Pornography isn't a substitute for talent - A Marilyn Monroe sex tape?

A story broke in the last few days that has caused me to re-examine a relationship I’ve had since I was a teenager. It’s a relationship that helped me maintain my focus through high school, despite the fact that I was surrounded on all sides by pretty girls in cute outfits who drove me to distraction. Later in life, it kept me from flirting with women on the job who were just trying to work, women on the subway who were just trying to get somewhere, women in the supermarket who were just trying to buy food, and it helped me stay faithful to my girlfriends who would have killed me for cheating on them. I’m talking about my relationship with porn. It’s been my friend for two decades, but porn is now totally out of control.

The story that caused me to stop and reflect was the New York Post’s account of the sale of a fifty-year-old film of Marilyn Monroe performing a sex act to an anonymous “collector” for $1.5 million. The man who “brokered” the sale (who also happens to be producing a documentary in which he claims Marilyn Monroe was murdered) not only got his story into the Post, but was also interviewed by CBS’s “Early Show” for two segments. Amazingly, they treated him like a respectable filmmaker and not the lying smut-peddler that he is.

To see how acceptable porn has become, just open any glossy magazine sold at any newsstand anywhere. Not just “Maxim”, “Stuff”, and “FHM” (which are basically just porn without nipples), but also ad campaigns for Bebe and Guess Jeans (among many others) that actually appear in mags for women and girls. Disguised as advertising or entertainment and cloaked in the male interpretation of female freedom, these images and messages tell young girls that modesty is old-fashioned and that the new feminist ideal is the rich, empowered slut.

This isn’t a new phenomenon since there has always been a demand for “nude modeling”, but porn used to be a woman’s last resort. The question a woman had to answer was, “do I really want to go there?” Sure, you could make some quick cash and possibly launch your career (like Madonna did with the “Penthouse” spread that made her famous) but it would come at the expense of your dignity. That’s why actresses used to get naked on film one time early in their careers, then never again. But over the last few years, dignity has become way overrated.

It’s this attitude that has made “celebrities” out of people whose only talent is the willingness to perform sex acts on camera. People like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian have literally launched careers in film, television, music, and modeling based entirely on the popularity (or notoriety) of their homemade porn. It’s gotten so bad that Audrina Partridge, a girl from a good family who definitely doesn’t need the cash, was so desperate for more exposure than she was getting from her fake reality show that she reportedly leaked her own nude photos on the Internet.

Which brings us back to the Marilyn Monroe story and the burning question: Could it possibly be true? I don’t doubt that the film exists since it’s referred to in FBI documents, but I have serious questions about the story this “broker” is telling. He claims he got the only copy not in the FBI archives from the son of a former FBI snitch. He also says he sold it to someone who bought it to protect Marilyn’s legacy by making sure it was never released.

But his story doesn’t add up. First of all, he wants us to believe that some guy somewhere had this footage and didn’t talk about it or show it to anyone for fifty years. He also wants us to believe that even though he’s producing a documentary about Marilyn, he was just a middle-man. And we’re supposed to believe the going rate for this film was a mere $1.5 million.

It’s the last one that killed his credibility with me. We live in a world where an original photo of Marilyn Monroe sold for almost five hundred grand and homemade porn of Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Amy Fisher sold for multiple millions of dollars each. This footage is supposedly of the American female film icon of the last century going down on a man who J. Edgar Hoover believed to be either John or Robert Kennedy and somebody let it go for a million-and-a-half ? Give me a break.

I’m not saying the Post and “the Early Show” got duped, but if they believe thiz story, I know a guy looking to get rid of a bridge connecting Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan and I’d love to broker the sale.