Re: The speed of smut

1

1) The mind is the ultimate erotic zone

2) She didn't tickle his or her own erotic zone, but stayed in a safe comfortable place instead of rising to the challenge. She should have made him say:"OMG, I won't do that! snuggle.

3) Sex isn't interesting. Intimacy is interesting, but involves a dance of desire and frustration, approach and withdrawal, challenge and counterchallenge always in conversation with words and body. Or sometimes just being there for you.

4) The fun stuff is the aporia between performativities.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:04 AM
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Sex isn't interesting.

Maybe not the way you do it...


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:16 AM
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The way apo has sex is fascinating, but mostly just from an ergonomic perspective.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:29 AM
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What's sad is that I know exactly which porn star she's talking about, and he's my favorite, too.


Posted by: m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:48 AM
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Is it that guy that there's been all the articles about on Slate and Salon and wherever else about how women love him and it's so weird that there's a porn star who women love?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:51 AM
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3: Non equidem invideo, miror magis.


Posted by: OPINIONATED JOHN CHARITY SPRING | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:51 AM
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As one gets older, shouldn't reading about other people's sex lives get more interesting?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:52 AM
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The fun stuff is the aporia between performativities.

"If sex isn't doin' much for ya",
Said a young seeker after euphoria,
"Your likely proclivity
Ain't the performativity
Quite as much as it is the aporia."


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:54 AM
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6: [Googles.] Yeah, you'd better, old man!


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:55 AM
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As one gets older, shouldn't reading about other people's sex lives get more interesting?

No.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:57 AM
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Count me as skeptical that the dude doesn't get hit on by female fans. It's the right lie to get into someone's pants, but it seems unlikely to me that he's not getting hit on regularly by women who are familiar with his work.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:06 AM
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The Roto-Rooter kissing method doesn't recommend itself.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:19 AM
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As one gets older, shouldn't reading about other people's sex lives get more interesting?

And from the other end of the lifespan from Teo, "no" also. I've done everything I imagined might be appealing, the rest seems either boring or silly.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:21 AM
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My limerick challenge to ajay:

"diaspora."


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:34 AM
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The Roto-Rooter kissing method doesn't recommend itself.

It is certainly not to everyone's taste, or even most people, but it does add to the he-swept-me-off-my feet vibe of the piece.

I also like how she basically says "If you want to know what we did, just google 'the hottest porn you can possibly imagine.' It was kinda of a letdown, really. No different than all my other hook ups."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:39 AM
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5: That's who I thought of, too, but my knowledge of porn stars is limited.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:40 AM
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15: As I read it, it didn't even sound like *she* liked it. ("Soon, his tongue was in my mouth, spinning wildly like he was trying to burrow inside me. His gyrations stretched my jaw to maximum capacity; it was like getting a routine teeth cleaning -- only at an X-rated dentist.")
The pleasure all seemed to derive from ZOMG! I'm about to fuck X! which, hey, I get it.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:43 AM
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The pleasure all seemed to derive from ZOMG! I'm about to fuck X! which, hey, I get it.

LISTEN AND LEARN, LADIES.


Posted by: OPINIONATED TRAPNEL | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:44 AM
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Diaspora means "scattered bits
Of a nation that's taken its hits
And maintains certain grudges
'Gainst landlords, or judges,
Root vegetables, Persians, or Brits".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:48 AM
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"Root vegetables"?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:14 AM
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What diaspora maintains a grudge against Landlords and Judges? Brits must mean Irish diaspora, Persians, the . . . I'm not sure? Root vegetables, as well. I am confused. Anyhow, I still like it.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:19 AM
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Precious little of the sex that people describe on the Internet seems particularly pleasurable, except for the furnishing of anecdote/blog/Style section "Modern Love" material.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:20 AM
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20: It has been a while since the first Flippanter arrived in the New World, but I like to think that I uphold a long tradition of hating beets.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:21 AM
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Good sex is all alike, all bad sex is bad in its own way.

More seriously - detailed descriptions of good sex are just porn, you'll find them at the appropriate sites if that's what you want.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:27 AM
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What diaspora maintains a grudge against Landlords and Judges?

Scottish, I think.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:29 AM
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And "root vegetables" is presumably the Irish.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:30 AM
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Not sure about Persians, though.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:30 AM
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I thought the Irish stereotypically liked potatoes? Or is the maintained grudge just one related to root vegetables, i.e. a grudge about the famine?


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:37 AM
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Admittedly, my inlaws do trace themselves back to the Parsnipophobe Hugenots, but that was a terribly small group.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:42 AM
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Or is the maintained grudge just one related to root vegetables, i.e. a grudge about the famine?

Right, I think the idea is that they blame potatoes for the famine, which in turn led to the diaspora.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 11:48 AM
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The Britishers call turnips "swedes", so that could be it, though I can't tell if they'd be the diaspora or the ones the diaspora holds a grudge against (Norwegians, then?).


Posted by: Jimmy Pongo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:18 PM
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The Britishers call turnips "swedes"

Nah, that's rutabaga. Turnips are turnips.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:20 PM
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Turnips, rutabagas, swedes, they're all mangold-wurzels to me.


Posted by: Cryptic necd | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:22 PM
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Right, rutabega is like bigger turnips, right?


Posted by: Jimmy Pongo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:27 PM
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Right, rutabega is like bigger turnips, right?

Technically, yes they're related, but they taste entirely different.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:30 PM
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NMM to Harry Crews.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:37 PM
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I was raised calling rutabagas 'turnips', which left me flummoxed in college when I sent someone else to the store for turnips and they came back with these purple and white radishy looking things, rather than the lumpy yellow waxy severed-head sized things I was expecting. They completely failed to work in the recipe I was making as well.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:40 PM
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36 is sad making.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:41 PM
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Also, my phone appears to have died. Possibly bringing it home and letting it talk to iTunes will cure it, but as of now it went from fully charged to completely unresponsive. Feh. I didn't want to buy a new phone.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:41 PM
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But I'm not seeing it anywhere in the news.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:42 PM
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re: 32

I was always led to believe that Scots and English used different terminology.

Scotland: turnip -- the big yellow jobbers, swede -- the smaller paler shinier kind
England: swede - the big yellow jobbers, turnip -- the smaller paler shinier kind

Wiki agrees: "In the north of England and Scotland, the name turnip, or neeps, refers not to the above but to the larger, yellow rutabagas called swedes farther south."


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:48 PM
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Turnips in America are purple and white on the outside, white on the inside.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:55 PM
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I think Irish usage tracks Scottish, at least in calling the severed-head sized things turnips, and that's where my family got it from. But that's not standard American.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:57 PM
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Radishy? THey're much bigger and they're mostly white on the outside while radishes tend to be mostly red/purple. Turnips also taste horrible, useful only as part of a base for a long cooking meat dish, e.g. stock.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:57 PM
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Radishy?

Well, they're sort of shaped like radishes.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 12:59 PM
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If you're expecting a rutabaga, and you're not familiar offhand with the vegetable English/Americans call a turnip, it looks more like a giant radish than anything else. We never ate the little purple turnips, so I simply had no idea what they were or that anyone thought they were called turnips.

And they are awful boiled and mashed, while the big ones are delicious.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:00 PM
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Now I want turnips. Or really, anything organic. I forget every year how hungry commuting on my bike makes me.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:01 PM
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40: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150668907776089&id=138484081088


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:01 PM
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Turnips also taste horrible, useful only as part of a base for a long cooking meat dish, e.g. stock.

Lies!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:02 PM
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49 sums it up nicely.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:03 PM
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They're okay cut up small and stirfried, or braised. But they're not as good as rutabaga.

Mmm. Rutabaga. With lots of butter and pepper.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:04 PM
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A conversation about sex has turned into a conversation about turnips. Just sayin'.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:05 PM
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Classical Greek Radish punishment for adultery. The lady writing the original was single, though, right?


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:09 PM
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Yet Another conversation about sex has turned into a conversation about turnips.


Posted by: Jimmy Pongo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:09 PM
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No need to hammer it home.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:13 PM
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I have an anecdote about parsnips that will rejoin the two topics, but it was my fault and I feel bad about it.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:13 PM
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I love that someone took the time to make this table.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:22 PM
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56 is a tease. Deliver!


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:25 PM
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18 was cute, and I appreciate whoever did it.

"A fun read?" I don't know, I found the piece rather sad, though not in a bad way. In particular:

Instead of being entertained, I was doing the entertaining, and I suspect he was too -- but for whom, exactly? We were the only audience.
All of which is to say: It was like nearly every casual hookup I've ever had. Here were two strangers connected only by their fantasies of who the other was.

I guess Bob has it right, basically.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:35 PM
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I still want to know who it is who holds the grudge against the white or yellow turnips. Presumably it's mice/Jews who remain hostile towards the Persians.


Posted by: Jimmy Pongo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:45 PM
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Presumably it's mice/Jews who remain hostile towards the Persians.

Why would the Jews be hostile to the Persians, who sent them home from the Babylonian exile and have done them no harm since, silly political rhetoric notwithstanding? I guess this refers to the ancient Greeks.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:50 PM
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I still want to know who it is who holds the grudge against the white or yellow turnips.

TKM apparently. Don't understand it myself.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:52 PM
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I think what I find sad is the acknowledgment that even one-night stands, which one might think would be less prone to this than, say, first-sex-in-a-promising-relationship, are often too fraught with anxiety about Doing the Wrong Thing to involve real communication about what the people involved actually want. Tragic!


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 1:56 PM
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And 63 brings the thread back to sex. Well done.

I was just shaking my head thinking that back in 2005 there's no way that a post about porn stars would degenerate into a (non double entendre ridden) thread about root vegetables so quickly. I might be misremembering though.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:00 PM
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48: Thanks for the link. Between that and UNC's mass exodus to the NBA, this day is officially bleah. Also, my seven-year-old was diagnosed with strep throat and is miserable.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:02 PM
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64.1: Wait, wasn't most of the intervening part about root vegetables.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:06 PM
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You know what's good? Parsnips.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:21 PM
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Parsnips, I say. That's what.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:24 PM
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On topic, sort of.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:24 PM
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Or do you mean "pornsnips"?

[Sigh.] It sounded better in my head.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:26 PM
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Pornsnips sound like they are either something painful or a free teaser video.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:41 PM
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I'm kind of shocked at how little take-up the OP is getting on this thread. C'mon. Fucking a pornstar. This interests none of you? Even in a cultural criticism sort of way?

Truly, the golden age is long past.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 2:58 PM
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72: I didn't think it was that interesting? Neither did she really? And the guy seems like a jag. I think this was the *point* of the article -- that fucking this particular porn star was not in fact interesting.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:06 PM
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Unless we get a confirmation of which porn star is at issue, root vegetables are more interesting.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:07 PM
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I believe most female "porn stars" derive substantial income from moonlighting as ultra high end prostitutes.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:08 PM
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I think this was the *point* of the article -- that fucking this particular porn star was not in fact interesting.

Indeed. But isn't that worth discussing?


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:09 PM
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Indeed. But isn't that worth discussing?

Apparently not.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:13 PM
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I thought the "improvising a scene" thing was interesting, but I also wonder how accurate it was, as far as capturing what the guy was up to—how much of that diagnosis depended on her identification of the guy in the first place?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:14 PM
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72: There wasn't much of interest there and, as with a lot of "personal" stuff at Salon and Slate,* the piece itself was a little illegible behind all the "Pay attention to me! Validate my choices! Give me a book contract!" scrawled in blood-colored crayon all over it.

* E.g., cough K/at/ie R/oiph/e cough.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:15 PM
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72: Ok, fine. I think I may have had carnal knowledge of a porn actor once, though I'm not sure where the actor/star divide happens. It was what you call a casual encounter. Putative porn personage was from Scandinavia and mentioned being an actor on the way to Mexico to see an agent. For some reason at the time this and some other unremembered info added up, in my mind, to porn.

If it's clear who this is, well, ok. Profligate past is profligate. I've left out many prurient details!


Posted by: George Herbert Walker Bush | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:20 PM
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80: An agent in Mexico?

Also, and I guess this goes to the OP, if you have a favorite porn star, you may be watching a little too much porn.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 3:22 PM
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When I read 65, I went from "Also, my seven-year-old was diagnosed with ... and is miserable," and somehow inserted leukemia. So while your 7 year-old may indeed be really unhappy to have strep, once I read it properly, I thought, "What a relief, it's only strep."


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:02 PM
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The logical discussion to be based on this article would be for one or two people to say "What a crazy woman, what's wrong with her?" and then everyone else to pile on in her defense. I guess there's no one left here who will stand up for traditional shame-based chauvinism and/or morality.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:07 PM
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I'm not sure in what sense 83 is "logical," but it's certainly a plausible way for a thread on this topic to go.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:09 PM
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Fucking a pornstar. This interests none of you? Even in a cultural criticism sort of way?

Okay,okay. I am possibly the expert, at least on very tame vanilla classic porn.

No. Sex is not their skill, at least to the extent it makes them extremely remarkable. Sex itself is not a terribly difficult endeavor, especially with help. Their marketable skill is enjoying sex, and expressing that pleasure, in front of a camera crew with a partner of casual acquaintance or even a stranger.

Note 1:Yes, there a bad days, and bad performers, who "act," pretend the pleasure. They don't become stars, or stay stars, or create pleasurable porn for a sane perceptive audience.

Note 2:This is additive (?). Two performers, each enjoying performing for the camera, can escalate the excitement, which is not necessarily, or in an uncomplicated way, sexual excitement.

Note 3: See the Ron Jeremy documentary, and think about what works. He can't come too fast, but he must come on command. And his partner cannot be so exciting, so skilled or special, as to make him lose control.

Amateurs, including couples, pro-am and beginner pros, usually fail, on causes based on the above. The ugliest scene in porn is the schmuck trying unsuccessfully to beat himself off for the money shot while the bored-to-death woman tries to look exciting and excited.

(Some of the sexiest stuff is the reluctant amateur discovering herself. This is rare, unpredictable, and valuable only for a short time.)

(There are also levels and layers of transgression, and some audiences, perhaps all to some conscious or unconscious degree, enjoy the ladder from unwilling to enthusiastic. I guess that's nasty. And when the hell is Aniston going to permit that performed nude scene to remain in the final cut, goddamit.)


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:31 PM
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Amateur porn, for the most part, is about the partners performing for each other, pretending to perform for the camera in order to please the partner.

Doesn't work for empathetic viewers.

OTOH, "models," for mild levels of nudity, are like most other models, trying to please the photographer and have a confidence in their beauty. The necessary dialectic between shyness and bravado, insecurity and confidence, can work here for years for talented models and skilled photographers.

(Whose skill has little to do with the equipment)


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:46 PM
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61:
This was a poorly conceived Persian cats-->Art Spiegelman joke that I was apparently wise to walk away from.


Posted by: Jimmy Pongo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:51 PM
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Um, sir, I think I'd like to go home now?


Posted by: OPINIONATED 13 YEAR OLD | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:51 PM
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What the heck is YouPorn?


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 4:54 PM
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I'll bet you could type it in your URL bar and get the answer.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:00 PM
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There is an element of transgression in all acting, things about pretending actors enjoy, doing things on stage they wouldn't or couldn't do in "real life." They enjoy it more if you can't see it, and enjoy it even more if you can, with admiration for the deception. This why actors say they enjoy working with, or are inspired or stimulated by, other actors or directors.

"I thought you were really going to..but not really"

Stage Beauty is glorious, because Claire Danes and Billy Crudup are at about three levels in the final scenes.

Complicated, huh?

The aporia between performativities.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:04 PM
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90: What is a URL bar?

Yeah, yeah.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:11 PM
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Parsimon, you seem to frequently ask what something is. I don't know if you're intending to imply that you don't care what it is and it's not worth bothering to find out, but that's definitely what you're implying. Because you could just use an internet search engine to find out what that thing is.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:16 PM
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Yeah, you porn is free, complete with everything for the curious, and 90% repulsive shite.

Do a search for "romantic, educational, or x-art" for "state-of-the-classy" current product.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:18 PM
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93: I know, ned. I'll stop doing it. In this case I didn't care what YouPorn is -- I had a vaguely comical thought that if it doesn't exist, someone will invent it straight away -- and found the article's reference to it (twice) somewhat annoying. I'll stop asking dumb questions.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:29 PM
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I can go on.

What makes it interesting and fun (don't mean to be heteronormative at all here) for a person to take her clothes off for an audience, even an audience of one?

And if I am the audience, and she doesn't find it interesting and fun, how can I? Unless I'm sadistic or completely inert.

You hear the stories about performers throwing up or crying with stagefright before they go on stage. How am I as the audience, supposed to feel about that? Do I enjoy their Overcoming?

Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine said they hated every day of their acting careers of 30-40 years. Am I supposed to believe them? Should I feel guilty watching their movies?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:42 PM
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I knew I could count on you, Bob.

So: based on Bob's 85, it seems like one reason the author's experience might have seemed something of a letdown is that one might expect a pornstar to fake it better--to seem to be enjoying himself immensely, in an in what (to TCF, & to most people), is a somewhat awkward and emotionally fraught experience. It's actually not entirely clear to me what her complaint was--on the one hand, she says it was mediocre in the same way other casual hookups have been, because of a lack of connection; on the other hand, she talks about it being theatrical, how she felt they were both performing. She uses an "in other words" to link these complaints, but this seems under-argued--or rather, failing to make a connection because both partners seem to be acting out a porny script is only one way of failing to connect, and not necessarily a common one (though we'd need data!).

I suppose what interests me is using the specific question ("why might one expect sex with one's favorite porn star to be unusually good?") to get at the general ("what makes for good, and for bad, casual sex?").


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:47 PM
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Surely the answer to the specific question is that in imagining sex with one's favorite porn star, one is imagining sex that will be like that one has seen depicted, even though that means imagining oneself playing the part of, or being, a porn star oneself.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:50 PM
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So, I read the article. What I noted with regards to this place was that the beer she ordered with her shot was PBR.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:53 PM
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98: Surely?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:54 PM
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Surely.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:54 PM
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I yield to the voice of experience.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 5:59 PM
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OT: There's a new DVD collection of I, CLAVDIVS? Why, hello, gift for most people whom I give birthday and/or Christmas gifts.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:00 PM
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100, 101: stop yelling out Surely.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:04 PM
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103: I know, right?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:05 PM
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I suppose what interests me is using the specific question ("why might one expect sex with one's favorite porn star to be unusually good?") to get at the general ("what makes for good, and for bad, casual sex?").

I don't see what one has to do with the other. First of all, one doesn't expect or intend to have sex with one's favorite porn star, so this is something of a non-starter. Sure, the article's author had sex with her favorite porn star, but she's frankly weird if she expected much from it. Professional pron is staged and overdramatized -- the tongue-drilling bit, say, is for the camera, and is not something most people would want, .. unless they are imagining themselves as porn stars.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:05 PM
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So, I read the article. What I noted with regards to this place was that the beer she ordered with her shot was PBR.

It was probably a house special; it's not uncommon to see bundles of well whiskey with cheap beer, and the latter is usually PBR or Hamm's. I mean, yes, she still made the decision to order such a thing, and she decided to go into such a bar in the first place, but we're not warranted in concluding that she specifically thought, "Ah, the refreshing taste of PBR will be just the thing to wash down this whiskey."


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:09 PM
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ogged would have been so splendidly judgmental of this woman.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:12 PM
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We watched a lot of I, Claudius after the AP exam in my HS latin class, but not all of it (we switched to Kubrick and Woody Allen).

I mostly remember Caligula saying "Don't go in there".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:12 PM
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109: You don't remember Augustus glaring down the rank of his daughter's lovers? Postumus asking, "What did you expect, a fat jolly man full of laughs and jokes?" Patrick Stewart as Sejanus? Tiberius and his brother strigiling one another's backs? John Hurt as the creepiest waltzing-Caligula imaginable?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:16 PM
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108: sigh. I miss ogged sometimes. I'm sure we can supply the judgmental: the woman is an idiot if she only slept with the porn star because she thought it would be extra special. She apparently did sleep with him for that reason; therefore she is an idiot with questionable judgment.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:18 PM
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I did just say I remembered Caligula, Flip. I suppose I also do remember Sejanus.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:19 PM
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112: I referenced the dancing-Caligula scene specifically.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:20 PM
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The woman pressured the man into doing his job on his off-night for her gratification. I believe there is a term called "fan service," but apparently it's extra literal in the pron world. Also, she then had the effrontery to complain that the sex was professional, theatrical, and not very personal. She is history's greatest monster.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:22 PM
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110: Flip, have you read Augustus by John Williams? You ought.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:22 PM
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Jackmormon wins.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:23 PM
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115: Ordered! I read Rex Warner's Julius Caesar when I was in high skool or college, but it wasn't that great.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:28 PM
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The scene I always think of is "...and by the way, don't touch the figs." I feel like Livia is one of the great performances in television history, and I should know, as I have watched everything ever. No, I just think it's really great. She's so horrible and then both times I've watched it, I've cried at her (spoilerus alertibus) death.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:30 PM
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Scott Nygren on Resnais Hiroshima mon amour

She, the textual figure, performs the subject position of French discourse as a woman in Japan, parallel to the feminine position of ideas in the French language from la philosophie to la liberté. She encounters Hiroshima through the figure of a Japanese man who remains erotically attractive and opaque at once, a self-conscious problematization of Orientalist eroticism as fascination with an unknown and unknowable other. He, the figure of Japan, acts as a pivotal relay into her unconscious through the medium of an intimate body outside the closure of conscious discourse. He resists Orientalist objectification by his absence from a libidinally charged scenario of romantic idealism and his dislocation of meaning into nothingness. At the limit of representation, their bodies act as erotic machines, performing obsessive libidinal forces outside the stability and placement of a shared discourse. This willed obsession derives from the Surrealist preoccupation with l'amour fou, an erotic madness sought out to unhinge conscious mastery and foreclosure of the other bound up with a discourse of domination. By the 1960s, the U.S. antiwar movement translated this figure into the slogan "Make love, not war."

Revolution is madness, madness I say.

When will the Web get interesting?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:32 PM
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114 is good. Does Trapnel take anything from this? I mean, Trapnel seems to be worried that his casual sex is akin to performance.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:36 PM
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107: Yeah, I mean, people going for Nederlanderisch courage aren't usually concerned overly much with the taste of the beer.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:37 PM
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Well, I'll keep 114 in mind the next time I'm thinking of hitting on a porn actress I meet in a bar, but I suspect similar concerns would have kept me from doing so regardless.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:41 PM
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Didn't someone here go to HS with Jo@nn@ Ange/?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:47 PM
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122: What is 63 about? Stop feeling that you need to perform! Only do it if you're actually feeling it! (Is that the idea? If so, yeah.)


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:50 PM
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A friend of mine back in NYC went to school with her, though I think it was college rather than HS; you might be thinking of that. But maybe there's a closer Mineshaft link than that.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:53 PM
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I believe that Spackerman knows her.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 6:54 PM
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The only native informant I have to the pron world is my frenemy who wrote a script for a biggish production back in the late 1990s. And his friend who collaborated and was also lube boy on the shoot.

Sounds like a fairly dreary business all in all. The participants may very well welcome the chance to do a little real-world fantasizing of their own.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:03 PM
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I suppose it's not surprising that there are people who miss ogged's judgmentalism, but boy do I ever not.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:05 PM
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we're not warranted in concluding that she specifically thought, "Ah, the refreshing taste of PBR will be just the thing to wash down this whiskey."

I'm pretty sure that's not what JP was implying.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:06 PM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVcL1v_HALs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJNV1dzXoas&

Thought you might like these, bob.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:08 PM
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128: I think it's a case of missing ogged sometimes, and he was a whole package, doncha know, no picking and choosing which parts.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:11 PM
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This article had a weird mix of primness and exhibitionism -- she tells us she's always been fascinated by porn, sleeps with the porn star, then doesn't detail anything but the kissing and talks about the sex in a weirdly abstracted and disapproving way, then hastens to assure us that she's now in a committed relationship and realizes the superiority of nice safe snuggly intimacy.

I often end up thinking that female sex columnists have gotten themselves this situation where it is their professional obligation to be more out there in public then they're really comfortable being. Tracy Clark-Flory isn't the classic sex columnist, she's more of a reporter about sex who usually limits how personal she gets, but in this case she gets into that sex columnist territory. This might be true of male sex columnists too but I've never seen any straight male sex columnists. There doesn't seem to be any market demand for them.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:17 PM
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103: speaking of porn . . . .


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:18 PM
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The whole thing reminded me a bit of Al Goldstein's famous Linda Lovelace interview blowjob, "Here I was with the world's No. 1 cocksucker," Goldstein said years later, "and yet it was a lonely experience. I felt like a hooker faking orgasm with a john."

Apparently there is a new biography of Goldstein out.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:19 PM
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My guess is that the problem with the sex was that, in porn, the main sense through which arousal is imparted is the visual, with auditory secondary and tactile irrelevant, whereas in real life, the tactile is much more important. (To wit, what the camera can see of two performers is maximized if they stay at arm's length but for their genitalia.)


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 7:57 PM
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135 sounds plausible. It's also possible that being able to make sex look good on camera and being able to make it feel good in person are two separate skills, and porn stars are primarily skilled at the former.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:01 PM
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It's also possible that being able to make sex look good on camera and being able to make it feel good in person are two separate skills

Whaaaaaat


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:05 PM
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I hate to be the one who has to tell you.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:06 PM
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But at least you didn't have to find out the way Tracy Clark-Florey did.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:06 PM
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Or however her name is spelled.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:06 PM
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So you say!


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:07 PM
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Tracy Clark-Flory? Tracey Clarke-Florey? Somewhere in between?


Posted by: Cry[toc med | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:23 PM
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142: The former, apparently.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 8:26 PM
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doesn't detail anything but the kissing

She probably figured you can infer the rest of the details from porn.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 9:06 PM
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She probably figured you can infer the rest of the details from porn.

And, indeed, she says exactly that.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:09 PM
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I haven't even read the piece and I'm bored already.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 03-29-12 10:23 PM
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re 39:

LB, Iphones freeze up, as I discovered not so long ago. And sometimes they freeze up in a loop that runs the battery down quickly. Turns out there's a way to reboot them. I found it by googling around, and sorry I'm too lazy to recreate here.


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 1:13 AM
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I honestly didn't mean 19 to be as confusing as it turned out to be.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 1:29 AM
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I looked forward to getting a personalized limerick from ajay, heating up over the thought of his professional skills and his impressively large and versatile vocabulary.
In the end, though, it was just another of those all-too familiar turnip-rutabaga affairs, and I ended up sitting there confused at the unsatisfactory ending.


Posted by: Awl | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 3:01 AM
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I have failed the blog, I have failed Awl, and I have failed myself.

(Leaves country under small cloud)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 3:27 AM
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Or large turnip.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 3:39 AM
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Eats, shoots, and leaves country under small cloud.

I left the country in a funk once, but somebody found it and returned it.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 3:42 AM
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39 and 147: You do something called a hard reset. It requires that you hold down two buttons at the same time. Wikihow has a guide with pictures.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 4:31 AM
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Tried the hard reset, and restoring. Neither worked. I think I'm in for a new phone.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 4:38 AM
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How long have you had this one? I bought Applecare with mine, and I don't remember how long that lasts.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 4:44 AM
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Three years? Three and a half? I've been restoring every couple of months for awhile when things start crashing too often, and there's a number of apps that don't run anymore. I didn't want to buy a new phone this week, but I'm pretty sure this one's not worth fixing.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 5:48 AM
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Two and a half years. Damn. I felt better about it when I thought it was three.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 5:52 AM
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I've been restoring every couple of months for awhile when things start crashing too often, and there's a number of apps that don't run anymore.

Wow. What did you do to that thing?


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 5:56 AM
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Nothing! It's an Apple product, what could I do to it? It has a hard case, I don't think I drop it or treat it roughly more than usual, and on the software end I sync it with iTunes and buy approved apps through the app store.

I sort of assumed that updates of the software were designed to gradually break older phones so you had to get a new one every few years -- does this not happen to everyone?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:00 AM
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Not sure. I'm on my third.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:05 AM
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My last one was definitely broken, but in ways (headphone jack didn't work. Silent mode button didn't work. Screen was cracked.) much more attributable to its ill treatment at my hands.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:06 AM
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160: Now I feel better. I thought you were saying that everyone else's iPhone lasts until they get bored with it or they break it in some physically obvious way, and I must have maltreating mine obscurely.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:10 AM
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Oh, I was definitely saying that. It just might have been disingenuous.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:14 AM
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I do know that they only really planned on having the battery work optimally for two years.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:15 AM
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What the heck is YouPorn?

A bad substitute for pinklab and its wall of moving porn.



Posted by: Martin Wisse | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:15 AM
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(Which is, you know, the saddest site on the internet if you're not in the mood for porn, all those tiny actors in tiny boxes doing things to each other)


Posted by: Martin Wisse | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:22 AM
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attributable to its ill treatment at my hands

Or whatever.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:24 AM
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As for cases, I have an otterbox defender, available at best buy mobile. It's not pretty, but it's strong. The Griffin Survivor also gets good reviews, and there are a lot of discussions online comparing them. Here's a decent round up

iphone-4-rugged-protection-roundup/

I can't cut and paste a URL, but if you google that with gigaom, you'll find it.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:30 AM
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I think the key lesson from this thread is that Bob should be appointed Unfogged's sex columnist at once.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 7:27 AM
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God that otterbox is awful. I only use it if I'm bringing the phone somewhere nasty, like paddling or biking. I've been very happy to give up using any case now that the antenna thing is solved.


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:47 AM
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I would put mine in a ziplock bag if I were biking.

Consider the Griffin Survivor then.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:56 AM
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169: I'd be thrilled if he switched from reviews of Japanese movies to reviews of porn.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:58 AM
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Does it allow the phone to survive a griffin attack as the name implies? What does Consumer Reports say?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:13 AM
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She probably figured you can infer the rest of the details from porn.

a weirdly prudish attitude, was my point. I can't talk about this in public, go surf porn if you want the sordid details is a bizarre attitude in an article of this type. To take only the most obvious example, if the guy has a really big dick as many male porn performers seem to (or so I have heard) then experiential testimony adds additional detail.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:14 AM
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173: that was my question, mutatis mutandis, about the Otterbox.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:19 AM
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Does it allow the phone to survive a griffin attack as the name implies? What does Consumer Reports say?

"After recovery (RIP, interns Josephine and Kim), the test iPhone showed light scratches, retained full functionality. Readers also liked: 'Roc Attack: Is the Volvo C60 your best bet?' "


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:23 AM
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174 was my impression. And Otterbox ought to be slang for something sexual, either an act or body part. Perhaps Ms. Clark-Flory and her new friend otterboxed with a turnip and that's why she's so reticent.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:31 AM
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175 to 174


Posted by: Annelid Gustator | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:36 AM
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176: so great.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 9:37 AM
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Otterbox ought to be slang for something sexual

I should think there are many bars around the country where people would be perfectly clear about what you meant if you were talking about an otter's box.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 10:03 AM
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urbandictionary goes in a different direction, but whatever.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 10:03 AM
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Are there people who just sit around all day thinking up pervy meanings for random words and putting them on urbandictionary? And is that a paid position?


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 10:28 AM
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And is that a paid position?

It could be. Ladies....


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 10:35 AM
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||

Now commenting from my new iPhone. Using speech recognition yet. Truly the future is a pointless place.

|>


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:43 PM
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Wait, it has speech recognition for pause/play?


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:48 PM
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No, I typed that bit. And added punctuation; there may be a way to do punctuation with the voice recognition but I don't know it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:54 PM
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Now I finally know what LB's voice looks like!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 6:57 PM
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there may be a way to do punctuation with the voice recognition but I don't know it

For some reason, phonetic punctuation never caught on.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 7:08 PM
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186: Saying things like "comma" or "semicolon" doesn't work on yours?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:20 PM
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186: Saying things like "comma" or "semicolon" doesn't work on yours?

What if you want the word "comma"?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:24 PM
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190: Then you get things like, "My favorite British New Wave song is , , , , , chameleon"


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:38 PM
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Also, this post should have been called "The Speed of the Sound of Smuttiness".


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 03-30-12 8:44 PM
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Who knew, saying the names of punctuation does work. I didn't even think to try that.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 5:39 AM
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", Eileen"


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 7:10 AM
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", Police"


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 7:20 AM
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And since when were Culture Club New Wave? New Romantic, maybe. Kids these days, with their hipstery-hop music...


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 7:24 AM
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Hmm, on further investigation, Wikipedia does seem to think that there was always a New Wave element to their music.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 7:28 AM
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190: Then you can either approximate with "Coma", or type.

I'm still waiting for speech recognition that can figure out punctuation from context, intonation, and timing, while editing out all my unintended pauses-to-think.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 12:45 PM
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Or maybe there's a speech recognition version of the escape character? What does saying "backslash comma" get you?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 03-31-12 12:46 PM
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