (having little in common, only lumped in there with the rest of the marginalized). Unlike stripping and hustling, sadomasochism isn’t directly about sex – sexual desire is merely a byproduct of power play. It is also nondiscriminatory and an equal opportunity employer since a dom/sub can be any age, weight, race, sexuality, gender, transgender – any human being under the sun! S&M is riddled with contradictions, as the best tops are not “bitches” but maternal/paternal and slaves are far from submissive since the bottom is really the one in control. Which leads me to wonder. Why is prostitution of the body illegal, while the prostitution of the soul accepted, and of the mind encouraged? Unlike corporate hustlers, all the male escorts I’ve known at least wholeheartedly believed in what they were selling.

Camp Galore!

Scan the Internet Movie Database for Michael Sarne’s “Myra Breckinridge,” based on the infamous book by Gore Vidal, and you’ll find among the plot keywords “Non Statutory Female On Male Anal Rape.” Which makes one wonder if that category was coined solely for the groundbreaking Miss Myra herself, exquisitely brought to life by the underrated Raquel Welch.

Now playing at The House Next Door:

My double bill of Myra Breckinridge and the CineKink Film Festival Wrap-Up.

Guilty As Charged

The first thought that came to mind when I heard that former righteous Attorney General, current New York Governor Eliot Spitzer brought the feds down on a high-priced bordello with his indiscretion was, “Thank goodness they caught him – he’d be the client from hell!” A probable sample of what the feds didn’t catch on the wiretap:

Client 9 to Emperors Club VIP Booking Agent: I specifically asked that the girl be wearing black stiletto heels and these are clear chunky platforms, are they not?

Booking Agent: But –

Client 9: A simple yes or no answer will suffice.

Booking Agent: Yes, uh –

Client 9: Take her back! Send another! No further questions.

So I say Spitzer should do the right thing and devote his upcoming free time to a worthy cause – lobbying for federal legalization of prostitution. I rest my case.

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

From my original review of "Brokeback Mountain":

To say "Brokeback Mountain" is a “gay cowboy movie” is akin to calling “Romeo and Juliet” a play about two feuding Italian families. In either case you wouldn’t be wrong, but to reduce the two stories to such superficial plot summaries misses the essence of both – the universal theme of societal constructions (be they ideas about class, race or sexuality) serving to keep true love apart. Ang Lee’s disguised “Romeo and Juliet,” set in the west and involving two men, is merely the latest take on a timeless subject. It is a classic western that feels so right in its elimination of the extraneous girl at the center of the requisite triangle, the undeveloped female character put there for no other reason than to keep the other two points from collapsing into (the arms of) each other. Blessed with a tight script and phenomenal acting, Ang Lee rightly steps aside, letting the film perform its own alchemy, leaving no smudges of auteur fingerprints to distract like a dirty lens. Heath Ledger lives up to his hype, imbuing his complex role with a gravity that’s worthy of the young Brando.

A role like Ennis Del Mar is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any actor. What Heath Ledger did with that role, the jaw-dropping astonishing performance he gave, is at a height the vast majority of actors could never reach in ten lifetimes. It's all any fan of that mysterious, shamanistic art could ever ask for. We are truly blessed.

Bite Me

Yes, the vagina dentata movie "Teeth" sucks more than bites, but it was still nice for the CineKinkster to link to my review at "The House Next Door":

http://cinekink.com/blog/2008/01/really-baby-thats-just-crazy-talk.html

And in all fairness to director Lichtenstein, I have the same lack-of-balls beef with him as I do with Catherine Breillat (and Mary Harron with “The Notorious Bettie Page”). If you need to justify/apologize for trafficking in “subversive” material (through academia) then you’ve no business trafficking in subversive material in the first place. As John Waters knew well, sometimes a talking asshole is just a talking asshole.

Thanks, Graydon!

“Vanity Fair” has again published my “Letter To The Editor” (January 2008 issue). This time I bitched about boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman.

A Music King Dethroned

FORGET THE PONZI SCHEME [“Mad About the Boys,” by Bryan Burrough, November]. The most preposterous part of this article is how anyone ever could have regarded Lou Pearlman’s intentions as other than dishonorable. He acquired the Chippendales male-stripper franchise, for heaven’s sake! Note to parents of boy-band members: If you throw your kid into a shark tank, the least you can do is take responsibility for the damage. —LAUREN WISSOT, Brooklyn, New York

Available online at: http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/01/letters200801

The Year In Camp

Oops, I did it again (outed myself, that is!) My 2007 "Best of Camp" list is out, too...

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/12/2007-six-camp-highlights-and-one.html