This is not China; There’s no money in virginity.

Or India , for that matter. All the Eastern cultures that prize virginity. Why? Is it an issue of being trapped in time or being trapped in material poverty?

I thought about this while observing the behavior of a community during a walkabout two years ago. This community was undergoing through rapid social, material and political change, and for the first time in its ‘modern’ history, a stratified society was emerging.

The connected, resourceful and shrewd had traded in their old values of familial honor and respectability – especially the kind dependent on the idea of virginity – for those of bourgeois civility, like aptitude, financial independence, competition, ambition etc.

Money had replaced other valuables. The children of money were free to behave in a permissive way and were not chastised for they had plenty to offer: They were the owners of the new society, controlling resources and information.  The poor class had nothing but heart, sort of speak. Their only claim to respectability was a clean record of behavior. Their only contribution to society was moral rectitute. They could not afford (in the most literal capitalist sense) to lose or loosen their moral code. Should they deviate from the code, there was nothing else to redeem them. The wealthy could always make up for their moral frailty, and easily regain their respectability.

And of virgins. Virginity was highly prized in the lower-class, still largely tribal-minded folk. They traded it for other goods: An alliance with a good family. And respectability.

It is evident that in modern, post-industrial societies, virginity has no meaning.

Lipstick Jungle too good-looking and perfect to survive

I can’t seem to let go of Lipstick Jungle. I’ve even started a petition to bring back the show, but for reasons that I will mention, I don’t think there’s a chance it will be back, at least not now. The reason Sex and the City (The 1st NYC-centric lady fest) was so successful was because it premiered during the dot.com boom and women across America loved the idea that four plain-looking, lovelorn women could be living it up in New York. In other words, SATC pandered to our need to feel better about ourselves: Our age, our looks, our love lives. It appeased our insecurities. And the healthy economy only eased our plunge into oblivious self-indulgence.

Lipstick Jungle, a story about three good-looking, stable, successful, and lucky-in-love NYC gals, however, was unrelatable to most women. The glamour, the style, sophistication, maturity, and class of the three protagonists was perfection and no one wants to see perfection, especially in a time of economic recession.

So there you have it: We need shows that don’t aspire to a higher ideal; that do not project a better version of ourselves. But shows that make us feel good about where we are; shows that feed our complacency. We love to watch neurotic women who can’t form solid relationships. Women who are not that good-looking. Women who are devoid of principles and class. We especially love this during hard times.

Perhaps if we weren’t in an economic crisis, LP might have had a chance. Still, we don’t like to see good looking people be good at life. One would think that the election of a president who swept us off with rhetoric of hope and change would have made network execs rethink pulling the plug, but they saw the numbers and they were tragically low. We don’t want Gods! We want to worship common banality. And this is a recipe for devolution and regression: Personal and collective betterment can’t happen if there is nothing better to aspire to.

This is my eulogy for Brooke Shields, Kim Raver and Lindsay Price.

Bite me!

Twilight star Robert Pattinson was asked by a 7-year-old fan of his–and his Vampire drama –if he would bite her:

“she went really quiet and she was like, ‘Can you bite me?’ “

Obscure Object of Desire

Visual journey through female objectification and exploitation from antiquity to modernity.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

In a time of diminishing masculinity, our only solace comes from watching retro shows, retro movies and shows about male glory pre-1960s. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m talking about Mad Men, and in particular about Jon Hamm, aka Don Drapper, the show’s dashing testosterone emitting leading man. Hamm is what Hollywood needs right now: A well-groomed, clean-cut, crisply-dressed, squared-jawed, tall & handsome man of sophistication. Clooney tries to fit this mold, but he fails every time his teenage urges to frolic with nubile girls surface. A man’s man is not afraid of comittment, nor of a little head-butting with an equal of the opposite sex. Could Jon Hamm restore the Hollywood male of Gable, Redford, Newman and Cooper?

Comparing Knowles to Bardot: Cardinal Sin

In a feature about Beyonce that reads like a mini-biography and timeline, Gotham writer Dimitri Ehrlich makes the mistake of comparing the rags-to-riches Knowles to 60s sex-kitten ballerina Brigitte Bardot. I say if you can’t tell the difference between a southern hick and a timeless Parisian beauty, writing should not be your profession.

During a photo shoot, he notices Knowle’s flawless skin and big brown eyes and quips “she’s smokinghot. Radiating fire. Blazingly gorgeous, like Brigitte Bardot in a steam bath.

First of all Dimitri, structuring a feature piece as a timeline with little descriptive imagery and few direct quotes will do nothing for your career; Secondly, comparing the painfully vapid and unaware Knowles to the sexual revolution’s IT girl and the most photographed woman of her time will do you no good with the womenfolk…or it may in a bizarre twist to undermine the execptionally sultry, delicate, sensual and well-mannered Bardot.

NY we are but Paris we wish to be

Gotham Magazine’s latest fashion spread suggests that there’s no fashion, no romance and no enchantment in America. Not even in New York! Moreover, life here is anything but beautiful. The 5 photos of models in haute couture feature different parts of Paris and the title of the spread makes it clear that fashion , beauty, enjoyment and elegance exist on the other side of the Atlantic.

A Foreign Affair
Slip off to a place where la vie est belle and the fashion is enchanting.

Lipstick gets smudged

How is it that Lipstick Jungle got canceled and the drag parade otherwise known as Sex and the City lasted for over 5 years and is getting a sequel to the movie? American’s can’t handle anything that’s not trite and flighty. Arrested Development got canceled after only 3 seasons for lack of an audience and was it not for Tina Fey’s spot-on impression of Sarah Palin, 30 Rock–the only good show left– would have gotten the ax mid-season as well.

Pitting leading ladies against each other means big $

While President-elect Obama works on the completion of his cabinet, America is focused on the revived battle between Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. This latest spat resulted from some innocuous comments by Jolie and by Aniston’s reaction to said comments. To paraphrase, Jen said that Angie’s comments– about her having fallen in love with Pitt during the shooting of Mr. & Mrs. Smith–were “uncool”.

So, gossip rags have taken this bit and run with it for about a week, with US magazine pitting them against each other visually in split screen shots. It’s the familiar story again: good girl/bad girl; good girl and her men; bad girl and her men; good girl with Brad Pitt; bad girl and Brad Pitt. Yawn!

Stay classy US Mag!

A woman for a woman

For every venomous hateful woman taking a jab at Sarah Palin, there’s a Rosie O’Donnell to restore balance. The long openly-gay talk show host seems to not have experienced the extreme polarity that divided American women the minute Palin stepped onstage. Could being a woman among women, that is a woman not in the habit of chasing men, have rewarded O’donnell with a sense of balance and fairness? Just asking.

“I’d like to have a beer with her. I’d like to meet her kids. She seems like a pretty nice woman,” O’ Donnell told Extra. “Although I have to say, I am thrilled her party did not win. [But] you got to give it to her for spunk.”

The ultra-liberal O’ Donnell admitted, “I think I probably would like her if I met her….She had an amazing life for herself and her family in Alaska. Very successful. Before you knew it, she was the most famous person in the country.”

What do men have to do with this, you ask? I don’t know. But I do know that she’s the only gay liberal celebrity to say something positive about the Alaskan governor. Perhaps the lack of competition brings out the kindness in the weaker sex? Or she could just have the hots for Sarah.