Porn and old media...

I received an message earlier today asking me if I would still be blogging since I did not write for such a long time. And it actually hit me then, that is has been a long time. And while this person and I were writing for a bit, the subject of VHS came up... the old plastic cartridges and the tape inside you learned to fix with tape to keep watching the dirty movies you encountered.

Although I have read nudie magazines from very early on, and already discovered the book 'the Joy of Sex' on my parents' bookshelf. But I never actually thought there was anything about sex beyond that. In my young mind, and I talk way, way before I experienced the pleasures of touch myself, I simply did not connect those dots just yet.
The girls in the magazines, Playboy and Penthouse in my dads magazine subscription suitcase he got from work once a week, simply were nude. And that is already where I laid down my preference for the Penthouse magazine, because there I could see far better between the legs.

And that is also when suddenly, one morning when that suitcase had to be returned to the office, one magazine was missing. It was the December 1986 issue of the Penthouse.

Just to make very sure, I actually had to do some research for which issue it was, and it took me some whole 5 minutes to figure it out.

From that moment, the American Penthouse was my magazine. And living in Europe, being a kid not even reaching an age with two digits yet, it was amazing.

Once I actually hit those two digits and I experienced the first pleasures of an orgasm, forget it, it was ON! As most likely any guy out there, it has resulted as likely the only source of steady exercise a guy gets. But I always loved the magazine. And I was not against Playboy, or later the Hustler when I discovered it, but at that moment, I was in love.

The 'love' part came mostly because of the centerfold Jill Shawntai. That magazine lasted throughout most of my teenage years until at one ridiculous moment I decided to 'clean up' and trash my whole

collection of magazines. I have then also to admit that the photo to the left taught me more about the
female genitalia than anything else. I have studied this photo as if it was homework. Sure, right now it is nothing special anymore that you will not see if you stay for three seconds on Google and fill out any anatomical name. But remember that time, that the only porn you saw was what you 'discovered' so secretly somewhere else in the house?

Well, no matter what, even though times have changed, I still love the magazines, and I still am subscribing to the Penthouse. Sure, it changed a lot through the years. It became very hardcore, and after the reorganization it became temporarily even more 'clean' that Playboy has ever been.

But the idea of the magazine, the stills, is still very erotic to me. And yes, we can credit it even to the photo to the right that I got into photography at all so many years later.

But, that was my link to sex. That was what sex was to me, these photos. Watching women, posing. So when I saw a real hard-core photo in a sex magazine that I accidentally found without me absolutely snooping around in my parents' room for it - how dare you insinuate that! - my life and mind just blew up. I knew of course what would happen, geez, they drew it out so nicely in 'The Joy Of Sex'. But actually seeing it? Wow! Look, that women already posed like they did in these magazines was already something I wondered about, but there were actually people actually having sex? On photos? What was the world coming to?

Of course, I was frustrated, because that was the only magazine I found. So I had a very limited supply of real pornographic photos. And believe me, they were not good. Oh, they were not good at all. But, well, there was a penis sliding into a vagina. How much better could it get?

That answer was given when I saw my first porn shot. On the VHS tape that I expected had my cartoon from the day before on it. Oh, it was no toon, but oh, I liked it so much better. And I then made it my mission, to go through all the thirty 4-hour-stretched-to-8-hour tapes to find out if there was more of this drug on there.

And that was when movies like Sky Foxes or Hanky Panky, Pizza Girls and such came to my attention. Ah, nostalgia. But the most interesting part of it was not the porn itself, but the whole experience around it. Just like I wrote in my last posting, the buying of porn itself was half the fun, and sometimes half the arousal.
 

The getting your tape, forwarding it, playing it, rewinding, playing it again, and just enjoying those moments while at the same time you were alert as a fox for any sound that might imply someone was coming home.

Right now, although I can get my hands on these old movies through the magic of the internet, it still is lacking. Suddenly, it is that old, outdated kind of porn. By nostalgia fun and erotic, but hopelessly outdated. Ah, but the good old memories...

I make no illusions, getting porn through the internet does beat everything. At any time, thinking about something, and getting it right away. We are getting way too lazy for porn.

But, call me an old fart, but just like that I still prefer reading a book holding the hardcover in my hand, I still enjoy receiving, every month, the Penthouse and Hustler by mail. Yes, I might be that only subscriber left... but I prefer that to online.