Tea Bagging America until the Money Shot

Judging by his expression, we'd guess Teabaggee.

When did the porn industry become media trendsetters? Entering Borders on Friday afternoon, the cover of Dana Milbank's Tears of a Clown greeted shoppers on the new release shelf. Glenn Beck's scowling mug graced the cover, but it was the subtitle: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America that really caught the eye. It wasn't the first time we'd seen "tea bagging" or "tea baggers" used as an insulting play on the Tea Party but it was the first time we'd seen it displayed proudly in a bookstore.

The whole tea bag thing all began as an unfortunate sign carried at a Tea Party rally, and quickly morphed into a derogatory Internet punchline. For obvious reasons, we expected it to stay there since the traditional use of "tea bagging" is slang for a sex act wherein a man dips his testicles in and out of a partner's mouth à la steeping a cup of tea. As charming as it sounds, it wasn't something we expected to see make the news. Yet MSNBC and CNN have been making "tea bagging" jokes since at least the beginning of the year. Anderson Cooper said with obvious expertise that, "It's hard to talk when you're tea bagging." Thanks for the tip, Anderson. And Rachel Maddow enhanced her standing as a serious journalist while pondering Ana Marie Cox's question, "Who wouldn't want to tea bag John McCain?" Unsatisfied, Maddow later cemented her claim as heir to Walter Cronkite when she said, "Even Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina is getting in on the hot tea-bagging action." Kids... smutty double entendres on the news are funny because they're trained journalists. If you do it, you're just being childish.

However, Tea Bag does not a trend make. For that we need to return to CNN and Wolf Blitzer:

The reason Cafferty cracked up is that a "money shot" is porn industry slang for the conclusion of a pornographic interlude when the male performer ejaculates onto his partner. Nine to five jobs may not be the most glamorous professions, but at least someone doesn't come on your head to let you know it's quitting time. As Stephen Ziplow writes, "the money shot, is the most important element in the movie and that everything else (if necessary) should be sacrificed at its expense." The term has made a somewhat shady migration to the mainstream to refer to any big moment or major payoff. Still, the original connotation tends to overwhelm the senses, so to speak, and makes for unintentional comedy. Take the CNN commenter who yelled out, "there's the money shot" as a freed Chilean miner was reunited with his wife. That's a little awkward. Sure he was down in that cave for sixty-eight days, but where's the staying power? Don't they have baseball in Chile?

Perhaps the media is trying to find a way to connect with its deteriorating viewership. A lot more people appear to be watching porn than the news (28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography per second) so maybe it's a smart move. Perhaps porn is the new lingua franca - a secret, unacknowledged language for our modern, fragmented world. If that is the case, bravo media for innovating but have the courage of your convictions... don't stop at two. There have got to be loads more inappropriate pornographic terms begging to be adapted for family newspapers. As always, Die In a Fire is happy to help get you started:

• DP - verb. Two people acting in concert to screw a third. Usage: Michelle O'Donnell teamed up with Chris Coons to DP Mike Castle and the GOP in Delaware.
• Snowball - verb. To regift, to pass on to a second party. Usage: Tom Delay was convicted this week of illegally snowballing almost $200,000 in cash to Texas GOP candidates.
• Reach Around - noun. An inadequate gift or compensation. Usage: The State of New York gave the wrongly convicted man a reach around of five million dollars to compensate him for the twenty years he lost in jail.
• Dirty Sanchez - verb. To rub something in a persons face in a taunting manner. Usage: O.J. Simpson dirty sanchezed Nicole Brown's family while announcing he would not rest until her killer was brought to justice.

Oh, and porn industry, you shouldn't feel cheated. You deserve equal time. So why don't you take the vastly overused mainstream expression "jump the shark" and make it something incredibly dirty and degrading. Mazel Tov!