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Saturday, July 15, 2006

SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH: TRUE TALES OF FIRST PORNOGRAPHY

As you may have gathered, the barbecue joint is, among other things, a salon of higher culture and erudite discussion of the arts. Before coming in to work today I perused the items at a local stoop sale, and among the many books I found a charming volume of erotic art for two bucks and figured it would be fun to share with the staff and the regulars when my shift began. As predicted, the book was a big hit, covering all manner of fleshly ground from centuries-old engravings to Japanese shunga prints with the colossal genitalia to contemporary gallery works, and while checking this stuff out I realized that at some point this sort of material was probably some unsuspecting kid’s first exposure to the world of osh-osh as a somewhat prurient form of entertainment. It’s a universally visceral, fascinating and somewhat scary experience to say the least, for both young males and females alike.

Excluding the rather innocent stuff like PLAYBOY and PENTHOUSE, my own first glimpse at such material was a rain-soaked copy of SCREW magazine found at my bus stop when I was ten years old. The tabloid literally dripped with filthiness and while I knew what a girl’s equipment looked like — thanks to a little girl who lived across the street when I was six; you have my eternal gratitude, Terri! — I was horrified by the unbelievable talents of one Honeysuckle Divine, a cute blonde who used her sacred reproductive orifice for purposes that it was never meant to perform, such as individually spewing out greasy-looking matzoh balls. Sadly, I left this treasure where it was because to have it found in my possession at home or at school would have meant certain death in ways that Torquemada never imagined.

Later that same year an uncle gave me a steamer trunk full of rather “weathered” dirty magazines, an act more or less fully endorsed by my mother in an effort to prevent me from becoming “an artsy fag;” you see, in her book anyone with even the slightest interest in the arts was destined to have nuts bouncing off his chin in no time at all and that she would not allow, by God! So porn was an approved part of my library from very early on. Little did she realize that I already had the fever for girls, but any way you cut it, it was a win/win situation.

In the two minutes it took for me to get the trunk to my room, I swiftly managed to riffle through the smut and find most of the really foul stuff — including the now-infamous issue of HUSTLER that included a scratch-and-sniff center-spread — before my mom could pick and choose what was kosher for me to keep. I stashed the toxic material in a hidden panel behind the bookcase in the walk-through closet that connected my bedroom to my bathroom (this was at the palatial first house that we lived in from 1972 through early 1980 in Westport), and then spent hours engrossed in the images of naked womanhood splayed across my bedroom floor.

Shortly after this a succession of babysitters discovered my illicit collection and were even more fascinated than I was, each eagerly devouring page after page of pink. I was particularly enamored of a pair of twins who used to take care of me and had an extensive critical knowledge of the genre thanks to raids on their brother’s closet. These two girls were the first to make it plain to me that girls enjoyed naughty stuff just as much as guys did, and that was a mind-altering revelation. Ever since, I have appreciated the female porno fan.

As I reminisced on my own tender corruption I was intrigued to find out what other people recalled of their early exposure to pornography, and since I have no shame whatsoever I asked all within earshot. Here’s what I got:

“A PENTHOUSE found in the creek bed behind the local elementary school in Lexington, Kentucky!”
-Big Mikey

“A PLAYBOY found in a drainage ditch in Texas.”
-Scott M.

“It was a tape called NAKED AEROBICS found in my dad’s back drawer. It was kinda pathetic, really, since it was just two women with that early-1980’s Jane Fonda workout aesthetic, doing regular aerobics, only naked. And making it even cheesier, there was this mirror/kaleidoscope effect that multiplied the image of the two women into a legion! When my dad died, I inherited all of his adult material, sort of a porn legacy, if you will. The tape, and a bunch of softcover books about dirty nuns, and the like.”
-Tracey McT.

“I like to call any porn found outside somewhere ‘feral porn;’ I mean, you can be in the middle of the fucking woods and find a porn mag! My own feral porn was a OUI magazine found on the fire escape at St. John’s, the local Catholic elementary school.”
-Frank T.

A nudie playing card on the muddy banks of the stream that ran through our neighborhood.”
-Jeff P.

“I was in fifth grade, babysitting with a friend, and we were flipping through the channels while the kid we were looking after was asleep. We found some kind of softcore something or other on HBO, and we were fascinated but too embarrassed to admit that we wanted to watch it, so we kept switching back and forth, but always kept landing on that flick. And my lower half started to feel really weird… And then I was hooked!”
-Lauren A.

“I was in fifth grade and I went over to my buddy Colin Riley’s house, where he showed me his dad’s copy of INSIDE VANESSA Del RIO.”
-Dan E.

"I was in fourth grade and went riffling through my parents’ stuff when they weren’t home, and saw one of those “365 Ways To Do It” manuals; I guess they were trying out something new each day… Anyway, when I lifted it out of the drawer there was an issue of HUSTLER beneath it, and I was blown away to see that the center-spread was signed by the girl in the picture, telling my dad how nice it was to meet him in Vegas and inviting him to 'cum again.'”
-Rob R.

“I think I was eight or nine, and soon after it lead to masturbation at age ten. It was PLAYBOY, of course; my dad had some, and my older brother found them.”
-Tim L.

“I was probably, like, ten and I totally found it on a wildlife walk, between the junior high school and the national elk refuge in Wyoming. Some random sleazy trucker mag or something… No, wait… I was in second grade, seven years old, and a friend who lived in a trailer park invited me over to see the bunnies that his folks raised; his dad would kill them with his bare hands and his mom would cook them, so I was already kind of traumatized that day. Anyway, since we had nothing else to do after the bunnies, my friend asked me if I wanted to ‘look at some pussies.’ I said okay, having no clue what the kid was talking about, and my friend broke out some porn mags that his dad had thrown away, and one of them was called THE BEST PUSSY IN THE WORLD CONTEST. The cover didn’t even have a picture of a woman; it was just a picture of a pussy. So he pulls it out and we start flipping through it, and every single page was, like, four crotch shots! Crotch shot, crotch shot, crotch shot, crotch shot! So I didn’t know what the hell I was even looking at! I didn’t understand that this was part of a woman’s body; I just thought that it was something…animal. And I couldn’t imagine why he’d want to show it to me. So I went home and my mom asked me what I did over at my friend’s house, so I matter-of-factly stated, ‘we looked at pussies.’ My mom was horrified and called my friend’s mother, after which my friend never spoke to me again. I didn’t figure out why until I was, like, fourteen or something.”
-"The Blank" (a regular who was too much of a pussy to be identified for this post)

“When I was around seven years old my family went from South Carolina to spend Christmas with my aunt and uncle, and when I went to use their bathroom I found a book that I’m sure belonged to my uncle. It had, like, a picture of a farm on it. Yep, I learned really young about bestiality… I don’t remember who the characters were, but they were visiting a farm and I’m not sure about most of the animals, but I think they were cows. There was also a woman who put something on herself to get a dog to lick her, and she even got off! I didn’t know such things existed when I was seven years old! So every time I went to the bathroom at their house, I’d look for that book. My mom and my aunt would knock on the bathroom door and go, ‘Debra? Debra, what are you doing in there?’ My dad also used to hide his PLAYBOY stash on top of the freezer, and I eventually discovered them. There was a day when my folks came home early, so I hid the PLAYBOY that I was checking out under my mattress. Now my dad got up really early the next morning and must have gone to look at the issue I borrowed, of course not finding it where it was supposed to be. That afternoon when I got home from school, he laughingly asked me, in front of a friend I was with, ‘So, did you enjoy my magazine?’ I sneaked out of the house, rode my bike past a stretch of road where they were building houses and got rid of the PLAYBOY in the woods, because if it had reappeared my dad would have known for sure that I had it.”
-Debra S.

“When I was sixteen I knew a girl who’d stolen her father’s VHS copy of DEBBI DOES DALLAS and she invited a bunch of us over to her house to watch it while her parents were away. So there I was, surrounded by a room full of high school girls, watching one of the classics of old school porno; now up to a certain point the film has plenty of nudity, but then the real sex started and the girls were horrified. They all started screaming, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever!”
-Chez P.

“I live in West Palm Beach in Florida, and I had these totally white trash neighbors who had fifteen kids — for real — and a duck named Chirpy who they’d feed cat food. They had this huge yard and they’d chuck porn mags all over the place for no apparent reason. It was like a graveyard of porn.”
-Madison P. (age 14, daughter of Chez)

“For me it happened when I was eleven, and my brother and I found a magazine wrapped in black plastic in the mail. It was an issue of PLAYBOY addressed to my father, and he claimed that they had just sent him a free sample. Yeah, right, but considering how whipped he was, I mean, my mother would never have allowed that!”
-Jayne P.

“I was ten when my great-grandmother’s husband died, and me and my cousin Junior were cleaning out Pops’ bedroom when we found all of this really ancient porn. Like pre-PLAYBOY stuff, and we thought, ‘this is hot! This rocks!’ And then we threw them all away.”
-Lee G.

“I don’t know how old I was, but I was really young and I was snooping, you know, like kids do. And my dad had a drawer in his dresser next to his bed that I opened, and I found this postcard of a woman on skis, stark-assed naked. And she had the biggest, hairiest bush I’d ever seen! But I didn’t know if that was just my perception, or if she really was that hairy because I didn’t know what was supposed to be down there. And that’s my story.”
-Joy A.

So what’s your story, dear reader? Remember: sharing is caring!

9 comments:

Mike Stewart said...

I was raised in the "Dark Ages", the 1950's. Most of us had no access at all to porn at all since it was illegal. Even the men's magazines showed only tits and ass...pubic hair, genitals, any real depiction of sex were totally taboo! It was really hard to find any inspiration for jacking off (not that we needed much!) A picture of a topless African or South Sea island maiden from National Geographic was about the best we could hope for. That magazine made many trips to the bathroom with yours truly! The photography magazines of the time, U.S. Camera and Modern Photography would also have occassional shots of nude models (again just tits and ass) and I tried to get to the new issues as soon as they got to the library so I could tear those pictures out before some other horny dude (young or old!) got to them. My mom found one of those wrinkled, well worn pictures in my jeans once and was not amused!

A hot Swedish movie "for adults only" called "One Summer of Happiness" came to town and they played the trailer at a kids matinee. It showed a topless nude bathing scene (which I later learned was the only hot scene in the movie!). I had a hard on for a week and almost wore out my dick jacking off over it. Over 50 years later still a vivid memory!

As a junior in high school, the kid sitting next to me in my Chemistry class had one of those little poorly drawn porn comic books known as "Tijuana Bibles". It showed Dagwood fucking Blondie and Alexander fucking his sister (Cookie?). It was the first porn I'd ever seen. My cock started throbbing while I was looking at it and I shot my wad in my pants right there in class without even touching it.

Ah yes, those were the days...NOT!

Anonymous said...

I grew up in Manhattan in the 80s, so my first exposures were the same first exposures of many people:

The glimpses of the porno room/racks at the local video store (pre-Blockbuster, natch), and the eternal Robin Byrd show. Ahh, good ol' Channel 35. Or, in my brother's day, Channel J.

By the age of 12, my friends and I started watching Channel 35 and the endless pornographic sex line ads. We still joke to this day about "Confessions of a Slutty Nurse."

I remember a few years ago, a friend of mine from Texas was staying with another friend of ours on the UWS, and he was shocked: Porn! Right there for the wanking! For free! On public access!!

Porn. Is there anythign it can't do?

Anonymous said...

My first exposure to porn was similar to most, at about age 10. I found my Dad's stash of Playboy and Penthouse out in the garage. I remember thinking the pictures were beautiful, but I had seen plenty of naked women in the locker room at the YMCA. What fascinated me were the stories and that write-in column - Forum??? I think that is what it was called. It was 8 years later when Bunche took me to see a porn flick called The Stewardesses in 3-D at the SONO Cinema. So I guess I owe my intro to porn to my father and Steve!

Anonymous said...

I have yet to see any porn. What is "porn", anyway?

HA!

Okay, the truth is, I don't remember. It might have been the "Special Native Tribes" issue of National Geographic - does that count as porn? I definitely remember some photos from that. All I can say is, I - whoa, I think I just remembered.

Okay, first off, as you know, I was an innocent guy. As a kid, I didn't even know that women had nipples, much less pubic hair - my understanding of female anatomy was based on glimpses of undressed department store mannequins (really!).

But with my Boy Scouts group (what the hell are they called? A pack" A patrol?) over at Marc and Dan Gallant's house (is one of them now the host of "The Planet's Funniest Animal Videos"? The name's the same) I saw...I think it was a Penthouse. We were all maybe 12 years old, I'm guessing, and Dan was probably showing off his collection.

I was freaked. Nipples? And what the hell was that fur between her legs? It grossed me out a bit, but of course it was also pretty fascinating.

As for my first exposure to more hardcore stuff, that would be that totally spread-eagle "here are my internal organs" poster on the wall of your room, Steve. :D

Either that, or the thing with the girl and the dog and the donkey. Or am I misremembering that?

Anonymous said...

My first exposure, so to speak, was probably not that different from other boys at the time. In Bronxville, NY, a friend of mine showed me his Dad's stash, and it was pretty extensive, of Playboy and Penthouse magazines. I was aware of what those magazines were, I was 11, but had never fully encountered them. You would see them at the newsstand, but I have parents who were adamantly opposed to those publications, and any and all porn. My Mom was always going on about how it demeaned women, etc. I know that she was trying to raise me to be respectful of women, not objectify them, and all that. And those are noble aspirations and ideals. But a growing boy has normal curiositites and urges. So it was immensely gratifying to finally gaze upon the pages of those magazines. It was a whole new world opened up to me, and for years to come, no looking back! Steve - thank you again for introducing another topic that all can weigh in on, and even feel nostalgic.

Anonymous said...

I grew up on Christopher street where I witnessed daily parades of men and women in crotchless leather pants - or ass-free-and-easy-leather pants or, no pants "hey bitch, what the fuck are you looking at" (nothing, just your invisible pants)DURING THE DAY. I can't remember the first naked ass or cock I saw outdoors before noon --it's like Sesame Street - do you remember your first time? As for printed porn - it was everywhere but it really made an impression on me when I was 7 years old in the slums of Paris in the home of a kooky-nut friend of my father's who gave us shelter while we tried to get out of the country without passports and plane tickets. Yves had a carpet of Porno mags. French, English, American, German and Spanish Tits everywhere. I felt bad stepping on the naked women but I was also just a little uncomfortable...I developed severe allergies after that and always thought it was the four cats in his apartment... Otherwise Forum Magazine always did the trick for me. I can't just have pictures, I gotta have a good story to help out, ya know? Those letters were grrrrrreat!

Nicole - born and bred in Greenwich Village,Yo! 37 years old.

Anonymous said...

Bunche

It was one of two things; I can't exactly remember which: My mother went to a friend's house to play cards, and took my younger brother and me with her, as my old man was out partying, as usual. While she and her pals were playing pinochle and gossiping, there on the living room coffee table were some MAGAZINES that belonged to my mom's friend's husband. Needless to say, my brother and I had a look. My first look at a picture of a nude woman! My mom walked into the living room, saw the mags and asked, "Did you look at these?" Well, it would have been stupid to lie, so I nodded yes. She was NOT pleased.

Wait, that's only one! The other thing was a nudist magazine my old man had in the car. I took a peek, and felt a strange stirring in my pants. Yup, it was my first erection. It took me a while to finally figure out cause and effect. Couldn't ask my Pop, man, not in the '50s!

Anonymous said...

I forget what specific porn arrived first to my eyes but I do remember being a wee lad watching The Electric Company and being genuinely fond of the shapely young female adults dancing around and whatever skits. I remember being intrigued with the females in all respects and wanting to see them without their clothes.

Imaginary porn came first for me I guess.

Firefly said...

Well I was maybe 11 or 12 and my parents took us to visit some friends of theirs like 2 hours from home, so we stayed over. So after my little sister went to sleep, I was left alone in the tv room as the adults stayed up late playing cards. They just handed me the remote control... and the room had doors, so I had total privacy.

So I'm looking for a rerun of some sitcom, and find "The Great American Strip-Off." Seriously. I had no idea there was such a thing! I tried to flip channels but was totally entranced, so I stayed glued to this craziness for ages. It was followed by a real porno, the first I'd seen. By the time I got sent to bed it was maybe 1:00 AM, and I barely managed to flip channels as I heard the grown-ups coming downstairs.

Bless the days before parentally controlled channel-blocking!