Hoax Museum Blog: Sex/Romance

Real Sheep — Here's an odd site, sent along to me by Chris, whom I met while I was attending the Hoaxes conference in New Mexico. It's the Real Sheep site, selling the world's finest elastic, life-size love mutton (the site is safe for work). As Chris points out, Real Sheep appears to be a parody of RealDoll.com (not safe for work) which sells the world's finest love dolls.

NCSU Fellatio-Breast Cancer Study — While I was away in England during October I missed a bunch of news. One story that I missed was the remarkable spread of a spoof CNN webpage (see PDF file) claiming that "Fellatio may significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer in women." Reading through it now, I don't see how anyone could not have recognized it as a joke. After all, how many doctors are named "Dr. Inserta Shafteer"? But apparently many people were fooled. CNN was annoyed enough that they threatened the creator of the hoax site, a North Carolina State University student named Brandon Williamson, with legal action. Brandon quickly removed all CNN references from the page. The spoof page itself was hosted on NCSU's server (which was another reason people should have immediately realized it was a hoax). But apparently people are still being taken in by it. Just a few days ago Mary Ann Liebert, publisher of the Journal of Women's Health, issued a press release demanding that "the network must investigate thoroughly its decision-making process that allowed a story that is so damaging and degrading to be put up on its website." Apparently she doesn't realize that the spoof page never appeared on CNN's website.

Student Prank Goes Bad — I'm making a mental note to myself: the next time I'm at a party in China, I won't strap fake genitals to myself, dance obscenely, and throw scraps of papers pulled from my underwear at the audience. Three Japanese students attending school in China made the mistake of doing this and have sparked massive anti-Japanese demonstrations throughout the country.

Marry Your Pet — Do you really, really love your pet? Then why not marry him or her? Go to MarryYourPet.com, and you can make it happen. Of course, the marriage isn't recognized by a court of law, which makes it somewhat of a hoax, but they really will sell you a marriage certificate, an 'I married my pet' T-shirt, or a wall plaque. They're all incredibly overpriced. If they offered the certificate for $5 instead of $20, they probably would do more business. They're trying to sell the wall plaque for $200. Ouch! Who in their right mind would shell out that much for a gag gift?

No Marriage — A visitor (Carly) has asked me whether I think nomarriage.com is a hoax site. After checking it out, I don't think it is. The guy may be slightly tongue-in-cheek, and he's definitely designed his site to generate maximum controversy, but I'm sure that if you pay him $9.95 (via paypal) you really will get his NoMarriage book, and it'll basically be a misogynistic rant against American women. I could see people thinking it would be an amusing gag gift for someone about to get married, but personally I wouldn't want to give any money to the guy.

Single Black Female Looking for Love — An email has been making the rounds that appears to be a personal ad from a 'single black female' who's looking for love. Daisy, as the mystery female calls herself, promises that she loves to play and, if she finds the right man, will be willing to wait at home for him 'wearing only what nature gave me.' Thousands of men have called up the number listed in the email, only to find themselves connected to the Atlanta Humane Society. Daisy is, of course, a black Labrador. Here's the text of the email:
SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a very good-looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. Rub me the right way and watch me respond. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Kiss me and I'm yours. Call [phone number] and ask for Daisy.

Wife Odyssey — Wife Odyssey: He may look like a grouchy old slob, but don't let his appearance deceive you. He's really a 'lonesome artist seeking a soulmate.'

Real Hamster — Real Hamster: Hot hamster sex. Maybe not safe for work.

Lapdance Island — Britain's Channel 4 was flooded with applicants hoping to get a spot on the new Reality Show called Lapdance Island. In this show ten men would be on an island with forty lapdancers. The winner would be the one who could keep his hands off the dancers for the longest. But the show was a hoax. Details here.

Fake Friendsters — There's been not one, but two articles in the past few days about the phenomenon of Fake Friendsters. Apparently many people using the new online service Friendster — a service that allows you to meet new people by making connections with the friends of your friends — have been creating fake identities, identities such as God, Giant Squid, or Jackalope. Friendster is fighting back by trying to delete all the fakes. Of course, this is like fighting the tide. Just ask any postmodernist and they'll tell you that the concept of identity is itself inherently illusory. So to insist that only 'real' identities are allowed on the service is absurd. Personally, if I were to create an account on Friendster, I'd want all of my friends to be fake.

Hunting for Bambi — It looks like it's now 100% official that Hunting for Bambi was a hoax.

Hunting for Bambi (hopefully final update) — So I think it's finally official that Hunting for Bambi is a hoax, a publicity stunt done to sell videos. Isn't it wonderful that public attention gets focused on things like this rather than, oh, poverty, hunger, education, etc.?

Not What You Expect — Super-Models-With-See-Through-Tops.com

Hunting for Bambi Update — It's looking more and more like Hunting for Bambi is a hoax. George Evanthes, the man who claimed to have paid to go on a Bambi hunt, is now being denounced as a shill by his friends. And the Hunting for Bambi company is claiming that it can no longer hold any Bambi Hunts because all the potential customers have been scared away by negative publicity. Seems like a convenient excuse.

More about Hunting for Bambi — Suspicions that Hunting for Bambi is a hoax seem to be growing. If the company is for real then it should be easy enough for them to prove it. Show that you're signing people up for new 'hunts.' Produce the accounting records to prove that you've taken people's money for hunts in the past. But of course they won't do that. These hoaxes always work the same way. Stall and delay for as long as possible while you milk the controversy for all the publicity you can get. KLAS-TV, the Las Vegas station that originally aired the story, discovered that the company behind Hunting for Bambi, only has a business license that allows it to sell videos, not to operate a sexually-oriented business nor to run paintball games. So if they are actually doing this, they're doing it without the proper licenses.

Hunting for Bambi — Is 'Hunting for Bambi' a hoax? In case you somehow missed it (hiding under a rock, or something), Hunting for Bambi is supposedly a company that for $10,000 will let guys hunt naked women with a paintball gun in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The company got some local TV coverage, and then the larger news outlets picked up on the story, initiating a media frenzy. But based on the emails I've been getting, a lot of people are suspicious about the company's claims. After all, exactly how does one sign up to go on one of these Bambi-hunting expeditions? That doesn't seem to be clear since the company isn't responding to most inquiries. What I would guess is that there are no Bambi-hunting trips. That would involve just too many legal problems. But the company is offering a video for sale, and members of the public can definitely buy that. I suspect that the company is just pretending to offer the 'hunts' as a way to generate a lot of publicity and sell the video (and the other merchandise they're offering). The whole scheme is reminiscent of something like Ron's Angels, which got a lot of publicity back in 1999 because it claimed to be selling the eggs of supermodels to infertile couples. That all turned out to be a hoax to promote a pornographic web site. I could be wrong about Hunting for Bambi, but I'll wait for them to provide more evidence of the truth of their claims before I change my mind.

A Vermont Wedding — The town of Manchester, Vermont is set abuzz when rumors spread that the marriage of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck will occur there. Unfortunately, the rumors turn out to be false.

Mail-Order Husbands — Guys have been able to shop for mail-order brides for quite some time now, so I guess this was inevitable: mail-order husbands. And what fine specimens of the male species they have available!

Rejection Hotline, II — An LA Times reader reacts to the Sept. 9 story about the hotline for 'losers' (from LA Times, requires registration):
The idea of a woman giving out a bogus "loser's" phone number instead of her own is an old one ("Hey, Loser, Got a Message for You," Sept. 9). Some years ago I met an attractive young woman and asked for her number. She gleefully gave it to me. I phoned the very next day, only to hear a taped recording: "Thank you for calling the Los Angeles Zoo.... " My only solace was a good laugh because, even though the joke was on me, it was truly funny. Unfortunately, Jeff Goldblatt's "loser's" phone number is lean on humor and mean to the extreme.

Rejection Hotline — If someone asks for your phone number and you don't want to give it to them, get rid of them discreetly by giving them the number for the rejection hotline. They'll think it's your number until they dial it up and hear this prerecorded message: "The person who gave you this number obviously did not want you to have their real number. Maybe you're just not this person's type.... This could mean short, fat, ugly, dumb, annoying, arrogant or just a general loser. Maybe you suffer from bad breath, body odor or even both. Maybe you just give off that creepy, overbearing, psycho-stalker vibe. Maybe the idea of going out with you just seems as appealing as playing leapfrog with unicorns." In LA the number is (310) 217-7638. (From LA Times article... Requires registration). Check out the website of the Rejection Hotline to find the number to call in your city. They also provide phony business cards.