Want to get your porn company some quick press? Offer a celebrity vast amounts of money (ideally, more than you can possibly afford) to star in an adult film.

Today, Raging Stallion Studios offered gay pop star Ricky Martin $1-million to film a sex scene with hunky Austin Wilde.

I'd love to see it happen... but really, it ain't gonna. 

   

RECENT HISTORY OF RIDICULOUS CELEBRITY PORN OFFERS:

- Levi Johnston was offered $100,000 for a solo porn video. Sarah Palin's former-son-in-law-to-be declined the offer and posed for Playgirl instead.

- Cezar Capone, self described "king of all MILF films," offered Sarah Palin $2-million to star in an adult film. Capone offered an extra $100,000 (and a snowmobile) for Palin's husband, Todd, to co-star in the film.

- Britain's Got Talent star Susan Boyle was offered $1-million to lose her virginity on film. The porn producer offered fans the chance to choose the title of Boyle's debut flick.

- "Octomom" Nadya Suleman was offered $1-million to star in a porn film. Wrote TMZ: "Octomom is used to having multiple people inside of her at once..." 

- Spencer Pratt, star of MTV's The Hills, was offered money to appear in a Lucas Entertainment film. "He was born to be in a gay-porn blockbuster," said CEO Michael Lucas.

 

Gay political pundit Andrew Sullivan got so worked up over yesterday's release of Sarah Palin's memoirs, he stopped blogging.  I can totally relate -- I had to stop the Roundup for a day or two there to prepare for Amanda's return to Melrose Place last night:

No, in truth, our absence this week was due to something even bitchier -- a suprisingly nasty computer virus that, after two weeks, went rogue like Palin, seen here attacking her former potential son-in-law Levi Johnston for his eagerly awaited Playgirl spread this weekend:

Watching her say "porn" with as much acid as she can drip from her fangs makes me laugh as hard as I did over a recent study that the Catholic Church paid over $2 million for -- a study to prove that their child molestation scandals were caused exclusively by gay men, a study that proved exactly the opposite.  There'll be few extra collection plates being passed around this Sunday.

Sorry Sarah, but we'll be checking out Playgirl this week and, in a shocking twist, Playboy. They've got a fun feature on the How I Met Your Mother gang, featuring new Twitterer Neil Patrick Harris:

Let Palin be as cold as Alaska itself while she's out flogging her book -- we'd rather pay attention to the sunny queens of Bondi Beach, Australia:

A Nova Scotia porn distributor faces a $25,000 fine for selling an unrated porn film, in a case that could change how the province regulates porn.

The province requires that distributors and retailers submit films for review and classification, at a cost of $3.57 a minute for adult films. Non-adult films are subject to a flat fee of $35.81 for review. In effect, review fees for a 100-minute adult video would exceed $350 -- 10 times the review cost of a non-adult video.

A lawyer for Topline Entertainment, the porn distributor, told the Chronicle Herald he plans to argue that the fees are unconstitutional, and that they restrict freedom of expression.

While arguably minimal, the fees are more than enough to deter small businesses from stocking obscure films.

And in an age when people can easily download porn on the internet -- why is the government still deciding what we can rent or buy in hard copy?

In 2000, Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop challenged Ontario's film classification rules after the shop was charged with selling an unrated gay porn video. A court ruled in 2004 that the classification rules were unconstitutional.

"Mandatory submission of films and videos to the board for its approval... infringe the fundamental freedom of expression guaranteed by section 2(b) of the Charter," concluded Ontario Superior Court Justice Russell Juriansz.

The province amended its regulations in 2005 but basically ignored the court ruling; films must still be submitted for review and classification. Ontario charges $4.20 a minute to review adult films, and retailers or distributors who sell or rent unrated films face huge fines. 

Related articles on Xtra.ca: 

• Canadian border officials ban fetish flicks
• How Toronto's Glad Day and Vancouver's Little Sister's survived decades of censorship
• Take a look underneath Canada's skirt for its true character
• Little Sister's: 25 years of determination
  

Let's face it -- even when they're not wiping their boogers everywhere, straight men can be very confusing.  They'll say they're very uncomfortable with being hit on by a gay guy but then turn around and drop their pants for ESPN, the sports magazine with enough female fans to make up 17% of their readership.  That's like appearing in Chatelaine because you want to appeal to truck drivers (17%!).

But if "The Body Issue" convinces members of the Edmonton Oilers to pose for shots like this, well, I'm not complaining:

(Lord knows we've certainly seen sillier attempts to appeal to the ladies and not-the-gay-men-no-sir-not-at-all: the immortal boyband era is summed up with '30 Ridiculous Pictures of the Backstreet Boys.'  Does what it says on the tin.)

But for an extreme example of a straight guy wrestling with the divide between respecting human rights vs. his own homophobia.  Buju Banton, dancehall reggae star and target of worldwide murder music protests, finally met with gay activists to discuss how not to be a hatemongering thug but still couldn't agree to a single one of their ideas, probably because he is a hatemongering thug.

Meanwhile, Moscow is home to my favourite example of such schizophrenia -- the city is pushing to close its oldest and most popular gay bar in a morals campaign while its homophobic mayor Yury Luzhkov just teamed up with Hillary Clinton to unveil a park statue dedicated to poet Walt Whitman (Whitman!).  This from the country that gave us vodka, Tchaikovsky and Nicholay Petrov?

Sometimes such a divide can work though -- like in this Guardian UK article that manages to be both an intriguing look at current record industry woes and a bitchy slapdown of Perez Hilton.  It can be done!

But in the end, we're all divided in some way or another. This blog, for instance, loves to celebrate queer Canada but can't quite bring itself to proclaim Toronto YouTube performer Tonetta the next big thing.  Perhaps you won't be so conflicted:

For all you aspiring Zack and Miri's out there, a couple tips:

-- for a gay porn film, bored thirtysomething straight guys are not your best cast, as seen in the new movie 'Humpday' opening today

-- but 'Globe and Mail' readers have a LOT to say on the subject

-- don't cast these guys either

-- dialogue is very important!  Click on this handy flowchart:

-- Titan Men has provided a handy (and very NSFW) behind-the-scenes look at one of their epics

-- get to know Todd Klinck!

-- and, of course, practice, practice, practice.  Have a great weekend!