Fun with French Spam

You know porn spam email? You get it all the time. Usually they're nice little notes "from" a girl with a vanilla name like "Linda" or "Candy," who just turned eighteen today, and is either wet, moist, or soggy, and who wants you to watch her and her friends perform various sexual activities. These emails are run-of-the-mill fare for your in-box, and everyone who has an email address has gotten at least one; several a day if you use Hotmail.

I do not use Hotmail, so I don't get many of these emails, unless Jacques forwards them to me for reasons unfathomable. The other day, however, I did recieve the following:

salut gege !
suite à notre discussion d'hier,
je te confirme bien la nouvelle:
Cecile est ENCEINTE!!!
On s'en doutait bien, elle n'a vraiment
pas perdu de temps, celle la.
Tes doutes etaient bien fondes!
je te dois donc 100 euros comme promis!
Mais quelle conne cette Cecile, elle a
reussi son coup!!! Pauvre julien!
Le voila papa maintenant!
Fini les boites de nuits et les filles a gogo!
au fait, en parlant de filles: vas donc faire
un tour sur ce site:
http://www.sex-annuaire.com
(c'est hallucinant, y a quasiment que des trucs
gratuits et en plus y a de tout: des lesbiennes,
du fetichisme, des blacks, du crade...)
Bon allez je te laisse!
A samedi soir!
Vincent.
PS: Pauvre julien!
PS2: Va vite voir http://www.sex-annuaire.com (c'est gratuit!!!)
PS3: On se voit samedi soir!

Now, I cannot read French, despite my oft-repeated assertion that I was one of four people who actually passed the placement test into French II at Classical High School (and I was the only one of the four who was in French I in middle school and not French II, and I got in the 99th percentile). But, since I chose to go for Japanese instead, I haven't actually been exposed to any French since that time. The only thing I could tell was that the letter ended with not one, not two but THREE P.S.s, and that the website is free!!!!!, and something about lesbians, fetishism and possibly black people.

Questions for the French, re: this email

Do you guys think that it's possible to sound at all crude in French? Because it's not. Your language is too beautiful and intellectual-sounding.
How did you guys get me on your mailing list? Don't you know I don't speak French? Have you ever seen me speak French? Did my old guidance counselor sell you the results of my French test?
Why would you think I would want to go to your frog porn site, when there's approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 sites where I can navigate hot, wet, fetishy, black lesbians in the comfort of my own language? Not that I'd know or anything.
Why do you guys even have porn? Don't you walk around naked all day?

You may think that this is the end of the Sex Annuaire Story. You may not. You may or may not think wrong.

The very next day, I recieved this, subject header "Fresh news from Bill":

hello brad
What's up?
What about your wife? Is she always so beautifull?
I will be in london on thursday.
May be we can have dinner together?
Phone me or mail me!
kiss,
Bill
Oh...I must to tell you!
I just have found a new free porn web site!
it is incredible: ALL IS FREE!
http://uk.sex-annuaire.com
try it, you will not regret!
I know that you are going to enjoy!!!
See you on thursday!!! BYE!!!

I was on my turf now. The Sex Annuaire people were speaking my language: English. Now, this is by no means just an English language version of the above mail--no "lesbiennes," no "Cecile". Rather, it's a completely new message, one that, because of its English-being-in, I can make fun of far more easily.

hello brad

This is one of those "fake personalized" spams, one which pretends to be a friend of yours under the assumption that you'll more likely go to a porn site if a friend recommends it. I have no doubt that "Brad" and "Bill" are both entirely fabricated. But don't they realize that an overpersonalized email is even more alienating than an overgeneralized one? I'm not Brad. Brad's not even that common a name. Even if most people can't tell right off that this is a porn spam, they will, upon seeing the mail addressed to Brad, assume it's misdirected. Even if you do trust a "friend"'s recommendation of a porn site, why would you trust a recommendation aimed at someone else?
INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTION: My name is Brad

What's up?
What about your wife? Is she always so beautifull?

I don't care if you're a non-native English speaker, I don't think that question makes sense in any language.

"Bill" and his cohorts at Sex Annuaire, Inc. continue to make assumptions about me I'm not comfortable with. I'm married all of a sudden? What do I want with porn, then? She's beautifull!
Well, then again, we don't know how "Brad" will answer. Maybe she's not always so beautifull. "Actually she's ugly on alternating Thursdays and during Lent." Maybe there's a new slogan in all this: SEX ANNUAIRE: Porn for those occasions on which your wife is inexplicably ugly. I mean uglly.
INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTION: I have a wife who is beautiful some or all of the time

I will be in london on thursday.
May be we can have dinner together?
Phone me or mail me!

More attempts at making me feel like Bill is really my friend. However, the more specific they get, the more continue to convince me that I'm not the person they want to talk to.
INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTION: I live in London

kiss,
Bill

Whooooaaa! Hold on! Kiss? Hey, I'm married, you know! Maybe they do things differently in France, or as I call it, "Fancy France," but here in London, we're just as homophobic as ever, so you keep your lips to yourself, Mister.
INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTION: I'm remotely affectionate or cultured

Oh...I must to tell you!
I just have found a new free porn web site!
it is incredible: ALL IS FREE!
http://uk.sex-annuaire.com
try it, you will not regret!
I know that you are going to enjoy!!!

Whoopee.
INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTIONS: I consume porn, I will enjoy Sex Annuaire's porn, I'm in the habit of collecting porn recommendations from friends, I trust Bill's taste, free porn sites are rare

See you on thursday!!! BYE!!!

INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTION: That I'm going to agree to have dinner with him. After what he pulled, trying to kiss me and then selling his indecent wares? No thank you! If I'm going to let that French yahoo into my cushy London pad, my name's not Brad Vincent, right, honey?

USUALLY-BEAUTIFULL WIFE: Right!

- Laura