Honestly, when I picked up Farrah Abraham's latest erotic novel, "The Secret's Out: 2," I was looking to get some kicks from how bad the sex scenes were. Instead, I found what amounted to a treatise on female sexuality and empowerment. OK, so it's not a particularly sophisticated treatise -- it's more interested in butt-play than intellectual rigor (not that the two are inherently contradictory!). But in the larger picture of Abraham's celebrity, it's kind of interesting.
That's especially true because, although the book is fictional, it is clearly based on Abraham herself. It follows Fallon Opal, a young female celebrity whose sex tape with a famous male porn star is leaked. As you might recall, Abraham herself is a young female celebrity whose so-called "sex tape" with a famous male porn star was "leaked" -- at least, that's what she claims. Her costar, James Deen, says it was a professionally produced porno made to look like a leaked homemade sex tape -- all in the name of a publicity stunt to advance Abraham's career.
Whatever the real truth may be about the "sex tape," Farrah -- or at least Fallon -- expresses a whole lot of hatred in the book toward the porn industry. She frequently references "lowly" or "trashy" porn stars and "immoral" and "failed" porn directors. The Deen character, Jimmy Heinz, is referred to as a liar and "porn star at the bottom of his totem pole." Consistently, Abraham paints herself, or Fallon, as a classy, sexy alternative to the "cheap whores" of porn. It is pretty cheap and not at all classy.
If there is anything at all to be revealed about the real Abraham in this book -- and, trust me, I haven't ruled out the possibility that Abraham herself is someone's next-level graduate thesis on the absurdity of modern sexual celebrity -- it has to do with her self-concept as a brave young woman exploring new carnal frontiers, all while harboring the fear of ending up alone. (And explore she does: There is bondage, a threesome, squirting, ass-licking and man-on-man sex.) Here are some of the book's main lessons:
She is sexually enlightened: In the novel, the protagonist's therapist tells her, “For some women it takes years to be comfortable enough to know what they want in the bedroom. I watched your sex tape. It was very high quality and as a viewer, I could tell that you were the one in control the entire time.”
On the difficulty of finding Prince Charming: "Sex is fun, it makes me feel good when everything else fails me. But I always planned to kiss frogs on a quest to find my prince. How can I find him if it is just sex to the frogs I kiss."
On her sex tape regrets: “Every time I think about the sex tape we did, emotions wash over me. I feel confused, manipulated and enraged. Yet at the time, I was happy.”
She's sticking with the "leaked sex tape" story: “Once again, he is talking about our sex tape like it was some kind of cheap porno. ... He was sweet to me, but it had all been a setup from the start.”
She has revenge fantasies: “What I really want is to put on a strap-on and fuck some guy in the ass just to get back at Jimmy.”
Women in porn are unethical: “I think back to the way the porn industry and mainstream entertainment treats women. The exchange of money and power for sex pushes out women with values and emotions -- replacing them with women with distorted ethics.”
She feels underestimated: "Some people don’t realize how wise I am until they give me a chance to show them."
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