Sex lives of the rich and infamous.....

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Once upon a time, it used to be all about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, and the failed marriages of Marilyn Monroe, but nowadays it seems there's just no stopping it. Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall have just announced they are using the Jewish religion to save their marriage. Catherine Zeta-Jones made the headlines after she pulled out of a movie deal because she wants to spend all her time with her hubby to be Michael Douglas (which is actually a good thing, as she was replaced by Julia Roberts, who happens to be a far better actress). And Melissa Etheridge keeps insisting on dragging the general public into her bedroom time and again.

I'm starting to get sick and tired of all these self-satisfied celebrities flaunting their personal business like that. What do you think? Do you applaud their openness or should they just stick to their jobs and keep their personal lives to themselves?

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Answers

I don't pay much attention to what show-biz celebrities talk about or do in their private lives, so I pretty much couldn't care less which topics they choose (since I'm not listening anyway).

In general though, I find it pretty boring when *anyone* talks about their sex life in public (=for an audience), but at least when *good-looking* people bore me with the topic, it doesn't also make me queasy thinking about what they're saying. :)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000


I've noticed that a great many of the people who insist on letting us know what's going on eventually get hoist by their own petard when Things Go Wrong.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Some years ago I realized that I had within my mind the absolutely most trivial piece of knowledge I could ever think to have: I knew the names of all of Liz Taylor's husbands. Since then I watch no TV, read the paper very seldom, and make an effort to know nothing of the celebrities. I am interested in their sex life only to the entent they are interested in mine.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

guess i am the kind that likes to sort things out and then take a look. 1. those who are indiscrete. 2. those who spy and ply their trade. 3. those who publish it. 4. those who read the damn stuff.

guess who is making the money. ????

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000


I don't think things have changed that much. Popular culture seems to go through cycles where everything celebs do is of interest, vs times when "real people" get more press. Right now we're in a celebrity- heavy time, like in the 30s.

I don't pay a lot of attention to it because it doesn't interest me. I don't see them as flaunting their personal business because if I don't care to hear about it, I don't have to read People or watch Barbaba Walters. Yeah, I think they should just stick to their jobs, but I realize that part of their job is staying in the public eye with whatever it takes. And actually I don't really want to read Michael Douglas talk about acting, particularly.

Maybe there were people longing to know the paternity of Melissa Etheridge's children. Who knows?

Generally I prefer an atmosphere of openness rather than secrecy. It seems more healthy. So I don't find the general idea of celebs or anyone talking about their marital problems distasteful.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000



It isn't the _sex_ lives I'm sick of, it's the much-hyped celebrity marriages that dissolve two months later after the couple in question has had time to fuck more than twice. I wish to goodness they'd just sleep with each other & break up like everyone else, and that actresses had better taste in wedding gowns. This disposable marriage theme sets a very bad example for all the young and stupi-- er, foolish.

On a related note (after seeing some pix of her "remarriage" -- huh?), is it just me, or does Celine Dion look like she should be drawing pension cheques? Exactly how many hours does she tan daily? If the woman ever goes to Florida, she may very well get accidentally clubbed on the head and turned into a pair of shoes with matching handbag.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000


I also don't care about celebrities flaunting their sex lives -- it's the serial "happy marriages" that I get tired of. I much prefer the stories that hew to the "We're maladjusted but fabulously goodlooking and quite rich" template.

BTW, Ms. magazine just ran a great article about how celebrity moms are celebrated for the same behavior that welfare moms are criticised for. Christie Brinkley is the mother of four children by three different men; Kirstie Alley has appeared in three sequential puff pieces touting her newest house, newest relationship, and sunny life as ideal mother. Try to get that kind of press as a welfare queen.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000


The reason "welfare queens" get bad press is that they do what they do at the taxpayers' expense. I have no quarrell with women who want to have kids by themselves, as long as they don't as *me* to pay for it over and over. Once, yes, I can understand how someone could have a kid (or kids) and 'fall on hard times' and need assistance *after* they already had the kid(s) when they were *not* on welfare - but to continue to have kids when your only income is public assistance?

I think *those* "welfare queens" (your words, not mine) should have *no* extra money given to them no matter how many kids they have *after* however many they had when they asked for assistance. There *is* reliable birth control and there *are* legal abortions, after all, and I would much rather pay for poor women's birth control than for them to keep having kids they can't support via their own labor.

Sorry for the thread drift here, but I think that comparing "welfare queen" behavior to the behavior of women who can support their own children just doesn't make much sense.

I don't see any reaosn to moralize about "out of wedlock" children, period, but I do see a problem with women who repeatedly get pregnant while they are already on public assistance, whether or not they're legally married to a man.

And yes, I do know that such women are a very small percentage of women on welfare. I may know more about welfare from personal experience than anyone else on this forum, since I was on it for a while when my daughter was little.

And please note, I never had any more children, and I would *not* have had any more while I was receiving assistance, that's for damn sure.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000


Me too. Sick and tired of it. Who really cares? Not me.

-- Anonymous, January 20, 2000

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