PORN VALLEY, USA – Like so many years before it, 2014 was a year in which a lot of stuff happened. A lot of it was stupid and inconsequential stuff, like Congressional elections, but some was important and legitimately newsworthy, like the release of new pleasure product lines endorsed by reality television stars.
At year’s end, it’s traditional to look back and take stock of stuff that happened, but more importantly, it’s a great way to come up with filler for a slow news day during the holiday season, when nobody is really paying attention anyway.
With such a lofty goal in mind, here is some of the stuff that happened in 2014, as I recall it.
As you read my humble retrospective, it’s crucial to keep the above italicized caveat in mind, because a) I’m still feeling the lingering effects of New Year’s Eve, and b) I took a lot of acid as a teenager.
January 2014: At the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, a gaggle of thorough, inquisitive professional journalists packed together to witness “sex toys of the future,” which included an ultrarealistic sex doll so absolutely and fabulously new it had only been available on the market for about 18 years.
February: The primary annual importance of this emasculated, laughably short month is its possession of holiday mission-critical to the adult pleasure products sector: Groundhog Day. As you know, on that day if the famed groundhog (“Ron Jeremy”) emerges and sees his shadow, there will be six months of back orders. In February 2014, however, there was a glitch: Ron did see his shadow, but then the fucking dock workers went on strike and the whole thing went straight to hell.
March: You’re going to think this is one of my acid flashbacks, but I swear it’s true: Last march, Isabella Rossellini toured Australia doing a one-woman show called Green Porno. According to Rossellini, the “three elements” which form the “core concept” of the show are “short stories, animals and sex.” Oh sure, I see how it is: When you’re Isabella Rossellini, it’s considered “legitimate theater,” but just try doing a show with those three “elements” if your name is Ira Isaacs.
April: At the Phoenix Forum in Tempe, Ariz., attorney Marc Randazza got a few drinks in him and said something mean as shit and positively fucking hilarious about another adult industry attorney, which really shouldn’t be repeated publicly. (Note: I did not attend the show, absolutely nobody has told me anything like this incident actually took place, or anything else about last year’s forum, for that matter. I’m simply playing the odds here….)
May: A survey revealed one in five Britons would have sex with a robot, given the opportunity. This immediately raised serious concerns about future sexual assaults among the European robot community, because nowhere near one in five robots would ever willingly have sex with an Englishman.
June: Two words: “Summer slowdown.”
July: Even though I have links to articles that appear to confirm what I’m about to write, I’m pretty sure I must be imaging this one: In July, a guy named “Christ Bearer,” who once cut off his own dick and then jumped off a balcony, offered to prove his often-dissed member still works by appearing in a porn video. This brings us to the part of the story that makes me think it might actually be true: Steve Hirsch reportedly was “interested.”
August: A survey reported 64 percent of men who self-identify as Christian also admit to having watched pornography. The other 36 percent responded, very quietly: “Dude, my wife is right over there. Ixnay on the ornpay uestionsqay, for Christ’s sake!”
September: Some fucking douche calling himself “OriginalGuy” posted a bunch of nude celebrity pics he’d “hacked” from said celebrities’ “clouds,” or something. The whole world went apeshit for about a week before we apparently collectively realized we’d already seen most of these same people almost naked in major Hollywood movies, anyway.
October: In October, the race for Pennsylvania Governor was “rocked” by pornography. Unfortunately for the candidates involved, being “rocked” did not mean the same thing in this context as it does in the lyrics of old blues songs like “Rock Me Baby.” Instead, the gubernatorial contest was “rocked” when it was revealed several guys who work for the state attorney general’s office under the current governor, Tom Whogivesashit, sent each other sexually explicit emails. The episode created a “porn culture,” according to Gov. Whogivesashit’s opponent, whose name, confusingly, is also Tom Whogivesashit.
November: Two inextricably related and highly entertaining porn-things happened: 1) the radical Islamic militants known as ISIS used a single frame of Hungarian pornography in a propaganda tweet, and 2) somehow, the U.S. State Department was able to almost immediately recognize it as a single frame of Hungarian pornography.
December: Just because you can’t go an entire year without some politician’s lack of web savvy leading to some measure of porn-related public humiliation, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone followed Belle Knox (AKA “the Duke porn star”) on Twitter. He subsequently blamed the incident on “hackers,” thereby garnering the coveted 2014 Anthony Weiner Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Slinging Obvious Bullshit in the Face of Media-Driven Adversity.
Whether you look back on 2014 and say “good times!” or “good riddance!” you must admit it was a year that happened and which is now over.
In my book, that’s reason enough to celebrate – but maybe to celebrate tomorrow, assuming this fucking hangover has finally worn off by then.
