Porn......The Other Beat Meat

Everybody remembers certain "firsts" in their life. Their first song that made an impact. Their first favorite TV show. Their first kiss by someone who wasn't a creepy relative. Their first drink. The first time that they ever saw "Scarface". Their first credit card. Their first bounced check. Their first collections call. Their first love. The first time that they fell to their knees and cried their motherfuckin' eyes out after their first love left their ass. Their first tax return. And most important.......Their first experience with porn.

Porn, ethnic people, sex, power, homosexuality and love all have the same thing in common. They've been around since the creation of fuckin' breathing air and it will never go away. As soon as man took its first breath, the next thing that he/she did was look at another person's body part that turned them on and tried to hump it. After they got done humping it, they had to figure out another way to tell people about it. So they created crude erotic cave drawings. Hence, the first smut was created.

No matter how far we advance through technology. We always need to use it in some shape or form for a sexual outlet of some sort. As soon as Alexander Graham Bell said, "Mr. Watson, I need to see you", during the first phone call. You knew that later in the week that Watson was on this new phone having phone sex with his wife or boyfriend. When the car was created, the joyride was created so we could have sex in the backseat. When film was created, the stag film and beaver shots were born. And then, the world went straight to fuckin' carnal hell when they created the videotape and the internet. The hand lotion and kleenex industry had to work overtime to keep up with the demand.

The United States Population in 2006 consisted 299,398,484 people. In 2006, the adult video industry grossed 1.8 billion dollars in profit. The internet made 1 billion in porn revenue. Porn mags made 1 billion. Pay Per View Smut made 128 million last year and Cell Phone smut made 30 million dollars in profit. Let's take a more conservative approach. If you joined an adult dvd mail rental membership with a 4 dvds at a time plan that costs $28.00 a month, that would come out to $336.00 in personal porn rentals a year. There's no accurate amount on what call girls and strip clubs make because a lot is under the table profit. You have to give me a second here to step back. Who the fuck needs smut on their cell phone?! Why!!? I carry a cell phone for only one important reason. That's so my wife can get in touch with me every second of my life. God help me if I forget my cell phone. I end up breathing through a tube. Why add insult to injury and download smut onto a cell phone bill that Marta usually sees first. I catch enough shit when I buy a new ringtone.

I actually remember my first erotic image. It was "The Adventures Of Moll Flanders" on PBS back in the mid-seventies. They showed a bare breast during a scene. I then saw "The French Woman" with Klaus Kinski & Dayle Haddon late at night on "On-TV" in the Eighties. MOST kids got their first taste of porn back then from that. My actual first hardcore film was "Naughty Network". My dad had it sitting around his apartment on videotape and I popped it in by accident. It was a blessing and a curse because I should not have seen that when I was in seventh grade but my parents didn't talk to me about sex either. I had to pick up information where it was available and it least those movies showed you where to exactly put it. It was actually good that I saw that type of porn when I was younger because it was pretty basic back then. Nowadays, I feel bad for some awkward teenage kids that would see today's style of porn and try to pull off an ATM during their first time.

Porn usually gets a socially bad rap. Lots of uptight people speak publicly against it and then run home and surf for it on the internet. Then there's always the bullshit statements. It exploits women. It promotes violence. It profits from other people's pain. Let's break that down. If you are a company that makes a profit that needs workers to maintain that profit line, the worker is being exploited in some way if they work for that company because upper management makes most of the profit. Period. In porn, the women are needed in order for new product to be created for the supply and demand. Because of this, the porn stars usually make about $3000 a week depending on what they do. Yes, they do burn out pretty fast. Yes, they do have personal problems that drawns them to this type of work. Name one person at your job that is not dealing with some sort of constant fucked up situation that they have to battle in their life. Next, porn creates violence towards women. No piece of artistic media causes a person to act violent. That person already had the violence in them. Porn films actually make it a point to stress in the beginning that the material is non-violent.

Its funny to me because I was pretty innocent about this until 1992 when I went to manage a video store after I got divorced. The name of the store was "Video Shmideo" and it was near State & Oak. That kid with the shoulder length long hair and black fingernail polish who managed the place. That was me.

The store was basically 90% porn and 10% general releases. People went there to rent smut. One thing that I learned was that you could be from any walk of life but you still needed spank. You could run NBC or work at the 7-11. Either way, they rented five at a time. I never passed judgement. I just fed the beaten monkey. One thing that caught me off guard was how porn changed since I saw it. When I was a kid, porn was shot on film and they were basically b-movies with graphic sex. With videotape, it was about the act and not the person unless the person was good at a certain act. Like when Annabel Chong did the very first world's biggest gangbang. I remember that because I also remember how boring it was. It looked when you're stuck in the "20 Items Or Less" line at a grocery store and there's 50 of those muthafuckas waiting in line to get to the register. It just amazes me about what passes for sex thrills these days. You can't just say, "Let's get a porn flick". You actually need details before you leave. I actually remember this conversation:

Me: I'm runnin' to the video store.

Friend: Hey, grab me some porn.

Me: Did you want straight, girl/girl, gangbang, anal, solo, golden age, tranny, Over 50, gay, asian, interracial or a four hour mixed tape?

Friend: Jesus Christ?!

Me: I don't think he made one.

I swear to God. That was an actual conversation.

Women always wonder why guys are into porn. What do porn chicks have that they don't. Actually, its not about the porn star. Its the sexual idea. We rent certain types of porn that includes acts that we can't ask our wives/girlfriends to do. It indulges fantasies that we'd never act in real life. That's the big secret about it. That's why the credit card is maxed out and there's no clean towels in your house.

I was inspired by this because I had just heard an old episode of a radio show that Jamie and I did ten years ago in which we listed our best and worst porn films of all time. Its completely different from what I watch now because your tastes change when you mature. At this point, I'm pretty much burnt out from it. I've been watching most of my life and I'm starting to get bored of it. I'm also doing it for medical reasons. Its hard to breathe and talk after a wife inflicted crushed larynx.