On the Racks

...i>New York Times, to my repeated requests for comment. I could’ve looked up “huge breasts” myself, I suppose, but enormoboobs are so early-to-mid Clinton-era, you know? I like to reserve my time for researching newer, freakier fetishes, thank you very much, so it seemed like the perfect assignment for my assistant. Apparently not. Shortly after tracking down Tiffany Towers, Mahrya informed me that she’s moving on. It seems my assistant found more respectable work at a law firm where she won’t have to Google “huge breasts” ever again. (The partners will have to Google that for themselves.) While I’m sorry to see Mahrya go–thanks for everything, M. –I am looking forward to hiring a new assistant. Does spending the day Googling enormoboobs, tracking down porn stars, and gently reminding me about deadlines I’ve already missed sound appealing? Send me an e-mail. (Male applicants are encouraged to enclose pictures of themselves in Speedos.) On to your issues, BREAST: Since Miss Towers and Miss Whoppers wouldn’t speak to me, I can’t tell you precisely where they’ve gone. (Perhaps they’ve gone to see surgeons about having those basketball-size implants removed?) But I can tell you why the boom in enormoboobs went… wait for it… bust, BREAST. The sudden appearance of women with ridiculously huge boob implants was arousing in part because of its shock value. There was the shock of women with such exaggerated racks, of course, but there was also the more important and, sadly, the infinitely more arousing shock of women finding a novel new way to imperil their health in order to attract the attention of men. Men have always found it arousing when women go to bizarre extremes–self-mutilation (bound feet) and self-torture (high heels)–to make themselves more attractive. That enormoboobs played into the deeply ingrained and thoroughly eroticized misogyny that plagues all human cultures to varying degrees was lost on most men. (Let’s not be too relativist about this: I’m sure most women would prefer to live in a culture that allows women who want to have enormoboobs to go and get them over, say, a culture that compels all women to have their clits cut off.) So why did the enormoboobs thing go bust? Once the shock value wore off, BREAST, what was left? Women with huge racks. But once you’ve seen 20 or 30 women with huge breasts tossing chairs at each other on Jerry Springer, well, the fetish doesn’t seem so fresh anymore. The porn market moved on, Towers and Whoppers found it harder to get work, and new porn stars didn’t line up for enormoboob jobs because there wasn’t any money in it. While the culture has moved on to other, fresher, more interesting fetishes–robo fetish, anyone?–you’ve still got a bone for enormoboobs. That’s a problem, BREAST, because finding a partner who’s willing to torture herself by getting huge implants is going to be tough. Most of the women who got them were looking to cash in on the porn-driven craze for huge breasts. They didn’t do it to please themselves or one guy. Body mods, however, are an emerging fetish, BREAST, and you might find a woman out there who’s into body mods who would be willing to blow her chest up to epic proportions to please you. She may very well insist, however, that you reciprocate by blowing your balls up to please her. She’ll have a hard time standing, BREAST, and you’ll have a hard time sitting, but we all make sacrifices for love. You’ve got to think before you write. The electroshock stuff you talk about can be used on people against their will. Innocent victims are going to suffer because you’ve told everyone where to find these products! I’m not talking about sadists who sexually torture strangers–you can claim that they would have found out about Eros Tek without your help. But government torturers from other countries visit America, or send their kids to expensive colleges here. These people will find out about Eros Tek from your column. When resistance fighters and their families learn to recognize the Eros Tek brand name, you’ll deserve the credit. Randall R. Regimes that torture their political enemies don’t need any tips on technique from me. Frayed electric cords and car batteries are more their style, RR, and they’ve never needed pricey e-stim devices designed for erotic play to get their point across. But just to be sure, RR, I decided to give Amnesty International a call. “Reporting on technology that could be used to torture is not the cause of the problem,” said Alistair Hodgett, media director for Amnesty International USA. “Almost anything can be used to inflict torture, from a bowl of water (for mock drowning) to a hood (for sensory deprivation). Preventing torture requires not silence about these facts but action to counter its causes, prohibit it in law, and prosecute those who commit or order it.” According to Amnesty International, there are 132 regimes that torture people–including, presumably, George Bush’s regime–and they already have access to all sorts of electrical devices. “High-voltage stun guns and stun batons have made it easier to inflict painful shocks that leave little evidence of torture,” says Hodgett, “and Amnesty International’s researchers have found that the U.S. exports large amounts of electroshock equipment,” some 20 million bucks’ worth every year, “including to countries that have been documented as using such weapons to torture.” Single stun guns sell for as little as $20, RR, while Eros Tek’s products start at $300. “Governments who want to purchase high-voltage electroshock weapons find that there are many cheap sources…. For the purposes of torture, there’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars on an Eros Tek unit when the U.S. will allow the export of $20 high-voltage stun guns.” (For more info about stopping the export of cheap, high-voltage stun guns to countries that use them for torture, go to www.amnestyusa.org/stoptorture.) But hey, you could still be proved right, RR. If regimes that torture their political opponents are scrutinizing my column for tips, we may start to see the political enemies of Russian President/emerging dictator Vladimir Putin or the Saudi royals walking around with enormoboobs, which I described as torture in this column twice. If that doesn’t happen, RR, you’re going to have to look for something else to get your panties in a twist. [email protected]