It’s not exactly “Zoolander,” but it’s pretty damn close.
Top ’80s and ’90s model Bruce Hulse’s memoirs, “Sex, Love and Fashion” is full of the lofty, overblown, self-referential hyperbole and weakly contrived, overwrought poeticism that confirms, for anyone who’s ever suspected it, that professionally beautiful people are aliens who live in an alternate, slightly ridiculous universe.
Absurd-sounding non-ironic descriptions of the act of male modeling – “I felt like a mythic hero channeling the spirits of the ancient Greek gods. I gave him as much as he gave me, trying to project my inner self outward, to become an equal partner in the unique dance that goes on between model and photographer.” – are interspersed with sordid anecdotes of having sex and taking drugs with famous people.
In short: Hulse set his shirt on fire on a lamp the first time he shagged Andie MacDowell; caved to now-novelist Paulina Porzikova’s naked feminine charms; got plastered with and bedded Tatjana Patitz; and said no to nookie with Elle Macpherson.
The majority of Hulse’s sexual supermodel exploits occurred, he admits, while he was in a relationship, self-branding Hulse a serial cheater – not exactly a sympathetic character. Never mind his admission to never using condoms – “I always had unprotected sex,” Hulse writes. “I never once thought about using protection. Sex for me was passionate, spontaneous. . .. Even after the AIDS epidemic began – an epidemic that hit the fashion industry particularly hard – I never thought about protecting myself.”
Along with these self-professed bouts with idiocy, Hulse’s memoirs include a handy smattering of tips for those aspiring to get into the industry – tips such as: “Don’t hit on the model whom the photographer has his eye on.”
“If I couldn’t figure out which girl he was going after,” Hulse writes, “the likelihood was that he was coming after me.”
Today, Hulse lives in Southern California with his wife of 15 years and two children. What he has to gain (besides money) from this book’s publication, with it euphoric, exuberant detailing of wild sexual exploits with some of the world’s most beautiful women, is beyond common comprehension. Perhaps professional beauties don’t need more of a reason to tell their stories and bare their bodies other than the thrill of sheer exhibitionism.
But I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being ridiculously good looking.
Hulse on his conquests:
Paulina Porizkova
“It was like a professional wrestling match. We tore that room apart. . . I’d never had such energetic, wild sex with anyone before.” Weeks later, after picking up his girlfriend’s birthday cake, Hulse made a pit stop at Porizkova’s hotel room where they, again, “tore up the hotel room, leaving clothing and debris everywhere. Somewhere in all that the [sic] commotion, the box with the birthday cake in it was squashed.” Hulse regrets only the location, not the cheating – “It was one thing to be in an exotic location having sex with a beautiful model, but this was different. This was far too close to home.”
Tatjana Patitz
“When a supermodel wants to drink tequila with you, you don’t ask questions – you drink tequila,” Hulse writes about his affair with Patitz, whose boyfriend at the time was a friend of Hulse’s. “It felt as if we were mentally and physically locked in to each other. We spent every night of the shoot together, having deep conversations about our lives and dreams.”
Carey Lowell
Hulse met Lowell during her first marriage to John Stember, a photographer who’d previously staged a photoshoot of Hulse making out with his first cousin, Lisa Marie. Lowell attended an aikido class with Hulse where he “helped show her some of the basic turns and movements, standing close, almost embracing her as [he] manipulated her arms and legs into the correct positions.” “The aikido dance we did together was highly erotic,” Hulse writes. “And our energy (or ‘chi’) levels were sparking crazily off each other.” Then he bedded her. Surprise.
Sex, Love, and Fashion
A Memoir of a Male Model
by Bruce Hulse
Harmony