Maureen O’Connor proclaims that “the celebrity sex tape is dead”:
The same day that Ray J’s “diss track” [about his sex-tape encounter with Kim Kardashian] appeared online, porn megastar James Deen confirmed making a “sex tape” with former Teen Mom Farrah Abraham. As Abraham went through the motions of sex tape denial, feigning litigiousness and “shock,” Deen described the “sex tape” as a professional, commercially produced porno: “Definitely not dating. Got tested together on Friday and then saw her on set. That is my only experience with the lady.” As the Awl’s Choire Sicha notes, “This is not a sex tape! This is a good old-fashioned porno. And so we have come full circle.”
Her theory:
Now that homemade celebrity nudity is available for free en masse — from hackers, from social-media-enabled starfuckers, and from social-media-enabled celebrities themselves, sometimes by accident — perhaps the value of the sex tape has diminished, while the betrayal associated with selling one has gone up. To make and save a sex tape, in 2013, requires a level of trust higher than the asking price for most sex tapes.
Tracy Clark-Flory notes a double standard when a starlet makes a sex tape:
It seems there’s an unspoken rule in our culture: As long as you’re an unwitting — or “unwitting” — porn star (i.e., you appear embarrassed and ashamed of your sex tape), you’re allowed to be more than just a porn star. You can sell your own perfume line at Walgreens and Wal-Mart. You can make $10,000 a tweet and broadcast your wedding on E! and star in Super Bowl commercials. It becomes a comeback tale. But if you make the intentional, unabashed choice to expose yourself to the world for profit, you are forever defined by it.
The Dish 