BANG
Ricki Hall / Photo credit: Darren Black
Model Ricki Hall shot by photographer Darren Black. [Eddy-Eddy]
IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A BITCH
Lilly Allen has a new single and a new video: "Hard Out Here." For a bitch, that is. [YouTube]
I'M GOING LONG
Thanks to the folks at Longform for including me in "The Longform Guide to Sex Work," which was also featured last weekend on Slate.
Along with my own "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?", the lineup includes Susan Shepard's excellent "Wildcatting: A Stripper's Guide to the Modern American Boomtown" and Mark Jacobsen's fascinating "The $2,000 an-Hour Woman."
"OK, so what are we going to do?" a man standing off-camera asks in a voice that sounds as if it has been digitally altered. "Should I just beat the shit out of her?"
SHE'S AN ANGEL
Karlie Kloss believes she can fly
The holidays are all about spending time together, exchanging gifts, and watching the Victoria's Secret Runway Show. Recently, supermodel Karlie Kloss, who is 21 and 6'1", got fitted for a pair of psychedelic wings. The Cut has the behind-the scenes video.
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG
Breaking news out of Hamilton, Ohio, care of the local newspaper's police blotter:
A man walked into CVS, 820 S. Breiel Blvd., and walked out with a box of condoms, bottle of lubricant, five Slim Jims and an A&W Root Beer, valued at $65.71. The suspect left the store and rode off on a bike.
THE HORROR WITHIN
Ariel Levy has written the most terrifying reproduction story since "Rosemary's Baby" for the New Yorker. As a journalist, she travels the globe, and she finds herself far from home when her pregnancy goes off the rails. The result is an eviscerating tale: "Thanksgiving in Mongolia."
I got pregnant quickly, to my surprise and delight, shortly before my thirty-eighth birthday. It felt like making it onto a plane the moment before the gate closes—you can’t help but thrill. After only two months, I could hear the heartbeat of the creature inside me at the doctor’s office. It seemed like magic: a little eye of newt in my cauldron and suddenly I was a witch with the power to brew life into being. Even if you are not Robinson Crusoe in a solitary fort, as a human being you walk this world by yourself. But when you are pregnant you are never alone.
LARS VON TRIER GETS CUT
The coverage of Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" journey from can to screen is a boggler. Take, for example, the latest reports that the controversial director has surrendered his final cut. It's a matter of hardcore and softcore.
Jensen says the cuts were purely for commercial reasons and not to eliminate any of the films' many explicit sex scenes. There were initially plans to release both a hard-core and soft-core version of Nymphomaniac but those plans have now been abandoned. Instead there will be just the hard-core version but distributors in individual countries can decide to blur whichever elements they find unacceptable. The Danish version will go out with all the explicit sex intact and in focus.
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
Photo credit: Tommy Ton for Style.com
A model sports a "Suck My Cervix" T-shirt at Fashion Week Australia earlier this year. [Man Repeller]
SMELL IT
Meet Roja Dove, the man who makes bespoke fragrances for women who can afford to spend $40,350 to smell like no one else. His nose is so sensitive that international flights are nearly unbearable, and he compares creating his personalized perfumes to having sex.
For example, Mr. Dove had three clients smell tuberose. One gave a horrified shudder, while the other two described the scent as, respectively, “quiche with cabbage” and “young girls in tank tops running around a mall.”
[NYT]
WHERE ARE THE PORN STARS NOW?
Jenna Jameson was on Oprah Winfrey's "Where Are They Now?" last night. She discussed her DUI arrest, her custody battle with her ex, MMA fighter Tito Ortiz, over her kids, and her current problems. It was very sad.
The first time I met Jenna was in 1997. I believe it was August. I visited the set of her movie, "Flashpoint." She showed up at some point and disappeared quickly into a trailer. The girl who went in the door was young, messy-haired, fresh-faced. The person who emerged after dark was wearing towering thigh-high boots, kabuki makeup, and a spiked collar. We paraded into a building behind her like some sort of demented wedding procession. In the cavernous room of an industrial building, she had sex with T.T. Boy while flames shot up all around them.
At the end of last night's episode, she indicated that she has no idea who Jenna Massoli (her real name) is.
[Oprah]
YOUR TATTOOS MATCH THE FURNITURE
Photo credit: Can Dagarslani
"Wear your heart on your skin in this life." -- Sylvia Plath [Photo by Can Dagarslani via This Isn't Happiness]
HOW TO FINANCIALLY DOMINATE A MAN
A writer for Vice took a class in how to financially dominate a man. "After years of getting screwed over by the Man, I was ready to screw the Man myself," she asserts. Fun facts: financial dominatrixes are called "fin-dommes," the men they dominate are called "fin-slaves," and there's a thing called a "pay-pig."
This is Seva.
She gave him the floor, and we got to pick his brain a little. Right away, the guy opened up with a Nietzsche quote. “The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.” I instantly knew I was not going to like anything else he had to say. He gave his perspective on being a slave, and spoke of the rush he gets when a woman tells him to do something. He said that his number one fantasy is to run errands for a woman, and even sign over the lease of his condo to a woman. He then went on a small rant telling us that women are great at manipulation, and humiliation. Being a woman's slave, “appeals to her vanity,” he said.
[VICE]
SEX-GORE-BIZARRE
"G.I. Jane (Fill Me Up)," Jackson and His Computerband
Behold, a totally insane video from Mrzyk & Moriceau for Jackson and His Computerband's "G.I. Jane (Fill Me Up)." If you like phallic armies, penis sharks, and female face-eaters, you will love this music video.
“We love Jackson’s song, so the ideas came very fast. We wanted something sex-gore-bizarre, so created this faceless girl fighting against penises that appear from everywhere.” The explosively charged narrative takes in Manga influences and the duo’s trademark pop eroticism, while also providing, as Moriceau opines, a comment on misogyny and female empowerment. “Of course you can see the power of feminism in the film,” he says. “But firstly, we want to entertain.”
[NOWNESS]
ALL THE NEWS THAT'S UNFIT TO PRINT: 11.10.13
Dear Sex Worker Customer: Don't do this. Love, Your Sex Worker. [Tits and Sass]
Photos from the heyday of New York's Area nightclub. There is a nudity. [New York]
Is HBO giving you the shaft? Let's check the boobs infographic. [HBO Watch]
Don't forget to wash your hands first. [The Onion]
Kate Upton wears body paint, frolics. [TMZ]
Banksy hit the Hustler Club. The subject is a "lovelorn loser." [New York Post]
Someone got randy with the loaves at Whole Foods. My report. [Twitter]
When paying an escort, Litecoins are the new Bitcoins. [Northern Jewels]
A gay-for-pay porn star murders a millionaire, and the American dream unravels. [Miami New Times]
The Gray Lady does not enjoy your Bob Guccione documentary. [New York Times]
WELCOME, SLATERS
Tori Black, Canoga Park, CA / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
If you're here to read "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?", which was chosen by Slate and Longform as one of "Seven Great Stories About Paying for Sex and Being Paid to Have It," you can find it here.
I wrote the piece in 2009 and self-published it. It is a 10,000-word investigation into the impact of the Great Recession on the adult movie industry.
You can read more about that project and other projects of mine here. You can learn more about me here. More of my photography is here.
An essay I wrote about the project, "The Numbers On Self-Publishing Long-Form Journalism," has been taught in Media, Politics & Power in the Digital Age at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Studio 20 program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University.
The original site where the piece was self-published is here. The logo and site were created and designed by Chris Bishop.
You can email me here.
From "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?":
In this canon, the real subject is not human sexuality but humanity itself. The products that Jim produces are videotaped vivisections, studies in which homo sapiens lie upon the operating table, the director is the doctor, the camera is the scalpel, and the only question worth asking is, How far will we go if we are pushed to our limits?
#WTF
The Daily Beast has an interesting piece on the nonsensical rules governing hashtag censorship on Instagram. The issues involve sex, race, and bodily functions. From "Instagram's Sex Censorship Is Inconsistent and Hilarious":
Many of the single word tags like #fuck, #bitches, #porn remain on the blocked list, but many longer variations, like #fuckfriday and #mybitches are now searchable. #Dildo and #chink were once banned but can now be searched, though #wet, #shower, and #popular remain blocked. Users can search #faketits, #underboob and #boobz, but not #sideboob, #boob or #boobies.
STARS
Porn awards, Las Vegas, NV / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
Kayden Kross and Manuel Ferrara at the AVN Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 2013.
FOR ZUCK
From Supreme, the Piss Face Zip-Up in black, $138. Notes The New Yorker:
This season, Supreme is selling a zip-up hoodie with a quotation, attributed to the skateboarder Mark Gonzales, that reads, in bright letters across the back, “I’ve never wanted to piss on someones face more than I want to piss on yours.” Many of Supreme’s items sell out online within seconds of going on sale, but the “Piss Face Zip-Up” has not sold out in any color after weeks on the Web site. “I didn’t stock any,” Peter explained. (Perhaps Peter miscalculated—mysteriously, the Piss Face Zip-Up, which costs a hundred and thirty-eight dollars, is sold out in blue in Japan, where it costs two hundred and fifty-eight dollars and thirty cents.)
TODAY'S MUST READ
"I’d practically earned my doctorate in strip-club-going. I knew more porn acronyms than him. I watched smut on my own and never thought to review his Web history. I even enjoyed the rare strip club outing with him. But here was a line: no lap dances. I was getting married, I had found my person, I didn’t need to be OK with all things that a man, any man, could ever want. Men were no longer a generalized other, there was only this man that mattered."
-- "Why I Said No to Strippers," Tracy Clark-Flory