Let's Talk about Porn

My first exposure to porn was when I was eleven years old. A father two house down had a huge Playboy collection. We would sit in his garage attic and smoke cigarettes and look at Playboy magazines. Old school pubic hair. Which, of course, I still prefer. I mean hairlessness wasn’t really “in” until the 90’s, beyond my formative years. Don’t get me wrong. Hair, no hair; it’s call good..

By the time I was fifteen we lived in a different state and I would ride my bicycle up to the Stop ‘N Go and buy Penthouse magazines. Don’t ask me why they sold Penthouse to a fifteen year old. I guess they wanted the money.

When I was seventeen I saw my first porn movie. One of my older sisters called the house. She was out drinking with a friend and they decided they had never seen a porn movie and wanted to see one, and thought I could help. We belonged to a video store club and they had an adult section, which I had never entered. I was a regular there and only one year shy of 18, so no problems there. I rented Champagne for Breakfast. 70’s style porn with a storyline, which wasn’t half bad, really. I called a friend and we (he, I, sister, sister’s friend) watched it. Each of us sitting there in quiet trying to pretend we were alone. I am happy to report that no Penthouse Forum moments grew from this porn viewing.

In college we used to have Q&P Parties (quarters and porn). We’d play a porn movie on mute, crank up some music, and play quarters. We also played cards. They were smaller parties, and not always just a bunch of guys. During my first year in college there was a very old theater across the street that would show porn movies at midnight on weekends. I went twice, I think. The entertainment was everyone yelling out jokes about the movie, trying to elicit laughs.

In the 90’s, before I got myself an internet dial-up connection you would sometimes hear news stories about all the porn on the internet. Naturally, when I did get on the internet, I went in search of porn. It was not easy to find. There were no all-encompassing search engines like Google. Web sites had to be posted or advertised on sites like Yahoo. But I finally did find a site, which linked to other sites. Just about all of the internet porn back then were scans from magazines. Now, of course, just about any search will get you some porn in your results. It is no longer “ how can I find porn,” it is now “how can I not find porn.”

Can’t say I peruse porn as much as I used to. Now and then I hit a tangent and go on a little viewing run. Is this another example of youth being wasted on the young? I suppose by the time I am 80 the pendulum will swing back and I will be all into it.

The problem with porn today is that it lacks eroticism and sensuality. It’s just human bodies having sex, and usually in ways that regular people don’t because they aren’t doing it for pleasure they are doing it for the camera. The end result is some people expect their sexual experiences to match porn sex; or worse, they learn sex from porn sex.

So. Porn. Look at it. Or not.