Reality bites, sucks

Isn't it a shame that real life isn't more like porn? As a homeowner, I've had to call out all kinds of tradesmen, but the only tools any of them have ever whipped out is a socket wrench. Although a friend of mine did once have a bed delivered by a well-built van driver who offered to help break it in, but that's a story for another blog.

Anyway, the point is, pornography and mundane reality are like two divergent axes (see fig.1 below). The sexier the situation is, the less likely it is that a road tax application or a Tesco bag-for-life will be involved.

But all that's about to change, thanks to the Playboy channel, which has unveiled bold plans to create a pair of sexy new reality TV shows, with hijinks high on the agenda. Channel bigwigs presented their concepts to the Television Critics Association last week, in a move that shows God (like a porn casting director) loves a trier.

Aimed at loved-up couples, rather than onanistic singles with a 12-minute attention span, Swing will follow pairs of contestants as they visit a swinger compound - think Windsor Safari Park with more water-based lubricant. They'll "establish the ground rules" with the resident sex and relationship expert, explore the group, and meet with a therapist to discuss their feelings.

As Playboy TV Senior VP and GM Gary Rosenson explains, “No elimination stuff, no tribal councils, no craziness. Just really people hanging out, having fun, goofing off and eventually it gets hot because that’s what they’re there to do.” Well, that and the fact that this is going out on the Playboy channel after all.

The second show being prepped for the 2011 season is A Brooklyn Kind of Love, which follows the ins-and-outs-and-ins of coupledom in the New York borough. But unlike other relationship shows, this one will follow its subjects into the bedroom.

Speaking about the show's explicit action, co-producer Joe Gantz claims that “...a lot of reality shows and TV shows in general are about sex but they dance around sexuality in such a way that it’s all innuendo and there’s no authenticity.  So it was nice to be able to do a show where you didn’t have to worry about things being too real, too authentic.”

Admittedly, authenticity isn't something that automatically springs to mind when you think of the Playboy channel, especially in its depiction of lesbianism. But 'Brooklyn' comes with real-life lesbians Bek Allen and Erin Williams; a genuine couple who agreed to go naked "with no hesitation".

And they're hoping to tackle some serious social issues, when they're not squirting aerosol cream somewhere unhygienic, with Williams stating “Our decision to do this show was primarily to show that gay couples go through the same stuff as straight couples go through and that we’re not all that different from anybody else.” Allen chipped in, adding that the show was “...a once in a lifetime opportunity to kind of be a spokesperson for homosexual couples..." Let's just hope these spokespeople manage to articulate a little more than "Oh, yeah, that's hot" and "Do me again".

According to Gantz, the shows are about more than titilation: “As we were interviewing couples, we felt that sexuality is a spectrum and I don’t want any hard distinctions. It’s a continuum and it’s a lot of overlapping... It’s on every aspect of their relationship but when it’s about the sex, it’s just right out there. You don’t have to worry about pulling it back for Playboy."

All this talk of 'overlapping', 'hard distinctions' and 'pulling it back for Playboy'. I'm turned on already and the shows haven't even aired yet.

Grin or bear it?

A decade is a long time in pop music, as Toni Braxton knows only too well. Despite plugging away with her smoky vocals and dinner party R&B, it's a good ten years since she had much on impact on the charts. 

Two bankruptcies, angioplastic surgery and an autistic child have helped keep her on the cover of the trashy gossip magazines, but her musical output has been decidedly low key. Which is a shame, since many of her early hits are now considered pop/soul standards. 

But it's a different kind of magazine that wants now wants her splashed all over its front page, and not because of her acute angina. Although the reason sounds similar. 

Taking to everyone's favourite public forum yesterday, Toni tweeted that Playboy has been pursuing her to appear in a future issue of everyone's favourite one-handed reading material: "New Year, New opportunities. So I have been considering taking up Playboy's offer to feature me on their cover this year. What you think?" Given the financial fix she's in, it's hardly surprising that the offer is makin' her high.

She may claim that the shoot will be tastefully done, but she needs to consider America's puritanical view of nudity. After all, the producers of long-running police show NYPD Blue are still having to contend with legal proceedings for a flash of bum that took place when Toni was still a musical force to be reckoned with. 

Eight years ago, an episode of the show aired that featured the buttocks of actress Charlotte Ross. After six years of legal wrangling, the FCC slapped network ABC with a $1.4 million fine for the scene. Today, ABC managed to get the fine overturned by a federal appeals court. But the Parents Television Council watchdogs aren't happy at this "egregious example of legislating from the bench". 

When TV shows are filled with graphic scenes of violence and torture, groups like PTC are happy to look the other way. But when an actor or actress turns and bares their other cheeks, these activists are less willing to do the same.

Toni might dismiss her impending spread as "Just a lil T and A", but not everyone will see it that way.

Reid between the lines

Time to break open the Bollinger and line up those body shots, everyone's favourite party girl is back on the scene. And she's flashing the flesh like there's no tomorrow.

Although technically listed as an actress, Tara Reid is a one-woman wrecking ball who somehow manages to make Lindsay Lohan look like the model of sober professionalism. After a reasonably successful start in films like The Big Lebowski, Urban Legend and American Pie, Tara discovered she was more interested in mojitos than method.

Tactfully described by the US press as a 'Party Girl' (generally considered to be a euphemism for 'drunken slut') Tara likes to raise a ruckus when she goes out - she's been on more table tops than a napkin dispenser.

It's an image she's battled hard to dismiss, complaining that "I think I’m just so misunderstood as a person…It’s like every time you see me out they’ll only show a picture of me, like, with a cup in my hand. They won’t show all the benefits I’m involved in with children. They never show anything positive." Which isn't really fair, since by the time the photographers catch sight of Tara, the cup has been drained, along with the complimentary perfumes in the bathroom and the bar's drip tray.

Actually though, Tara's problems run deeper than the fact that collapses like a camping table. She's also had a troublesome history with plastic surgery, showing off a pair of poorly augmented breasts that looked like the goggly eyes on fairground stuffed toy.

Not that she meant to show them off, one of them just happened to slip out at P Diddy's 35th birthday - "I didn’t see [my dress] fall down, so I’m smiling like an idiot, not even knowing that it’s there.” But the paparazzi knew it was there, and went to town on her botched, blotchy boobs.

Since that incident made the papers around the world she's been struggling to rebuild her shattered confidence. However, that all changed this week as she proudly unveiled her new 'bikini body' at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, she seems to have borrowed it from Joan Rivers.

She may be "a young woman with confidence" (as she told Playboy in December), but someone needs to point out that she looks as though she's been stitched together using the contents of a bag of beef jerky. And if these are the new and improved breasts, she really needs to crack open the Webster and look up 'improved'.

Thanks for sharing

Last year it was Megan Fox who was gobbling up the column inches with an endless stream of borderline-incoherent egocentric rambling. Between the release of Transformers 2 and Jennifer's Body, it seemed that she couldn't open her pouty mouth without sticking a pair of Louboutins in there.

But Megan's motormouth is nothing compared with John Mayer, who just can't help embarrassing himself anytime someone waves a microphone in his general direction.

Although he's an acclaimed blues musician, John's media profile is largely thanks to the fact that he's been inside more Hollywood women than an egg-white omelette. Since 2006, when he began dating buxom brain-donor Jessica Simpson, John has become a tabloid staple. It reached a point where he felt the need to steer clear of drugs, clubs and red carpet events, as well as swearing off dating any more celebrities, since he felt that it was detracting him from his music.

He may have ditched the lifestyle, but he seems to be perfectly happy in the spotlight, and has been giving great copy to a bunch of journalists who must be thanking their lucky stars that there was enough tape in their dictaphone.

Amongst the recent revelations, he's told interviewers that he masturbates at an Olympian standard, has a 'white supremacist dick' and compared old-flame Jessica to "sexual napalm". Although I'm not sure whether that means she was incendiary and destructive, or just that he liked the way she smelled first thing in the morning.

He's even weighed in on his fellow celebrities, claiming that Tiger Woods' only mistake was being married: "Tiger Woods' problems come from him being married. The end. If Tiger Woods was single, and he texted a girl and said 'I wanna wear your ass like a hat,' why would that ever hit the news?"

Unfortunately, this rambling, say-anything approach has finally landed him in hot water, with some racially charged language in a Playboy interview upsetting quite a few people. Given the fallout, it's hardly surprising that Mayer has tucked his overworked tail between his legs and apologised for forgetting what he's supposed to be famous for.

As well as grinding his Nashville concert to a halt to issue a tearful mea culpa to his audience, he took to twitter to explain his motivation: “It started as an attempt to not let the waves of criticism get to me, but it’s gotten out of hand and I’ve created somewhat of a monster. I wanted to be a blues guitar player. And a singer. And a songwriter. Not a shock jock. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

He might not have the stomach for it, but old habits die hard. As he once sang on his debut album, “My stupid mouth has got me in trouble, I said too much again.”

Warning: may contain nudity

The USA's weird relationship with its own body took some interesting turns this week with a couple of surprising news stories.

First up, Playboy announced its very first animated cover-star in the form of America's favourite housewife Marge Simpson. In an unusual attempt at attracting twenty-something readers, the blue-haired house-frau strikes a Christine Keeler pose on the front of the long-running tug book.

But anyone hoping to discover whether the carpets match the Smurf-cloured drapes will be sorely disappointed. Unlike her son Bart, who went full-frontal in the recent Simpsons Movie, Marge's photoshoot will only feature implied nudity.

Meanwhile, double Oscar-winner Hilary Swank has been talking to Marie Claire about her forthcoming biopic of aviatrix Amelia Earhart. In a seemingly innocuous interview, the unappealingly monikered awards-vacuum happened to mention that she's occasionally naked in front of her new partner's child.

"Well, my boyfriend's son is 6 years old, and you wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude. Every morning he comes into the bedroom, and you're just nude. But he doesn't look twice; he doesn't think about it yet."

Of course, the news media has gone to town on the subject, running countless stories questioning how appropriate all this is, with headlines like 'Hilary Swank's Nude Dilemma' and 'Hilary Swank: Six-Year-Old Sees Me Nude'. Reporting on her entirely normal behaviour, these articles make comments like "Hilary has no qualms about flashing her flesh in front of partner John Campisi's child" as though she doesn't just sleep in the nude, but entertains the kids by firing ping-pong balls across the bedroom.

Back in July, a report by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) found that teenage pregnancies and syphilis rose sharply during George Bush's traumatic tenure, largely thanks to W's insistence on evangelically informed abstinence programmes.

With schools telling the kids to leave their unmentionables alone, it falls to parents to give young people a pragmatic and realistic education into how their bodies work. But given the reaction to Hilary's entirely innocent admission, I imagine the only people likely to be celebrating will be the staff at babyGap.