Gail Collins: Rick Perry’s Strange Sex Story – The New York Times
I’m sure you’ve heard about Rick Perry’s sales pitch for fossil fuels in Africa.
No? OK, here is the key paragraph from Gail Collins’s bitterly funny op today:
“But also from the standpoint of sexual assault,” Perry continued. “When the lights are on, where you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. So from the standpoint of how you really affect people’s lives, fossil fuel is going to play a role in that.”
So…I started to type “for the record” but now must deviate slightly from my chosen path to say, what record? Is someone keeping a record on me, on my sexual assault life?
Well, yes. I’m keeping that record. And let me tell Rick Perry that the three times I was actively, physically sexually assaulted and/or harassed occurred in the offices of Paramount Pictures. Brightly lit via electricity with windows from which natural daylight poured in.
I’m sure of the number of sexual assaults because I’ve been accumulating my memories for an article variously entitled, “Harvey Weinstein and the Schlub Factor,” or maybe “Sex in the Cinema”–which, you’ll be surprised, does not have anything to do with the time I spent writing, co-producing, being the sound person, costume designer, projectionist, prop person and assistant editor of two skin flicks. And maybe a few more roles I’m neglecting to mention. Oh, yeah–sex sound effects which were very, very funny and–since this was long before Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal at Katz’s–very very avant garde. Although not at Katz’s.
Because nothing sexually untoward happened to me making skin flicks. It couldn’t be less sexually inspiring. Shameful, yeah, but not arousing.
At this time I’m leaning in to the Schlub Factor title.
Later.