INVASION OF (my) PRIVACY - (with my consent)

Paris Trying Shoes and underwear


Some of my personal encounters with pornography:

1) The first, unless you count becoming erect while suckling my Mother’s nipple - alongside my little brother, was when I was nine years old and the boys in my class at school were all gathered around in a group looking -and whooping- about something. I went over and they welcomed me into the circle to look at a small flip comic magazine in B & W, which they were passing around.
When you flipped the pages it created a visual illusion of motion on the hand drawn cartoon pages. My look was brief because I was embarrassed. I saw two guys – one on each side of a woman lying on her back between them with her legs being held apart by one man while the other reached into her and withdrew handfuls of shining jewels with great glee. I think there was a Caption that read, “So This Is Where She Hid It !”

2) When I was in college the First Issue of PLAYBOY came out.
3) A sniper shot Larry Flynt on a public street because ‘they’ didn’t like the magazine he was publishing – HUSTLER. The shooting instantly made him a famous paraplegic. And he is still publishing the magazine. I guess, for the shooter, it didn’t really work. Flynt became ‘Flint,’ and won a freedom of speech case, Appeal, in the Supreme Court of The United States, which led to a biopic about his life.
4) A fine photographer in San Francisco was arrested and all his photographs and photographic equipment were confiscated by authorities while trashing his studio - because he had photographs of family friends’ children that he had created, showing the children "in the nude". He was prosecuted and found not guilty of violating laws against child pornography. His career and personal stability were upended by the events. He became famous, and still publishes art books showing photographs of children - some of them "in the nude" (Jock Sturges is his name).
5) A very popular star of television and personal appearances for children, known on stage as ‘Pee Wee Herman’ was arrested and charged with some kind of moral turpitude violation accompanied by huge nationwide publicity because the proprietor of a neighborhood ‘porno-theater’ recognized him and called police when he came into the theater. They found him in the dark sitting alone in an empty row with a coat over his lap. When they removed the coat his fly was open. The ensuing publicity destroyed his career, of course.
6) Over the years, I know that Congress has appropriated millions upon millions of dollars to 'study the effects of pornography upon America, it’s young people, women, and society in general.'
The results have been inconclusive (really), but the subject matter and the images have received much scrutiny by researchers paid by the government and also by all the many interested members of Congress.

7) The pornography industry has gone from a tacky (some say 'slimy') subterranean clandestine activity peopled mostly by ‘misfits’ of one kind or another - to the most profitable industry on the Internet, grossing untold millions of dollars annually world wide -with the largest audience of men, women, and children in the history of media.
8) I have had an interest in what is called ‘pornography’ since I was a teen sifting through the extensive collection of magazines (LIFE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, PHOTOPLAY, and other pictorial publications), which my hardworking Father had carefully assembled from the first issue all the way to the (then) present - as the only thing of value he could afford to leave to his children.
When Mother realized how much time I was spending in the hot/cold garage with my collie dog (and the magazines), she unceremoniously phoned the garbage collector one day, without consulting anyone. She (actually and symbolically) had the entire thirty or so feet of magazines picked up by our public servants and trashed (by dumping on, and to) them at the dump site.
That is when I learned that one man’s treasure could be his wife’s trash.

9) This 'Letterman List' of 'top ten' examples is by no means complete.
I am seventy one years old now, and my truly appealing sixty-seven year old self proclaimed (quite accurately) "Foxy Gram ma" (Philippino) girl friend just left me, -because (of all things) - "Although she loves me and 'would do anything for me' she is not willing to spend her life on earth with a man who will never be with me in heaven" - (since he spends time looking at images of nude women on the computer, in violation of God’s Law.)

10) I grew up in a Christian church, was an active church member, a deacon in the church, and led singing at youth meetings and revivals during high school. All of my friends were, and still are, noticeably spiritual.
I am a retired litigation and appeals attorney, living in Hawaii, and I never heard of God’s Law prohibiting viewing images of nude women on your computer in your home.
My experience with life tells me: “What you see is what YOU get.”
And pornography is no exception. I believe jocularity is my greatest fault.