"Why I don't like porn"

A brief statement and history with naughty movies.

Why I don’t like porn.




Don’t get me wrong here. When I was a little boy, lets say around 9 or 10 years old, I was left alone one night as my Dad went off to do a play he was in. Trust me, at 10 years old I was quite alright to be left alone. All I ever wanted to do was play my Colecovision, read the new Book Of The Month Club book or watch movies on channel 5. In Los Angeles, KTLA, channel 5, broadcasted the best crappy movies ever and was the station Elvira Mistress of the Dark was on. While my Dad held the skull of some poor guy named Yorick, I was watching Black Belt Jones or Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. It was great.

Anyway, along with channel 5 I also watched movies on something called SelecTV, which was a movie channel you purchased and had installed in your home and that was ALL that you had. This was the late 70s/early 80s here kids. I had to still get up and turn the channel. That’s right...turn. No cable TV so to speak. In Los Angeles you either had ON or SelecTV. We were a SelecTV home.

The night in question was one I will never forget. As I heated up some Salisbury Steak I switched the channels trying to find something decent to watch. Nothing. Not even KTLA. I think they had some sappy romance movie on and that just didn’t cut it. If UFOs weren’t dangling on strings or guys in rubber monster suits with visible zippers in the back weren’t attacking ladies in caves I didn’t want anything to do with it that night. But when I switched on SelecTV I came across something quite interesting.

On Saturday nights they had something called “The Night Owl Theater” which featured sexy movies and adult type cinema. At the time the Emmanuel movies were big honcho naughty fests and I had seen one or two but switched them off because they were slow and boring. Plus the guys were gross and I always felt bad for the ladies because they had to kiss on these slobbery hairy European men. Which probably planted the seed for my distaste in pornography. 

Well, this particular evening a movie called UP! directed by some guy named Russ Meyer was playing. It was pretty funny and weird, something about Nazis or whatever, but then, suddenly, I saw something, or rather someone that changed my outlook forever.

Her name was Raven De La Croix and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her first name describes the color of her long straight hair that curtained over a tight low cut dress. And under that dress was something I had never witnessed before in my ripe young age:

Really big b***s!

Sure there was Dolly Parton and the occasional Charlie’s Angel but Raven and the rest of the female cast had measurements and moves I had did not know existed. It was then that a certain “feeling” erupted crotch wise and in a few short years I would delve into that feeling with another movie featuring a woman with like minded bosoms. It was a cheesy ski comedy called Hot Dog The Movie which featured a sex scene between one of the male stars and a Playboy playmate. Again, my Dad was off doing a play and I pulled at myself watching the steamy rub-fest until the inevitable shot across and hit the TV screen. Fearing for my health and possible punishment by my father and God itself, I raced to the bathroom, washed it off my hands all the while looking in the mirror repeating the mantra “Never again...never again...” The next morning, before school, images of that sex scene and Russ Meyer girls swirled through my head and I broke the promise I had temporarily made to myself.

A few days after my 18th birthday I raced down to my local video store to rent a movie I had my eye on for a while. The video store was connected to a gun shop (this is in Salinas California mind you!) and when the counter attendant wasn’t looking this one day while perusing the comedy section with my friend Richard, both of us still underage at the time, we raced into the Adult section for a quick sneak peek. The Adult area was sectioned off by thick plastic strips which hung from the top of the door frame and went down to about knee length. Many a times with my Dad I bent down to glance inside the forbidden area only to see the occasional blonde haired lady panting in seduction or a couple engaged in some kind of Twister move. It was never long enough to fully make out what was actually going on but then again, I was still pretty young.

That one sneaky moment with Richard when we were 16 or 17 lasted about maybe 5 minutes before the shop keep let out a “Hey...you two old enough?” to which we panicked and raced up to the counter with our copy of Explorers. In the last few seconds of our deviancy I saw a movie that had a woman on the cover that reminded me of one of the UP! girls. It was called More Than A Handful and I dreamt about that thing on many a night when I couldn’t access cable TV. Images of hot lusty women with huge breasts cavorted wickedly on the front cover and the little snippet shots that gave you a pretty clear idea of what this movie was all about on the back.

On that fateful day in late December, as my Dad worked and I enjoyed my holiday break and newly appointed adulthood, I skateboarded down to the video store, walked confidently into the naughty area, grabbed More Than A Handful (and Conan The Barbarian just so it didn’t appear that I was just there to rent a porno), walked up to the counter and plopped the movies down. The bored middle aged lady (which made me feel a little bad and perverted so I avoided eye contact and shuffled around a lot) rang up the two movies, scanned my video cared, checked my drivers license, gave a brief smile and bagged the movies. I skated home so fast I thought I heard a sonic boom. And as I got home, I closed all the blinds, turned the ringer down on the phone, got the desk chair and placed it directly in front of the TV, pushed the VHS tape of the porn into the video machine, pressed play and watched.

As I sat there with my shorts around my feet, remote control in my left hand and right hand at the ready I was treated to some shoddy ads for phone sex. Sad, bored and heavily made up ladies were propped up on silky beds with princess phones attached to their ears, each one yawning through a sales pitch of the “hottest talk in town” or “real nasty women want to talk to you”. Some of them were naked and some were done up in lingerie, but all had this drab look that made me very unexcited and nervous to call. Not that I would, but I was afraid that if I did one of these ladies (or most likely some fat housewife looking to make a few extra bucks to feed her ten kids) would nod off during our “sizzling” conversations. So I fast forwarded to the previews.

Again, I was both shocked and horrified at was I saw. Movies with titles such as Lactating W****s and Every Hole Filled overtook the same TV set where I watched the Muppets and Charlie Brown holiday specials. Images of home movie sex featuring women with mammoth proportions and men who should be in sideshows all groaning and cavorting to some of the worst music I had ever heard. I looked down to see how the lil guy was doing. Not too good. This was an indicator that I was far from turned on.

Finally the main event came on. The words More Than A Handful gleamed across the screen in cheap digital lettering followed by credits of the stars with names like Dixie Wonder, Chesty Hott, Betty Bust and so forth, along with the obligatory men, and soon I was into the first scene. It involved one of the ladies sitting on a leather couch reading a magazine. Suddenly a man walks in and strikes up a conversation. I don’t know what he said but I guess his pick up line worked. Soon the two were engaged in groping and undressing and so forth and so on. Another check on my friend. Nothing.

Maybe because I was focused too much on her clothes. They were tawdry and desperate and I wondered why a lady would wear clothes like that. And why would she let a man that looked like the plumber do things to her in such a jungle like manner? Who are these people? I watched her face as the man did his duty and she seemed more curious and uncomfortable than anything. He looked fine. But then again, he’s a He so he is exactly where he wants to be. She on the other hand looked like it was her obligation to deal with this force and, once again, I hit the fast forward button.

To make a long afternoon tale a little shorter I basically fast forwarded through the whole movie, only stopping once to do what I had intended to do as a silicone enhanced women emerged from a pool in a tiny bikini and proceeded to rub oil all over herself. Blammo! There, I had done it. But it was only because she was alone and seemed to be enjoying herself. A nice dip in the pool and sunbathing is a fun way to spend the day if you ask me. Once the creepy guy in a Speedo showed up did it all come to a crashing end as he got in her sun and demanded she do things to his, um, thing. That was it. I turned the movie off, ejected it, hid it in my underwear drawer and took off to skate with my buddies.

Through the years I’ve experimented with porn but to little or no satisfaction. Most naughty movies nowadays don’t even have stories, they just go right into the crux and there you go. Most porn I had come across in my early days were all shot on film and had at least some kind of plot. Sure the men had moustaches and the women had armpit hair but at least I could understand why they got into their situation and perhaps have a little sympathy for the guys and gals. The last naughty bit I saw didn’t even have music. They just stuck the microphone as close as possible so you get a full audio take on raw digital slurps and howls.

Maybe it’s because I feel a little soiled after watching porn. For me its as if I had watched a grizzly snuff-like splatter film from the 70s or 80s and I just want to shower after watching it. And as I stand there soaping up and grimacing I always wonder why did I just put myself through that? Grim curiosity? Life affirmation? Horrible car wreck rubbernecking? Perhaps all of the above. But in the end I have always been one of those people that get sad when folks are murdered in horror films (even though in High School I went through a horror movie phase, but that was because I hated High School and wished I was the one holding the axe). The same goes for porn. I keep thinking “so when they are older and trying to make a life for themselves what will they think of their porn days?” Some ladies and guys make a full career out of it. But what about the teeming nameless that appear in internet sites and 2 hour extreme hardcore videos? What then? Are they just trying to get through school or get back at the family? I don’t know. Either or, porn for me just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes I wish it did but I would much rather live the porn than rent and watch it. Plus being an only child with an over active imagination, the women and situations I have in the ol’ noggin is nothing compared to what Vivid Video could ever put out (so to speak). I mean, hey, all of their girls have only 2 b***s! You have no idea what I have to go through when my spaceship crashes on Bikini Planet X. Hoo doggies.

My point is though all of this pointlessness is that porn is everywhere and its more accessible than ever. In a way, that’s what makes it less exciting. That night I watched that Russ Meyer movie it was quiet and nerve racking and the possibility of my Dad walking in on me made it so back alley like. Same goes for the day I rented the porno. At any moment the door could swing open and my Dad could drop the groceries and run screaming in shame.

But it never happened. Thank God.

I’ll stick to the real thing thank you with the occasional memory of Raven de La Croix and the rest of those girls from various Russ Meyer flicks. Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. And just knowing that women with big b***s suntanning after a dip in the pool is more than enough to keep the home fires burning below.

So to speak. I don’t know...

11/1/2007