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Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Elle Magazine Tells Weird Story About Woman Who Gets Fisted, Poops On Self

Amy Silverstein |
September 10, 2010 | 11:41 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

It's usually awkward when fashion magazines try to have a "serious" article that isn't about pretty clothes.

Oftentimes, they just go serious by describing one unlucky woman's rare medical issue. However, rather than tell the story from an informative, scientific angle, the magazines instead tell the story from a terrifying, "You could be next" angle.

For their glamorous September issue, Elle is continuing this medical issue trend with their completely disgusting story of a woman named Jill Ajao. 

The superficial purpose of the article (which isn't available online as of now) is to warn us about the dangers of hormonal therapy. That seems like a noble thing to do. However, Elle went about warning us by profiling a woman who clearly has problems that have nothing to do with hormone therapy. 

After taking hormone therapy, Jill gained national media attention for falsely accusing her lover of rape to hide the fact that she was cheating on her husband.

She was "treated for injuries said to be caused by a violent rape, then summoned into court and publicly exposed when it was discovered that she'd solicited the brutal S&M encounter."   

Well, that's just mean. I don't really care about Jill anymore. But Elle tries to make Jill relatable anyway by telling us these mundane anecdotes;

*Jill "has chestnut hair that falls to her shoulders in soft waves. "

*"Her mother married her junior high school principal the year Jill was in seventh grade. 'Tell me that wouldn't make your adolescence suck,' she says with a grin."

But Elle foreshadows that there's actually a dark, submissive side to this boring every-woman.

*"Her husband, she says, was a perfectionist who took her shopping for clothes and told her how to dress."

They had kids, her mean dominatrix husband refused to help her raise them, and she therefore became, fat, depressed and disinterested in sex.  

Then the doctors gave her hormonal therapy.

At first, it improved Jill's sex drive, but then she claims things went haywire: she began screaming at her kids for the first time, which the article presents as a bad thing. Her voice deepened and she extra hair grew in the spots where she applied the testosterone cream.

But it's not really clear in the article if Jill made the connection between the weird physical side-effects and the testosterone cream at the time.  Instead Jill just offered this explanation for why she didn't quit the drugs; “'It was hard to stop,' Jill admits, 'because it felt so good.'"

Jill then shamefully admitted to doing things that really aren't that bad.  They'd actually be considered quite normal things to do, if she were a man; she admires attractive young people who aren't her spouse, visits porn websites and looks for casual sexual encounters on sketchy websites.  

Eventually, she found her dream sexual partner; a man who was willing to fist her, sodomize her and beat her with a magazine. She was really into it, as evidenced by the cheesy emails she sent her booty call. But she makes it seem in the article like she wasn't such a freak in the bedroom until she took the testosterone cream.

And this is where I began to wonder; Why is Elle telling this story?  Are they really trying to warn us about the dangers of testosterone cream? Or do they just want to tell us an erotic story about kinky sex, and they think this is the only reasonable way to go about it?

Moving on: an anal sex encounter goes horribly wrong, and Jill takes too long to decide if she should leave work early;

"She was determined to work, to see her clients and forget about what had happened, but she felt she had to go home after she became incontinent and soiled her clothes."

Yes Jill, it probably was a good idea that you didn't keep seeing your clients while you were covered in poop. Good call.   Anyway, the article then talks about the medical dangers of hormone therapy and how Jill's life fell apart from there.  It also warns us about S&M and falsely accusing people of rape.  Did the testosterone cause those things, too? It shouldn't, as Slate says

It's not a bad idea, in theory, for a fashion magazine to tell a story about a bored and horny housewife who starts having crazy sex. It's a pretty common fantasy often presented in mainstream films and television.

But still, this story just wasn't the one to tell.

Note to Elle; please pick a theme for your next serious story. You can tell an erotic story, or you can tell a medical cautionary tell, but it will be very unsexy and uninformative if you blend the two themes to tell an erotic medical cautionary tale.

Photo credit: Chandrahadi Junarto

To reach reporter Amy Silverstein, click here.

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