Ellen Barkin, Sex Educator
The date: May 13th
The place: 79 Greene Street
Sighted: "Ellen Barkin with 14-year-old daughter Romey at upscale sex toy emporium Kiki de Montparnasse. Only Hollywood stars can bring in their kids to adult stores without losing custody of them."
Ever since Cain slew Abel because he never truly got over that whole "our parents ruined the world" thing, screwing up your children has been the natural parental order. Are celebrities better at it than the rest of us? Maybe. Or maybe the combination of their narcissism and our voyeurism just makes it seem that way. Regardless, perhaps it's the goodwill left over from Drop Dead Gorgeous talking here, but we would argue that Ellen Barkin taking her teenage daughter to a high-class sex store is not akin to the aforementioned biblical tragedy, nor is it on par with the Hoff's cheeseburger incident or Baldwin's voicemail. It is, instead, simply an example of a mother protecting her teenage daughter with a cloak of her own hard-earned, well-lubricated knowledge.
Let's face it, when your mom is Ellen Barkin there's no way you make it to teen-hood without knowledge of the adult act of love. The woman recently admitted that since her second divorce she's not into blind-dates because she doesn't like all that pesky dinner getting in the way of her sexing. Granted, she stopped doing nude scenes once her kids got old enough to be embarrassed, but before that, sex was a contractually obligated prerequisite to any role she took. So maybe Ellen figured, before the family headed off to Cannes for the opening of Ocean's Thirteen, she'd take her daughter on over to the neighborhood upscale, sex shop to see what's what in the world of 24-carat gold handcuffs. Sort of a prep course, if you will.
After all, the more you know about the ins and outs of rich-people sex, the less likely you are to put your career on hold for the first fat, bald billionaire who buys you a two-way mini-tickler. And that's just good parenting.
