Media With a One Track Mind

Zoe Margolis is a fetching young woman who lives in London and works in the British film industry. She's also a sex maniac.

At least, that's what the Times of London would have you believe. In an article of stupefying banality, last month the Times outed Ms. Margolis as "Abby Lee," the pseudonymous author of the recently published blook "Girl With a One-Track Mind."

"The anonymous author of a fast-selling sexually explicit diary has been unmasked as a 33-year-old film assistant who helped produce the latest Harry Potter blockbuster," is the lead of the article. "Helped produce" in this context means she worked on the set (by the same token I "helped produce" Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway").

In real life Ms. Margolis has worked as a set runner, floor runner and third assistant director on several high profile films that were filmed in London and has also, according to the imdb, written and directed a 12-minute short film of her own, "Y." She recently appeared on "The Sharon Osbourne Show" to promote her blook and came off as a self-possessed, attractive and articulate woman in her early thirties -- the kind of woman who, if you approached her in a pub and asked, "Fancy a fuck?" just might surprise you by looking you up and down and replying, "Well, yes, I might, actually."

So what's the fuss about? She has a robust sex life and she's written about it -- is that so earth-shattering? Plenty of women do what Ms. Margolis does, and some of them even do it on videotape. Is it such news in the 21st Century that, under the right circumstances, some women can actually enjoy sex? I mean, really.

You have to wonder if a man had written a book like that the opproprium in the astoundingly hypocritical British press would have been nearly as bad, or whether the age-old double standard would have applied. If a man sleeps around, he's a stud to be admired. If a woman does it, it's time to slap a scarlet letter across the chest and put her in the stocks if not burn her at the stake.

Ms. Margolis said on "The Sharon Osbourne Show" that she's considering getting away from London and moving to New York for a while, and I think that would be an excellent idea. For one thing, it would give her new material for her blog and a potential second blook. For another, you know that line in "Love, Actually" about anyone with a British accent being able to get laid in America in five minutes flat?

It's absolutely true.

Tom Moran