In order to commemorate 21-year-old porn star Sasha Grey's mainstream debut in The Girlfriend Experience this year, let's revisit Grey's 2007 appearance on The Tyra Banks show. Grey appeared on Tyra at age 18, after having spent eight months working in the porn industry. While I generally find porn kinda boring, Tyra is so out-of-control in this clip that I thought it might be worthwhile to reminisce.

Now that Grey has made the transition to mainstream film, perhaps Banks regrets characterizing Grey as just another lost kitten in need of a good cry and a loving embrace from Ty-Ty. When Grey refuses to play along, Banks engages in a televised exercise of hatin' the player, not the game.

How condescending is Banks to Grey in this clip? Let us count the ways:

- She characterizes Grey as "cold, distant, and hard"; Grey explains that she is just being professional.

- Banks repeatedly refers to Grey, at this point 18 years old, as a "school-girl" who "looks like a middle-schooler" and "an eighth-grader," in order to devalue her experience.

- She pretends like she doesn't know what a "gang-bang scene" is. Come on, Tyra.

- She refuses to accept Grey's statement that she has not been sexually abused; she insists that Grey is not "admitting" and "facing" her "issues."

- She attempts to force Grey to give her a "real reason—a deep-soul reason" for pursuing a career in pornography—as if every woman's professional goals must first satisfy Tyra's spiritual expectations in order for them to be valid.

- She refuses to accept that Grey's boyfriend's mother actually respects Grey. Who could ever do that?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYs2YfNlRBg]
Note: this clip is notated with crazy anti-Sasha Grey subtitles

- Finally, Banks rolls out an authority on the porn industry—a 19-year-old former prostitute and porn actress who warns Grey about the dangers of the profession. "I am those girls . . . I was those girls," says Tiana—who, at one year older than Grey, is accepted by Banks as an authority, while Grey remains just a girl who "looks like an eighth-grader."

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8dIxHSxeUk]

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Sarah Seltzer for Reproductive Health Reality Check wonders if Levi is a "victim" in the Palin spotlight. "The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston's appearance on Tyra yesterday to 'break his silence,' and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too," writes Seltzer.

I couldn't agree more: We're all victims here: Levi, Bristol, Tripp, and Palin herself all suffered at the hands of her ridiculous abstinence (with a teenage pregnancy backup) method. Everyone, that is, except Tyra, who pulls a fierce Katie Couric to get the daytime interview of the post-pregnancy season.

There are no words. [Via].

Later this month, Tyra Banks is set to receive a GLAAD Media Award for "Excellence in Media" for her work with the LGBT community on the Tyra Banks Show and America's Next Top Model. Last year, Banks famously paid for ANTM contest (and D.C.-area local) Isis King's sex reassignment surgery.

Queers United questions whether Banks is a true ally, noting that her treatment of gay issues has sometimes bordered on the offensive: "In the past few months, the Tyra show seems to be giving a lot of airtime to debating whether sexuality can be changed, and to insinuate that orientations like bisexuality are fake," writes QU.

I'm not going to argue as to whether Banks is a "true" ally of the LGBT community. But I have to wonder: Why give Tyra an award when she's so willing to pat herself on the back?

Take this announcement for a future Tyra show:

Are you a transgender teen or young adult who was inspired by Isis, the transgender woman who appeared on “America's Next Top Model” during Cycle 11? Did Isis inspire you to come out as transgender to yourself, your family, your friends or to the entire world? Did Isis' success encourage you to pursue a modeling career or otherwise reach for a dream that you once thought was unachievable? If you are a transgender young woman who was inspired to change your life by Top Model's Isis, SUBMIT BELOW.

Oh, Tyra. Isis King is a positive role model. Highlighting transgender issues on a national platform is great. But is this show designed to appreciate King's accomplishments, or Banks' accomplishment in bringing King on her show? Isn't there any trans issue Banks could discuss that doesn't have Tyra Banks Media Empire crossover written all over it?

Photo via Wikipedia Commons.

* Metro Weekly opines on 25 years of Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend.

* Tyra Banks finds the one woman who has never heard of Sarah Palin.

* Tiger Beatdown tells you who's faring better this week—chicks or dudes—based on evidence culled from extensive personal experience crack reporting a Google alert she's set up for "women than men". But take heed: " When it comes to the Dreaded Crotch Rot, no one wins."

* Gender Goggles gives a refresher course on feminist theory.

* Melinda Hennebeger at Slate's XX Factor calls bullshit on this whole virgin auction thing:

So does that gal attempting to auction off her virginity to the highest bidder remind anyone else of the young woman at Yale who was supposedly documenting her multiple self-induced miscarriages as a senior art project a while back? Not that I have any trouble believing that lots of people would cash that check. Yet something about the whole enterprise seems fishy to me. And I dunno about those "housewives'' either; are they for real, or just hideously conforming to expectations?

Photo by trialsanderrors.

King, who hails from Prince George's County, Md., "endured mocking from some of the contestants, support from others" on the show, according to The Advocate. DCist follows up on King's next step: On November 2, she'll be honored at a Jazz Brunch held by GLBT group "Equality Maryland."

Photo by Ed Kavishe at fashionwirepress.com