Just the other day a woman friend of mine told me she’d stumbled across some porn on the Internet. As we talked she said she was put off by it and hoped that didn’t make her a prude. She also indicated she didn’t want to say too much bad about porn because, “I know you enjoy it.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, “I never said I enjoyed porn!” And I know that to be a fact as it is something that doesn’t need to be said. I’m a guy. We’re naturally better drivers than women. We naturally enjoy porn. “I said I’ve seen some porn.” I do, after all, have an email account and not seeing porn is the bigger trick.
And, honestly, I don’t enjoy porn so much as I tolerate it.
The reason I don’t seek porn out is… wait… let’s lay some background here. Years ago I was watching Armageddon (the movie with Bruce Willis, not to be confused with Armageddon Hard for You with Ron Jeremy) and was totally into the movie. An asteroid is going to collide with Earth… two Space Shuttles are launched and fly in formation into space… they slingshot around the moon, and come upon the asteroid back-door style (which I think had more to do with wanting the thrill of slingshotting around the moon than the fact asteroid has, well, ass in it). The shuttles land on the asteroid… one has landed way off-the-mark. The guys in the one that missed the landing area decide to drive to where they need to be in their drilling vehicle.
As they drive along – on an asteroid – they come across a giant ravine they need to jump across. Mid-jump, as they hit their booster rockets, I heard myself say “no… way…” Yep, I was cool with everything up until they jumped the ravine on the asteroid they landed on after slingshotting around the moon following a flying-in-formation trip into space.
I have a similar problem with porn.
For example, I’ll be watching something with a couple of coeds in it, one’s just gotten out of the shower and has a towel wrapped around her, and the door bell rings. It’s all good at this point. I know some women. They shower and I’m guessing the towel thing is kind of universal.
She answers the door and there’s a guy there with a pizza. I love pizza, I used to deliver pizza in college – probably to some coeds, though I don’t remember any gals coming to the door wrapped in a towel. But, in any case, I’m cool with it – perhaps had I gotten to the apartment a couple minutes sooner or later I’d have had the wrapped-towel experience. Certainly, I had a coed answer the door with wet hair once or twice. You’d think.
The guy gets invited in and one of the women starts digging through her purse – totally believable… nobody ever had money ready even though they’d ordered a pizza and should have had a strong suspicion someone would eventually show up looking for money.
At this point the movie is a winner for me. These are experiences I’ve had. I’m into the story. It’s believable. The dialog is crisp. I can almost smell the sauce on the pie. I’m totally immersed in the story.
One of the gals might start massaging the guy’s neck a bit. This never happened to me but it’s not hard to imagine the women don’t have enough for a tip and they’re trying to distract the pizza guy. I’m still good.
The next thing you know, the towel’s on the floor, the girl giving the massage has gone from working on the guy’s shoulders to the snap of his pants, the Jazz gets worse. And I’m still totally engrossed. I can see how this might happen – just as I can see how a couple of shuttles might slingshot around the moon.
And then the guy’s pants come down… he’s darned near Secretariat and I hear myself say, “Man if I were hung like that, I wouldn’t be delivering pizzas. I’d be making pornos.” And then I think, “Waaaaiiit a minute…” as I totally snap out of the little world I’ve been so engrossed in, “this is a porno.” And the story is lost to me – it has become too unbelievable.
At this point I typically sit back and finish watching anyway -- hey, I like bad Jazz as much as the next person -- but I’m not enjoying it. I’m tolerating it.
And then I take a big nap.
