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Michael Wolff

Michael Wolff

Posted: April 6, 2010 12:51 PM

What Sandra Bullock's Sex Tape Means

What's Your Reaction:

The purported Sandra Bullock sex tape certainly establishes new standards for purported sex tapes.

It may be that, even in the long history of Hollywood depravity, this is the big one: Never before has an actress, a girl-next-door actress at that, been so publicly tagged with an account of such extraordinary sexual behavior. I mean not just suggestions and whispers, but circulating-everywhere details. It may be that there has never been anything that quite exposes the hypocrisy and fraudulence and pure fantasy of the phony-baloney media as much as this. Sandra Bullock, who's made hundreds of millions of dollars off the illusion of niceness and hamishness and old-fashioned nothing-special decentness, is so far out there that even the most gullible will surely never trust the media again. We've all been played for suckers by the pervs, that's the lesson.

Or this might be just another example, in the pile-up of examples, of Internet hyper-reality. The Internet exaggerates everything -- it's a vulgar, loud-mouthed, garrulous, entertaining but boorish friend. We understand this, and discount for it.

Or, perhaps what's most notable here is how Bullock's husband, Jesse James, is applying the blackmail opportunities more and more available in every relationship. Couples have always held damaging secrets about each other. But now, with life in so many instances electronically preserved, those secrets become an easily available weapon and currency.


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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Tom Matlack
Man, Husband, Dad, Writer, Venture Capitalist
09:25 AM on 04/12/2010
Or it's yet another example of how much more comfortable we are pointing our fingers at celebrities, and their supposed sexual misdeeds, than looking at our own.
Boopsie2008
Obama 2012. Says it all.
02:03 PM on 04/07/2010
Yes, Wolff is suggesting that we're being played for fools.

But even he, with the last line of his article, falls into the trap.

The so-called "journalist" who deliberately and intentionally floated this "rumor," knowing it would flame through the media and harm Sandy's reputation, should be shot, drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, and left to rot for the vultures. There is just no way to describe how vile his action was.

Now, Sandy has had to step in and put a firm stop to the rumor. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that she's the good girl here and that lying heap of [insert suitably nasty word here, dear reader] Jesse James got his bad girls on the side. Sandra clearly found something real and lovable in him, while also clearly not initially understanding the rest of his personality (which he may have kept well-hidden from her while on his best behavior around her).

But the worst part is these comments, the "so what if she did" type. She's firmly denied that she made such a tape or ever would. Ever. Yet, now, thanks to some jerk who floated this rumor to get his "story," she'll forever be linked to a "sex tape" as people forget the details and, most importantly, her unequivocal denial. She has worked hard to maintain an excellent reputation and that fake journalist just shet all over it.
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Michael Rowe
Author and Journalist
11:29 AM on 04/12/2010
The "depravity" is the notion of a private "sex tape" being actual news instead of yet another example of America's apparently insatiable need to feast on the embarrassment and humiliation of even non-political public figures as a way of momentarily distracting themselves from the emptiness of their own lives.
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Toddynho
Slartibartfast made me do it.
11:59 AM on 04/07/2010
A message to the author and to America: so freaking what if Sandra enjoys sex? What's the deal, if you come across as a wholesome girl next door in your films, that means you're suppose to be a frigid fish in bed?
Boopsie2008
Obama 2012. Says it all.
02:08 PM on 04/07/2010
The issue isn't whether Sandra enjoyed sex in all of its less tasteful forms. The issue is that some despicable jerk who started this rumor intentionally wanted to flame up a discussion of what, exactly, did Sandra and Jesse do together. Like you just did.

THAT is none of our business. Sandra has neatly side-stepped that discussion or any revelation about her private love life. She's entitled to keep it private, period.
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02:41 PM on 04/07/2010
Toddynho, you've completely missed the point.
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Toddynho
Slartibartfast made me do it.
03:49 PM on 04/07/2010
Wouldn't be the first time. lol. And it won't be the last.
09:02 AM on 04/07/2010
When will the invasion of privacy stop in this country ????? When will those who have entered into intimate relationships stop having the right to tell "all"? Or be held for libel when revealing all the details to the press or on national TV? And for those who aren't involved directly but who delight in all the exposure of these cases ..... you the public...you're even more guilty of invasion of privacy. We don't have the right to know what goes on in the private adult life of anyone at all. We don't have the right to meddle or make judgments at all. It's despicable and disgusting to even think we do. Would any of us invite the media in to examine our sex lives or how "kinky" we get? Would we want that as a daily topic of discussion across the country? It's sick and perverted and disgusting.
Boopsie2008
Obama 2012. Says it all.
02:10 PM on 04/07/2010
Note that Sandy did just the opposite. She exercised her right NOT to tell anything at all, while clearly implying that the rumors linking her to kinky sex are sheer made-up crap.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Fudgefase
Boldly going nowhere...
08:35 AM on 04/07/2010
There certainly seem to be lots of tapes of Jesse, and Sandra seems fairly confident there's not one that she is starring in. Mind you, I can see how a wife might get involved in something she doesn't particularly want to because it pleases her husband. What wife hasn't, even once, done something for him, no matter how ridiculous she felt or looked? Having said that, I'd not be keen on being photographed at the time. Bottom line - what goes on between consenting (and in this case, married) adults in the privacy of their own bedroom should not be addmissable in a court of law.
09:14 AM on 04/07/2010
Agreed. The worst case scenario here would be if James had recorded himself having sex with his wife without her knowledge and then tried to blackmail her with the tape. If that were the case, it wouldn't do much for his already shredded public image, nor would it help him win back the woman he claims he loves so much.
11:48 PM on 04/06/2010
The rumored sex tape, if there even is one from Sandra and Jesse, is not the "big one." The sex tape of all sex tapes was of one Ms. Monroe. It has been stated by a couple of witnesses that there was one of her with several (now deceased) Hollywood male stars.

That tape, if still in existance, will be the "bigone."
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11:30 PM on 04/06/2010
If this supposed tape emerges during, prior to or after the divorce settlement, can we PLEASE charge this low-life with blackmail, invasion of privacy, whatever and just send him to jail?
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mheister
Raconteur. Blog michaelheister.com
09:08 PM on 04/06/2010
The latest addition to celeb pre-nups? Poison-pill sex tape clauses.
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emhellmer
11:59 PM on 04/06/2010
I was just thinking the same thing. More stars should carry around extra confidentiality agreements, just in case. Keep them with the condoms. I bet Tiger Woods has taken note.
Boopsie2008
Obama 2012. Says it all.
02:13 PM on 04/07/2010
Funny! If Sandy had put a copy of the pre-nup's "You get nothing if you cheat, dirt-bag" clause in with the condoms, maybe he wouldn't have cheated on her.

Then again, it appears that he didn't even have the good sense to use condoms with those other women.
07:56 PM on 04/06/2010
Why shouldn't Sandra Bullock be allowed to have kinky sex? Poor girl.
09:07 PM on 04/06/2010
Since when is marital sex kinky anyway?
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MarkInIrvine
fuzzy-headed knee-jerk liberal and proud of it
09:46 PM on 04/06/2010
exactly!
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pyro
Fire in the kilns, lets fill all empty bowls.
10:08 PM on 04/06/2010
Maybe Nico la was implying that the kinky part would be the taping. I dunno.
07:47 PM on 04/06/2010
Wolff you wasted time and type on this crap. Your words are poorly strewn all over the place. No story in this one ... bad piece.
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
SvrWx
Eileen, toora tooluri Eh..
07:45 PM on 04/06/2010
I will say this...if there is a sex tape by Sandra, I find that I do not feel a need to see it. Actually, I'm disgusted by it. Why? Because it is, if it is true, being used as a form of extortion and it just makes me shake my head. To add to it, I want to know her for who she has been marketed as...a good girl. Plus, Jesse is just a disgusting creature.
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emhellmer
12:02 AM on 04/07/2010
She would still be a good girl. Nothing wrong with getting a little crazy with the husband. Lady in the streets and all...

Most people do crazy things with their spouses after a few years. The difference is, most of us trust our spouses not to go shooting their mouth off about it just because they don't get their way.
07:09 PM on 04/06/2010
You have no proof, and yet you pen such drivel? You're just as bad as the people you criticize, sir.
07:22 PM on 04/06/2010
Agreed. I know this is the entertainment section, but this site is hitting new lows.
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11:57 PM on 04/06/2010
Try reading it again;

"Purported ... tape"

"even the most gullible will surely never trust the media again"

"pure fantasy of the phony-baloney media"

"We've all been played for suckers by the pervs"

I think Wolff is attempted to suggest that tape or no tape, we're being played for fools. The internet of course, being worse again.

That's how I read it.
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07:05 PM on 04/06/2010
fine mr wolff, take my last comment off because you cant take half the implication you put to sandra.
06:10 PM on 04/06/2010
Sandra Bullock had sex ..................... who woulda thunk it , grow up people !
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Cara Mia
05:56 PM on 04/06/2010
THERE IS NO SEX TAPE, PEOPLE!

This is Sandra Bullock you're talking about, NOT Jenna Jameson - stop destroying her reputation with this nonsense. The only thing she is guilty of is bad taste in men, which most women are guilty of. She didn't get to where she is today by being stupid. A sex tape is completely beneath her. If there is one, it's of James and his skankettes.

Whoever this Michael Wolff character is, if he's going to call himself a journalist, he should get the FACTS before stating something as truth and making a bad situation even worse.
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Bados
You know.... the beach cruiser.
12:58 AM on 04/07/2010
Ok lets try this.
IF there is no sex tape its because there is no sex tape.
Its not because its Sandra Bullock. Does she have wings or something?
Do you know her personally?
Even if you did you still wouldnt know what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom.
How do you know whats beneath her?
John Edward threw away an entire political career just to get some. Stranger things have happened than SB having a sex tape.
If she does maybe this will help people like you realize that these are just people like you and I and you only know them the way they want you to know them.