Jezebel
The alternative newsweekly industry has just added a new sex columnist! (Dear New York Press, Thanks, because we needed that! — World.) The name is Claudia Lonow, and the pedigree is Hollywood writer/producer/actress and the first Q&A debuted on newsstands and laptops today, with a range of "obscenely informative" questions I scanned while procrastinating. And whoooah boy! I encourage you readers to take a gander because there was a HOLY SHIT QUESTION submitted by a "reader" who had walked in on his wife getting all congugal with her brother. Scandale! (Another question tackled the question of the antibacterial properties of piss with respect to drinking it.) Wait a minute, thought I. If this is Claudia's first sex column, what crazy incestuous love triangle-condemned readers knew in advance to write for her sage wisdom? I emailed the editor who pitched me, David Blum.
"since it was her first column, she solicited questions from friends...that's how these columns tend to start, since it's hard to get questions from readers in advance. in future they'll come from readers," he wrote. So far, so practical. But then he got defensive. "re your "ick" and "ew" comment: i'd say the q's are actually pretty standard for sex-advice columns these days."
To which I replied, sorta jokingly: "INCEST NO STANDARD DO NOT WANT" or something to that effect.
To which he replied, again defensively — and CC-ing another editor this time!:
David BlumUh, okay guy: that's a rather honorable hypothetical stance you're taking in favor of freedom of fetish, etc. etc. but sometimes, when I think the sex column industry exists to make me feel like I am a whopping, repressed, inconceivably naive prude, it is good to know that the questions are sometimes made up by TV writers.
to Maureen Tkacik
cc Jerry Portwood
date Jan 23, 2008 4:25 PM
subject RE: from David Blum, editor, New York Press
hide details 4:25 PM (1 hour ago)
Reply
OF COURSE incest isn't standard. nor does claudia condone it. she VEHEMENTLY opposes it in categorical terms. but as much as we might not like to admit it, incest does exist as a subject (in books, movies, as well as in sex columns) and is a legitimate topic for a sex columnist to address. as is any other topic. i don't plan to be censoring questions just because i don't happen to like the question.
That is all.
Comments
Paging VC Andrews....
What the hell? Get out of my mind, please. The past couple of days, discussions of piss drinking keep popping up around me. And there was a piss drinker on Bad Girls Club this week, too!
How wildly appropos is it that there's an American Apparel ad right under the article with a pic of a half-naked chick? Oh and the ad - it's for a SWEATER for chrissakes. Cause that's a look I rock all winter long - sweater and undies.
Eeeew, indeed! Someone's living "The Dreamers."
hey... why go down the street when you can go down the hall?
ew.
@JessicaLovejoy: Yes! Yes! What the fuck was that?!
I agree that this column smacks of fake questions. I call shenanigans on this quote, from a guy whose wife/girlfriend won't use the sex toys he buys:
"At one point I got hungry and simply ate the edible panties alone while watching Law and Order and I felt pathetic."
That cannot be true. It was specifically written to sound as lame as possible. Also, you can't tell me that edible panties are any kind of filling snack. This guy never heard of chips?
I'm reading A.S. Byatt's "Angels and Insects" right now. The incest part hasn't happened yet, but I can feel it coming. Wavelength!
Wow, how "Angels and Insects"!
@hamsterpants: I actually thought that there would be a joke forthcoming about that! A sweater and panties, always, right?
Urine is a sterile solution, but um, unless I'm trapped under debris, I'm not drinking mine or anybody else's. Just saying.
Okay. As an only child I can admit, I have wondered what the fascination is that would make someone feel sexual attraction to a blood relative. Does it feel different from say, the feeling I get from looking at Clive Owen? Do you know it's wrong but do it anyway?
I think I'm probably intrigued because I will never know, that and because it is so very 'taboo' and I am instantly drawn to those things I am not supposed to look at.
Lomorale: jinx!!
Haven't read the book, but the movie is GREAT!
There was documentary recently on crazy vegans and one of them drank her own piss. No lie. She said it had 'properties' and that it tasted differnt depending on what she had eaten! I think if what a sexual thing I would be less disturbed.
@mepo: My schizophrenic (literally - not a figure of speech) adoptive mother who raised me from age 8 to 16 drank her own piss on a near daily basis for the health benefits. That experience left me suspect of piss drinking for good.
Ugh, New York Press makes me ill. I remember once they did a story about people who like to masturbate their male dogs.
Ooh, well he got a little sensitive/defensive real quick didnt he?
I swear that incest question is stolen from somewhere but I really should be Googling phrases like "outline of his boner" at work. Someone help! (I'm thinking Savage Love?)
@sheistolerable: um, SHOULDN'T. Freudian slip?
@sheistolerable: I was going to ask if you worked for nerve.com...
@mepo: Do you know the name of this documentary? What the hell.
@layladylan: I bought edible panties as a joke once - turned out they were just fruit rollups shaped like underwear. Sticking fruit rollups to my ass has never been one of my turnons.
So, wait... Given I'm further South than Texas, and am unlikley to see said column, what was our agony aunt's response to "Brad's" question about "Angelina's" relationship with a sibling? I mean, did she respond all "here are the sex affirmative do not judge properties" or was it a great big DO NOT WANT?
Who the hell calls it "tushy sex?"
I was just reading about piss-drinking on Monday. A friend was relating what she did over the weekend on her LJ. That was one of the milder "punishments" her "Daddy" had for her.
Man, am I glad that's not my husband's kink.
@blondegrlz: lol! My mom always bought "Fruit Leather" style fruit rollups. So that makes me giggle... Who wouldn't be turned on by sticking fruit rollups on your ass? But you'd need a candy cigarette afterwards....
I don't even care if the letters are true or not... that woman is trying way, way, way too hard. I thought I overused parentheses, but she has a real problem. And what about lines like "Suck on that, suckahs!"
I would say that 95% of commenters on Jezebel deserve a sex column more than she does.
idk where I heard it, but my whole life I've "known" that pee is sterile & poo is poison. Like, if you're lost in the desert you could drink your own piss for the sake of survival.
Regarding the other topic, not that I condone it, but European royals practiced incest a lot to keep their bloodlines pure.
@sheistolerable: For sure; I remember reading the exact same scenario somewhere else.
@ThaKadinskyPapers: all animals have evolved mechanisms for inbreeding avoidance. a couple examples are: olfactive sense that tells us that a person smells 'bad' (not really a smell, but an aversive 'sense') when their pheromone signature is close to one's own, and aversion to siblings (sexually). both of these function as ways to disgust us, and disgust hampers sexual arousal.
Slunt:
and ancient Egypt!
@sheistolerable: oh my god, I love your name! That is all. Had to say.
That column was terrible and painful to the eyes. I'll just stick to reading Savage Love, thank you very much.
@slunt:
I have heard the same, and more specifically that your own pee is a good disinfectant in an emergency (you cut your leg open on a deserted island with no water nearby) but other people's piss is not. Good to know, right?
Writer/actress/blah blah. What qualifications does one need to get a sex columnist job? Does one have to at least take a psychology of sex course or anything?
"Let's all make an agreement: we don't fuck our dogs, we don't fuck babies, (Africa, I'm talking to you), and we don't fuck our BROTHER! Is that really so difficult?"
I am so damn offended by the Africa comment. Wow. Blown away.
I don't need anyone to explain the reference, either. I know what she's referring to. Still needs a fucking slapping, both for the shitty column and the idiotic statement.
@wigglepuppy: What about those British twins separated at birth who then found each and unknowingly got married? Blood test later revealed the incestuous truth. ((gasp))
@katxyz: all urine is sterile, unless it is contaminated by a bacterial infection in the urinary tract. if you have a wound you are better off peeing on it than using unboiled water, which can carry all kinds of bacteria
[imdb.com]
She's written for War At Home, Cashmere Mafia, Less Than Perfect, and Good Girls Don't...
And possibly The New Adventures of Robin Hood.
I'm all for striking writers getting day jobs as columnists, but let's just hope she's not a Tad Stevens.
@katxyz: Yeah, that's pretty offensive. Maybe if she'd said something more specific, it wouldn't be so bad, but suggesting that it's a generally accepted thing to have sex with babies in Africa is ridiculous.
@Im_not_really_awake: ew,ew,ew. and there is a couple in germany that did the same, and have had 4 kids together. these are exceptions to the rules, but unfortch this proves that these mechanisms arent perfect.
@katxyz: Holy fuck, for real? Jesus Christ.
@slunt: I've also heard that you have to do what you are going to do with it pretty quickly, because while pee is sterile it is a breeding ground for ickiness.
@katxyz: Yeah, as if children are never raped anywhere else in the world. What an asshole.
@Im_not_really_awake: That turned out to be an urban myth. It's not true.
@alicetheowl: there really is a couple in germany that had 4 kids together: [www.foxnews.com],2933,254943,00.html . ew
@wigglepuppy: aw, shit. the link didnt work, but you can google it. we read an article on their story in my 'evolution of human sexuality course' at ucla.
@katxyz: my Dad was forever telling me when I was growing up about the pee-is-good-for-a-wound thing. I think that's how such information is passed on.
@wigglepuppy: i love that you have all this knowledge on these 'deviant' topics, it's so awesome to see it come from ralphie!
@LoMorale: I saw that on PBS years ago! Looking back, watching it with my mom should have been awkward but I was to engrossed to notice.
When I got my cooter hood pierced I was told I could use piss to clean it. I prefer a saline solution.
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