William Gibson's Neuromancer Staged With Porn Star 204
destinyland writes "Sunday night saw a reading of the William Gibson's classic cyberpunk novel featuring porn star Sasha Grey at a New York art museum, along with sculpture-props simulating virtual reality. Artist Brody Condon promised to combine 'Gibson's 1980s dystopian techno-fetishism with early twentieth-century abstraction,' but the editor of H+ magazine challenges that description. 'In a 1993 interview, Gibson himself told me: "I think my world looks dystopian if you're a middle class white guy doing reasonably well in 1993... There are so many places in the world today that are so much crappier than anything I'm writing about."' And earlier this month William Gibson shared his response to a blog post about the event. 'Gol' dang! It's news to me!'"
Not a play, just (Score:2)
.
Rats
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Oh well. I think it would be better as a movie than as a play anyway. Unfortunately the special effects department would probably get carried away when the characters jack in and suck up so much time that they'd forget to tell the story.
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Well, it's probably more to do with the producer than the special effects team, as they're usually just following directors orders. It's kind of like theres both chocolate and vanilla ice creams, but it's possible to eat them together too and sometimes its even more delicious that way. Or you could also pour some chocolate dipping in to it, or cookie crunchs and m&m's on top.
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It's kind of like theres both chocolate and vanilla ice creams, but it's possible to eat them together too and sometimes its even more delicious that way.
Yeah, I like interracial lesbian porn, too.
Wait, what's this book stuff in my porn story?
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All this talk of chocolate and vanilla ice cream in response to an article about Sasha Grey makes my id go wild...
My ID would like to subscribe to your newsletter... RIGHT NOW...
Re:Not a play, just (Score:5, Funny)
I've staged War of the Worlds in my living room with my cats as the aliens, but it didn't make it onto Slashdot.
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Yeah. Needed more porn stars.
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Guys... It's an NYC Performance Art Piece...! (Score:2)
...which puts it roughly on professional par with a Community Theater production of Guys and Dolls in Toledo, except you don't leave the theater humming any of the tunes.
And I'm not just being snarky... I remember my last such show in SoHo: the second act began with the performer crawling out of a giant garbage bag (featuring real garbage), singing a song about former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick set to the tune of "Mr. Sandman" (that's Chordettes, not Metallica, as in "bung bung bung bung BUNG BUNG bung
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"sculpture-props simulating virtual reality" (Score:5, Funny)
sculpture-props simulating virtual reality
You get the sense that someone doesn't quite grasp the basic concepts.
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sculpture-props simulating virtual reality
You get the sense that someone doesn't quite grasp the basic concepts.
No, actually, they got it right. Something real styled after something that doesn't exist must be simulated.
Thinking about any one of their props hard enough leads me to this train of thought: It's a real object, therefore it is real reality. So it can't be real virtual reality, it has to be simulated virtual reality which is what any real real reality made with real virtual reality in mind has to be, though since it's based on a cyberpunk novel it's really a simulated virtual fictional object, or a non-r
I think my world looks dystopian... (Score:5, Funny)
But the world looks utopian if you're a middle class white guy doing Sasha Grey.
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But the world looks utopian if you're a middle class white guy doing Sasha Grey.
Until the test results come back.
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STD's are actually fairly uncommon in the mainstream porn industry. Some performers wear condoms (which if you wore during your little escapade with Ms Grey then you have little to worry about - it's not a 100% thing but it's close enough not to fret over it), and those who don't are constantly tested and essentially sign contracts explicitly stating that they'll only have sex with others in the porn industry who are subjected to the same tests. Generally they'll stick to that as, well, most people in por
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slurpee himplex III (Score:2)
STD's are actually fairly uncommon in the mainstream porn industry. Some performers wear condoms
Genital herpes [villagevoice.com] is endemic and ubiquitous [jupaman.com] in the mainstream porn industry.
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While true, keep in mind that genital herpes in general is very prevalent in society as a whole. Depending on what stats you're looking at, estimates are between 10% and 25% of the adult population.
http://www.herpes-coldsores.com/herpes_statistics.htm [herpes-coldsores.com]
The realistic situation is that if you are sexually active at all herpes is out there. Condoms DO usually prevent outbreaks if the affected area is covered, and transmission of the disease is greatly reduced outside of an outbreak.
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Sasha Grey has contracted both chlamydia and gonorrhea. Or so she claimed in her appearance on the Tyra Banks Show.
I realize that both are easily treatable, but I'm not quite sure you can claim that "STD's are actually fairly uncommon in the mainstream porn industry".
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Not true. You are thinking about AIDS which is rare and tested for every 30 days. That doesn't stop the rampant herpes.
Old (Score:2)
Re:I think my world looks dystopian... (Score:5, Interesting)
If your boss gives you a car, you feel great.
If your boss gives your co-worker two cars, now you feel badly.
The last three decades have consisted of taking away pieces of white middle class males cars until now they are riding a used bicycle only very slightly better than everyone else's.
The drop in status, income, prestige, and even the ability to retain a job has been painful and protracted. Very soon white males will be a minority in many areas and from what I've seen, the former minorities have a lot of illegal practices (like hiring only the same minority as they are) which no one is willing to fight against yet. I think that at some point very soon (the next 10 years), you will see a Mexican company based in the U.S. sued successfully for not hiring/promoting white males.
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I ride a bike to work, you insensitive clod!
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Take away the word "white" and you're pretty much there. The middle-class has been under assault for years and is being systematically disassembled and turned back into a servant class for the rich. Welcome to the "service economy".
A minority to who? The only way that's at
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The hispanic numbers of 15% are highly concentrated in a small number of states. For example, California is 76.6% white... but that breaks down to 37% hispanic and 39% non-hispanic.
Estimates are for a Hispanic majority in California and Texas in the near future.
This is a problem when they lose interest in fairness in proportion to their power.
There are small manufacturing, cleaning, and food making companies in Texas which have already had some issues in this area.
Oh.. and then there's this..
http://www.eeo [eeoc.gov]
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A minority to who? The only way that's at all possible is if you say we're a minority compared to everyone else added up, which is stupid.
You might think it's stupid, but that's what the word "minority" means!
Minority means < 50%
Majority means > 50%
Super-majority means > 50% + X, where X is some positive number.
They are not relative terms.
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Everything you say is true and, yet, you still missed my point.
Article written by... (Score:2)
R.U. Sirius
This can't be real????
Re:Article written by... (Score:5, Informative)
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Wow I didn't know! Thanks for the clarification.
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convergence of cyberpunk and porn, either...)
It's truely hard to think cyber without porn...
I saw this... (Score:5, Funny)
They're Still Dystopian (Score:5, Interesting)
The world of _1984_ would look great to someone from Somalia or some of the other hellholes of the world. _Brave New World_ even more so. Yet they're still both considered dystopian. Same goes for Neuromancer.
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Agreed.... The fact that you can point to even worse situations or living conditions somewhere doesn't mean the fictional world being described in a book like 1984 or Brave New World is any less disturbing or "bad".
In fact, one can often infer that even in those fictional worlds, there are probably still places where people have things worse off than in the cities they're describing.
Dystopian is contextual (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they're all considered dystopian in the context of the West, but I think his point is astute, that whether something is a dystopia is contextual. The people living in positions of privilege, i.e. the West, wring their hands over and work hard to prevent these various dystopias from occurring, even while they may be actually working against the interests of the majority of humanity.
What we have now, if it wasn't reality, could be easily portrayed as a dystopia in a novel. Worse, the people with power to change things (the powered and moneyed people who are citizens in the first world) are unwilling to consider a lot of possibilities that may be on the table because they seem worse than their own privileged positions, without considering how badly off the majority of humanity is under their current system.
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Yes, they're all considered dystopian in the context of the West, but I think his point is astute, that whether something is a dystopia is contextual.
Since all utopian and dystopian fiction (they're both the same genre anyway) is social commentary as seen from the point of view of the author, then someone is going to completely disagree with it. For instance, I read about three random pages of More's Utopia before I decided that it was one of the worst dystopias I'd ever seen. Assuming those three pages were characteristic, if I was Catholic with absolutely no sense of modern equality, it probably would've seemed great to me. With inferiors like children
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Except in 1984 if you were in Somalia, you were pretty much part of a slave caste and your conditions wouldn't have changed regardless of who owned you. You were worth less even than the proles. [Rant] I wonder how many people that reference 1984 actually have read it, much less remember it. People talk about heading into a 1984 society where everyone is monitored and having no freedom but by and large the majority of the population did not experience this in the book. The proles like you and I were just di
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Neuromancer dystopian? Are you serious? ;)
When I read that as a kid I would have given anything to live in that world. I still wouldn't mind getting one of their awesome brain-interfaced computers
And some people would love to live in Mad Max. Doesn't mean it's not dystopic.
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> Who wouldn't want to live in Brave New World? It's a society based on instant gratification all the time. Sounds like heaven on earth to me.
>
Plus everyone is engineered to be suited (and satisfied) with whatever role they have in life.
Geeks aren't forced to be salesmen.
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A dying breed, I know.
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Liberty has a very low calorie content and you can't burn individuality to keep you warm during cold winter nights.
I'm not saying they're not valuable, but they're also pretty far down the hierarchy of needs. There's a lesson to be learned here: if you keep people well-fed, sheltered, clothed and socially stable you can actually foster liberty and individuality (and innovation, creativity, etc) because the base needs are met. If you want to oppress people, make sure they don't have enough food to get up o
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I'm not saying they're not valuable, but they're also pretty far down the hierarchy of needs.
Only to those who would accept the death of their principles before the death of their bodies.
See... there is this thing about principles... (Score:2)
They somehow never manage to survive the death of the body.
Also, they seem to thrive in a well fed and groomed body, and whither away at the slightest danger to body's existence.
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I'm not the GP, but I agree with his sentiments.
I also spent four years in the military, being at times too hot, too cold, too hungry, too tired, etc. There are plenty of people who are all talk but not action, and there are plenty of people who've taken action too.
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"...if you keep people well-fed, sheltered, clothed and socially stable you can actually foster liberty and individuality."
You "could" do that, but if some central government figured out HOW to do it, they wouldn't have any desire to foster liberty or individuality.
"If you want to oppress people, make sure they don't have enough food to get up off their knees."
I think that might have been true once, but not any longer. A bunch of hungry people are also going to be desperate and angry people. Not exactly t
I want to take der jerbs! (Score:2)
Where do you get jobs like this? First there's the "MIT artist-in-residence" job where you can send messages into space that will never be received. Now this one where you can prattle on about dystopian piffle hoo-ha and people with higher educations will nod and shake their heads knowingly because they don't want to look unhip, or however you kids describe the squares these days.
Hey, I have some lovely post-post-post modern retro-reconstructionist works that would make a great display somewhere. They fract
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Hey, I have some lovely post-post-post modern retro-reconstructionist works that would make a great display somewhere. They fractalize the repetitive nature of our increasingly vapid 21st century existences via surrealist digital sculpture and open mike poetry reads by fast fading reality TV pseduocelebrities.
I have no mod points, but this made me laugh. Thanks. (former art major here!)
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Middle class "white guy?" (Score:3, Insightful)
That kind of uncritical asinine blather never ceases to tweak me. Middle class anyone, Gibson, you tool. It's amazing that people spout (and think) racist shit like this, and it is left bare, unchallenged, validated by silence thus tacit approval. Fuck that. The assumption is what? If you're middle class but not white that your perspective is different? GMAFB. If you're middle class and white, like me, you can't possibly know about destitution? (I came from it).
Idiocy.
The middle class (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree the race dropping was uncalled for, but he also was giving this response in an interview, where we can't always pick the perfect words for what we're trying to say. If he was just trying to draw a distinction between middle class in the privileged (and largely white) West versus the middle class in, say, India where by US standards you're still desperately poor, I don't think it's entirely illegitimate.
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i give this troll an 8 out 10 (Score:5, Insightful)
the contrived outrage: well-played sir
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I would say that the world does look different to middle class black people, and even middle class white women, at least in North America. To pretend otherwise to to assume that we've successfully removed all race and gender barriers from our society. But we haven't. You can pretend that everything is all sweetness and light if you like, and that all the injustices of the past have been righted and anyone who says otherwise is just a whiner, but the facts simply don't bear that out. Despite affirmative acti
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Well, except for the part where it is pretty clear Gibson is naming middle class white guys as examples of people who were relatively comfortable in 1993, not naming them as the only people who were comfortable in 1993.
Molly Millions (Score:4, Insightful)
When you take into account the mindless sex-doll career of the character Molly, Sasha Grey is an apt choice for the part.
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Steppin Razor!. Sasha would be my choice for Molly/Sally.
Mindless needs more clarification in the context of a meat puppet. Especially since Sally wasn't stupid (mindless) and worked as a meat puppet to make enough money to score her enhancements and then went off to be a private security consultant (merc).
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A much better explanation than I provided. Thank you!
our core culture (Score:2)
Glad to see some celebrities finally appreciating Gibson's work.
I mean - according to Wikipedia, roughly half of all famous people are porn stars, if you go by pagecount. There's something about that I haven't yet found words for.
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Yes, and how long before Nintendo comes out with PornStar? You can imagine what the "instruments" will look like?
From the GPP: (Score:2)
What definition of fame are you using?
if you go by pagecount.
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There is another criteria for fame other than simple recognition by large groups of people?
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Same place I get that water is wet, fire is hot, sky (on Earth) is bluish color and other hard to find information.
It is common sense.
Or, you can look it up.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fame [thefreedictionary.com]
http://www.yourdictionary.com/fame [yourdictionary.com]
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fame [merriam-webster.com]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fame [reference.com]
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according to Wikipedia, roughly half of all famous people are porn stars, if you go by pagecount.
Half is a HUGE number.
Are you really that bored, that you need to keep trolling down this topic trying to make completely and utterly clear things appear "questionable"?
Are you practicing for a job interview at FOX News or something?
Porn Stars not what they used to be. (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was growing up porn stars were very rare.
Today they are very common.
The stigma is less but so is the cachet.
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Not all porn actresses are "stars", but the term has stuck and sounds much better than "boring meat sockets".
Re:Porn Stars not what they used to be. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lol.
What is missing from most porn (old and new) is the seduction.
I've never found people screwing to be erotic (even if both are female). There was one I saw back in the late 80's/ early 90's tho-- I think it was directed by a female (back before females became so much more masculine) and she had two people, fully dressed, standing talking in front of a fireplace for about 5 to 10 minutes that was one of the most erotic things I've ever seen. Both were good but average looking without makeup.
They went from casually talking to credibly aroused and there was the electric moment when both realized they were going to do something. I can't even recall the sex scene after but I still remember that scene two decades later.
Sex is usually about rubbing one spot a lot. It often looks goofy. The seduction is the part that is interesting to me.
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This is like saying I went to see Schlinder's list and disappointed by the lack of robots from the future. Yeah, there was a movie I watched in 1992 that had robots from the future that I enjoyed and I think all movies should have robots from the future.
There are lots and lots of variations and genres in pr0n. There are some excellent pr0n that are made like that - kind of half reality show, half pr0n stuff to some genuine acting and storylines. Others want a different take on pr0n where they let the viewer
Middle-class White Guy? (Score:4, Funny)
How about if you are a middle class "black" guy doing reasonably well in 1993?
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> "I think my world looks dystopian if you're a middle class white guy doing reasonably well in 1993..."
> How about if you are a middle class "black" guy doing reasonably well in 1993?
I think the white middle class joke comes from psychology. Most experiments that psychology professors did during the last few decades were done on undergraduate students who tended to be white middle class.
So, all the psychology papers would sort of say, results on white middle class only.
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> "I think my world looks dystopian if you're a middle class white guy doing reasonably well in 1993..." > How about if you are a middle class "black" guy doing reasonably well in 1993?
I think the white middle class joke comes from psychology. Most experiments that psychology professors did during the last few decades were done on undergraduate students who tended to be white middle class.
So, all the psychology papers would sort of say, results on white middle class only.
Well, even more specific -- "white middle class college students." Hardly a random sample in the least.
Well, I'll hold off on my spiel about what it is supposed to mean to be "white" or "black" -- to me, it all rather a bit silly, anyway!
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"I think my world looks dystopian if you're a middle class white guy doing reasonably well in 1993..."
How about if you are a middle class "black" guy doing reasonably well in 1993?
Realistically, how many middle class black guys were wasting their time reading that crap?
That's not the point. And besides, I tried to read it, but the story didn't grab me, so I never finished the book.
I just get annoyed when some mention race when there is no need. I recall once when some commentator on NPR was doing a story about the beginning of the micro-computer revolution, and said, off-handedly, "white guys", when race had nothing to do with the early hackers -- of which I was one, and I am hardly a "white guy", so to speak. So I felt excluded by this commentator about being a part of
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I thought the point was that Gibson *is* a middle-class white guy... he can't really speak about his experience as a black man, can he?
Why not? I can speak about my experience as a "white guy", even though I'm not!
staging events.. (Score:2)
I could stage a few events with Sasha Grey.. they would not be considered sci-fi (unless the props I were to use would be considered sci-fi... plasma powered "toys" anyone?)
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I'll bite, who's a top tier porn star?
Re:Queen of 'Loser Porn' - Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
What's "Loser Porn"?
It's "I can't even dream of having sex with a girl as pretty and intelligent as Sasha Grey, so I'll just call her a skank and call her work 'loser porn'".
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This thread is useless without pictures!
Or at least links to these better looking girls.
Re:LOL! One of Sash's Loser Jerkoff Boys Speaks (Score:5, Funny)
translation: I think I am Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Translation: "I am Napoleon Bonaparte, and you aren't!"
Trolls trolling trolls.... (Score:4, Insightful)
trolling trolls trolling trolls.
gb2/b/ (Score:2)
gb2/b/
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You have been have been on Slashdot bragging about banging pornstars since 8:30 am (Chicago time). The above post was at 10:59am. That means you've been on Slashdot bragging about banging pornstars for 2 1/2 hours.
I would think that if you really had such a happening life, you wouldn't spend your morning trolling a web site.
Nice try, Emperor Bonaparte.
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I think you replied to the wrong post...I was merely noting that this particular thread had long ago lost any signal in the noise.
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How is this offtopic? TFA is about a Porn "Star" in a play.
LK
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It's a redundancy, like "sweet sugar".
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Every "second tier porn skank" was "at one point pegged to be the next Jenna Jameson."
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Re:Why.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first time I had ever seen Sasha Grey was in The Girlfriend Experience. She was awful, probably ruined the film (if it wasn't the writers who ruined it first). Anyway, it was a complete snooze fest. Also who hires a pron star to play a prostitute and has her keep her clothes on for 99% of the film?
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Yeah - I can't imagine the roles offered are all that great to begin with. Not always the writer's fault, either, though they're often to blame. Sometimes the blame for a bad film can even go to a producer - either cutting funding, limiting funding (restricting retakes), or demanding script changes during filming.
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The same people who hire porn stars to dub Hentai movies. Seriously, why do I care how hot the voice actresses are?
I think they do it partly so people will get that same bad acting experience they get from live-action porn.
Re:Why.. (Score:4, Funny)
Why is this on slashdot?/quote
Sasha Grey
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It isn't a "duck sound", she's got the guy's cock so far down her throat that she triggers her gag reflex.
As far as the annoying dirty talk, Sasha Grey videos are best enjoyed with the sound off. (Or so I've heard.)
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"Whenever someone (or some group) thinks they know what Utopia is, they try to force everybody down the same path."
Welcome to America! (i.e. The United States of). A bunch of bureaucrats and politicians develop the plans for their utopian society and then send out armed minions to impose that vision onto society. Doesn't matter whether it's rural Montana or downtown Los Angeles. The Federal solution MUST be implemented.
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"Will you call me goddess? Will you pray to me? Will you worship me with your body?" [harpercollins.com]