We Hate Defending This But …

Of all the things we loathe in the world, vomit is right up there … along with yodeling and Janeane Garofalo.

In fact, were Garofalo to upchuck after yodeling, there’s a distinct possibility that our circuits would melt, condemning us to a life of padded walls, pajamas and p.b.& j. sandwiches.

Anyway, it goes without saying that the notion of combining “vomit” and “pornography” is one that would never occur to us.  We know some people (ahem, the XXXXXXX boys) have an affinity for fetish porn involving bodily fluids, but “vomit porn” is a new one on us – not that it’s never happened to us, mind you.

It just wasn’t on purpose … nor was it much of a turn-on.

From a provocative piece in Reason.com, though, the “vomit porn” of Janet Romano and Rob Zicari (these two characters) has gone as mainstream as vomit porn is probably ever going to go …

Zicari and Romano, known in the porn industry as Rob Black and Lizzy Borden, were the primary figures behind Extreme Associates, a production company, which, along with a few others, began pushing the boundaries of what the mainstream adult video industry depicted in the late 1990s …

… In their videos, female performers (and the occasional male one) were slapped, spat on, and verbally degraded. Rapes and murders were depicted. Vomit was vomited, then consumed again along with other bodily fluids. And of course there was explicit hardcore sex. Had Zicari and Romano stuck to just rape and murder, with some R-rated nudity to complement artful scenes of mutilation and dismemberment, as Hollywood does in movies like Hostel and House of 1000 Corpses, they could’ve avoided a lot of trouble. Likewise, had they focused on hardcore sex and kept the violence and puke out of it.

By mixing these various elements, however, they earned a 10-count indictment on obscenity charges in 2003.

Not only that, Zicari and Romano are both in prison now, which brings us to Reason’s point … which also happens to be our point.

They shouldn’t be.

Seriously.

Don’t get us wrong, Zicari and Romano are nothing but attention whores and the filth they are putting on film is as disgusting as anything you’ll ever see in your life.  But it should be up to the marketplace of the ideas – not the government thought police – to make that determination.

Well, unless of course you think there’s a vast untapped market of people out there who want to watch people puking during sex.

We don’t.

In unrelated news, Mrs. Sic’s pumpkin pie was a big hit again this year … and those salted seeds are always great for snacking!

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