It's the little things, isn't it?

Yesterday, I was reading the free "newspaper" which they have here in Zürich, called 20 Minuten (20 minutes - presumably the amount of time it takes to read) which is available on public transport.

I usually grab one and while away the time on the bus / train by trying to read it and improve my german. A noble pursuit to be sure. In doing this yesterday, I found a small article advertising the Extasia Expo which is going on at the Event Hall in Oerlikon this weekend. It is an erotic and adult oriented expo with various porn stars doing celebrity appearances etc.

The big news is that one of the legends of the "adult entertainment" business, Rocco Siffredi, will be there and as part of the article, Rocco was interviewed about his career, his hopes and dreams and his attitude to sex and love. All very interesting I suppose. The fact that he lost his virginity at 13 to a 27 year old woman was mentioned and I must congratulate him, as he had the sense to admit that it was actually paedophilia, but he said that he loved it never the less.

He also told us that at the time "mein Schwanz war fast so gross wie heute." (his penis was almost as big as it is today.) The article then went on to describe his "imposantes Juwel - ganze 23cm" (impressive gem - a full 23cm).

Which brings me to my point; would you open The Age or The Guardian and expect to see an article about a porn star with specifics about his equipment? I'm going to say no and I think that is actually a shame. It must be a product of our puritannical Anglo-Saxon upbringing that this isn't really the sort of thing that one reads with one's breakfast. I'm not saying that it is polite dinner party conversation either - it just goes to show what a different attitude they have to topics of this nature here on the continent.

Having said that, since Rocco crossed into the mainstream in a french film called Anatomy of Hell, he did a get an article and interview in The Guardian. Read it here, but don't expect to read stories about his gear like the 20 Minuten one or this one from Die Weltwoche - another Swiss news magazine.