Catfight! Catfight!

September 6, 2000 7:49 PM

Catfight! Catfight! (More inside)
posted by Steven Den Beste (8 comments total)

I find Cindy Margolis' sanctimonious comments about Danni Ashe more than a bit unconvincing; is it really all that different to cash in on one's body wearing a string bikini and to do so wearing nothing at all? Danni Ashe "delivers the goods", so what the hell is wrong with that?

But the ironic thing about this is that the E! network ran a special a couple of years ago about sex sites on the web, and Danni Ashe figured prominently (ahem) as one of the success stories (wearing a well-tailored business suit for the interview and looking mighty fine).

Cindy Margolis hosted the show. She also heavily plugged her own web site while doing so. Margolis didn't interview Ashe; this was one of those "unseen producer does all the work and then the big name host puts in about half an hour of voice-over work in the studio" things. But the voice-over script she read during the Ashe segment betrayed none of what she's saying now.

Given a choice, Margolis strikes me as a bit of a hypocrite. I give Danni Ashe points for honesty; she knows exactly what she's doing, she's proud of it and makes no excuses.

Moreover: Margolis is world-class beautiful; she didn't really have to work to make her site a success.

Ashe is not ugly, but she's not a raving beauty either; she's just a woman who is uninhibited, reasonably attractive, and has huge (natural) boobs. But she's also damned intelligent, motivated, hard working and knows what people want to buy and how to sell it to them. She's also got a hell of a sense of humor, which has always figured prominently on the site. I confess I used to be a member about two years ago.

Ashe started her site working completely alone, and still runs the show. For a long time, Ashe did all the HTML coding for the site herself. How much you want to bet someone else has always run Margolis' site for her? (Anyone want to bet on whether Cindy is even capable of creating a site like that all by herself?)

I think by this point it should be obvious which of the two I think is in the right.

[One more interesting thing on a different note entirely: The by-line on this is "Brock Meeks". I seem to remember a cabinet secretary by that name (unless I'm confused). Coincidence?]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:21 PM on September 6, 2000

So is it an issue of good design and hard work v. sitting around eating chocolate truffles all day or is it an issue of nudity v. no-nudity. I rather suspect the latter.
posted by davidgentle at 9:16 PM on September 6, 2000

I respect Danni Ashe not because she takes her clothes off in front of a camera, but because she's smart, damned hard working, and single handedly built a multi-million dollar business from nothing in five years. She deserves all the success she's gotten because she's earned every bit of it the old fashioned way: she worked for it.

Margolis is too beautiful for her own good; she's stunning, and as a result I think maybe a fair amount of her success has been thrust (ahem) upon her.

In 20 years, Danni Ashe will still be successful and will still be intelligent and will still have a great sense of humor and will still be working hard, giving the public what it wants (though by then she'll probably have stopped her own posing). Danni's biggest asset ain't her boobs, it's her brain.

In 20 years, Cindy Margolis' beauty will have faded and she'll discover that she doesn't have anything else to offer. She better be investing her money now, 'cause she's gonna need it.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:44 PM on September 6, 2000

Well that's not what I asked. My point is that danni ashe is nude in front of a camera and that the other one is not. Isn't that the difference? Isn't nudity more popular in porn than beauty?
posted by davidgentle at 10:02 PM on September 6, 2000

I think it's evident that you never were a member of Danni's site. (You have to pay.)

There's a lot more to it than just pictures of Danni Ashe naked. A lot more; lots of other women, of course, but she also does interviews with the models, for instance. And you not only can read their responses, you can hear them because the sound files are downloadable. Some of the models are surprisingly articulate.

There are a lot of other things in there, too, that you might not expect. One of the funnier (and more popular) things is that during the super-bowl she does a half-time show in real time (RealPlayer video) which is comedy (and nudity too). As far as I can tell, it's not prerecorded. It seems to be very popular.

Danni is offering a lot more than just nudity. That's why her site is one of the most popular and successful commercial sites on the web, even among porn sites.

And it is also true that there are a lot of people who would willingly download a picture of a woman in a bikini but would not (at least admit to) downloading a picture of a naked woman. So in theory, the answer to your last question is "no". (In practice, it's "yes" because a lot of those people are lying. SOMEONE is spending a billion dollars a year on netporn; either it's a few really, really rich perverts, or it's a lot of normal people who lie about it.)

At least I'm honest about it. Fortunately for us perverts, we don't have to choose because a lot of the porn models are beautiful [G-rated] and we get to see them nude too. Best of both worlds.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:36 PM on September 6, 2000

You call that G-rated? Perhaps you're not up on the dynamics of the female camel toe....
posted by Awol at 11:24 PM on September 6, 2000

Danni's site may be the greatest thing ever but...oh sod it. You're being very defensive for someone who is "at least honest".
posted by davidgentle at 4:22 PM on September 7, 2000