Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy’s Culinary Capital

Porn and Puritans

173 “ Porn and Puritans Mamma mia! I’d like to have the job of painting those posters!” says my visiting friend Dan when he sees the porno posters around town with all the dirty parts covered with gray paint. The porn cinema is located next to a touristy pizzeria, across the street from a playground, and in the same building as a church. Looking in from the street, I can see the lobby has a big brass statue of a naked couple in some difficult position with arms flailing in the air in ecstasy. The newest porn poster for a film features two “actors,” a Bill Clinton look-alike standing majestically in front of the White House with a far slimmer Monica Lewinsky–type woman on her knees grasping him around the waist. The idea of an ex-president in a porno flick isn’t exactly attractive , but the poster is such a beautiful parody that I must have it—and there’s not even any need for gray paint on it. Guido, Katy, and I go inside and beg the older woman behind the counter to give us a copy of the poster titled “Sex Gate . . . Scandal of the United States.” She looks at us suspiciously but finally sneaks us a couple of copies of the poster, realizing we aren’t the police. Outside the theater, we open the poster to admire our acquisition. A group of Italians on their evening stroll notice it and say, “Bill Clinton was the most powerful man in the world. He could have any woman he wants, so what was he doing with that intern? She’s not even pretty!” In Italy there’s a different sense of humor about sex, which perhaps explains its love affair with Cicciolina. The Hungarian-born porn star campaigned through towns topless to draw crowds and eventually she got elected to parliament . When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Cicciolina took a sensible position to the impasse. She offered to sleep with Saddam Hussein if he’d pull out of Kuwait. Saddam, like a fool, ignored her, and look what happened to his country. Having grown up in the relatively puritanical United States, I’m generally shocked by these displays. I suppose we Americans are hypocritical, though. The whole ClintonLewinsky affair disturbed so many people, while many of the Republican and Democrat accusers and political vultures had similar little liaisons behind closed doors. An editorial in my hometown newspaper in Minneapolis laments salacious new magazine advertisements by declaring , “New ads are like soft core porn.” Italian newsstands, on the other hand, relish in advertisement posters featuring full nudity for the cover of Gente (Italy’s People) and all the most popular magazines. Only the real hard-core magazines are lucky enough to get a swath of gray paint over women doing panty pulls. Italian friends are quick to point out Italy is only second in porn consumption after the United States. Or as one of the distributors at the Sexpo convention noted to a journalist, Germans like extreme sadomasochistic porn, Americans like slick, glossy porn, and Italians like funny, amusing porn. In Italy, sex isn’t as shameful as in America. What else could explain the appearance of porn diva Moana Pozzi in Italian commercials for furniture, cars, and chicken patties? 174 Porn and Puritans Ms. Pozzi, star of Moana: Deep Hole, appeared regularly on prime-time talk shows discussing literature and films with director Federico Fellini. They also discussed, of course, her craft. “Obscenity is sublime,” she said. “Pornography is the representation of our most intimate dreams, our most secret desires.” When she died in 1994, Italy fell into mourning. A conservative Catholic journalist wrote after her death that she was a good little girl who “left the gate open.” People beseeched the Pope to canonize her as “St. Moana the Virgin ” or perhaps “Holy Moana of the Sacred Taboo,” according to the New Yorker. The Holy See didn’t agree that this sinner should be sainted but nevertheless sponsored the Jubilee in the year 2000 to forgive the sins of the believers. They also allowed believers to pass through La Porta Santa, a Vatican doorway opened once every twenty-five years to wash away their sins. This Catholic ability to forgive lusty transgressions would surely have benefited Clinton, and perhaps even he could become a hero of sexy Italian TV ads. Porn and Puritans 175...