Sunday Reads: A Lesson in Porn-O-Nomics Starring Mia Khalifa, Growing Up with a Closeted Gay Dad and Why We Owe Yoko an Apology

Have you ever wanted to just be like, “screw it,” and do porn? I mean, you make your own schedule, you get to be around beautiful people in beautiful locations, and best of all, you rake in tons of cash, right? 

Yeah, not so much. 

If Mia Khalifa, arguably the most popular porn star of the last five years, only made $12,000 from her adult career, I’m pretty sure the rest of us are screwed if we wanna be paid the big bucks. Unless you really love the industry and are prepared to dedicate yourself to hustling every waking moment, the financial dynamics of porn are such that you won’t make much money just by starring in a scene or two. 

Must Read

“The Sons Who Were Raised by a Closted Gay Father”
While LGBTQ+ acceptance is increasingly becoming the norm in the U.S., there are aging gay Gen-X and Boomer fathers in straight marriages who are still hiding their true sexuality from their family — no matter how much the world changes. Not that their sons haven’t known about it (or suspected) for years. C. Brian Smith spoke to adult men who grew up with closeted gay fathers about how they came to learn of their father’s sexuality and the consequences of such secrecy. READ MORE 

The Manliness of a Union Man

Men have long been the dominant demographic in American unions; as such, the battle around unionizing has always been cloaked in arguments about masculinity. Meanwhile, Dave Portnoy is a man who has weaponized masculinity to build a digital media empire. So it comes as no surprise that Portnoy dipped back into that well in a preemptive union-busting Twitter rant on Tuesday. But equating unionizing to being a “pussy” — as Portnoy has inferred — isn’t one in the same. In fact, if history serves, it’s actually the opposite. 

Dick From A Dead Guy

No, we’re not talking about necrophilia. We’re talking about dick transplants, and specifically dicks sourced from cadavers, a procedure first performed four years ago in Sweden that’s the very, very, very first step toward solving the very real problems of traditional male gender-reassignment surgery. Unfortunately, though, the science behind this new type of dick transplant is the least complicated thing about it.

Dat ‘True Detective’ Scene, Tho

No nude scene in the history of TV has titillated quite like that one True Detective scene with Alexandra Daddario. I know this, because there’s a 50,000-strong subreddit dedicated to her and Woody Harrelson getting it on, aptly named That True Detective Scene With Alexandra Daddario, or TTDSWAD. Luke Winkie spoke to members of the group to find out what it is about those tig ol’ biddies dropping out from under a taupe polo shirt that they find so thoroughly rewatchable (meme-able).

Jackin’ It In Secret

If masturbating is perfectly normal and healthy, it stands to reason that masturbating while in a relationship is A-OK as well. Hell, experts even encourage it. But for some reason, even talking about masturbation is still too taboo for couples who see it as a form of betrayal or harmful to their sex lives. In these cases, though, the bigger problem is probably honesty. 

Leave Fredo Alone!

This week, Chris Cuomo went ham on some chud that had the audacity to call him “Fredo” — as in Michael Corleone’s brother in The Godfather. 

Despite what Cuomo and others argue, however, being called Fredo isn’t a racially-charged derogatory term. But also, it’s clear that what we’re dealing with here is also an ongoing failure to understand who Fredo Corleone actually was.

Reckoning With Our Teen Trolling

With every new shooting, the media paints toxic message boards like 4chan and its counterpart 8chan as the place to “brainwash” reasonable people. But 4chan didn’t start out as a hotbed of mass radicalization — it began as an anime forum. So what happened? Hussein Kesvani, who spent much of his teen years on the chans, investigates how this echochamber fills users with hate via his own experience of being desensitized on the platform. 

You’re Wrong About Yoko

When Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss left the band following the release of its latest album produced by Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent), people were quick to identify Clark as having “Yoko’d” the band, a term that for 50 years now has referred to a woman who breaks up a band. But not only is the term sexist, it’s also completely wrong. 

The Week in Conspiracies

• On September 18, 1961, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crashed near Ndola, now part of Zambia, ending his life and the lives of 15 others. But was it an accident, or was he murdered? A chilling new documentary explores the wildly popular theory that Hammarskjöld’s support for African independence got him killed. 
• Conservative politicians and law enforcement officials love to label the anti-fascist movement as the equally deranged sibling of far-right extremism, even going so far as attempting to label the decentralized, leaderless “group” a domestic terrorist organization. But judging by the evidence, Antifa isn’t the terrorist group they’re looking for. 
• There’s an urban legend that pools are often treated with a special chemical that can turn urine a dark shade of blue, revealing the identity of the pee-er. But it’s time for the truth: There’s no such chemical; it wouldn’t work even if it did exist; and the pool probably already has tons of pee in it, anyway. 

But Don’t Just Take Our Word For It…

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Magdalene Taylor

Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.