Marc Jacobs’s orgy seemed fun.
At least according to the review of it in Page Six. (Welcome to 2015, where your 10-person weekend orgy is reviewed in the New York Post.)
“Inside Marc Jacobs’ 10-Person Orgy,” as the headline baiting our bashfully excited clicks read, features an account from a person who claims to have been an attendee at the ménage à dix—LOL at “dix” being French for 10, given this situation—held over the weekend.
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The whole thing is recounted with beautiful bluntness, as if a 10-guy, multiple-day sex romp is par for the course for an autumn weekend. “Brunch, a jog, and a group fuckfest. You know, #SundayFunday!”
According to the source, Jacobs recruited his male companions using Grindr, sending them photos of himself shirtless and, as Page Six describes it with laughable coyness, “with no pants from the side and back.”
Guys, Marc Jacobs sent his potential Grindr orgy hookups dick shots and ass shots. Obviously.
The source says that all the attendees were in their 20s, and some of them used the party drugs “G” and “Tina.” I do not purport to know what either of those words mean. Then came the best part: the description of the guests.
From Page Six: “‘People weren’t as good-looking as I expected,’ the source sighed.” The source sighed. The man meat at Marc Jacobs’s orgy? Decidedly meh. Everyday guys like you and me, just screwing a ton at Marc Jacobs’s weekend sex fest. Dudes with bodies worth sighing over.
“I expected Lorenzo Martone beautiful,” the source continued, referring to Jacobs’s former fiancé, a hot Brazilian who resembles a caricature of a hot Brazilian. “They were average, chill people who didn’t have any attitude, which was really nice.” Well done, Marc Jacobs. Anyone who knows anything knows that nothing ruins a good orgy like bad attitudes and no chill. Give me roughly a dozen average guys at an orgy any day over Lorenzo Martone-beautiful ones.
There’s a reason we’re talking about this with a sense of humor: We think Marc Jacobs has one about the whole thing, too.
Ordinarily if a story like this leaked, it would be a celebrity scandal of epic proportions. It would ruin careers. The celebrity in question would be labeled a perverted sex fiend, his reputation destroyed, his identity forever defined by smut. But not Marc Jacobs.
Thank god for Marc Jacobs, his 10-person sex orgies, and his sexual candor. Few people with such well-known personas have managed to control and empower their sexual identity, treat their horniness with honesty, and destigmatize the sordid preconceptions about sex and promiscuity.
Should everyone prescribe to the same sexual freedom that Marc Jacobs does? Dear god no. But with shame and judgment often accompanying what goes on behind closed doors—of public figures, or otherwise—there’s salvation in his honesty about it all.
What is this sense of humor, this honesty, we speak of?
For starters, on Monday night after Page Six initially published its story, Jacobs posted a cheeky shirtless illustration on Instagram mocking a Grindr photo. “Goodbye (for now) Grindr! It was fun for group togethers, but, what really excites me is my work!” The photo caption had the same fun spirit, but apart from its amusing pithiness, it was loaded with a sociopolitical message, too. “Yup. I’m gay,” he wrote. “Sometimes I enjoy sex. Sometimes!”
Sometimes he enjoys sex. Sometimes you or I enjoy sex. Sometimes he enjoys sex with 10 people at once. Sometimes you or I…nope, no to that. But good for him!
(He’s since posted another Instagram admonishing the person who leaked the story to Page Six.)
It’s not the first time Jacobs has owned up to being on Grindr, either.
He did an interview last fall with Paper magazine, in which he first spoke about joining the hook-up app—and, continuing his unabashed embrace of sex that doesn’t conform to traditional or conservative norms, he joined the app with his ex-boyfriend Harry Louis, who happens to be a former porn star.
“I went on Grindr a couple of times,” he said. “Well, actually, with Harry. He was like, ‘Let’s do a profile on Grindr.’ And I did, and I met with a couple of people.”
And in a development that might shock those not used to celebrities being open about their use of these sex apps, he didn’t crop his head out of the photo, either. (Sexual promiscuity and the aggressive recruitment of sexual partners is apparently OK when it’s a rock star or movie star seeking out groupies and fans. But owning it on a sex app? Shocking.)
“Why not!” Jacobs said about using his own face. “I don’t have any hang-ups about those things. I don’t really care. Who’s kidding who? I’ve talked about having hair transplants, I’ve talked about my drug problems, I’ve talked about my drinking problems, I’ve talked about sex. I just think it’s so much better to be honest about those things. I always find it very dubious and I don’t really trust people who deny human instincts.”
Ah, human instincts. Doesn’t he know that celebrities forfeit their rights to things like that? That they are no longer considered humans?
Friends of mine who have come across Grindr profiles of celebrities in New York or Los Angeles (some you would roll your eyes at; others would make you raise an eyebrow) typically report the news with aghast judgment, as if the washboard abs of the rich and famous shouldn’t enjoy the same headless spotlight on hook-up apps that the rest of the world enjoys. Or, worse, that they shouldn’t be allowed to indulge in their human instincts—having sex—and the convenience of these apps—judge the morality of them as you wish—because they’ve been featured in the pages of Us Weekly.
Not Jacobs, though. Jacobs is the rare celebrity to talk about it all, and there’s been value in that.
He’s talked about heading straight from high school to Studio 54, where he “learned about substances and anonymous sex.” He’s talked about what it’s like to be in a monogamous relationship with a porn star. He developed a line of accessories inspired by sex toys and S&M.
He’s talked in interviews about coming to terms with his sexuality—something we always consider noble and valuable from out gay celebrities—but he’s also publicly talked about sex. We’re so quick to analyze and applaud the act of a public figure coming to his or her own in their sexuality, but so rarely do we give a voice to what happens after: the having of the sex.
It’s hard to talk openly about sex without being called inappropriate or gratuitous, or labeled a slut or a deviant. It’s why celebrities who talk about sex often do it in a campy way, or mask it all in humor. Why are “sex comedians” such a thing? Because we need to laugh at it in order to feel comfortable talking about it.
For despite the fun people are having with the report of Jacobs’s orgy and the respect that he may even be receiving for being open about it, he will also be ridiculed and judged and labeled a whore and dirty for it. But maybe by being open about the whole thing instead of letting it turn into a scandal, the way it would with just about any other celebrity, he’s normalizing it. Well, as much as a 10-person orgy can be normalized.
But if Jacobs is not normalizing orgies, he is normalizing sex, specifically unabashed sex. Even more specifically, gay sex. That’s remarkable and rare. And maybe kind of cool?
Orgies aren’t everyone’s thing. But sex is. Marc Jacobs is at least letting us own that a little bit more.
