We live in an age when the aesthetics of porn are the mainstream, when the girl next door is likely to be as well-waxed and augmented as an Adult Video News Hall of Famer.
But there was a brief moment when a porn star could look like the girl next door. When she looked like Marilyn Chambers.
On Sunday, Chambers, the laundry detergent model turned X-rated icon, was found dead by her daughter in her home in Santa Clarita, Calif. The cause is still unknown. She was 10 days shy of her 57th birthday.
Her life was a textbook case of the power of timing. As an aspiring model in San Francisco in 1972, she answered an advertisement for a role in a new film being made by strip club owners Jim and Artie Mitchell. The movie was "Behind the Green Door," a hardcore odyssey involving the abduction and ultimate sexual transformation of a young woman.
It was the same era that "Deep Throat" (1972) and "The Devil in Miss Jones" (1973) were radically reinventing the culture of adult entertainment. Porn was no longer just for creepy guys in seedy theaters -- it was something grownups could admit to watching, enjoying and, later, discussing. "Behind the Green Door," with its taboo-shattering interracial cast, was a benchmark, but it was the revelation that Chambers had appeared on the Ivory detergent box, clutching a baby in a beatific, 99.44 percent pure tableau, that cemented her fame. That such a wholesome, smiling girl could be the assured, adept centerpiece of all manner of exotic acts was fascinating. The ultimate madonna/whore of her era, she represented a dichotomy that perplexes, intrigues and infuriates still. As one editor at fleshblog Mr. Skin eulogizes, "Marilyn Chambers will forever live in our hearts -- and other pumping organs -- as the first Hollywood porn crossover icon. Without her, there would have been no Traci Lords, no Jenna Jameson."
Chambers went on to star in other Mitchell Brothers vehicles like "Insatiable," as well as non-porn fare like David Cronenberg's "Rabid." She enjoyed, for an adult star, a fiercely loyal following, the respect of the industry, and an astonishingly durable career. As late as 2007, she was producing and narrating instructional guides to masturbation and anal sex, a sage doyenne of pleasure passing on her wisdom to a new generation.
We may take it for granted that all the smut in the world is a mere mouse click away; we may install stripper poles in our own homes. But we are still, in many ways, as uptight, backward and confused in our attitudes about men, women, sex and pornography as we were in 1972. Though Chambers herself went on to bush shaving and breast augmentation, it's her earliest images she'll be remembered for -- the casual, genuine beauty and the warm, open sensuality that remain in sadly short supply both in and out of adult entertainment. She transcended boundaries, genres and even eras, with an unbridled enthusiasm that made being dirty look like so much good clean fun.
The photo depicts Sen. Mary Landrieu with a wad of semen in her hair. A Photoshop whiz clearly took the accidental spunk-hawk Cameron Diaz sported in the 1998 rom-com "There's Something About Mary" and seamlessly added it to a photograph of the Louisiana senator. (Get it? They're both named Mary! Plus: Splooge on a woman's head? Comedy gold.) I would shrug off this photo-editing disaster as yet more evidence that the Internet is forever stuck in a pubertal phase, but -- dude -- the picture was published on Time.com. As in, Time magazine.
Time. Mag. Azine.
On November 19, the image was posted to The Page blog, which is written by Mark Halperin, and ran with the caption: "Senator Landrieu's latest position on proceeding on health care debate here." The link brings you to another page -- although still on The Page -- with a throw-away quote from Landrieu's spokesperson about having "no time-line on when she will make and announce her decision on the motion to proceed. " First off: Needlessly linking to another page on your own blog with a one-sentence quote that you easily could have included in the initial post is a surefire way to piss off readers (and ensure they will never again click on your links). Second: Astute readers will note that the quote and the photograph are entirely unrelated.
At some point, the URL for the post at issue began registering a "page not found" message. So did a post that Halperin published the following day featuring side-by-side photos of Landrieu and Diaz, minus the bodily fluids. (Way to class things up.) A cached version of the missing pages -- both of which include "theres-something-about-mary" in the URL -- can be found here and here. Also, on Saturday, The Page announced that the senator would "vote in favor of bringing health bill to the floor for debate" along with the headline, "Landrieu Says Yes," and that post is no longer showing up. I called and e-mailed Time late Tuesday to ask the when, why and how of the missing posts but a press representative declined to comment.
As Media Matters points out, this only adds to "a broader, sexist right-wing narrative that the U.S. Senator from Louisiana is, as Glenn Beck put it yesterday, 'a high-class prostitute' engaged in 'hookin'' -- all because she lobbied Senate leadership for expanded Medicaid funding for Louisiana in the Senate health care bill in what was characterized by the media as an exchange for her 'yea' vote to proceed with floor debate on the bill." Naturally, Rush Limbaugh also joined in, calling her "the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution."
So, fellas, you've already illustrated her with ejaculate in her hair and called her a prostitute -- what's next? I shudder to think.
Under legislation approved Monday night by Baltimore's city council, crisis pregnancy centers that do not offer referrals for abortion or birth control would be required to post signs saying as much. It seems like such a reasonable plea for transparency! After all, these types of centers are infamous for engaging in religiously- and politically-motivated deception of pregnant women -- and yet, if the city's mayor signs the measure, it will be the very first law of its kind in the U.S.
Time and again, we've written about how crisis pregnancy centers masquerade as legitimate healthcare facilities and target young, poor and minority women by offering free pregnancy tests and counseling. In reality, these centers, which are often staffed by unqualified volunteers, provide medical misinformation as a means of coercing women into going through with a pregnancy and, in some cases, to give the baby up for adoption (to a good Christian family, natch). Some clinics have been found to delay pregnancy test results so they can first subject patients to graphic anti-abortion imagery and propaganda.
This measure is bolstered by more than crisis pregnancy centers' well-established reputation nationwide: Last year, the NARAL Pro-Choice Fund sent staff members into 11 Maryland centers in particular to pose as potential patients and reported that "every CPC visited provided misleading or, in some cases completely false, information" about abortion and birth control." For good measure, the clinics also threw in "emotionally manipulative counseling" (for example, one worker told an investigator, "You need to come meet your baby before deciding what to do"). Worse yet, many clinics "purposefully schedule sonogram appointments two-three weeks after the initial appointment to ensure that there will be a heartbeat and that the pregnancy is larger than a grain of rice." (If you're short on outrage today, I highly recommend reading the report in its entirety.)
What makes these centers so pernicious is that they calculatedly project "an aura of medical authority," as the NARAL report puts it, when in reality they are largely "amateur-run." This measure aims to chip away at that facade. Frankly, the legislation could go much farther and actually require them to cop to the totality of their dishonesty -- these clinics should be happy they're getting off so easy.
What if you threw a protest and nobody came? Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry did just that in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the first stop on a planned 13-city tour in which Terry intends to inform people that the senate healthcare reform bill "will essentially fund abortions." According to the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, "A few reporters and photographers, Terry and two passersby were the whole rally. Terry's target, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh and Bayh's entire staff inside the E. Ross Adair Federal Building, were no-shows." "
I'm really not qualified to speculate about what goes on in the minds of anti-choice protesters, but here are a few possible reasons why folks didn't show up for Terry's rally:
1) He's full of crap. As Tracy Clark-Flory wrote in Broadsheet last week, "The key details of the Senate bill are as follows: Both public and private plans are allowed to offer abortion coverage. It empowers consumers to use government subsidies to purchase insurance that covers abortion, but requires that their premiums (and not federal funds) pay for the actual procedures. The Health and Human Services Secretary is charged with evaluating plans to ensure that taxpayers do not pay for abortions."
2) "Taxpayers shouldn't have to fund things they find morally repugnant" is always a weak argument, but it's especially weak right now. I mean, I could give you a list of a dozen things I'm appalled to fund indirectly with my taxes, but these days, do I really need to enumerate any beyond "war" and "other war"? Oh, hell, let's throw in executions, too. Because if you really want anyone to take your "taxes shouldn't fund murder" complaint seriously, we've got a whole lot of dead autonomous human beings to account for at both the federal and state levels before we even begin discussing fetal personhood.
3) Most disturbingly, he's threatening violence, and not even trying to be subtle about it.
"If the U.S. Senate passes this bill and they try and force Americans to pay for child-killing by abortion, they are sowing the seeds of violence in this country," Terry said from the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building.
"We fought a war over slavery, we fought a war over a tea tax. What do people think will happen if they try to force us to pay for murder?"
Um, those most fiercely opposed to murder will start... murdering? Even more than they already have? That sure seems to be what you're saying, there, buddy. And despite a revolting amount of support for the monsters who assassinate abortion providers, most mainstream anti-choicers are not on board with that. At least, not openly.
But please, Randall Terry, do carry on with your campaign to raise awareness about made-up issues. We at Broadsheet wish you every bit as much success as you've already had.
Women have a simple plan for responding to the unpopular new guidelines on breast cancer screenings: ignore them. A Gallup poll shows that 76 percent of women disagree with the recommendation that women hold off on mammograms until age 50, and a whopping 84 percent of those between age 35 and 49 intend to reject the advice entirely. Women are going to get their mammograms when they damn well please.
The telephone poll of 1,136 women suggests that the objection to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's guidelines arises from a mistrust of the panel's motivations. Seventy-six percent of women believe the decision was based on cost, not science. That's no surprise considering that the results were released amid a contentious debate about healthcare reform and that the recommendations have been poorly communicated to the public. As Cristine Russell writes in the Atlantic, the panel's intent may have been to deliver the message "that individualized, informed decision making should replace blanket guidelines for universal, routine mammography screening of women in their 40s" -- but it failed spectacularly on that front.
No matter your personal take on the new mammogram guidelines, one thing is certain: There is a critical lack of information on the topic. The Gallup poll found that 40 percent of women believe that a 40-year-old woman has a 20 to 50 percent chance of developing cancer over the next decade, when her actual risk is only 1.4 percent. Clearly, we need to strike a better balance between effective awareness-raising -- like pink ribbon campaigns -- and communicating nuanced medical fact.
On the issue of whether Lady Gaga's left boob was visible for a nanosecond during her performance on Leno last night, Rachel Sklar at Mediaite concludes, "After careful review here's my unscientific analysis: Yes." Oh, Rachel, don't sell yourself short. Yours is the most astoundingly scientific analysis of a possible celebrity nip slip I ever did see. Consider: "At 3:26, a backup dancer lifted her (by the crotch no less!) and then, switching her position 90 degrees and lowering her, staggered just a touch. Gaga did not miss a beat but as he lowered her, she quickly adjusted her left breast and continued the song." Also, after she finished performing, Gaga "froze in place, with her microphone arm hugged tightly to her side. When Leno came over to greet her she extended the arm -- and that is when I am 99% positive the faintest, quickest glimpse of aureola [sic] was visible."
If all that isn't persuasive enough, a fuzzy screenshot of the moment is included so the Internet can weigh in on the question of the hour: Shadow or nipple? Says Sklar, "My last-night TV rewind told me nipple, but here's why I will argue for it based on a small, unclear still: Note the difference in how one side of the jumpsuit is cut to the other side. The 'V' of the decolletage is not symmetrical." Lawyered! Also, seriously?
I'm still not convinced there was visible nip, nor am I convinced I should care. If you'd like to investigate for yourself, Mediaite has clips. Personally, now I just want to watch the "Bad Romance" video all day instead of working. Perhaps you'd care to join me.
The words flash on screen: "The height of intensity." Next to the dramatic text is a photo of a young woman in a gown sitting in a limousine; she hugs a basketball like she might her non-existent date. Later, the screen announces: "A passion for commitment." We're shown a shot of another beautiful young lady wearing precious pearl earrings and a shoulder-baring dress, while staring directly into the camera with her smoky eyes. Such are the assets of Florida State University's women's basketball team, according to its spiffy new Web site.
The video introduction does show us several snapshots of the girls with sweat pouring down their faces and posing in their jerseys -- scenarios that are actually relevant to the game -- but the glamour shots are garnering controversy. Each player has a bio paired with a photo of her in a shiny dress lounging in or against a limo. One group shot captures the whole team inside the luxury vehicle, their uncomfortable grinning faces reflected in the metallic ceiling. As a university press release explains, the intended message of the site is: "Women athletes are powerful and beautiful" -- assuming they're gussied up like princesses. There's nothing subversive about the site. It's not like they're shown playing a game in their gowns, makeup smeared by sweat and dresses torn to tatters at their feet, or absurdly attempting to pass a ball between their legs while wearing a floofy floor-length skirt. This isn't a critical commentary on the sad limitations of beauty ideals, it's a desperate attempt to conform to them.
I suspect this isn't merely an attempt at sexing up female athletes in order to improve the team's visibility. Carnal Nation points to "Training Rules," a new documentary about homophobia in women's collegiate sports. The film focuses on the story of Rene Portland, the Penn State University women's basketball coach who was accused of repeatedly discriminating against players she suspected to be a lesbians. Female basketball players have long had to fight against the stereotype that they're gay and, after watching the preview for "Training Rules," it's hard not to wonder whether this straight-gals-going-to-the-prom photo-shoot is evidence that it's still the case.
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