What is more shocking: that this Pornhub billboard got put up or that it was promptly taken down?

So Pornhub (a popular pornographic website) puts up a billboard in Times Square. It’s cute. Plays off of the obvious reason why people would traffic a site like Pornhub: to masturbate. For those unawares (all 3 of you), Pornhub curates and displays thousand of Porno videos, categorized every which way you can imagine. People go there, choose a video that suits their fancy, and well you can guess the rest. Oh, the horror.

Look, I’ve got nothing new to say about pornography. It’s been around since the beginning of mankind. Have you seen some of the content meticulously etched upon the interior walls of the Pyramids? Pharaoh so horny. We all are. And looking at pictures or video of people having sex is a very popular way of satiating one’s sex drive. Very popular. Every day, I’m guessing as many people go to Pornhub and myriad other such sites than visit CNN, Gawker or Gods of Advertising. Combined.

Oh, Mummy!

Porn was always popular. The Internet made it, if you’ll pardon the expression, explosively so. No more stealing and hiding dad’s old Hustler’s under the mattress. No more skulking into a peep show. No more fast forwarding the VCR. All one has to do was open his (or her) laptop.

I’m old enough to remember the advent and subsequent collapse of the VCR. For about 15 years, videocassettes ruled the world. And pornography entered what many connoisseurs refer to, as it’s golden age. Not counting the obligatory college outing to Behind The Green Door, the VCR is where I watched my first porno video. There was a shop on every corner. The only problem was you had to go behind a red curtain in order to procure your, ahem, film. Pornography still managed to be the number one seller in home video entertainment. I don’t have the numbers but I know from reading up that porn movies kept a lot of mom and pop video stores open for business. Not Star Wars. Not Back to the Future. But hardcore pornography. These video stars all but killed the porno mag.

And in turn the Internet killed the video store. Online pornography flourishes like blades of grass in the suburbs. Or should I say blades of grass flourish like online pornography in the suburbs?

What this essay is about, then, is not the fact that this mildly provocative billboard got put up but that it was soon taken down “for unknown reasons.” Why are we so afraid of our own sexuality? On the surface I get it. I’ve got three daughters. If my wife is taking them to Times Square I’m guessing she’d rather not explain what Pornhub is. Not that they would ask. Not with all those scantily clad Calvin Klein and Fredericks of Hollywood models staring down at them.

We have such a f-cking double standard in this country. Frontal nudity warrants an NC17 from the MPAA. Viciously depicting the killing of hundreds of people in a film and it will receive a ho-hum PG. The Pornhub billboard showed neither. It was a silly pun and a pair of hands. Below it was and likely still is a gaudy vodka ad. Booze has caused a lot more problems than pornography, let alone masturbating. Trust me.

“He who is without sin…”

Honestly, it’s more than a gross double standard; it’s hypocrisy. Made even more ironic given Times Square used to be the peep show capital of America. I’m guessing to a man that every person who had anything to do with taking down Pornhub’s billboard has gotten it up to Pornhub as well. What did Christ say about casting stones? Oh yeah, we always forget.

Selling oneself online. Say it isn’t so!

Two weeks ago someone teed off on my fledgling blog, accusing it & me of being self-serving, that I was pimping my agency and my novels. No doubt I was. Wracked by unease, I’m now in a quandary whether I should continue such vainglorious pursuits.

God forbid I use a blog to talk about myself, right? Maybe millions of other people can do it, but I’m above all that. And –Gasp! I certainly wouldn’t want to use the Internet as marketplace. That would be insane. Websites aren’t for commerce. Nobody uses their computers to buy or sell things. Ebay and Amazon are trends. As for brazenly promoting oneself on line: That’s plain vulgar. Only weirdos watch You Tube.

Come on, people. Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet just for the porn. Consider Facebook. You Tube. My Space. Match Fucking Dot Com. It’s called personal computing for a reason. It’s personal! Someone reads my blog maybe they’ll want to read my book (or not). My point is it’s not exactly a stretch.

The last Integrated Marketing lecture I endured was all about how each and every one of us is a “brand.” We market ourselves to each other. Conversation is the new media. And so on.

So criticize the writing. Have at my arguments. Flog my blog.

But the blog is ostensibly about advertising. And me. Can’t I advertise on the goddam thing?