True Stories: Married and Promiscuous

by Barry Graham

One night I went to a bar with my friend Mike. There were bands playing, it was crowded, and we casually struck up a conversation with a woman named Heather. After an hour or so, Mike decided to leave. He was tired, he didn't like the music, and, increasingly, Heather and I were focused on each other. As he was leaving, he noticed that she and I had moved closer to each other, and he grinned at me just before he walked out the door.
Heather and I talked more, drank more, talked more. We were now sitting side-by-side in our booth in the dark lounge. We began kissing. After a few minutes, she broke away and laughed.
"Is there anything I should know before I get smitten?" she asked, and I realized that she somehow hadn't noticed the ring on my finger.
I held up my hand and showed it to her. "Maybe this?"
Her smile changed. "Ah. Like I said, there had to be a catch."
"Sorry. Do you want me to leave?"
She thought about it. "No, I'm having a good time hanging out."
We got more drinks. She stayed beside me in the booth, but we talked instead of making out. "I kind of want to take you home with me," she said. I stroked her hair and kissed her again and said, "Sounds good to me."
"Really? How long could you stay?"
"I'd like to stay with you all night, if you want me to."
A few minutes later, I was standing outside the bar, phone in hand, calling home. "Hey," my wife said sleepily.
"Hey, sorry to wake you. I just wanted to let you know I probably won't be home tonight."
"Oh... Is it anybody I know?"
"No, I just met her tonight."
She laughed. "I love you."
"I love you, too. See you tomorrow."
The next day, I got a call from Mike, "So, did you get with Heather last night?" he asked. "Yeah," I replied, "I spent the night with her. She's really cool."
"Do you need me to cover your ass with Anni? I can tell her you got drunk and crashed on my couch."
"She knows where I was," I replied. He was immediately alarmed.
"Shit, dude... How did she find out?"
"I told her. I wouldn't do it behind her back."
"You told her? For real?"
"Yeah, before Heather and I left the bar. She's okay with it."
Pause.
"Barry, that's sick. I mean, gross."
"How come?"
"It's just wrong."
Anni was his friend too. For me to be unfaithful to my wife, his friend, was okay. For me to lie to her about it was also okay. Moreover, he was prepared to lie to her to help me get away with it. But telling her the truth? And her not having a problem with it? Sick. Gross. Wrong.
Mike was married too, and fucked around at least as much as I did. But he hid it from his wife, so that was okay, or "normal." This story would just be funny if Mike's attitude weren't typical. 
When my marriage to Anni ended after seven years, most of our friends decided that our lack of monogamy had been the cause. Or, since few of them were monogamous, but all paid lip service to monogamy, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that they thought a lack of dishonesty had been the cause.
Our marriage had largely been happy. It ended for most of the usual reasons. I say "most," because infidelity was not among those reasons.

 

I once had an affair with a married woman whose husband didn't know what was going on. She told me that while she loved her husband, she couldn't be monogamous. I asked her if she'd ever talked with him about having an open relationship.
"I couldn't handle that," she said.
"Why not?"
"I couldn't handle him fucking other women."
She was in bed with me, naked, when she told me this.

Why Porn Stars without Makeup Are so Fascinating

Melissa Murphy's Instagram showcases dramatic before and after photos of porn performers.

by kate hakala

Yesterday, porn makeup artist Melissa Murphy released 93 before-and-after shots of high profile porn actresses with and without their makeup on. Her Instagram went viral. The not-so-big shocker? Female porn stars have oily skin, blemishes, and look way normal before their faces are subjected to Barbie-esque amounts of foundation, mascara, and eyeliner.
There are severely drastic (and engrossing) differences between the before and after images. When asked about her no holds barred method of application, Murphy told HuffPost Weird News, "If you're going to make a woman beautiful, you're just going to make the woman beautiful."
But this raises the point, are these women actually more beautiful when their faces are painted? While some would say yes (including Murphy herself), the masses are largely broadcasting their realization that some of these actresses, if not all, look better without makeup. What we mean by “better” and “more beautiful” is perhaps that these more natural images coincide with the actual aesthetic we come across and seek in life for our sexual partners and girlfriends. One commenter on Metafilter speaks to the captivating quality of this humanization:

I think a lot of people look at porn stars and assume they are in a constant state of eyeliner and push-up bra, that they were born that way as the "lucky women" and that they couldn't possibly look like someone's sister or mom. I think it's always better when we realize that Hot People are actually dimensional people with identities and relationships, which to me is the difference between finding someone attractive/sexy and truly objectifying them.

Even more fascinating,  is why we even care. Last month, we were transfixed by the John Milward study, which found, contrary to the predominant blonde-with-big-jugs stereotype, the average porn star is a brunette with a B-cup named Nikki. Which, is to say, completely average. 
Our fascination seems to come from our incessant need for both immediacy and distance from the figures we fetishize and fantasize about. We are in awe that they look, "just like us," but perhaps we forget that they are us, because we too frequently see them as some removed product. Makeup is part of a performance and artifice, and when we get to see the nude faces of women we have grown to appreciate solely for that artifice, it forces us to regard them on equal footing with us.
We care because Murphy’s photos tell us a story about beauty accessibility. These photos take the unattainable appeal of the sexed-up stars down a peg, and in doing so make that ideal seem that much more reachable. And accessibility to beauty is one of the enduring fixations of our culture.
Photo via Melissa Murphy's Instagram

What Happens When You Post Revenge Porn?

It's a truly modern story: Man posts revenge porn of ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend then posts revenge porn of man.

by Lizzie Plaugic

Usually when it comes to revenge porn, there are two distinct parties involved: the person doing the revenge, and the person receiving the revenge (aka the person whose photos or videos become porn). But if one party posts revenge porn to get back at their ex, then what's to stop that ex from posting revenge porn to avenge revenge porn?
It's an ouroboros of retribution, but one unlike the Hatfields and McCoys of yesterday. Because of the very nature of how information is broadcast and stored, the internet provides a means to retaliate forever; revenge porn is a recurrent attack that is impossible to erase or undo. The image exists always in some server, somewhere. The bad breakup of twenty years ago -- with its accompanying rumor mill and petty acts of retaliation -- has been transformed into something that literally lives forever. 
Brian W. sent his friends naked photos of his ex-girlfriend after he found out she cheated on him (or after he cheated on her, depending on who you ask). Then, in an effort to retaliate, his ex and some of her friends posted naked photos of him on various revenge porn sites. They also made a Tumblr showcasing him in various compromised (read: naked) states.
Revenge porn is a relatively recent development in Ways to Get Back at Your Ex, but it has already proven its staying power. D-bag extraordinaire Hunter Moore’s revenge porn site "Is Anyone Up?" was taken down recently, only to be replaced by the like-minded "Is Anybody Down?" Tumblr. 
Now that Brian has experienced the cyclical nature of karma firsthand and has found images of him in his natural state splashed across a few URLs, he isn’t so keen on revenge porn anymore. We spoke with Brian to find out about his path to redemption and why he thought finding solace in revenge porn was a good idea in the first place.
First of all, what exactly happened between you and your ex-girlfriend?
What happened was, and I regret it now, I sent pics of her to a couple of friends, and they kind of sent them around. They didn't really get posted on too many websites, at first it was mostly via email. Then to get back at me, my ex and her friends posted my pictures on several of those revenge porn sites. They also made a webpage.
Did you do anything when your friends started to post the pictures of your girlfriend online?
I didn't think they were gonna get spread around the way they did. It's still my fault, but I didn't intend to do what ended up happening. Once my friends started sharing them, it was pretty much too late at that point.
So you just let it happen?
Yeah, she was obviously very upset and I wasn't very nice to her back then. I just pretty much ignored her.
Why'd you ignore her then?
We had kind of a bad break-up; I caught her cheating on me, so that was kind of where I was at.
I thought you cheated on her?
Yeah, I know she says I cheated on her, so it's kind of a he said/she said type thing.
Was there a moment before you sent the photos to all your friends when you thought, "Maybe this isn't the best idea"?
Uhhh, no but I should have.
So when did you finally realize it probably wasn't a good idea? Was it only after your girlfriend posted pictures of you on the internet?
Yeah, pretty much. Knowing what it feels like now I know that I acted very immaturely and I'm regretful for doing it. It causes me a lot of stress now.
But it seems to me like your sense of regret is coming solely from the fact that there were consequences from this. You're stressed by how this has negatively impacted you.
Well…yeah that might be true. I didn't really think much about it until she posted pictures of me.
When you initially sent the pictures around, what was the appeal of revenge porn to you?
I was just very angry at her, and I was upset and not thinking straight. Beyond that, I'm not really sure.
So how have the pictures of you on the internet affected your life?
Well, it's cost me friends and girlfriends. I've been told by more than one romantic interest that they wouldn't go out with me because of the pictures. It's really turned me into a hermit. I didn't want to go out and be seen. I'd seen girls laughing and I'd always wonder if they'd seen the pictures and were laughing at me. It's really caused a lot of stress and it's just hugely embarrassing.
Do you still have hope that the photos will ever come down, or are you just kind of resigned to it?
Every time I've succeeded in getting the photos taken down, they just get put up somewhere else. I was very aggressive about removing them in the beginning. I've probably had them removed from about 50 different websites. It was just a daily thing; I would get up, search for them, send threatening letters to the web hosts, having to go through all this stuff, you know? 
I would have to prove it's a picture of me and all that. It was a lot of hassle to get them taken down just to have them reposted elsewhere. And whenever they get reposted, they just get that many more views because it's fresh content. I've pretty much given up. They're just in too many places and people won't remove them. And there's no law—that's very frustrating, and you just feel helpless.

Hysterical Women: A Visual History of the Vibrator

From medical device to "personal back massager," the vibrator has a rich, euphemistic history.

By Kate Hakala

Today we associate vibrators with one thing: our pleasure. In the nineteenth century, however, vibrators were only used by physicians, and served the sole medical purpose of curing hysteria--that umbrella diagnosis pushed upon difficult (read: sexually frustrated) or ailing women. At the turn of the twentieth century when these gadgets first hit the market for personal use, they weren’t advertised as having any sexual benefits. Instead, manufacturers politely and euphemistically referred to the healing qualities of personal massagers, like circulation stimulation and healthier, glowing skin.
As the decades passed by and talk around female sexuality became more lax, vibrators stopped looking so much like common household appliances and started resembling what they truly are: tools to make us come. The evolving shape of vibrators reflects not only our tech advancements but our social and sexual progress. The fine folks over at Babeland let us photograph some of their historical collection, part of their Vintage Vibrator Museum.
Arnold Massage Vibrator, 1909

What do antique sex toys and Mark Twain have in common? The Arnold Massage Vibrator. It’s rumored that Samuel Clemens himself used this early model. Resembling a hand mixer, the Arnold Massager was advertised as a facial exfoliator to preserve a perpetual youth (orgasms will do that).

The End of the Hollywood Sex Scene

Why aren’t we still watching movies for the sex?

BY KATE HAKALA

It seems America’s #1 favorite topic ever, sex, will be taking a backseat to violence and talking animals in Hollywood movies. According to Vincent Bruzzese, film research expert of Ipsos, a firm which analyzes scripts for major studios, Hollywood isn’t looking for sex scenes anymore when pitching future blockbusters. He claims, "Sex scenes used to be written, no matter the plot, to spice up a trailer. But all that does today is get a film an adult-only rating and lose a younger audience.” He admits that sex scenes have sold so poorly in the last two years that, "Today such scenes are written out by producers even before they are shot.” When I first heard this, I didn’t quite believe it. Of course sex in cinema is still as ubiquitous as ever. Then I thought about it, and realized it isn’t that common in movies that actually do well. 
Let’s compare the box office gross profits (granted, they had different budgets) of Shame (2011), the sex-filled examination of sexual addiction, and Oscar-darling Silver Linings Playbook (2012), which follows the life of a recovering sex addict but does not, in fact, include a sexy scene. Shame grossed roughly 4 million, while Silver Linings Playbook brought in 127 million. The difference between them is not only that my editor despises one of them, but that Silver Linings Playbook has become more palatable to the 2013 mainstream climate. The zeitgeist favors both family-oriented films and flicks full of special effects and gun violence, which are cheap to produce, over realistic, provocative depictions of human sexuality. Sex scenes require rehearsing, clearing of no-nudity clauses, the development of chemistry, and the hiking of R ratings, whereas CGI takes a computer and some imagination. The latter will time and time again have a wider audience. In 2012, out of the top 20 grossing films of the year, only four included any sex scenes, and only one of those, Ted, was R-rated. 
And the resounding trend I see on the internet’s “Best Movie Sex Scenes” lists* is that they all feature movies that are mainly over ten years old. In fact, the last movie to top the box office that included a truly hot and heavy love scene was Titanic (who could forget that smudged hand print on the car window?), but that was a depressingly long sixteen years ago.
Adrian Lyne, director/provocateur behind such films that top these lists like Fatal Attraction, Unfaithful, and 9 ½ Weeks, credits his lack of artistic output to Hollywood’s diluted treatment of sex in the last few years. He claims that real, raw sex has been sequestered to art films: “Would Fatal Attraction get made at a studio today? Not in a thousand years.”
Actually going to films in the theater (the thing that box office statistics actually reflect) is a rare and celebrated event. And, if cultural prognosticators and Hollywood insiders are correct, we’re mostly going with our families and close friends, people who we don’t necessarily want to watch somebody reenact cunnilingus next to. If we’re not all rushing to the theaters in droves to pull a Paul Reubens, then the market will act accordingly. So, Hollywood is watering down and trimming the fat on our sex scenes, and we’re hardly going to notice or complain. That’s because the instantly gratifying and instantly watchable source for our sex scenes can be found on TV and in porn. They satiate our prurient needs and we don’t even have to leave the house.
While Hollywood films have been cleaning up, instances of sexual gratuity, thanks to HBO, Showtime, AMC, and the like, have increased exponentially. This infographic from Wired illustrates how sex on TV is slowly becoming not only a substantial alternative to cinematic sex, but also, an integral plot-driving force on smartly written shows. These are companies that know their target audience is mature, and thus, they are able to  produce sexually explicit and rousing content that reflects a reality a placated, family-oriented audience is not ready for.
If Hollywood sex is going the way of the dodo, this might say more about the American family’s relationship to violence and visual stimulation than its relationship to sex itself.  We may have now become a culture that feels safer watching a city be bombed to death with their mom than they feel safe watching somebody feeling pleasure next to their mom.  Here’s hoping that in the future, mainstream Hollywood’s lack of sexual depictions, be they plot-driven or gratuitous, becomes so glaringly apparent, that we no longer find subdued, second base representations tasteful as much as outdated. Only then will the highly-grossing arthouse, gritty scenes that once engaged our imaginations and our sexuality come back onto our movie stubs. 
*If you're feeling flaccid and mopey about modern Hollywood sex scenes, take a gander through Nerve's Hollywood Sex Scene Database.

Categories:  Must see, News and Opinion, Spicer's Spotlight

WOMEN. BLOODY ASKING FOR IT.

By Tracey Spicer

March 28, 2013

Ricky Nixon seems like a really top bloke.

After all, he didn’t have to enter a guilty plea.
He only did so to “protect” his family from “a protracted court case that would have affected everyone’s lives for months”.

AFL agent Ricky Nixon, pleaded guilty to bashing former fiancee Tegan Gould. Image via SBS.

 

What a sensitive fella. You can’t help but feel sorry for him.
Nixon told Radio 3AW, he’s been “working tirelessly” to get on with his life.
I mean, his ex-wife paid for him to go to a psychiatric hospital. He didn’t beat her up so, obviously, this is a one-off, right? Still, he might have to cancel his upcoming comedy shows. And he doesn’t know whether he’ll get his agent’s licence back.
Oh, the injustice. The law is an ass. Look at poor Matthew Newton.
Four times he’s faced spurious assault allegations. Each time, he’s been given the appropriate penalty: community service.
It’s not because he’s rich and famous and has the best lawyers.
Like Ricky, he has mental health issues. This excuses him from any irrational behaviour, regardless of the consequences.
Where’s the compassion for our fellow man?
Take the case of UK comedian Justin Lee Collins. He pleaded not guilty to harassment.
Sure, the court heard he’d “subjected his former partner to physical, psychological and verbal abuse during the course of their relationship”.
But there wasn’t a scratch on her. The jury found him guilty. UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE.
Fortunately, the judge saw sense: community service instead of the clink.
This problem can be summed up in one word: feminazis. Whingeing bitches. Obviously not getting enough.
Like those hairy-legged lezbos ganging up on John Laws. Of course he had to ask that woman whether the sexual abuse was “her fault”.
Young girls can be very flirtatious, you know.
I’m not the only one who thinks like this. On Twitter @Seat_V29 asks a pertinent question about Tegan Gould (pictured left, displaying her injuries): “What did she expect when she hooked up with a 48 y.o unstable alcoholic who f**ked up everything he touched? Play with fire…”
Bang on my friend, pardon the pun.
Another excellent point from @_elliottri: “Agree. Equality means women take some responsibility 4 bad relationships with bad guys.”
Yep. Some women are just asking for it.
Which is why the Victorian Premier should lay off the laws. Napthine wants to make it even harder for a guy to show a girl the back of his hand.
Jeez, how else are you expected to keep them in line?
Even the NSW police are behaving like wimps. They want “better training and tougher penalties” to deal with the 850 AVO applications every week.
I’ll tell you who they should crack down on: women making vexatious claims. Most of these applications would be utter bullshit. (I should know. My ex-wife made five.)
Tegan can’t be too scarred by her experience – she says she’s “happy” Ricky’s copped a slap on the wrist.
This victim impact statement should be filed under Fiction.
As for, “I have felt intimidated and lived in fear of him hurting me again”, well, boo hoo.
Save your tears for 60 Minutes, where you can “give strength to other women who are in violent relationships”.
I won’t be watching.
I’ll be shedding a tear – and having a beer – for the man whose life you ruined. Here’s to you, Ricky.


MORE ARTICLES BY TRACEY SPICER
I’ll Have it All, Thanks
This Lesson Brought to You by…
Not an Alcoholic… Yet
You’re a Woman of What?
Dear Mr Sexist

*Tracey Spicer is a respected journalist who has worked for many years in radio, print and television.
Channel Nine and 10 news presenter and reporter; 2UE and Vega broadcaster; News Ltd. columnist; Sky News anchor …it’s been a dream career for the Brisbane schoolgirl with a passion for news and current affairs.
Tracey is a passionate advocate for issues as diverse as voluntary euthanasia, childhood vaccinations, breastfeeding, better regulation of foreign investment in Australia’s farmland, and curtailed opening hours for pubs and clubs. She is an Ambassador for World Vision, ActionAid, WWF, the Royal Hospital for Women’s Newborn Care Centre and the Penguin Foundation, Patron of Cancer Council NSW and The National Premmie Foundation, and the face of the Garvan Institute’s research into pancreatic cancer, which killed her beloved mother Marcia 11 years ago. But Tracey’s favourite job, with her husband, is bringing up two beautiful children – six-year-old Taj and five-year-old Grace. Visit Tracey’s website at www.spicercommunications.biz or follow her on Twitter @spicertracey.

  

erotic musings of Mark Davis: HERS

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