Sunday, September 19, 2010

Splitting Hairs


Warning:
The following blog entry should not be read by the easily embarrassed, the easily offended, the overly judgmental, the Amish, anyone who may see me at the grocery store or PTA meetings or my relatives…


I haven’t blogged in ages. Between entertaining the kids during summer break and working, I just haven’t had the time. But now that everyone’s schedules are back to “normal,” I’m finally carving out a little time every day to write. In fact, I’m working on a script, and as is my custom, I dove into research before putting the proverbial pen to paper.

In researching a story I’m working on about middle aged women, dating and sex, I have recently found myself required to visit some online porn sites. (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.) I must say, adult “films” have changed significantly since I watched my first one back during the Reagan administration on the $600 Betamax VCR I bought with my babysitting money. Back in the day, you had to pay an annual membership fee to join a video club. Once inside, you’d look left-right-left as if you were about to cross a busy intersection, to make sure no one you knew noticed you entering the red-bulb-lit “naughty room” in the back of the store. You’d read the back of the tape boxes, trying to find a movie that had at least a semblance of a storyline (or maybe that was just me), and avoid making eye contact with anyone else who may have crossed the threshold into adult territory. Today, thanks to the internet, I don’t know if they even rent porn anymore. But I digress.


Like I said, everything’s changed since that first Beta tape, which I still remember vividly. I think the plot involved a lone guy on a sailboat who shipwrecked on an island conveniently inhabited only by women who’d never seen a man before. Or maybe he was a pilot. Or a pizza delivery guy….OK, I don’t remember it that well after all. But I DO remember one thing. Pubic hair still existed back in the 1980s.

If an alien were to tap into the internet and judge us solely from images he saw in today’s porn, he would assume that the human race has been genetically altered to the point that short-and-curlies no longer exist, on women OR men. He’d also assume that human females are all born with butterfly tattoos on their lower backs and that our species now propagates through dermatological osmosis (that was the most polite way I could say what I think you know I’m talking about.)

Other changes I’ve noticed? Well…acts that were considered edgy or even shocking back in the “Luke and Laura,” Duran Duran days are now de rigeur and don’t even raise an eyebrow. Of course, eyebrows aren’t what they aim at raising. Men are no longer required to be even slightly attractive, only freakishly well-endowed. In fact, not even all the women are required to be attractive anymore, just willing to push the limits of the human anatomy. I know that porn isn’t truly my “thing” since I mostly find myself judging the dialog, noticing the men’s butt acne and the women’s dental fillings. There is a lot of bad dentistry among porn “actresses”!


Of course some things remain the same. No one plays pool on pool tables, although there are usually plenty of racks and balls on the felt. Coeds still manage to convince their professors not to fail them. Police, plumbers and pizza guys are still willing to accept the bartering system for payment. And boobs are still defying gravity.


Porn has been around since the first caveman drew a pair of Neanderthal breasts in the dirt with a stick, and has evolved with the changing technologies and public tastes. And porn will still be around a thousand years from now, when we’re all living somewhere in space. Maybe by then pubic hair will even reappear.

I could go on and on, but I’ve got to go. The Domino’s guy just pulled up, and I can’t find my wallet.