sex picsThanksgiving photos

All my regular readers know at least one thing about this blog: There is little rhyme or reason as to why I post about those things about which I post (Ha! A non-preposition-ending sentence! In your face, 12th grade high school English teacher Mr. Gechman!).

This post you're now reading was inspired by two utterly unconnected events: a news story from March and something that happened to me late last month.

The facts were these: Baek Jiyoung [백지영, 白智英; Paek Chiyŏng in M-R] is an uber-cute singer who was enjoying a promising career when a tape of her naked and having sex (naked and having sex are not redundant; the two don't always go together) was leaked onto the Internet. It was rather clear from the video that she had no idea that she was being filmed, and it was sex with her boyfriend (who was also her manager and who, it later turned out, was the one who had leaked the embarrassing footage).

To say that the video was widely viewed would be quite an understatement (let's just say that the manager wasn't the only one doing some leaking. Oh, I wish I could promise that will be the crudest comment I make today, but it won't be). Baek Jiyoung was humiliated and her career seemed at an end.

She was a victim of several bad actors or things: an evil, egomaniacal boyfriend-cum-manager; a relatively new form of media that spread gossip and embarrassmentos (embarrassment through mementos... please circulate this neologism so it gains currency and I become a famous footnote in some urban dictionary somewhere) like wildfire; a prudish media run by antsy people who were afraid of offending anyone so they were in the habit of axing people (figuratively) who would come out of the closet or get caught on tape having sex; and a moralistic group of finger-waving Netizens who have nothing better to do than pillory some poor girl who did nothing unusual but whose success they are insanely jealous of.

[left: My dictionary's depiction of the noun pillory. Frankly, I think the guy looks like he's in a deep, comfortable slumber. In fact, this looks like it's some sort of 19th century sleep aid: maybe the guy, suffering from restless leg syndrome, is finally able to catch some restful Z's because this device is preventing him from kicking himself in the face all night. They had no drugs for RLS in the 19th century. They didn't even have a name for it other than "dream dancing." Some people would say that RLS is a creation of an overly medicated society led around by Big Pharm which now has the ability to advertise on TV and induce us all into hypochondria. But in fact RLS/DD has been around since God gave us legs. Exhibit A: Go to the glossary of any book on Native American history and count how many chiefs were called "Kicks While Sleeping." Go ahead, I'll wait. I've got some coffee and a Blockbuster DVD; I'm in no hurry. Hmm... maybe the pillory guy is dead.]

So where was I? Oh, yeah. Back to Baek. So her manager flees Korea to escape charges of defamation, and nothing happens to him. Eventually, she did make a comeback, but the sex scandal is forever a blot of a footnote on her career.

And then her erstwhile manager gets arrested earlier this year (the event in March I spoke of earlier), in Los Angeles. What did this paragon of virtue get nabbed for? Having sex with underage girls. After his legal troubles (and incarceration?) are done in California, he may be extradited to Korea to face charges of defamation. He's a scumbag and should get what he deserves (unless it's being shanked in prison; most people don't deserve that. Or forced anal rape for that matter. I could argue that he deserves a good beatdown).

[Does the word pill come from pillory? Maybe I'm really onto something here. I should look into whether pillories were used for other medical conditions which had no name, like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder, or SIDS.]

So back to Baek again: What exactly was this fallen star actually guilty of? She was having sex with her boyfriend. And plain-old vanilla sex at that. I've never seen the video, but I've heard that it's actually pretty boring to watch all the way through, because it's normal sex and you can't see all that much nudity anyway. The video is widely viewed only for the same reason some people are so outraged: the subject is a celebrity.

I heard she even says "sarang hae" (사랑 해; "I love you") to her slimy boyfriend/manager during the act. [Oh, God help us, now all the dirty yellow fever boys who peruse this site are going to have ammunition they can use the next time they latch on to a suspected Korean girl. "Hey, baby. Sarang hae."]

So why would she be considered a slut? Maybe the answer is that she isn't actually considered a slut. The antsy media elites were afraid the public would despise them for keeping her on the air, but just like with out-of-the-closet-and-into-your-living-room Hong Sokchon (who himself made a comeback), the majority of the public didn't really care. Nevertheless, those clueless media suits ended her career, because they thought that's what the public demanded.

The girl deserves sympathy, not reprobation. She wasn't doing blow*. She wasn't shooting up drugs. No animals were harmed in the making of this film. All she was doing was having normal vanilla sex with her boyfriend.

Let's face it, this could happen to anyone. Even if you've never knowingly consented to a significant other or sex partner photographing or videotaping you in flagrante delicto, are you 100% certain nobody has ever surreptitiously pixelized you naked or in the act? After all, it's easy to hide a teeny tiny camera in a cluttered room or in a closet with the door ajar. The only safe solution is to have sex with the Amish and only the Amish, in the home of one of the Amish.

A few weeks ago, I had a real scare that my computer had gone missing. I spent a frantic day retracing my steps from the last time I had seen it several days earlier. I talked to numerous people to help me in this task, finding out if they remember seeing me with it.

One friend, who assumed I would never see my computer again, asked me in a low voice, "Was there anything... valuable on there." Well, I thought, there are my papers I'm working on... some other stuff... but it's mostly backed up.

"No," she explained. "I mean something you wouldn't want someone else to get their hands on."

A low-energy GE lightbulb went off in my head: valuable was a euphemism for Do you have pictures of yourself and/or a loved one naked and/or engaging in a sexual act?

"No." Then another lightbulb: Just what the hell does this person think of me? Mental note: Lisa thinks I'm a man-whore and she's planning to steal my computer.

[False alarm about the pillory used as a cure-all medical device. But it was used on occasion as a punishment for SIDS.]

Throughout East Asia, the scandal of playboy movie star Edison Chen is well-known. If you've been living under the sea for the past eighteen months (because who lives in caves anymore? Besides troglodytes, who by definition live in caves, so they don't count. If you want to escape from the news, under the sea is where to be), Edison Chen is the philandering Hong Kong star who filmed himself having sex with a number of other stars.

He left the pictures on his computer, from which they were snagged by someone at eLite, an Apple repair shop in Hong Kong when he brought his "cotton-candy Mac" in for repairs. They were quickly splattered all over the media. (I'm tempted to say, "And that's not all that splattered!" but I have more class than that.)

To help viewers at home follow along with all of Edison Chen's sexploits, here's the handy-dandy "Edison Chen sex partner flow chart":

Y'know, if the anti-HPV crusaders ever need ideas for a Gardasil™ ad, they could use that poster.

The pictures of oral and vaginal sex were not the only thing that raised eyebrows. A couple of Edison Chen's famous partners, by the looks of their red eyes, were having something of a Visine™ moment (that's my euphemism for having used drugs that make your eyes red. Please circulate this phrase so it gains currency and I become a famous footnote in some urban dictionary somewhere.)

[left: Hong Kong-based actress and Cantopop singer Gillian Chung wishes she'd gone to church that day instead. The other pics were nowhere near as tame.]

Fingers were wagged, tabloid pages filled, contracts ripped up, careers torn asunder. In the end, it was all a bloody mess, and the Chinese-speaking world is still reeling from the sex scandal to beat all sex scandals. [Heh heh. I said beat.]

To Edison Chen, the lesson was clear: Don't bring your computer to the eLite Apple repair shop for maintenance.

To everyone else, the lesson was even clearer: Don't leave dirty pictures of yourself or loved ones on any media—including your computer hard drive—that could easily fall into the hands of the wrong person (which, in the case of salacious photos or videos of you or your loved ones, would be 99.999999985% of the world's population).

If you must keep nekkid photos/videos of yourself or loved ones, burying them in a folder deep inside the hard drive will not work, because a thief could find the photos or movies by searching for all media of a certain type. Yeah, that means they have to sift through other photos of you and your friends getting wasted at a variety of social occasions in search of the randy shots, but eventually they will find the boobie pics.

And once they've succeeded, do you expect them to show some decency and NOT try to get some money off of those pics (by selling them to a boobie site or even blackmailing you)? Come on, these are the guys who stole... your... computer!

So if you must hold on to such stuff, store them somewhere else. Perhaps make a DVD full of all your personal steamy photos and/or love scenes, but label it something quite mundane and boring, just in case someone breaks into your abode and is looking for something that might be personal steamy photos and/or love scenes.

Take advantage of the fact that burglars don't usually know how much time they have to burgle, so they need to work quickly. Computers, external hard drives, and thumb drives are a treasure trove of potentially delectable files. Personal CDs and DVDs, on the other hand, tend to have things that people wish to store but not necessarily look at frequently: In other words, that wouldn't be where you'd look for personal steamy photos and/or love scenes if you were in a hurry.

So my advice: put them on CDs or DVDs and label them "Thanksgiving pics." Because no one really wants to see someone else's Thanksgiving photos, so it's one of those things that's valuable only to you. Just don't get cute and label the disks "PSP" (for personal steamy photos). Thanks to Sony, those would the first things the burglars would grab.

If I were to have a CD or DVD with such explicit media on it, I'd probably label it "wart removal procedure." Only a sick fu¢k of a thief would go after that one.

Another option is to upload all the photos into Photoshop or some such software and put a black bar over the eyes so that the person can't be identified if the pics end up in the wrong hands. Sure, that's not as aesthetically pleasing when you need to look at them, but if you're keeping the photos for self-gratification purposes, I mean, you already know who it is and you've still got most of their face and body showing... how hard is it to fantasize about the rest?

Just be neat about it. If your attempts to blacken out the eyes are a bunch of mouse-drawn scribbles, you're in for a buttload of trouble if your loved one ever becomes the victim of a violent attack and the police get a hold of your computer. "See the way he went at her face with such anger? Looks like we've got our perp right here."**

Another alternative would be to wear masks every time you have sex, like the Italians do.

And for those of you whose moral code urges you against lying but does not stop you from taking nekkid pictures of your loved one and saving them on storable media, the fact is that "Thanksgiving pics" is sort of truth in advertising: During the act you might in fact be thanking God. Or at least talking to God, praising God, or giving God a shout-out. I'm not sure how you'd describe it, but God's name frequently comes up in conversation during sex.

Could this be the root of God's unconditional love for humanity?

So, in conclusion:

1. Baek Jiyoung: not a whore
   
2. Edison Chen: total di¢k (I was going to write big di¢k, but then it might be unclear that I'm chastising him). In fact, I can't think of anything good that begins with ED: Edison Chen, Edsel, Edward Scissorhands, edumacation, and E.D. ... they all suck!
   
3. eLite Apple repair shop in Hong Kong: Everyone hates you but secretly loves you.
   
4. Dirty pics and movies: Store them on something thieves won't want to steal.
   
5. God: He loves us, but he's a dirty perv for constantly watching us have sex. But since we're his ongoing elementary school science project, I guess it's his right.
   

* I'm not actually sure what drug "blow" refers to, but "doing blow" is cool to say.

** Every Law & Order episode from seasons 1 through 13 contains this line.

UPDATE #1 (February 22, 2009):

Oh, you sick fu¢k! Someone from Florence, South Carolina, came across this site while Googling "pictures of animals sexual pleasing." And Jimminy fu¢king Christmas, I'm listed at #3! Damn you, Google! Damn you!

UPDATE #2 (February 28, 2009):

Sh¡t! By writing "pictures of animals sexual pleasing" in order and in quotations in Update #1, I have pushed myself up to the top position for that particular Google search, ahead of even those sites that actually have pictures of bestiality! Damn you, Hawthorne effect! Damn you!