I think Salon must be in trouble. Its page has become more and more embarrassing. The descriptions of the articles have become more lurid than the tabloids. The articles, like tabloid articles, are much less lurid than the teasers. The articles in tabloids, however, are at least about what the teaser says they are about even if the truth is disappointing. Salon articles almost inevitably turn out to be about the pathetic inadequacies of the people who wrote them.
The quote in the header above is from a piece in which a woman describes her experiences with a male sex surrogate. Good, trashy stuff. Any tabloid writer in the world could do something with it. Salon's writer cannot.
But indulge yourself. Don't read the original piece. Just read the bit I've quoted in the header. Where do you think that would fit into an article about a sexually inexperienced woman in her 40s visiting a sex surrogate and finding the experience physically thrilling and emotionally threatening?
Now read the actual context:
The quote in the header above is from a piece in which a woman describes her experiences with a male sex surrogate. Good, trashy stuff. Any tabloid writer in the world could do something with it. Salon's writer cannot.
But indulge yourself. Don't read the original piece. Just read the bit I've quoted in the header. Where do you think that would fit into an article about a sexually inexperienced woman in her 40s visiting a sex surrogate and finding the experience physically thrilling and emotionally threatening?
Now read the actual context:
A. met me at the clinic, which is located on a quiet city side street. Most people walking past the clinic have no idea it is an oasis for the likes of me, because from the outside it looks like a law firm, or a dentist’s office. There is a huge, old ficus tree right in front of the entrance. It has an uneven, thick trunk with roots bulging out of it like strained veins.
From there, she talks about the woman who runs the clinic. She just drops this obviously sexual image into the text the way Homer Simpson drops radioactive material, utterly unaware of the power and potential in her own words. Did she not realize what she was doing when she wrote that description? It's possible. She wrote it after the sex, and she says she has had very little sex. She gets closer to describing what sex is actually about in that one sentence than anything else she writes. I'd judge her sex therapy a waste of time and money because all she seems to have learned is how to be evasive about her own experiences.
If you want to make your own judgment, the piece is here.
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