Saturday, May 22, 2010

The myth of celebrity sex tapes

The story has been repeated time and again: A female celebrity claims a home video showing her having sex has been stolen and is being shopped to adult movie distributors. She says the tape is personal and should not be made public. Then word leaks out that she’s been behind the sale of the tape all along.
Such is the case with reality TV personality Kendra Wilkinson, best known as one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends on the E! television series “The Girls Next Door.”
Wilkinson feigned shock and outrage when news reports came out that the sex tape was going to be commercially distributed. But it turns out Wilkinson had been shopping the video around for some time until Vivid Entertainment bought it, according to RadarOnline.com.
The problem with celebrity sex tapes is that they’re mostly of D-list celebrities. They’re barely famous. They often feature women who want to be famous and are leaking the tapes to get some press and notoriety.
And why not? It’s worked before. Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian were just rich socialites when they put out sex tapes to raise their profiles.
What’s so shocking about borderline celebrities with sex tapes? They’re basically porn stars who entered the business through the side door.
The Wikipedia entry on “Celebrity sex tapes” lists about 35 such tapes.
Vivid even has a special division to sell such tapes called Vivid-Celeb. It’s already sold sex tapes featuring Kim Kardashian, actress Pamela Anderson, and country singer Mindy McCready. It plans to released the Wilkinson tape on June 2 as "Kendra Exposed."

Photo: Cover of "Kendra Exposed" DVD from Vivid.

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