Amy Fisher Caught on Tape

I'm not sure a writer of fiction could have possibly invented Amy Fisher. For those who are under, say, thirty, she may be unknown to you, but in 1992 she was well-known to any sentient American. Dubbed the Long Island Lolita, Fisher was a teenager who inexplicably became attached to a middle-aged mechanic, improbably named Joey Buttafuoco, engaging in an affair and, at Buttafuoco's ministrations became a prostitute. She ended up shooting his wife, Mary Jo, in the head. Amy got sent to prison, Joey became the worst kind of Z-list celebrity (and has been in and out of legal trouble of his own), and Mary Jo ended up divorcing his ass and forgiving Fisher.

Though no raving beauty, I could recognize that Fisher had a certain sex appeal. While I was at Penthouse I suggested that we pounce as soon as she was released from prison and offer her money for a pictorial. When she was released in 1999, though, I was gone from that organization, and instead Fisher went down a respectable path, becoming an award-winning newspaper columnist (and even was seen with Buttafuoco again, although that may have been only a tease to get a reality show).

Fisher outdid any Penthouse pictorial, though, with the release of a home-made sex tape, with her husband, Louis Bellera. The genesis of this tape appears to be a familiar story: Bellera sold the tape, unbeknownst to Fisher (apparently they were estranged at the time and he saw dollar signs). She sued, but over the course of a few months settled with the distributor, Red Light District, and has now even done promotional work for it. Of course I had to see it.

The home sex tape phenomenon is truly bizarre. It would appear that almost everyone is taping themselves having sex, even the well-known. In some cases it is used as a way of self-promotion, even while the subject indignantly claims outrage. The roster of those who have been exposed in this way would make quite a season of The Surreal World: Screech from Saved By the Bell, the wrestler Chyna, rockers Fred Durst and Gene Simmons, Survivor contestant Jenna Lewis, British model Keely Hazell (the only one worthy of watching having sex) the well-known simply for being famous Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, and now even Joey Buttafuoco himself.

Perhaps one day this will be the move that is equivalent to what posing in the nude was in years past. Need to have your name mentioned on Entertainment Tonight? Let a tape of you getting boned slip out, sniff that it is without your approval, but meanwhile secretly earn half the profits and enjoy your new found notoriety.

The Fisher tape (or DVD) is one of the better ones I've seen (it doesn't match the one with Janine Lindemulder and Vince Neil, but Janine is a porn star after all). It's not grainy footage shot with a cell-phone camera, it's well lit and composed. You see everything you would want to. Fisher doesn't look bad for a thirty-three-year-old woman who has had two children. She has breast implants, but also a flat stomach and toned legs. She kind of looks like a second-tier Marisa Tomei. Bellera is kind of an odd-looking fellow there, a bit doughy and with off-putting gray hair. Fisher frequently calls him "Daddy," which may be quell any interest.

Fisher is also a bit of a wildcat. I won't go into obscene detail, suffice it to say that Fisher keeps her man happy. It's also fun to listen to her pronounced Long Island accent. When Bellera begins to spank her. she eggs him on, saying, "I've been a bad goil."

I suggest a new game. Instead of a death pool, there should be a pool for who is next to be in a sex tape. Britney Spears would be an obvious choice, but who knows who will be next?