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I couldn't help but repeat 'Should Be in Bed, he's Rambling's' comment on my last post. It made me laugh out loud. You may recall that I was drawing a parallel between the attempts of the porn industry to make themselves seem more innocuous and the world of greyhound racing with its by-product of unwanted greyhounds needing re-homing.
'Should Be' wrote the following:
'I kinda like the idea of rehoming aged pornstsrs though, purely as some sort of moral duty for the entertainment they have given before the teeth sagged and the implants fell out. It can be such a clinical decision when selecting a rescue dog: not that one - too big: Nope - he'd eat the cat: she doesn't match the curtains.... How would one decide which retiree of the pornographic industry met the unique domestic requirements of each household?
Well she's still housetrained but we can't have Miss Leopardskin 1973, we'd never find her on the sofa...'
I laughed almost as much as when I discovered that some aged (male) porn stars actually find work as 'stunt-cocks' to carry out the ejaculatory act when the worn out real stars can't manage it.
But as for what really happens to retired porn stars, I wonder whether they wouldn't find a welcome home at the Gimcrack Hospital under the gentle ministrations of Nurse Myra. Or perhaps there are already homes for them, perhaps there is one near you subtly disguised as a common or garden retirement home...only it's not bingo they play in the afternoons.
What would it be called though? St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, or what about good old St Nicholas, the patron saint of sex workers?
In any case you can click here if you can rehome one....err, sorry a greyhound I mean.
Oh what joy. Finally the day has arrived when I can write a post that truly justifies the two key words most likely to get a raft of hits to my blog: sex and money.
And what a delightfully astute move by the US porn industry to demand, in the manner of the US car industry, a government injection to shore up its limp prospects (oh, there's more to come). Astute, not because porn stars are likely to receive a hand job, sorry, hand-out from sympathetic government sponsors but because where else could they get pan-global marketing coverage like they have received.
I mean, they've been begging for it - the chance to claim a useful role for society: cheering people up when things are going down. Albeit, in the manner of drugs or alcohol, the cheeriness is only short-lived (or perhaps short lasting). So here it was, on a plate, a golden opportunity to market an industry that otherwise struggles to advertise in the mass media.
Did they want or expect a multi-billion dollar? Did they heck. What they wanted was the opportunity for top porn artistes to talk about their art in mock serious terms to con the public at large that actually the industry has professional standards. Would you have believed that so called respectable papers would publish the fact that for only $19.95 a month you could have unfettered access to watch people 'doing it' live.
So, what's the harm in a few sad sods spending hard earned dollars sitting with spunky tissues before their screens?
Well perhaps there is a rather more sinister motive behind this marketing coup. Whilst the world's mass media raises a rueful smile and chuckles over the fun to be had with puns, the rather darker underbelly of this exploitative industry sits smugly in the knowledge that the public at large sees their business as a little more benign than they did yesterday .
For they do have something to hide. A bit like how a night at the dogs - greyhound racing - doesn't display the cruel fate of the unsuccessful hounds. The champagne face of porn doesn't broadcast the cheaper end of the market where age and/or consent is less important.
Occasionally we get a catalogue shoved in a magazine that comes in the post; you know the sort, it has gadgets of all types and descriptions and is usually worth a read just so you get to laugh at stuff like heated slippers or a new way of dicing vegetables. It seems that they are predominantly aimed at the ageing population, ours came in the magazine we get from the Camping and Caravanning Club.
This edition contains advertisements that lead me to suspect they are aimed rather more at caravanners of a certain age than at tough campers like us. For example there are beauties like 'Shoes so Comfortable they could be Slippers',
'Get any Matress Hygienically Clean in 30 Seconds' or what about the 'Height Adjustable Organiser Footstool' or who could resist the 'Safe and Hygienic Ear Wax Remover'. Each of these products are advertised with models who are cheerfully grey haired and look like their lives are the richer for being seen with the product.
Imagine my surprise (and delight) when I flicked over a page and, beneath a picture of a suitably mature gentleman dressed in slacks and a sweater, was 'Enhance Sexual Performance, Vigour and Vitality' and then only a couple of pages further on 'Stronger Larger Erections' with a picture of a suction powered penis enlarger - the type that Austin Powers tried to deny belonged to him - with adjacent advertisements of a hand cream to treat age spots and a shoe organiser.
If this is what getting older holds, bring it on I say! Not that I would need to resort to any of the products mentioned of course, rather that it is reassuring to think that the older person might need them as part of a vigorous and full sex life you understand. Ahem.
P.S. I fully expect about a zillion hits on this post after I've given it perfectly honest key wording.
P.P.S. If you would like to browse the on line catalogue for any of these excellent products Click Here (Confidentiality assured... but would you know if my computer had added a tracking cookie....hmmm, evil chuckle)
I'm going to have to write about our trip in instalments - there's a lot to write. But first - having read my heading - let's get the bit that everyone who knows us wants to know: yes we did investigate the red light district and no, the sex and the aching feet are not the result of some adventurous new position discovered as the result of our investigations.
Amsterdam is a fabulous city: easy to get around and easy to just be in; everyone speaks English - willingly; and the public transport system would make John Prescott blush (remember his cunning plan for a ten year integrated transport system? - the one he hastily dumped on Stephen Byers when he realised it couldn't be done). Famous for its liberal culture the city has a generally relaxed feel; Amsterdam's citizens are neither gushily friendly nor stand offish, more that they are simply happy to share their space with you no matter who or how you are.
I know you probably won't believe this, but our sojourn into the red light district was actually to visit a church. De Oude Kerk is Amsterdam's oldest and grandest church with burial records dating back to 1300 but, as if that wasn't enough, it also has a magnificent organ (that is not an invitation to skip ahead to the smut, by the way) and, at the moment, contains the World Press Photo of the Year exhibition. This is an international annual contest to do exactly what it says on the tin: find the best press photo of the year. The winning pictures in a variety of categories then go on a world tour.
It was stunning; I'd already seen the wining picture in The Independent, but the large scale photos really take your breath away. The subject matter is often grim and I take my hat off to the art of photographers who have the gift of composition and can use it under circumstances that would leave me diving for cover. If you get five minutes click on the link to see an on-line gallery of the winners; but, even better, if you get chance to go to the exhibition, do.
The irony of the juxtaposition of stark media images, a beautiful place of worship and window brothels not 15 metres from the rear wall of the the church, was not lost on me as we stepped out onto the Voorburgwal, the canal that bisects the dark alleys of the Red Light district. We had chosen our moment carefully, not wanting to get our pockets picked in the crowds of lascivious lads later in the day, mid afternoon was sufficiently daring for our sex tour. Even then though ladies in windows plied their trade to passing men - it's always men - who bargain shamelessly for a better deal on their desired method of having their snake milked. I'm sorry if that is a little blunt, but my overriding opinion is that that is all it amounts to; even our Rough Guide warns unwary young men not to expect the romantic encounter they hope for: it is an extremely practical service.
In the interests of journalism I assiduously studied the lady window occupants, though was made to suffer for my art with a hasty clip round the ear off Mrs C. She needn't have worried; the whole thing was unappealing and seedy. The alleyways are liberally peppered with live sex shows and DVD bars with private cabins: I had to explain why someone, who might not be able to afford the fifty Euro fee for a window visit, might opt for a cheaper private DVD cabin.
All that said, once we'd agreed on our joint moral stance, there was great fun to be had giggling and snorting at some of the more extreme sex aids offered for sale:
"Good Lord, you'd put your back out with that thing!"
Our moral stance? The other notable inclusion in this legalised leisure centre for the lonely, was a large number of sex health centres and other centres offering support for people involved in the sex industry. The Dutch view seems to be more pragmatic than liberal: deal with the world as it is rather than sweep the unseemly bits beneath the carpet and hope they will go away. I admire the Dutch approach.
I watched the fabulous Life on Mars last night; it really has to be the best and most entertaining drama on TV at the moment. This week I nearly fell off my chair when I saw my favourite children's TV programme of all time lampooned in a drug-enhanced hallucinogenic experience featuring DCI Gene Hunt, as citizen of Camberwick Green, beating up a nonce. But that wasn't the only high point in the programme, the series has also been notable for the accuracy of it's depiction of the 1970s, right down to the products that were popular.
As you know from previous posts, I'm a fan of advertising, particularly the psychology; so I was delighted last night to see, on the office shelf of Gene Hunt, a bottle of the classic male fragrance Hai Karate. What tickled me was the memory of the advertisements, not just for Hai Karate, but for Denim - the other classic fragrance - both guaranteeing sexual conquest to the man wearing the fragrance. And there we have the great advertising truth: no matter how slick or technologically adept we have become at producing advertising material, the ad-men still appeal to those basest instincts, pushing the buttons deep inside us that we don't always know are there.
Sex, as it always has done, sells. Consequently the bedroom shelves of my testosterone driven sons and their mates contain Lynx. Equally I know that by adding the label 'sex' into this post I will receive far more hits than normal - sorry if you've come here under false pretences.
