New York: Oh, How It Changes!
The post-Tribeca-Film-Festival-screening party for Steven Soderbergh’s new movie, “The Girlfriend Experience” (star Sasha Grey is pictured) was held in a new basement club in the West Village of New York. The space has had many incarnations: as a hospital during the Civil War, as a tavern at the turn of the century. In the 1970s and 80s, however, it was a sex den known as the Hellfire Club. That establishment occasioned one of writer Fran Lebowitz‘s famous (though unpublished) quips. During a late-night visit, her companion noticed that all the sadists in the place were women and all the masochists men. “Why are there no female masochists?” the friend asked Fran. “That would be redundant,” she shot back immediately.
