late update:
Fetman later revealed in her Playboy pictorial in the February 2008 issue that the photos in the ad were of her and her personal trainer.
Funny incident that eventually made it to the NYT Sunday paper: Burt Natarus' last bit of national press. I had never heard of the phrase, Viagra Triangle, used to describe the Rush Street area, but it is ever so appropriate. I tend to avoid the area, as I am neither buff nor on the prowl.
Divorce - Lawyers - Rush Street nightclub district - Corri Fetman - New York Times
IN a section of the Rush Street nightclub district sometimes called “the Viagra triangle,” a huge billboard rose up recently with photographs of a sexy, scantily clad woman on one side and a buff, bare-chested man on the other. The text between the photos proclaimed: “Life’s short. Get a divorce.” The ad, sponsored by a Chicago divorce lawyer, Corri Fetman, was meant to remind unhappy, restless or bored spouses that they have other options, some quite attractive. “The message is, if you’re unhappy, do something about it,” Ms. Fetman said. “It’s really no different than a motivational book that says, ‘Live the best life you can — be happy.’ ”
(photo: Keith Hale/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated Press)
Chicago has always been a brassy, brawling town that relishes a dust-up. That’s exactly what the ad has sparked. In bars, shops and offices, people have been debating whether it’s O.K. to get divorced — just because you feel like it.The billboard had been up scarcely a week before it was ordered removed last week by Alderman Burton Natarus. He said it was not the content of the ad — Mr. Natarus is known for his affection for the outlandish — but because the ad company hired by Ms. Fetman had violated a Chicago cardinal rule: It had not gone through proper channels at City Hall to get a permit.
Ms. Fetman isn’t about to back down. “We’re not going to stop,” she said. “In fact, we’re getting ready to do more racy photos.”
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Still, the in-your-face add was enough to get Jeffrey Leving, a prominent Chicago lawyer, huffing with indignation. He said the ad surely persuaded some married people to shop around.“It’s a cheap stunt that encourages recreational sex, sport sex,” said Mr. Leving, who specializes in father’s rights. “Lawyers have a lot of power to decide whether a marriage ends in divorce or not. People who are thinking about getting a divorce are very vulnerable.”
It wasn’t by accident, he said, that Ms. Fetman picked the Rush Street district for her billboard. “I know the Viagra triangle,” he said. “That’s what goes on there. I’ve represented clients in paternity cases that started in those clubs.”
It has not gone unnoticed that Ms. Fetman, 43, is a striking blonde who could play the part of temptress. A native of the Chicago area, she describes herself as “happily divorced.” She said people do not need to make excuses for wanting to get divorced. She scoffs at the notion that married people will glimpse the hot bodies in her ads and suddenly ditch their spouses.
“By the time somebody calls us,” she said, “they’ve either got somebody, or they’d like to find somebody.”
Jeff Leving sounds like a weenie, a flacid one at that. Divorce is as American as apple pie and recreational sex.
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Update:
Ms. Fetman now writes an advice column for Playboy.
