Scandals

From Bill Clinton to Tiger Woods, we've spent too much time shocked — shocked! — that famous people stray.

By Gene Lyons

Now that the annual holiday drinking…um, party season is almost over and many are vowing never to do anything like that again—certainly not in a supply closet, anyway—here’s my idea for a national New Year’s resolution: How about we declare a moratorium on celebrity sex scandals?

No, I’m not a Tiger Woods fan. Golf? I’d rather watch “Strongman” contests featuring mesomorphs named “Lars” hoisting Volvos, or full-contact gardening. Please spare me those e-mails about how difficult golf is. So’s pushing a peanut across Nebraska with your nose. To me, golf’s a waste of good pasture. The end.

But think about it: 2010, the year without sanctimony. No preposterous alibis, stammering confessions, humiliated spouses, no heartbroken mistresses vamping on “Entertainment Tonight,” no think pieces entitled “Why Do Politicians Cheat?” or “Can Rehab Save Tiger?” Make Larry King and Oprah talk about something else for a change.

via Sex – Salon.com.

It’s somehow fitting that in the waning days of this decade, we find ourselves glued — yet again — to the spectacle of a tarnished public figure embroiled in a sex scandal. Congratulations, 2000s — has there been a sleazier era since Caligula’s?

The Tiger Woods debacle, which started with a fender bender and possible domestic dispute and grows more absurdly, endorsement-losingly epic by the hour, serves not just as a reminder that even seemingly unimpeachable heroes get their freak on but also as a flamboyantly cringe-worthy metaphor for our quick and dirty culture itself.

What’s fascinating about Tiger’s undoing isn’t his wandering eye or his apparently bottomless sexual appetite (although there’s rich cocktail patter in both) but the stark contrast between his demure Scandinavian wife and the parade of Hooters girls, porn stars and possible professional escorts who’ve come out of the woodwork. In this corner, there’s Elin Nordegren, the press-shy model and mother of Woods’ two young children. And in this rather crowded other corner, there’s Holly Sampson, star of “OMG, Stop Tickling Me” and “Flying Solo 2.” There’s cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs, who is currently “shopping around” her torrid story to networks. There’s lingerie model Jamie Jungers, who claims to have been romping with Woods in his marital bed the night his father died. There’s Mindy Lawton, who eagerly told the News of the World about the “rough” sex she had with the “well-endowed” athlete. And, at last count, 12 other women who may have been on the receiving end of the golf pro’s legendary stroke.

via Tiger Woods – Salon.com.

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WASHINGTON – Think your kid is not “sexting“? Think again.

Sexting — sharing sexually explicit photos, videos and chat by cell phone or online — is fairly commonplace among young people, despite sometimes grim consequences for those who do it. More than a quarter of young people have been involved in sexting in some form, an Associated Press-MTV poll found.

That includes Sammy, a 16-year-old from the Bay Area who asked that his last name not be used.

via Poll finds sexting common among young people – Yahoo! News.

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