Basketbawful

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Pistons' disappointing foray into pornography

I and whoever's running the country both know I want to see sex, but for some reason we've come to the agreement that we need to trick me into looking at it. I don't know if it's a holdover from when we were all Puritans or if our pants really do cover shameful doorways to devilry, but we shouldn't need so many excuses to enjoy something that's so universally enjoyed.

For example, when you make the basic selling point of your dating show the fact that the couple will eventually get naked and make out in a hot tub, skip right to it. Don't make us sit through 20 minutes of boring conversation to get to the naked part. If I wanted that, I'd just sit a real girl where my TV is. The producers want us to see sex, so the show should just be about two insecure attention whores getting shoved into a closet after a dozen cocktails. I'd watch that. You could call it Humpin'. That creature that used to be Lindsey Lohan could host! "Welcome back to Humpi...wha...what am I?! What has science done?! Myeeeaaarrggghh!!"

So what it basically comes down to is this: you can't show sex unless it's vaguely disguised as something that's not-sex, otherwise complete moral outrage will ensue. The latest example of the "War On Fornication" comes to us courtesy of the American Decency Association. They're upset at the Pistons for releasing a "naughty" calendar featuring several members of their Automotion dance team. You see, instead of wearing gorilla suits or maybe dressing up like giant pieces of fruit, the Pistons' cheerleaders had the audacity to wear -- prepare to have the socks blown right off your feet -- bathing suits. According to the ADA, this is tantamount to pornography.

If this is supposed to be porn, these clumsy humanwords can't possibly express my disappointment.
I don't mean to brag, but I once attended a semi-private screening of a movie called Grind My Groin. It featured two gorgeous women, one of which was a teacher and the other of which was her student. Having failed her latest exam, the student was required to undress and then pleasure the teacher with a variety of tastefully vibrating toys in order to improve her grade. That was porn. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, unless something includes exposed nipples and kitchen appliances used to enhance hot girl-on-girl action, you're not legally entitled to label it as "pornographic," no matter how much asbestos you inhaled as a child.

Some people were even more offended by this group of attractive women lounging around in bathing suits. Barbara Rotary, the crazy beyotch who reported the calendar to the ADA, thinks the dancers are, essentially, hookers.

"To me, this is a form of prostitution. The Pistons are profiting from using women's bodies this way."

While Ms. Rotary wasn't pictured in any of the articles I read, I'm going to take a wild guess and just assume that nobody has ever asked her to pose in a swimsuit calendar, probably because she's some kind of sloshing pork monster. Again, this is just a guess. But I've got news for you, Barbara: that calendar isn't even close to prostitution. In Las Vegas, silent men snap cards into your hands showing beautiful, naked women where just the nipples are blacked out. It's a take-out menu for a hooker! And if you call the number on that card, the very woman pictured will show up and have sex with you. That is prostitution. Until the girls in the calendar start coming to my house for high-priced booty calls, I think you'd better ease up on the accusations.

Our society seems to be hung up on sex being immoral, but it's just okay to show as long you can't see certain parts or it's shown in the "correct" forum. These kind of technicalities only compound whatever naughtiness sex already has. Take a look at Japan to see what happens when you create a bunch of very specific regulations about what's legal to show. After all the clever loopholes and workarounds filmmakers have to go through to show two people getting it on, you end up with cartoons about women shooting lasers out of their hoo-ha to fight off invading tentacles. And that's not allegory; I've rented that movie.

You know what else? I shouldn't have to see late-night infomercials about porn stars selling dong-growing pills where they're not allowed to say "penis." And I shouldn't have to sit through a woman's web of intrigue for 89 minutes to see one minute of her butt. Softcore porn is the emptiest gesture in the history of ethics. All it did was create an outlet for our worst filmmakers to suck, and more importantly, I was 28 before I figured out that sex wasn't rubbing my forehead on a woman's sternum and humping her belly button to saxophone music.

The only time we can be no-nonsense about sex is when there's a commercial with someone proclaiming, "I have genital herpes," in between shots of them fighting a bear on a kayak or hang gliding. According to these commercials, the rule seems to be that you can be as frank as you want about sex as long as it's gross. Another rule I came up with from these commercials is that if a woman wants to go kayaking on the first date, keep her and her hang glider away from my mucus membrane.

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

o dear god i can c her shoulders

4/19/2006 8:05 PM

Anonymous said...

Wow... that is really weird. I would expect such things in the Bible Belt, but in a city as large as Detroit... humph.

12/25/2006 6:30 PM