Celebrity Sex Tapes Are Such A Drag, If You Ask The NYT

Sex tapes are so passé, aren't they? The golden era, according to a recent article in The New York Times Style section, was that of Rob Lowe's hotel tryst with a 16-year-old girl and Pam and Tommy Lee's sweet nothings aboard a boat. "Those were the days," writes Alex Williams. Now, however, the art of the sex tape has been sullied by D-listers throwing their undeserving junk into the ring. Williams points to Tami Erin (who played Pippi Longstocking in 1998), Hulk Hogan, Kris Jenner, and the stars of Buckwild as representative culprits. The real blame, however, lies with Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, "who received mountains of free publicity when former boyfriends apparently leaked private boudoir reels that became blockbuster DVDs and Internet staples."

But, even those young starlets who, in Williams' telling, catapulted themselves to fame by using nothing but their sexuality, and the help of their enterprising male partners, still have a leg up, so to speak, over their contemporaries. Sex tapes now are just boring: "[The] everyday celebrity sex video is now generally greeted with a collective yawn, the type reserved for a publicity stunt by Dennis Rodman."

Williams couldn't have been referring to Rodman's historic visits to North Korea, which, while odd, have given the West its first in-depth look inside the insular country in decades — right? Oh, and speaking of sex tapes and North Korea: Remember that alleged sex tape of Kim Jong-un's former lover? It got her executed.

That's an extreme example, but we should remember that not everyone has as much to gain from some "leaked" footage as, say, Tonya Harding or Farrah Abraham. John Edwards' sex tape with Rielle Hunter might never have been shopped to Vivid, and Anthony Weiner's selfies only Carlos-endangered his shot at the New York City mayoralty, but exposing the sex lives of people in power can still cause plenty of damage. The Times might be bored, but the world is still watching. (The New York Times)