Just in case you thought this blog was getting smut deficient...

...here are two items to excite your prurient interest. Don't worry, like all Internal Monologue items having to do with the topic of sex, there's a thin veneer of sociological interest, political import, or artistic pretention you can use as a fig leaf to cover up your lurid fascination with sexual behavior.

Item one: A performance artist recreates rape scenes from movies using herself and a multi-thousand dollar sex doll made to look just like her. Both she and the doll dress like the victim, but she plays the aggressor and the doll plays the victim. She also dressed herself and the doll in matching bride outfits and "married" the doll in Vegas. Here's one of the tamer pictures of the pair:

I don't really know what to make of this person's work. It's certainly creepy and interesting. But I certainly wouldn't say I "get it" or anything. (HT: Amanda Marcotte on Pandagon, who isn't quite sure what to say about it either.)

Item #2: Horror stories from a video clerk who has to deal with creepy porn rental customers. Here is one of the tamer sections. WARNING: major ick factor.

All of us abuse the hand sanitizer. I know that over-the-counter antibacterial products are bad. I know that it actually develops hideous resistant strains of bacteria. I even did the high school biology experiment where you put penicillin in a petri dish of E. Coli, then watch the zone of inhibition get smaller and smaller as the bacteria learn to eat the stuff for breakfast. I know it is bad, and I don't think it should even be legal to sell it. All of my fellow clerks agree with me, but we all abuse the hand sanitizer. We can't help it.

Contamination is everywhere. I see people sneezing onto the tape cases. They cough wetly into their palms right before handing me change. They squeegee out their ears with their pinkies. They forget about the security cameras downstairs and pick their noses with wild abandon and astonishing force. Still, the only thing that realy freaks me out is the semen. Well, OK, the lubricant freaks me out too, but I'm pretty sure that's because of the implied presence of semen.

The only thing we can do is use the hand sanitizer. I use it so much that I lose all finger traction and can't open our plastic bags. I've had days when I've used it so much that I can't even make fingerprints on the glass countertop. It freaks me out, but the thought of not using it is worse.

An interesting note: I noticed that all these stories are from 2002. I think the video store clerk who has to deal with porn customers is going to become a dying breed once broadband Internet access percolates out to the point that people don't have to deal with video store clerks at all. I suspect that this will take a long time to unfold completely, though. Maybe these people should get special compensation from the government or something (the clerks, not the creepy customers). Heck of a way to earn $6.50 an hour.