From shlock to sleaze: why you never want to fall victim to a celebrity's chat-up line

It is a generally accepted fact that famous people reside in a different galaxy, one astronomers refer to as the constellation of Narcissusillium. Yet even given that they are born of a different species, one of the many things that puzzles me about the famous is, considering how much time they spend thinking about themselves, is it not astonishing that they have so little self-awareness? Or more specifically, how they so often come across as such total arses? There are too many examples one can give here, so I would like to focus on my PhD paper, From Sleaze To Schlock: Why You Never Want To Be Chatted Up By A Famous Person, At Least Not If You Don't Want To Spend The Rest Of The Night – And Maybe Longer – Being Sick In Your Mouth. Recent events have contributed immeasurably to my studies, not least the continuing adventures of Wee Silvio Berlusconi and his unfortunate soft spot for ladies who see tape-recording equipment as the de rigueur accessory for a hot date. Last weekend, the tape totin' Patrizia D'Addario claimed that one of the politician, media magnate and occasional songwriter's lines to a group of about 20 young women who dined with him last October was a boast that he could get them on Italian Big Brother – a suggestion that would make most people pedal their legs out the door as opposed to uncross them. The fact that these women were allegedly escorts and therefore "a sure thing", to use Julia Roberts's self-description in Pretty Woman, makes Berlusconi's – what? Boast? Threat? – even more pathetic in its redundancy. This follows on from the traumatically memorable conversation between D'Addario and Silly Billy Silvio that was published last week, in which he allegedly advised her: "If I may, you ought to have sex by yourself. You ought to touch yourself with a certain frequency." At first, I thought it was the "if I may" that added a certain je ne sais quoi. But on reflection it's the "certain frequency", which is not only intriguing in its vague specificity, but makes masturbation sound synonymous with radio tuning.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/29/hadley-freeman-chatup-lines