All the commotion about Balenciaga’s new ad campaign with children is totally misplaced, besides being just stupid.

Where are the complaints about their awful pantaboots worn to death by Kim Kardashian??

Where is the outrage?

These fucking pantaboots are so egregious, and worn by KK, they are an abomination. They probably cost a million dollars, they make your feet look enormous, and how do you wash them? Everything about them is just aggressively awful.

And yet it’s the ads with little kids that has the entire internet going nuts with inflated umbrage and puritanical pearl-clutching. Balenciaga has been forced to issue several apologies for the ads, evidently confirming that they are inappropriate child porn, and vowing to implement a barrage of “safeguards” so this will never, ever happen again.

Where the outraged masses see bondage paraphernalia, I see classic old-school punk.

Look at this stupid bear, for example. It’s punk, not B&D! Jesus Christ, people of Earth. Get a grip.

Sometimes, pornography, or inappropriate images, is in the mind of the beholder. I think the kids in these ads are cute. They are not sexualized, in my opinion, and there is nothing seductive about them. But the furor is off the charts, rife with allusions to pedophilia and child trafficking.

I would like to have seen a fraction of this outrage in response to the children separated from their parents at the southern border. Children in cages weren’t as incendiary as these kids with teddy bears. Instead of aiming some well-deserved wrath at Kim K for her fucking pantaboots, the internet condemned her for being too slow to denounce the brand currently most associated with her. She finally expressed her concern, even though she dresses her young children in heavy gold chains that she hastens to label as “real.” Her tone was mild but dutifully sanctimonious

Not too long ago, I spent time with my friend’s two year old daughter, who was running around their living room naked. The adorable little girl was making hilarious faces at me, and I took a couple of picture with my phone. I showed a picture to a family member, who accused me of imposing child pornography on her. I was genuinely shocked; all I saw was the funny expression, without noticing the body parts. We had a heated argument, that ended up with both of us threatening to ask our therapists to weigh in on it.

Her therapist sided with her, while mine sided with me. I can guess where they’d stand on the stupid Balenciaga controversy. But me and my therapist would be right.

What do you and your therapist think??

Everywhere I go online today, there is shit about Fifty Shades of Grey. I guess there’s a new trailer out, or maybe it’s the first trailer.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to not be interested in this trailer! Not only am I not interested in the trailer, I am not interested in reactions to the trailer!

I can’t wait to not see the actual movie., just as I couldn’t wait to not read the book or learn anything about its author. I admit to having a perverse fondness for really bad writing, and the few excerpts I saw were weapons-grade awful. So kudos to whatshername who wrote it.

Who would like to join me in taking a pledge to not watch this trailer? Maybe we can come up with a badge or membership card or something.

The state of pop culture is so abysmal that it may seem pointless to single out one offender as being too base or stupid to countenance. But I’m drawing my line anyway.

Big deal about bondage, S&M, doms and subs. Just don’t bother me with fifty shades of anything unless it’s red lipstick.

Does everyone know about “Fifty Shades of Grey?” It’s a wildly popular new novel that women are reading discreetly and openly, according to their relative shame or bravado about enjoying middlebrow porn.

I had no idea what the story was about but now I know there’s a sadomasochist relationship at its center. Big deal. Haven’t these women read The Story of O or Justine? The problem for me is that it’s being called “Mommy Porn,” which is condescending, like Mom Jeans.

The other problem is the bad writing. It kills me that people will pay money for bad writing. Not just bad, but hilariously bad. Here are some quotes I found:

“Trepidation lances through me.”

“‘So I brought you here,” he said phlegmatically.

Hahahahahahaha! And yet some awful woman is making a fortune because she guessed that there was a huge audience for a dopey, safely perky adventure in bondage and discipline.   I’m mad I didn’t think of it.

Now that the book is a certified phenomenon, one will be called upon to take a position. If you condemn it, you’ll be scolded for being a prude or an elitist. If you read it and enjoy it, you’ll be dismissed as a sex-starved Mommy or a moron. Or wait, maybe you’ll be congratulated for being modern and having a strong libido!

I don’t mind the idea of dominance and submission in sex. I’m all for it. But why does it have to involve a billionaire with “unruly hair” and a heroine who says stuff like:  “I revel in his possession, his lust slaking mine.”

No no no no, you fucking idiot! “Slake” means to lesson the force of, to assuage. You mean the  opposite!

Can anyone give us a firsthand report on this book? Thoughts or arguments?

Once upon a time, a belligerent German who I will call “Herr Mengele” decided to send out threatening letters to a large group of bloggers around the word, demanding money for infringing on his ‘copyright’. The bloggers, along with a British online newspaper, had posted an image of some Victorian taxidermy art.

Herr Mengele insisted that while it wasn’t his taxidermy art, he has the copyright to the widely seen images. He included with his overwrought letters a cheap postcard of the image. He also included invoices of up to several thousand EU. He demanded that money be wired directly to his German bank account by an arbitrary date, after which he would sue for damages.

The bloggers were stunned. WTF? Herr Mengele replied to questions with nefarious threats like this one:

With great pleasure will I take you to the Courts, and will just wait a bit longer to eventually get over EUR 56.000 from you.

So you know with whom you are dealing: my ex-publisher NaimAttallah/Quartet can tell you a story or two about me, kicking my shoe ALL UP YOUR ASS if you step on my toes. My friend Jos Smit from Art Unlimited, who prints all my postcards, normally tells people who don’t know me (yet) Fear him !   Or/and interview Henk Schiffmacher aka Hanky Panky (c/o Hells Angels Amsterdam) etc .

Herr Mengele continues to send threats to this very day, and alas, some bloggers were so upset that they actually gave in to his demands and paid him! No one wants a German boot up their ass (despite Sylvia Plath’s observation to the contrary) and who among us wants to incur the wrath of a Hells Angel who is named after a fancy lace thong?!

Herr Mengele also claims copyright to some explicit photos of people with tattooed penises, putting them where they don’t belong (according to Judeo-Christian tenets and my own finicky digestive system.)

The photo above is a portion of one of Herr Mengele’s more interesting pictures, which I have modified for the purposes of discussion, education and satire (as per fair use.) Can you guess what it is?

Gazing upon the most recent communique from Herr Mengele’s “Lawyers,” I must ask myself what David Bowie would do. I think he would say:

Wir sind dann Helden!

Questions, comments, threats?

When I first saw this photo of Tragic Fashion Boy, I felt a mixture of outrage and sorrow. It’s part of some fashion shoot but it looks like child pornography. Is it the bony little torso that makes it upsetting?

Here, he looks healthier. Sort of.

Tragic Fashion Boy as Twiggy, part of a boys-as-girls editorial in Candy magazine.

Here is a teenager who wanted to be part of the high-fashion scene, and has clearly achieved his goal. Is he being exploited, or is this a success story? What is your first reaction?

Okay, it’s time to get serious. After reading a new interview with Sea here, and then having a look at her “other” blog, I see there is something going on. Upon deliberating, I think I have cracked the code.

Sea of Shoes is actually code for SOS! It is a cri de coeur from Jane,   begging the world to deliver her from her demons.

I hear you, Jane! In the interview, she is asked to describe herself in 3 words. She answers: “Dirty old man.” Oh my! Elsewhere, in response to the question, “Tell me something most people wouldn’t know about you,” she says, “I’m a big sicko.”

OKAY, I GET IT. You’re a dark soul with fetishes aplenty, or you’re a lesbian. This is why your latest entry at your “other” blog is a naked woman displaying her anus.   It explains the emphasis on tits and ass. Instead of dropping hints, it might be better to just integrate your dark, lesbitious side into your everyday life and to feel okay with it.

Jane doesn’t want your comments but you can leave them here instead. I will go first:

Dear Sea, Don’t be ashamed of who you are. Just be ashamed of buying all those shoes. Love, SW

I subscribed to a fashion blog called Fashion Copious a few weeks ago, and felt increasingly creeped out by its contents.

Today, upon realizing that I’ve become more familiar with Kristen McMenamy’s waxed landing strip that I am with my own Female Area, it suddenly hit me: This isn’t fashion, it’s porn. Soft porn, to be sure, but still. The focus of this blog is not just naked models, but very young naked models. The girl above looks like a starving pre-adolescent, but the blog’s author finds her rapturously beautiful.

Who the hell is this guy, anyway? Does anybody know his credentials, besides a keen appreciation of nude models?   With every post, he has a feature called “What My Girls are Liking” that usually features trampy girls posing in trampy outfits. What does he mean, “My Girls?” Is he a pimp or a modeling agency or what?

I feel tainted and ashamed. Sorry, naked young models! Please go home now and have something to eat!

Obviously, the first question is nonsensical. But the other question bothers me. Just now, I followed some fashion links to some new photos of Lindsay Lohan, topless. My first thought upon looking at her face was: This girl is spent. Literally. She’s been used up and she has nothing left to offer but her nude body for the purpose of porn.

The poor girl has been through everything, at such a young age! She looks like she’s at the brink of starvation, but since she still has tits, she’ll flaunt them. I find it very depressing.

Is it pornography to watch a young celebrity flame out and burn? Is Girls Gone Wild pornography? Are kids really posting nude photos of themselves on their mySpace pages? Is porn ever healthy? Is there anything we haven’t seen yet, or shouldn’t see?

When I first learned to use a computer, the girl I worked with immediately set out to show me some notorious video of a woman having sex with a donkey. I hoped she wouldn’t find it. She did show me a photo of an old lady using a dead fish for something….it wasn’t good, although it was somewhat shocking.

Another office, more searches for porn. My (female) boss and I laughed hysterically at photos of women with two cocks in their mouths. We went to massive cocks dot com and laughed some more.

That is really the totality of my experience with online porn. Is there something wrong with me?

I don’t think I’m prudish. I just don’t want to get depressed. Now I hear there’s a very popular website where people upload pictures of their own faces during orgasm. I don’t get why it’s popular! Why would I want to see what some stranger looks like when they come?

I’m wondering if the world is made up of exhibitionists and voyeurs. And of course a third group, where I fit in. I’m wondering if my problem is that I can’t look at porn without thinking about the motives involved. After I laughed at the girl with two cocks in her mouth, I thought about her mother.

Someone once showed me a website where you could look at women covered in shit. I was very upset and wanted to cry for weeks afterward. I know this is not an example of whatever’s considered mainstream or arty porn, but the whole new world of porn at our fingertips is distressing to me. Even more than distressing, it’s sad.

People who enjoy porn should at least have the decency to shut up about it. Insisting that it’s interesting on any other level is just a denial of its primary purpose. Waxing all intellectual about porn is just absurd, like Camille Paglia pontificating about Madonna.

I hope that young people will still be allowed some innocence about sexuality, so they can discover it with a real live person. Mystery and taboos are there to preserve the holy aspect of sex, and by holy I don’t mean to exclude any practices between two human beings of any gender. Speaking   as an atheist, I still think of sex as a religious experience.

Here’s what Leonard Cohen thinks.

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!

When they said REPENT REPENT …

Comments or arguments, anyone out there?

See this fabulous beehive? This is what I’d like to take to the bank so that I might accept this gracious invitation from Opening Ceremony:

But no, the bank won’t send me to Paris. Fuckers. Why? Because they don’t want me to look at Chloe Sevigny‘s latest shit, or even Erin “Homeless” Wasson’s! There is no justice in this world, as I had already suspected.

Next, that fucking Octomom is driving me insane. Is there no end to this?! Her lips are even bigger now, on the verge of exploding. Go here and watch her argue with her mother. The sound of her voice is maddening. Quick reader poll here: What’s worse, her face or her voice?

Third, the boyfriend jean has now spawned the ex-boyfriend jean. This is an incredible development that signals the coming apocalypse.

How do you tell the difference? Will there be an ex-husband style, too? God, I can’t stand the ripped jeans thing. We baby boomers have already been there, done that, or at least sneered at the people who did.

Finally, summing up tonight’s complaints are these crazy new pants that I think are pretty awesome (and not in a homeless way) but can no longer afford.

Do you love them or do you love them?! Imagine them with a beehive! Waaaah!

I could shop my closet forever without finding these Kirrily Johnston pants. They’re so epic, right? Well, there you have it. I was planning to complain about porn too but I’m already too mad to think clearly. If you want to read some idiots trying to decide if porn is art, go here.

Here is a cell phone picture of my dresser tonight. Is there too much crap on it, do you think?

Some of the things I considered writing about today, include:

A really funny review of “the worst book ever written”

The obscenity trial underway in L.A., involving scat porn (and a guy who needs killing)

A blog about “piñata related violence”

Golconda diamonds, and why they are so valuable

But I was too lazy, so that’s why I took a picture of my dresser! Despite appearances, I am devoutly atheist.