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There's a new service called Thrillist (no relation to the ist network) that allows men to sign up for a "free daily email newsletter, by guys, for guys, covering things guys care about deeply, passionately, and recklessly." Thrillist is launching a Boston edition soon, so we signed up for the email newsletter in the interest of seeing what this imitation ist is all about.
Most of the alerts have been relatively benign--we were told about eagle talon ice tongs, super cheap wine (that we can't get delivered to Massachusetts...), and bad ass golf carts. Reasonable stuff, right? We raised our eyebrows in response to a martial rating scale for wives, but dismissed it as an amusing critique of the standards of yesteryear. The most recent Thrillist email, however, made us spit out our morning coffee.
Titled "In It To Sin It," the email is a promotion for a "Fuck Raffle," in which you can pay just one penny for the chance to win a one-on-one session with the porn star of your choice--and have it videotaped. We won't do this website the service of linking to it, but it's truly sickening. Heavily made-up women (all blonde, of course) in seductive poses line the top of the site, the sponsors of the raffle also have a BL18 (we'll let you guess what that stands for) division, and the whole thing just reeks of the idea that women are worth so little that they can be auctioned off to the public for a single cent.
Though the contest's unabashed tag line is "win a chance to fuck a porn star," sex is not specifically promised in the rules--just 60 minutes of face (or, uh, other body part) time with your favorite female (or male). The people being raffled off are porn stars or regular people who have chosen to be raffled, and are being paid for it as well. The purpose of the raffle is to raise awareness for a new adult film production company.
While we hope that the porn stars (or regular folks aspiring to be porn stars) submitting themselves to the raffle process are doing so voluntarily and intelligently (and, thankfully, AIM testing is part of the process), the whole thing just doesn't sit right with us. Though men can theoretically be raffled off as well, the raffle site focuses heavily on women. One photograph shows three naked women waiting to be filmed--evaluated by the dominating gaze of--clothed males with camera equipment. The Thrillist email itself uses only female pronouns to refer to the people being raffled off. While that makes sense for a "dude" email service directed at (really really masculine) dudes, it also furthers the idea that women are defined by their sexuality--and what they get paid for it.
We've unsubscribed from Thrillist, but still feel a little skeezy for having been associated with it, and we wish there were no such thing as a fuck raffle.
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A "martial rating scale for wives"?
That slip is just too violent for even Freud to consider.
"the whole thing just reeks of the idea that women are worth so little that they can be auctioned off to the public for a single cent."
There is a big difference between an auction and a raffle. No where in the article does the word "auction" appear. Also, there's a prize of "$15K [that] each participating girl takes home if chosen."
So, while this is basically prostitution, it is not an auction where the bidding starts at a penny.
"There is a big difference between an auction and a raffle."
Is there really? Isn't it reprehensible either way?
Ewww. I'd like to see the guys who signed up for this have their names published and the full story sent to their mothers.
Who cares? Stop trying to be the arbiters of taste, Bostonist. You can be real prudes sometimes.