Would It Be Such a Bad Thing?

Althouse notices that she's getting a few hits from many horndogs looking for a variety of searches, all variations on the theme of 'olympics+porn'.

Not that it hasn't already been done, sort of, a couple of Romanian gymnast who had competed in the olympics did perform routines, sans clothes on Japanese TV (which given the etymology of the word gymnastics, actually seems kind of appropriate), and it scandalized the gymnastics community.

So obviously, if a major gymnast were to do something similar, or even more explicit, they'd have to get paid very well, since they'd be blackballed for life.

Also, given the popularity of 'celebrity' sex tapes, even when the 'celebrity' involved isn't particularly a celebrity (though some have become much more 'celebrated' after their tapes, see Kardashian, K, and Hilton, P, for examples), I think a well compensated mash-up is in order.

Lohan v Sacramone would be the sex tape to beat all sex tapes. Don't do a pretend, 'I don't know how this poorly shot, poorly cropped, poorly lit, homemade piece of crap personal video escaped' type release. Do a full on, multiple camera, nice sets, well lit production with professional help.

Lohan's film career isn't exactly going gangbusters, and Sacramone is done as a competitive gymnast, all that's left for her is coaching if she wants to stay involved in gymnastics. But get those together, and have them enjoy each other's company in a rather explicit way, and the subsequent videos would explode the internet.

I figure you could offer each $25,000,000, and give them both 2-3% of the net profit, and still make a ton of dough, as long as you control the distribution channel for the video, and make sure that it doesn't get pirated and distributed for free. It's not impossible to prevent copies of stuff from circulating, videos on the Playstation Network haven't been hacked yet, and the Netflix rentals seem to have been fairly secure, so DRM is getting a little more secure. Make it a Blu-Ray exclusive as far as physical media goes, given that Blu-Ray DRM has yet to be really cracked.

I think a Lohan meets Sacramone tape would generate the most interest, one because folks are obsessed with celebrity, and even though Lohan doesn't seem to be doing much acting lately, she is still constant tabloid fodder. Second, of all the gymnast in this current Olympics, Sacramone looks most like a normal, adult, human being, so lusting after her seems the least scummy (plus since she's already 20 years old, you don't have to wait till she hits eighteen to produce the thing). Just a naked gymnastics routine wouldn't be enough to generate massive revenue, and a typical 'accidental' sex tape with some random loser guy would also not be appealing. But, two relatively attractive women, one a celebrity, another a gymnast, and you'd get people not normally interested in this sort of thing curious, and for the people who normally consume this sort of stuff, this'd be right up their alley. Also, by putting two women together, I think that would broaden, rather than lessen, the potential audience for this, and it would also make this less damaging in the long run to their respective images. If they don't want to be labeled as gay after this, they could always use the pornstar excuse and say they were, 'gay for pay'. Or they could embrace it, and say that they did this to demonstrate that there's nothing wrong with two single people enjoying each other's company, regardless of the genders involved, and if it's filmed professionally, so much the better. Hell, they could even add their respective significant others in the mix, not in on the action, but maybe giving off camera words of encouragement to show that this is a fun hedonistic thing (a special, one time, memory that they can share sort of thing, and not something tawdry).

It's not like this sort of notoriety is such a bad thing in the long run. Even as far back as Vanessa Williams, being 'disgraced' and losing her Miss America title when pics of her and another woman surfaced, seemed like a bad thing at the time, but it didn't exactly ruin her career. Can anybody remember any of the other Miss Americas from the 80s? (bet you remember those pics, though, they were kind of hot). I think Lohan could still get real film roles after this, and Sacramone could still do just about whatever she would want to do, once the initial controversy died down. In the meantime they could both enjoy really fat bank accounts.

Something like this will happen at some point. Not with these two people, but some young celeb who sees their career waning, and their bank account shrinking, will realize that while a million or two for a Playboy spread would be nice, tens of millions of dollars for a little video would be even nicer (although, that's a window of opportunity that will close, too many 'celebrity' sex tapes, and they'd no longer be big news, definitely a business model where 'first mover' status would be of great benefit).

Certainly, I'd bet that half the candidates running for President by the year 2032 will have stuff from their late teens and early twenties up on the internet that they'd rather forget. People willingly invade their own privacy at the drop of a hat nowadays, so why not make some major loot in the process?