Anal Execs Can Kid's TV Host Over Abstinence Spoof
Gelf talks to the Star Trek nudist behind the Technical Virgin website.
by David Goldenberg on July 25 at 03:43 PM
Melanie Martinez, dressed in a school girl's uniform, looks into the camera and explains that she's got big plans for her life, and getting pregnant early isn't one of them. Then she adds, "That's why I choose anal sex. I mean, sure, it hurts a little bit and I wind up walking funny for a day or two, but I think my future's worth it."
This is an old video message from TechnicalVirgin.com, a website set up seven years ago by a couple of Star Trek writers as a way to spoof the teen-abstinence movement. (In the other video they made for the site, a mother lovingly explains to her daughterMartinez againthe correct way to use a vibrator.) The original site was taken down months ago, but the videos have popped up on YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, and their ilk, and they recently cost Martinez her job as the cheery host of a PBS KIDS Sprout program called The Good Night Show.
"Late last week, Melanie Martinez, host of The Good Night Show, alerted us to the internet posting of an independent short film that she appeared in seven years ago," reads the news release of her firing. "PBS KIDS Sprout has determined that the dialogue in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool program host and may undermine her characters credibility with our audience."
John Ordover, who together with David Mack developed the Technical Virgin website, first noticed that the videos were floating around the web when he got an email several weeks ago from a band called Technical Virgin that was interested in doing some cross-promotion. Having taken down the site months before (the homepage now reads: "Get lost. Go make your own funny Web sites"), Ordover wondered where the band could have come across his site. A quick search revealed that the Technical Virgin videos had spread all over.
In an interview with The Electric Reel several years ago, David Mack explained that the idea for the site came from a college hook-up with a misguided religious girl:
She explained to me that she didn't engage in straight sex; she said she would only have anal sex because she wanted "to remain pure for marriage." Her exact words. And I guess that's part of what was festering in my brain when I developed Technical Virginthe notion that a girl thinks she's pure because she only let guys in through the back door.
Now, though, both Mack and Ordover are done with the site. "We got tired of it," Ordover tells Gelf. He adds that despite boatloads of hits, the site never made them any money or led to any other gigs. He has also asked for the other sites to take down the videos. Instead, Ordover and Mack have focused on their other, more-lucrative careers as science-fiction editor and writer, respectively. Ordover is the editor of Phobos Books and Mack's Star Trek novels can be found at Infinity Dog. "We have long since stopped paying attention to Technical Virgin," says Ordover. "The joke was over, and there's nothing less funny than an old joke."
Especially when that old joke leads to the public embarrassment of a friend via an AP article that appeared on the front page of CNN.com and on the website of the Washington Post. "In a world when there's currently a war in Iraq, and war in Israel and Lebanon, the idea that coverage of this makes CNN.com is ridiculous," says Ordover. "How does this rate up there with war?" (Also pushing war-related coverage off of CNN's front page: Breaking NewsChristie Brinkley's husband apologizes!)
All in all, Martinez's seven-year-old, career-killing gig comprised two 40-second spots. "We're sorry there were repercussions for her," Ordover says. "It really sucks when someone fires your friend." He scoffs at the idea that Martinez's spoof-PSAs would somehow undermine her credibility with an audience of toddlers. "There are not too many preschoolers on YouTube," Ordover tells Gelf.
This isn't the first salacious "controversy" Ordover has been involved in. He's also the founder of New York's monthly "Clothing Optional Dinner" that was written up by Reuters and earned a spot on NPR. (The China Daily has pictures.) But simply creating a storm doesnt count if there's no money, Ordover says: "Lightning has to strike my bank account. Unless somebody wants to come along to pay us a lot of money, we will remain uninterested (in Technical Virgin.)"
