PS column: Iggy Azalea in sex tape saga

American porn giant Vivid Entertainment claimed they were offered a tape starring the US-based Australian rapper.

Celebrity sex tapes are getting to be rather unremarkable these days, but this one racked up extra interest because it may have been shot when she was under 18, the age of consent in the United States.

Her people at first denied its existence. Then they told the gossip site TMZ it might be the work of a "spurned business suitor" (business-speak for boyfriend) and maybe she was a minor and didn't know it was being shot before threatening to sue everyone if it surfaced.

So within days the saga ran the gauntlet from it ain't me, to it might be moi, to my boyfriend wants revenge and I could be jailbait.

Azalea finally spoke for herself, taking to Twitter: "Anyone who releases or attempts to make profit off someone else's intimate moments against their will is a sex offender."

Curiously, the Blue Azalea tape came out at the fag end of the furore surrounding intimate photographs and videos of some 100 celebrities, including actor Jennifer Lawrence, singer Ariana Grande and model Kate Upton, that were pinched and subsequently published on online message boards including 4chan and Reddit.

While the internet erupted in wails of disgust at the intrusion, the real impact of publication of the photographs and videos was twofold: firstly, it showed Apple's iCloud vaults were not secure; and, secondly, it revealed lots of people took explicit or nude photos or made explicit or nude videos of themselves.

Celebrity sex tapes are so commonplace that cynicism tends to follow rather naturally in their wake. It's hard to avoid the impression they have become a sort of default position for the media publicity industry.

Once, however, such public immodesty shocked both polite and impolite society alike and meant the end of a career.

For instance, in 1956, Eugene Goossens, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conductor and director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, was forced to resign after a photo emerged of him engaged in a sexual act with Rosaleen Norton, the so-called "Witch of Kings Cross".

Police charged Goossens with pornography, he pleaded guilty, paid a £100 fine and went home to England to die in disgrace six years later.

Few know that it was his early lobbying of the NSW government that ultimately saw it agree to build a music venue and it was Goossens who pushed for it to be built at Bennelong Point. There is no memento to him at the Sydney Opera House although he has a small hall named in his honour at the ABC's Ultimo headquarters.

In the entertainment industry these days, however, images like Goossens have evolved into a vulgar publicity vehicle that, since the 1980s at least, has enhanced the careers of more performers than it harmed.

Rob Lowe (1989), Pamela Anderson with Tommy Lee (1995) and Bret Michaels (2005), Paris Hilton (2004), Kim Kardashian (2007) unabashedly turned infamous conduct into forests of publicity and lineal feet of cash.

Meanwhile the Blue Azalea rolls on.

On Wednesday her former boyfriend/manager, Houston rapper Hefe Wine, aka Wino O, revealed himself as her co-star in the tape and claimed she had signed a contract that allowed him to sell Iggy's visual images.

They'll either go to court or she'll rap about it on a new video.

Andrew Hornery is on holiday.