Porn

I was chatting away to the legendary Ron Jeremy about politics, as you do, then tried to move the question to the porn industry. “Oh, you wanna talk about my penis?”, he asked.

“Um. Do you want to talk about your penis?” I replied.

“Nah, it’s fine. It talks for itself,” he said.

Continue reading "Putting the hard questions to Ron ‘the Hedgehog’ Jeremy" »

“Hello ladies.”

Perhaps you remember the viral advertisement where Isaiah Mustafa of the impeccable pecs encouraged women to “look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me” and then, accordingly, buy Old Spice so their men could “smell like he’s me.”

The advertisement’s self-aware ribbing of the gulf between the clichéd perfect man and the ordinary guy was cheeky and hilarious, but a sign of the times? With E L James’ adult novel Fifty Shades of Grey still dominating the New York Times bestseller list, I’m starting to wonder. Because though many have marvelled at the runaway success of the erotic novel, its popularity isn’t at all surprising given our collective enthusiasm for romance as a genre - featuring, of course, a male romantic hero against whom men in real life simply cannot compare.

Continue reading "Fifty shades of selfish desire in the twilight of fantasy" »

Damn you, Fifty Shades of Grey, for keeping me up all night. And, no, it’s not what you think. While you were blushing and trying to co-ordinate your index finger (page-turning being somewhat challenging when reading erotica), I was having an ‘if only’ moment.

OK, maybe there was a little ‘If only Christian Grey would ditch his linen shirt on my bedroom floor’ (I’m not explaining the plot for the three people living under a rock or too tight to drop $9.96 in Big W for what is, admittedly, one shade literary; 49 sensation). But mostly it was ‘If only I’d written that freakin’ book, I’d be a squillionaire.’

Everyone who strings words together for a living wishes they’d written a bestseller. I’ve often mused I was Jane Austen or JK Rowling, or even that drug fiend Enid Blyton. You’d have to be on some sort of substance to cook up The Faraway Tree and protagonists called Fanny and Dick. They were gifted at creating characters and getting them into trouble (although I’d have hooked up Lizzie and Mr Darcy 100 pages earlier, and left that brat Dick to languish in The Land of Spells).

Continue reading "My throbbing, pulsating desire to write erotica" »

Asking the consumers of porn to vote on whether porn stars should be required to wear condoms during sex scenes is like asking children to vote on whether they should be required to eat dessert after every meal.

It’s like asking consumers whether McDonalds should ban the Big Mac.

It’s placing people’s sexual health in the hands of people who will vote not on their conscience but on their… *ahem* appetites.

Continue reading "Condoms for porn stars is Russian roulette" »

In I Spit On Your Grave, a young woman is gang raped in a remote woodland. She is beaten and tortured in a series of deeply disturbing scenes, before she hurls herself into a river.

She survives, comes back, and inflicts a graphic and brutal revenge on the men who so viciously attacked her.

I can’t remember why I picked up the DVD - although I love horror and was possibly overcome with swaggering bravado after seeing the ‘watch it if you dare’ sticker.

Continue reading "The humourless hysteria of the holier-than-thou" »