Porn Stars: The Future Of Celebrity

Kim Kardashian owes her fame to a self-released sex tape. Her ass is her pass into the cultural conversation. Softcore pornography is already mainstream. Voyeurism has penetrated once sacrosanct boundaries. When will we, as a culture, stop beating around the bush? It's time to elevate porn stars to the rank of talkshow-guesting, magazine-profiling mainstream celebrities.

Unlike most reality stars, porn stars have a skill: fucking. Being good-looking is not enough. Truly successful porn stars earn their fortune and fanbase through a talent for the craft. The models and lite-actresses who feature in Maxim and Details are pale (actually, typically orange) imitations of the Real Thing. Why pay to see, why pay attention to, the empty signifiers of sex, when the real carnal heroes are ready and willing?

Tyra Banks, fashion model, looks down on Tyra Banxxx, pornographic model. Her disdain is thinly disguised fear. Banxxx has an appreciable talent that society needs. Society, filled as it is with the lonely and unloved, requires vicarious sex partners. It does not require human clotheshangers. Banxxx should be the one with the TV show, the media empire, the mainstream emulation. In due time, Banxxx will be that maven, and Banks will join silent film stars in culture's scrapheap. What's to stop her? Public decency? Kim Kardashian owes her fame to a self-released sex tape

Dreams Of Collapse

Maybe I'm not the only one who dreams of collapse. Nothing so dramatic as suicide; simply collapse. Let friends drift away, never leave home, accumulate dust. Spiral down, let beard grow, observe the world from a distance if at all.

"Be responsible." Of course. I take my filial duty seriously. I must make something of myself before I collapse. Or at least erect walls between myself and the truly collapsed: the dregs, the rap fans, the hopeless. Erect them just high enough to avoid bringing shame upon the family name. Then I can collapse in peace.

Every animal dreams of burrowing a hole and burying itself alive. My coffin will be a bookcase. I will fall asleep reading and never wake up. My bones will crumble. My penis will retreat into its skin. My words will form protective porcupine thorns. I will scavenge the ruins of my former self, sifting through memories in the absence of novelty.

This is my temptation. Maybe some men feel the urge to kill or rape or watch sports. I feel the urge to collapse. I am driven to dive to the floor. I want to find a quiet spot underneath the carpet. I lie in the bath and hope to never get up. I await the disappearance of phone calls. Lord, save me from nirvana.