Living In The Age Of Pornography

Above The Timberline

by Wayne Mergler

Editor’s Note: While Wayne’s recuperating from open-heart surgery, we are running some of his early columns.

ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly Hubris)—11/14/11—A couple of years ago, when I was working in a downtown Anchorage bookstore, two young boys came into the shop to peruse the comic books and magazines. They were about eleven years old. I recall that one of them carried a Batman lunch box. As they laughed and chatted about the comic books, one of them reached over and picked up one of the fitness and body-building magazines that we carried. He opened it, perused it for a moment; then, with a chuckle, put it back on the shelf and said, “This looks more like gay porn than body-building.” They both laughed and moved on back to the comics.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was eleven years old (back in the Dark Ages of the 1950s), I had no idea what gay porn was. I had no idea what porn was. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had no idea what “gay” was. But these two young lads tossed about those terms like old sophisticates and even exhibited an amazing sang-froid about the whole thing. It was a quick lesson to me in contemporary sociology. Pornography has become as ordinary and as normal in our lives today as microwave ovens and iPods. I have no real problem with that. I am not going to use this space to deplore or to extol this phenomenon, merely to comment on it. The phenomenon of the popularity and proliferation of porn in our culture now just seems to me, well, odd. Who knew, back in the days of Ozzie and Harriet, that this was going to happen?

Actually, now that I think back, I was probably about eleven when I had my first experience with what today we would call porn.

I was rummaging around in my father’s desk, looking for some long forgotten something, when I came upon a bundle of grainy, postcard-sized black-and-white photographs of nude women. Of course, I looked at them. And looked at them some more. And probably even some more. I remember wondering who these women were and why they weren’t wearing any clothes. I don’t recall wondering why my father would have them in his possession. I think, even then, I had a vague understanding of why he might want them. But one thing I knew for certain: I was not supposed to know they were there. So I carefully put them back and never mentioned them to anyone—especially not to my father.

Knowing what I know now, I can surmise that the postcards were French—the French were always the daring and “degenerate” ones in those days— and that my father had probably got them in Europe when he was a soldier during World War Two.

There had been a particularly otherworldly quality to the pictures—a graininess, a seediness, that seemed to belong elsewhere. Also, I don’t remember thinking that any of the women was particularly pretty, just interesting. I have wondered, though, what ultimately happened to the postcards. They were not among the boxes and boxes of my father’s war memorabilia and personal things that I hauled out of his home when he died some years ago. (I looked.)

Years later, when I was an undergraduate in college, I bought myself a subscription to Playboy Magazine, thinking myself quite sophisticated and man-about-town-ish. I remember my father coming to visit once and discovering the latest Playboy on my coffee table. He took it up and riffled through it with mild interest, but said nothing to me about it. I think that my Playboy centerfolds were far racier than his French postcards, but still innocent enough in their day.

And so life went on in this clandestine, closeted, and rather painfully innocent way into the social revolutions of the 1960’s. Playboy Magazine was now respectable and so, therefore, was a certain kind of innocent (by today’s standards) pornography. All we young guys read it and we all kept it on our coffee tables, alongside Time and Life. But, of course, the revolution led to evolution.

My wife and I were both 21 when we married, an age which, now, in retrospect, seems ludicrously young for such a commitment, but there we were. We never lived with anyone but our parents and college roommates before we became man and wife. In those days, we were, I think, pretty much the norm. People married young because there were no other options. You couldn’t quite yet live together in delicious sin. That wouldn’t be acceptable for a few more years. In fact, I remember one landlady who required a valid marriage license before she would rent her apartments to young couples.

So, you get the idea: it was, an innocent time. Just look at the Beatles, if you don’t believe me. How wholesome and appealing and boyish they seem to us now in those old photos and appearances on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” But, at the time, they were deemed shockingly rebellious, outrageously coiffed, and exuded a threatening sexuality in the opinion of every parent in America. It was at about that time, just a couple of months after Maureen and I got married, that, together, we saw our first pornographic movie.

It was called “Deep Throat,” and starred a young woman named Linda Lovelace, whose name quickly became a household word.

“Deep Throat” was certainly not the first “dirty movie” ever made. In fact, there were sleazy one-reelers available at shabby “art cinemas” in the worst parts of every city that had attracted unshaven old men in trench coats for years, but no one that you actually knew would ever go to one of those places.

But “Deep Throat” was different. It was, for one thing, a fairly well-made film for its time, and it somehow got bookings in relatively mainstream theaters. Not in the same theaters that were showing “The Sound of Music” and “The Graduate,” of course, but in small second-run cinema houses in most American cities.

Maureen and I went to see “Deep Throat” with great excitement and trepidation. It was the thing to do, but not necessarily the thing to admit to doing.

I remember that we slunk in, hoping not to be seem by anyone who knew us, and sat in the back row of the theater. (Maureen said that the thought of someone sitting behind her in that movie was a bit unnerving). And so we saw our first, full-fledged porn. Trust me, it was quite an experience. It gave a whole new meaning to the often exclaimed slogan: “Follow the bouncing balls!” which had been such a staple at the kiddie matinees I attended as a child.

An hour or so later, when Maureen and I emerged from the packed theater, red-faced and blinking, and looking down so as not to see who else was there, we felt exhausted and drained. (Maureen’s great comment was that, after the first ten minutes of the movie, she wanted to go home and make love; but, after the second ten minutes of the movie, she never wanted to make love ever again in her life.) We didn’t know it then, but a new era had begun. After that, other quality porn flicks hit the theaters. I remember particularly the Marilyn Chambers classic, “Behind the Green Door.” The wholesome, girl-next-door image of Ivory Soap model Chambers doing “all those things” was unforgettable. The world would never again be the same.

Ten years later, porn movies had become ho-hum. Even people younger than we were already blase about such things. Soon the video cassette recorder was invented and we all could have movies, any movies, in our own homes. We could bring home in a box our very own copies of “Casablanca” or “Citizen Kane” or “How Green Was My Valley.” Or “Deep Throat.”

The VCR put the sleazy little porn cinemas out of business because embarrassed couples could now watch porn in the privacy of their own dens and not have to worry about sleazy old men in trench coats or which of their neighbors they might be run into in the theaters.

More evolution.

The VCR gave way to the DVD and the DVD begat the Blue Ray Disc. Now, in fact, you can see porn in 3D. “Follow the bouncing balls” has now morphed into “Dodge the bouncing balls.” Progress, to be sure.

Porn stars are now celebrities. Jenna Jameson, the queen of today’s stars, did a nationwide book signing to promote her book How To Make Love Like a Porn Star, and there were long lines at every stop, including kids. How do kids know who Jenna Jameson is? Apparently, some do. (Not progress, in my opinion.) Ru Paul, the cross-dressing diva, has had his/her own TV show. Some porn stars have moved into mainstream acting (Traci Lords); some mainstream actors have moved into porn (Stephen Geoffreys.) The lines are growing blurrier and blurrier.

A few years ago, while visiting relatives in Georgia, I heard word that a favorite old college professor of mine, long retired, was now working as the manager of a porn shop in a notorious part of town. Nostalgia, curiosity, and downright bemusement led me to investigate. I found the porn shop and went in. And sure enough, the old duffer behind the counter was none other than my old college prof—who shall remain nameless here. (Note to readers: you never want to out anyone you see in a porn shop because you can only see him if you are there, too.) My professor seemed happy to see me and we had a lively and happy visit, though it was definitely an Alice in Wonderland moment to find myself chatting with an old academic as he restocked a display of dildos and vibrators. But all this just goes to show how far we have come and how almost mundane the role of porn has become in our lives. Not only is porn now considered mainstream; it is hardly even noticed anymore.

It’s kind of like the nude beach, you know? For the first ten minutes at the nude beach, you are going, “Wow! Look at all the naked people!” But then, after about ten minutes, they all become very ho-hum and you don’t really even notice them anymore. I suppose, in this respect, our obsession with pornography might be a good thing. We hardly even notice it anymore.

One of my friends—a bachelor, of  course—has his porn DVDs sitting openly on the shelves next to his “regular” movies, as if he makes no distinction between them.

And the fact that I just wrote “his porn DVDs” as casually as if I had written “his laundry” kind of  supports the idea that porn has become just an accepted, mundane part of the culture in which we live.

Still, I don’t know: call me old-fashioned, but I still hide mine.