We all know that Facebook, or rather the way people have chosen to use it (partly induced by the FB software itself, but not completely), is redefining the concept of what’s private and what isn’t. Lately, for example, I’ve increasingly noticed references to people’s digital lives in the news: serial murderers, molesters, girlfriend-killing satan-loving teenagers, lusty teachers and shady politicians all seem to have either a Myspace page or a Facebook account. Sometimes the digital and RL (that’s how digital communities call Real Life) identities overlap (the devil-loving teen will have an appropriately styled page), more often not: such is the case for Pier Paolo Zaccai (in the photo his FB profile picture), a Rome city council man who, during a night of coke and transexual excesses, was heard screaming from a balcony at 6 am and then taken to the hospital for cocaine-induced psychosis (of course in public he’s anti-drugs and very, very straight). His Facebook page betrays nothing and neither does his website (zaccai.it). (Here is the news, in italian)
More puzzling is the story of Nichola Paginton, a 31 y.o. woman from Gloucester in UK. According to the Daily Mail: “Children’s nanny Nichola Paginton was found dead in bed naked from the waist down last October with pornographic material running on her laptop. A sex toy was discovered next to her. A Home Office pathologist told the inquest in Gloucester that Miss Paginton died from a sudden heart arrhythmia, probably brought on by her state of arousal.” Anywhere this news was published, it was accompanied by her sexy Facebook profile photo. Fortunately there are also very positive traces of her Facebook life.
Very sleazy journalism, of course. Is this the future? That we’re all out there in public, and if I die while wanking to porn my FB profile pic will get in the news? I also wonder how many guys a day die while wanking and no one talks about it. In any case I find this story slightly disturbing, and don’t feel very good about.
Update (7/19): Zaccai defends himself on Youtube – yet more evidence that my theory is correct.
Interracial porno is disturbing for a lot of people, and I can see why: race based porn, especially of the Realcore flavor, tends not to be very PC, and quite often is downright racist. Still, the language seems to be agreed upon, so it’s ok if a white slut calls an african american male nigger, and viceversa. They even look for each other (for example in personal ads) using this terminology: “slut4niggers ISO well hung mandingos”. This type of racial interaction is almost always connected to another genre, not as rare as one would think: the cuckold hubsband (consenting, and often initiator of the game). This is so common that there are clubs, such as the Southern California Mandingo Club, “hosting the most extraordinary and electric swing parties for people that are in the Lifestyle, and who enjoy the contrast that the Interracial aspect brings about. These parties bring together upscale Couples and select Singles.”
I found this image in the interracial Usenet newsgroup; I’m not sure if it’s the Socal Mandingos or some other organization, but this team caters to yet another variation, one that’s even more bothersome (if seen as a fetish): interracial pregnancy.
PS: An excellent reading on this topic is Meet the Mandingos. Thanks to Mark Dery for the link.
We all know that porno is seldom politically correct; what’s more, sometimes we like it that way. Some types of pornography (as well as some sexual behaviors) are actually based on this suspension of the rules: think of BDSM, for example, where except in very rare cases there’s a thick line between sexual and non sexual contexts. I was also aware of hate porno, featuring controversial characters and situations. When I was a kid, in the mid 60s in western Europe, you could buy lurid cartoon magazines featuring Nazi porno, concentration camp orgies and SS sex abuses. Nazism was then the embodiement of all evil. 40 years later things have changed, but not so much.
This stuff has been in the Usenet for years – I’d say since 2001. It seems very light, compared to the hate porno from Abu Ghraib we’ve seen in the news (the dark side of Realcore). Still, it has a strong racist flavor: the helpless blond woman abused by a gang of polysexual, hairy, chadored and turbaned grinning perverts is pretty obvious. But while I find this stuff very objectionable and wrong (and fear about the chain reaction it can trigger), I’m sure someone, somewhere in the west, entertains taliban sexual fantasies and afghan sex scenarios.
