Normal Gets You Nowhere (2 page)

One day, my business partner asked me to cover a news interview for her. It was a media announcement being made by the head of the Adult Entertainment Network, an earnings report or an announcement on its growth. The interview was to take place in Times Square. So there I was, a few blocks from my house, with a very successful pornographer, facilitating his interview with a TV camera crew. Out of the corner of my eye I saw four police officers milling about the island in the middle of Times Square. I decided on the spot to reach out to them about the nagging prostitution problem on my block.

“Ma’am, are you some kind of wacko?” the officer asked, when I explained the problem. “You’re standing in Times Square promoting pornography, and you’re going to complain to me about the hookers on your block?”

He had a point. It was totally insane that I would simultaneously promote a porn network and complain about prostitution. Ultimately, I told my partner that it was the most humiliating professional experience I’d ever had and that I not only wanted nothing to do with the Adult Entertainment Network; I wanted it banished from our agency. (Of course, she told me to go fuck myself, and our partnership didn’t last.)

Ever since then, I’ve taken on clients whose work I genuinely believe in, even if I wouldn’t necessarily wear it myself. But unfortunately there are still plenty of very smart publicists and lobbyists out there whose entire job is to make you want shit that sucks or that’s going to end up hurting or bankrupting you. Take candles (yes, even candles!). Most candles are made of paraffin, which releases carcinogens when it burns, meaning it has been linked to cancer by certain studies. Most candles also release more lead into the air than is safe, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It’s hard to believe, but it turns out that if you really want to kill your boyfriend, you should just cook him a really nice romantic dinner and light a bunch of candles! The most amazing part is that scientists have known about this since the 1970s. It’s now forty years later! But candle companies don’t want you to know about the research that exists out there on their products; nor do they want reporters to write about it, despite the fact that safer beeswax alternatives now exist. Instead, they want to seduce you with candlelight and beautiful smells. That’s why they employ armies of publicists—to help spin the information you’re getting.

Despite the fact that real information is more readily available than ever, we’re receiving less and less of it, and we’re able to actually understand even less than that.

I’m Fur-ious, and I’m Not Fucking Around

Several years ago, I would’ve told you that you were out of your mind if you’d said I’d soon be working through the most significant recession my industry had ever seen, second only to the Great Depression. Left and right, magazines went out of business, boutique PR firms closed shop, and people went freelance or changed careers. But as the old media washed away, new ones rose in their stead. Hello, Facebook. Hello, Twitter. Both of these brands have become great assets for the public relations industry and for many people who want to find out what’s really going on in the world. Prior to Facebook and Twitter, we had to pay $1000 to a service called PR Newswire to disseminate messages we wanted to send to multiple media outlets at once. Now, thanks to my multitiered platform—television and books—my company has the ability to reach over a hundred thousand people on Twitter, for free. I don’t know about you, but I
love
having the ability to disseminate news straight to the people from my BlackBerry.

For example: I happen to think that, despite what industry insiders might tell you, it’s absolutely gross that fashion people are still celebrating fur. What is so sexy about the annihilation of animals for clothing? I don’t know what time period these people think we’re living in. I feel the media have mistakenly portrayed fur as glamorous, when it is actually disgusting with a capital
D.
In fact, I was appalled when several prominent news organizations recently touted Naomi Campbell’s hot sexy new fur campaign. Thanks to Twitter, I was able to instantly rebuff them by Tweeting that, if they think fur’s sexy, they should show pictures of the animals being clubbed to death or perhaps with electrodes in their mouths or stuck up their anuses. (These are common practices to ensure the fur will lie perfectly on a coat.)
Then
we’ll see how sexy it is. I was happy to know that a hundred thousand plus people read my message within minutes. And soon, hundreds of young people were even agreeing with me and
re
-Tweeting it.

I actually think that fur is a great lens through which to talk about commerce, publicity, fame, and the media—and how they all reinforce and rely on each other. Just like with political bills and Happy Meals (trust me, there is
nothing
happy about how that meal was made), the information about fur is already out there; everything relevant has been said. Take a minute out of your day to visit the website of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA.org—I mean, just
one
minute, I beg you! View some videos of minks in their cages, suffering with open wounds and engaging in stress-induced cannibalism, or foxes with their legs stuck in traps, literally gnawing them off in terror. If you
still
think fur is sexy, then you should fucking take a ticket straight to hell and meet your other friends.

But denial is a dangerous drug. People have been programmed
not
to dig a little deeper to find out why they think something’s sexy. In the comfortably numb generation, we think that seeing something on the news makes it true and that seeing something in the pages of our favorite fashion magazine makes it glamorous. And let’s face it, fur’s publicists have been doing a brilliant job for decades, selling fur to us via Davy Crockett, Dr. Zhivago, J. Lo, and other fur-wearing celebrities. (I’m literally on the Internet as I write this, trying to find a picture of someone who actually looks sexy in fur, but to me they all look like they’re going to a screening of
The Flintstones.
If you want to look prehistorically ignorant, I recommend you run out and buy yourself a rabbit vest immediately.)

Often, fur trade associations befriend fashion designers when they’re still in design school. They start by providing free fur, and later they pay them to use fur. Do you think I’m joking? I’ve literally had clients show pink mink gouchos in their summer collections. I’ll ask them why they’re doing this, only to find out they’re being paid $10,000 by a fur company to use fur! (That’s right, this shit is so ugly that its manufacturers have to
pay
to get it on the runway!) I hate to break it to you, but if you think fur’s glamorous, it doesn’t mean you have fabulous taste; it means you’ve been programmed to be totally numb to suffering.

Not that I blame you. I remember wanting a fur coat when I was growing up in Syracuse, in the Eskimo tundra of upstate New York. It always seemed like that’s just what you wore to keep warm if you were rich and glamorous and that any good husband would eventually buy you one (of course, where I was from, even a rabbit stole was considered fancy). When I started representing fashion designers, I was given what I thought was a fabulous reversible flying fox coat by one of my clients. At the time, it was considered chic to bleach the fur and then dye the tips, so my coat was white with ombré hunter green accents. I wore it on a business trip to Sweden to visit a client; wrapped in it as I deplaned, I remember thinking how
in the game
I was. Never mind that Sweden is one of the most understated places on earth, and wearing a massive fur coat with ombré hunter green accents to Stockholm is like showing up in a Dior ball gown to a picnic. Despite wearing the only fur coat in the entire city, I still felt hot, not ridiculous.

I found out what’s really going on in the fur industry from Dan Mathews, now vice president of PETA, whom I met early on in my time in New York. He visited me at Cutrone & Weinberg, my first PR firm, because he wanted me to know how fur was made. I thought he was a bit outlandish. After all, my impression of charities at the time was that they were supposed to be
nice
. PETA was attention-seeking and aggressive; at one point the organization even occupied the corporate headquarters of Calvin Klein until Calvin himself agreed to stop making furs.

But I didn’t become antifur immediately. It took a few years for me to actually take ten minutes out of my busy day and spend some time looking into the industry. When I did, and when I saw some videos of what actually happens to these animals, I realized I could no longer get behind it. At first it was very personal; I just wouldn’t wear fur myself. But as I later took my daughter shopping in stores that were selling turquoise fur vests to tweens, I realized I had a responsibility to use my platform to speak out against it. People in fashion, even if they disagree with the use of fur, do not speak out against it as a rule. They do not reveal their true opinions. To them I say, “Let’s move on and be progressive. We don’t need fur; it’s outdated. What’s more important, your outerwear or leaving your grandchildren a planet that’s not violent and sadistic and out of harmony?”

I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer here. There is nothing wrong with owning nice things; everyone is entitled to bask in his or her good fortune, whether you’re a publicist in SoHo or a middle-class kid in Syracuse shopping at the mall. But at the same time, we can’t be drunk on faux glamour and frivolity. I am urging you to do your homework on
anything
you have been sold, whether a news story or a vest. We need to be able to see through the millions of brands vying for our attention in order to find out what we really need to know. I’m asking you, when you see something in the news or the media that you love or sparks your interest, to follow the story further. Think of it as a diving board into a beautiful lake: you need to jump off and swim across to get to the place you truly deserve to be. Ask questions, do some research, and develop your own point of view. Determine if both the end result
and
the origin are in line with what you believe in, instead of just blindly trusting and following everything you read or hear or see in the pages of your favorite magazine or newspaper. And don’t be afraid if your opinion isn’t the
normal
one—in fact, that probably just means you’re on the right track.

I know it’s sometimes easier to kick back than to think honestly about these things. I mean, sometimes
I
choose unconsciousness too. When I’m really in the mood for something, I can make myself forget about what’s really happening, just like everyone else. Sometimes the want is just greater than the wince. But only when we start to dig deeper and understand the ways brands manipulate us can we make it stop. I’m not saying we’re ever going to be doing our best in all areas, but we need to try to make our actions line up with our beliefs as much as we can. In doing so, we’ll be shining a light down a long, dark hallway. Initially, these brands will try to ignore us. But if they want to stay in business, they’re going to have to buckle and change. Look at
Super Size Me,
a documentary film about the health implications of eating Big Macs every day. Not only was it a huge embarrassment for McDonald’s; it forced the company to start looking at changing its product offerings.

You,
the almighty consumer, are the one that all these brands and their marketers, publicists, and reporters exist to sway. Everyone is trying to get your attention. They want your money and your devotion at any cost. And only you can put them out of business. Take a minute to figure out who you are in this equation and what you stand for. Then act accordingly.

And please, don’t
ever
show up in fur to an interview at People’s Revolution, because I will hang you upside down by Gravity Boots.

Chapter Two
The Kella-Sutra:
If You’re Not Getting Fucked by Midnight, Go Home

One must shock the bourgeois.

—Baudelaire

O
ver the July 4th weekend last year, I stayed in New York to work. All my friends and frankly the whole city had skipped town, so on Saturday night I said to my daughter, Ava, “Grab your sweater and let’s go out to dinner!”

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” she replied. “I have other plans.”

“You’re eight! What plans could you possibly have?”

“I have to watch the new episode of
Hannah Montana,
followed by
The Suite Life
.”

Bam
—here it was, the downside to raising an independent child. Ava was literally the only person I knew in New York who was potentially available to grab a bite to eat that night, so once
she
blew me off, I was left to spend the evening by myself. Can you say “pathetic”?

I grabbed a few spiritual pamphlets, one called “Surrender” and one called “Grace,” by my guru, The Mother, and walked to one of my favorite restaurants, on Mulberry Street. Unfortunately, while New Yorkers skip town on holiday weekends, the rest of the country—actually, many countries, including England, Italy, and France, the Navy, and the suburbs—descend. Little Italy was jam-packed. I settled into a corner table, the only New Yorker in the restaurant. I thought back to the first time I went to the movies alone, in the late 1980s. For about ten minutes I felt slightly odd and isolated, but then I realized I’m my own best company.

On this night, though, I was not allowed to enjoy my own company for long. Before even taking my drink order, my usual waiter approached to tell me that his teenage daughter had just gotten off work nearby and would love to meet me. Since I was alone, he wondered, could she sit at my table? “No” is actually one of my favorite words in the English language, but I couldn’t manage to spit it out, since her father had always treated me well. With a sigh, I put down “Surrender.”

She sat. She was a superfun, bubbly Italian American high-school girl, and she was on a mission. Her father was barely out of earshot when she launched an arsenal of questions.

“Can I ask you a few things?” she began.

“Sure,” I replied, preparing to be grilled on whether she should wear an asymmetrical shoulder dress to prom or when she’d be too old to wear silly bands. Unfortunately, this wasn’t what was on her mind.

“How do you give the perfect hand job?” she inquired.

Oh, Jesus.

OMFL.

I have to admit, my first instinct was to be flattered. Here I was, thirty years older than this girl and dining alone on a national holiday, yet she thought that I was still in the game—that I had frontline information for her! Surely she wouldn’t ask a seventy-five-year-old woman how to give a hand job. But I also knew I had to handle this carefully. I was in Little Italy, after all, and I didn’t want to upset the girl’s father, my waiter, since I’m sure he was “connected” (if you know what I mean). I’d come for pasta, and now I was just hoping to live through the night.

Still, I was intrigued. I started by asking the girl where she and her friends got their information about sex.

“We watch porn on the Internet,” she replied.

“The Internet—
puh-leeeze
!” I gasped.

There
MUST
be something better!

I started to think about this. How tragic that we lavish money on our daughters’ educations and on after-school activities from cheerleading and Chinese brush painting to field hockey and dance; we encourage them to excel academically and to find fulfilling careers; we send them to Paris and Israel to study culture; yet we spend
no
time or money teaching them how to have great, healthy adult sex lives. Instead, we merely mention menstruation and throw bras on them when they’re thirteen. Or maybe we talk about the importance of birth control and tell them not to have sex. And then we never talk to them about it again.

There’s just one problem: no one else is talking to them, either. Some girls will get lucky and have a sexually advanced classmate who can give them the information they’re craving. But most others, like my new friend, are left foraging around in the dark.

Porn was the best we could do? I mean, don’t get me wrong; is there anyone on the planet who hasn’t watched it? I understand the curiosity, but I also believe there must be a higher way for young people to learn about sex. To be honest, porn can be more brutal than beatific. I’m not saying I think Ava is going to want to come to
me
for information on sex, even though I’d welcome any conversation with her. But I also don’t want her to have to resort to watching a meth-addicted chick getting banged by some grandpa online. Where is the Vuitton bag of sexual teaching? Where is the elegance? Our sexuality is one of the most intimate and expressive aspects of ourselves; I’d never want my daughter to learn about it from someone I don’t know and trust. What I want for my daughter is what I want for you: to have a safe, progressive, and expansive sexual life.

But before I gave this young woman in Little Italy any advice, I had to stop for a minute.

“Are you asking me this question because you want to extend your own sexual pleasure, or do you want to give your boyfriend a hand job to avoid having sex?” I asked.

She admitted it was “the last one.” She didn’t actually want to have sex until she was married—she just wanted to keep her boyfriend happy.

It saddened me that even at her age, trickery was taking precedence over technique. Although we hadn’t taught this girl anything about sex, we
had
taught her how to be demure, coy, and shy—instead of just being honest. Maybe she did need to learn how to give the perfect hand job, but that was not what she was asking me. Lucky for her, I’m a good listener.

“I think you should put your own happiness first,” I told her. “You should tell him you’re not ready for this, and if he can’t hang out with you through that, then you shouldn’t be with him.

“The task at hand,” I said, “is not learning how to give the perfect hand job. It’s learning to speak up for yourself.
*

“And as far as this part about saving yourself for marriage,” I continued, “that is preposterous! You’re not a bond or a stock. You
must
have sex before you get married, and lots of it.”

Think about it. Would you ever buy a Bentley before taking it for a drive? Would you ever fly all the way to the Maldives without seeing a picture of your hotel? Then why would you marry a guy without being fucked by him? Sex is a superimportant part of a partnership, especially when the partners insist on monogamy by getting married. In an all or nothing world, you better dig the all, y’all!

Here’s what I wish someone had told me when I was younger. We shouldn’t just try to get by, in life
or
in sex. It’s not enough. There’s nothing worse than stroking a dick you don’t care about. Nor should you ever go down on someone just because it’s expected or to get him off your back. (Here’s a tip: getting
on
your back doesn’t get him off your back!) Sex is about much more than coming, even if most people do just fuck to come. It’s not the end-all, be-all as porn and the movies might make you think. It’s a
beginning
—a gateway to even greater things beyond your wildest dreams. Maybe you’ve already learned how to achieve an orgasm, a ten-second or ten-minute undulation of consciousness during which you’re rippling and vibrating like the waves made by a stone thrown into a pond. But I hope you’ll also learn that you can extend that and make your love life a constant offering to the Divine—a state of ultraconsciousness.

When it comes to sex and making love, many women do not know how to express who they really are, or maybe they’re just too intimidated to. Instead, they worry about whether they’re giving a hand job the right way or having sex the right number of times per week. But the truth is,

Normal gets you nowhere, not even in sex!

The
normal
love life that most people are having in this country barely scratches the surface. We as women are accepting crumbs, when we should be feasting at the buffet.

That night in Little Italy, I had to apologize to my teenage friend, because my generation had failed her. I couldn’t even think of a cool animated website to send her to to find the information she was looking for. In a flash, the marketer in me sprang into action, and I suggested she look into starting a new sex website with her friends. She’d surely make millions of dollars! Unfortunately, she didn’t think that would fly so well with her family.

The Only Missile I Want to See on TV Is Gold and Fits in My Makeup Bag

It’s beyond obvious that we need to start teaching our daughters sexual education and exploration in the same way and with the same tone that we teach them to read books or shop at luxury-brand stores. Unfortunately, we’re still so uptight about sex in this country that when I recently arrived for an appearance on
Chelsea Lately
bearing a vibrator for Chelsea Handler, a totally modern chick, her producers informed me I was not allowed to show a vibrator on television.
Oh, really?
How interesting that we can show our children news footage of thousands of people being blown out of the windows of the World Trade Center in a mass murder over and over and over again or grainy footage from home-invasion videos, but we can’t show them a missile-shaped gold object that exists purely to provide pleasure in the privacy of one’s home (and that comes recommended by a slew of power chicks!). I believe our sexual repression is not just causing us to abandon our youth; it’s helping make America the most dangerous place in the West to be a woman.

After that night in Little Italy, I started thinking about where I got my information about sex when I was growing up. Hmmm. From my dad’s
Playboys
. My friends and I would steal magazines like
Playboy
and
Penthouse
from our parents and take them into our makeshift forts to pore over. We read Xaviera Hollander’s “Call Me Madam” column in
Penthouse,
a soft-core section where “readers” would relay their sex fantasies. The best thing about stealing your parents’ porn was that they couldn’t come out and ask you for it. (I mean, really, “Did you steal our porn?”) My dad probably went upstairs several times over the years to grab his
Playboy
for some private time, only to be foiled by my tribe of middle-schoolers sitting up in a fort in the backyard. One thing I remember about reading those columns was that they made sex seem fun, like this magical thing awaiting me in the future that was going to be really, really great. (I also remember that pearls were the hot accessory back then.)

Other than those
Playboys,
I rarely had the privilege of seeing anything that incited my fantasies when I was growing up. I definitely could have handled it if my mom had pulled out a few nipple clamps, an anal dilator, or even an electric vibrator, saying, “Listen, a lot of people believe that if you use an electric one, you’ll burn out the nerves in your clitoris.” Good to know! But she never did; nor did she advise me to read the great texts on lovemaking. Luckily, I’ve learned through experience. The journey of my life has been a continuous sexual education, from my first husband, a very accomplished lover seventeen years older than me (warning: once you have your first really great lover, it becomes as much a curse as a blessing, since successive lovers may not cut it) to my work with lingerie brands like Agent Provocateur, which, trust me, gave me in eight years an education in itself.

I hope your life will offer these lessons too. But I also encourage you to seek out information on sex, whether that means talking to a tribal council member or reading the
Kama Sutra,
an ancient Hindu text that is possibly the most famous book ever written about lovemaking. (One of the reasons I love India is that its culture makes room for everything in life to be included in the Divine—yes, even sex holds a sacred place! Contrast this to Mother Teresa, who ran around India for years telling people not to use condoms in the name of her religion, so that they could contract and die of AIDS instead.)

Or hey, how about this. Let’s all write out our sexual fantasies. Most guys I’ve dated would have been beyond happy if I’d come up with a list of all the things I wanted to do and try with them. I mean, this is great third-date conversation material! I guarantee it’ll get you a fourth date! Think about it. What guy wouldn’t be happy if you said, “Hey, I really want to be tied up and blindfolded”? Obviously as you begin to explore, there will be certain things your partner wants that you’ll object to, and if it’s not your thing, feel free to speak up and say, “No, I will not pee on you!” But it’s important to be carnivorous, spiritual, honest, and open.

When I was younger and just starting to have sexual experiences, I had thoughts and feelings I wanted to act on, but didn’t. I was a Sicilian and a Scorpio, after all; I didn’t want to scare anyone! It was only when I let go of society’s and religion’s ideas of what is right for me that I started to have better sexual relationships—and a
much
better time. Over the years I’ve had the great advantage of having certain lovers ask me, “What do you want?” And more often than not, they’ve wanted the same things. Guys are stumbling around in the dark too, so why not be each other’s instructors? Everyone has a secret fantasy sex life. You might as well cop to it, find someone to share it with, and get it started.

As long as were on the subject of the
Kama Sutra
, well here’s the
Kella-Sutra: A Guide to Stabbing Sexual Taboos
.

1. If you don’t know yourself and what you want, then you have no business being in bed with someone else.
Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.”
If you aren’t ready for it, don’t do it.
Learn to speak up for yourself no matter who you’re with or how old you are.

2. Do not be in places where you don’t want to be, especially in states of intoxication.

3. The whole wait-two-days-before-you-call thing is a bunch of bullshit.
Waiting in general is stupid; you have to be willing to reveal yourself, be vulnerable, and go for it, especially when the energy is there. They say that love is blind—this is true. Take advantage of that blindness, get on your cosmic rocket and fly into the violet outer space of your love! If there were really something to figure out, someone would have written a book called
The Rules,
and it would have
worked
. Love and relationships are as different as the two people who come together; each forms a combination the universe has never seen before. I’m not down with books like
He’s Just Not That into You,
which teach chicks how to score a guy. Trust me, if a guy wants to put his dick in you, he will. There is nothing to figure out here!