The first time I became aware of the existence of porn, the world was a very different place to what it is now. There was no internet, no smartphones, no apps – hell, at my house, we didn’t even have a VCR yet.What people did have back then was porn magazines – lots and lots of porn magazines, in some cases. My older brother was not one of those cases, though. He had a very modest supply of such magazines and his taste in porn was quite tame by today’s standards. He mostly stuck to Playboy, with the occasional Penthouse in the mix. (Hustler was well beyond the pale, as far as he was concerned; too much visible labia minora was the issue, methinks.)My introduction to porn came when my brother failed to fully conceal the cover of a Playboy he kept in the middle of a pile of presumably more acceptable-to-parents magazines, mostly old copies of TIME my father had already read and set aside.
I was 10 or 11 at the time, I believe. As I recall, my strongest initial reaction to the pictures inside the Playboy was to think to myself: “Who looks like this?”
Seriously, who among us has no pimples, wrinkles, or visible cellulite?
“This Stuff Isn’t Real”
The answer, of course, was (and is) nobody looks like that, because until they’ve done all the magic editing and airbrushing tricks magazine folks apply to the photos, none of us look like the people you see in magazines, whether the magazine is Playboy or Popular Mechanics.
I didn’t come to that conclusion on my own, of course. I was too young and ignorant to know about things like airbrushing, touching up photos and the like. It wasn’t until I asked my mother about what I’d seen in the Playboy (yes, I just straight up told her I’d been looking at a “dirty magazine” and started asking questions about it) and she said the words that, in my opinion, all young people should hear, ideally before they ever see any sort of porn for the first time: “This stuff isn’t real.”
According to many friends to whom I’ve told this story, my mother’s reaction was unusual. She didn’t freak out, she didn’t yell, she didn’t demand to be shown where the filthy magazine was so she could ritualistically set it on fire in the back yard, she just calmly provided me context – which seems to me a very underrated thing, from a parenting perspective.
“Magazines and movies like this are all fantasy,” mom said. “They aren’t presenting women as we are; they’re catering to men’s desires. It’s all a bit sleazy, but mostly harmless, I think. Your father looks at those magazines sometimes too, I’m sure. A lot of men do – and probably a lot of women. You just have to keep it in perspective. Just always remember: This stuff isn’t real.”
Mom and I had a similar talk about depictions of violence, which she found more disturbing and problematic. But, as we both noted, depictions of violence appeared to be A-OK under the social mores of the day – something that remains true now, 40+ years later.
The Children are the Future – Of Scumbaggery
What got me thinking about my first exposure to porn was an article I read about Chinese investor who said he “plans to teach his teenage son to watch porn and sleep with many women so that he can be a ‘scumbag,” as Waiyee Yip put it for Insider.com.
I suppose the first thing I should note is that I believe it’s possible for a man to watch porn and sleep with many women and still NOT be a “scumbag.” The key here is the man just must be honest with all those women with whom he’s sleeping, so they aren’t under the mistaken impression they’re in a monogamous relationship while Mr. Player is running around town on various booty calls.
But I get the sense that Ding Peng, the Chinese investor in question, might have meant the “scumbag” part.
“I plan to get him to watch porn next year,” Ding wrote of his son, who is “believed to be 14 or 15 years old,” according to the article. “I will teach him personally. He can start sleeping with girls in high school, and when he gets to college, he can give me a few babies.”
First off, Ding, it won’t be your son who “gives” you a few babies – it will be the woman (or women) he impregnates that do all the hard work. With you guiding him, my bet is your son will be on a golf course somewhere when the birth occurs, possibly watching MILF videos in between putts.
Context Matters: Maybe He Wants His Son to be a ‘Scumbag’ in a Good Way
To be fair to Ping – which, if I’m being honest, I’m not inclined to be – this all could have been joking among friends. Tasteless, dumb joking among friends, but joking among friends, nonetheless. But that’s not the explanation for which Ping opted. Instead, Ping said his comments were “taken out of context” and that he made them after “being goaded.”
Ah yes, context. Hopefully, part of it was telling his son that with respect to his father’s comments on WeChat: “This stuff isn’t real.”
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