More Insights About Sex, Porn, & All Things "Hardcore"

It's not a requirement but you may want to go and read my post titled "Selling Pornography" before proceeding with this one. Here is a handy link to that post: Selling Pornography


I have no intentions of talking about my sex life or anyone I know. Let's think of this more as an anthropological study of the people who come into the bookstore to buy porn and what can be inferred about human sexuality from that observational standpoint only. Let's just say I can only hope that aliens never decide to study human sexuality by observing men buying porn in bookstores.

Allboy, Whorientals, Backdoor Honeys, Hustler, Purely 18, Vintage 60s, is it the title that makes someone buy something? Or is it the ahem tempting phrases like "enema slave punished", "all about anal", "teen lust", "hardcore", or "naughty housewives" that tells the sex part of someone's brain that they want to get a certain magazine? Is it the color of the cover girls hair? Do they get the same magazine every month? Do they prefer one wrapped in plastic or unwrapped? Do they want one that comes with a DVD? Is it the price? Or would they rather buy a magazine with a local girl on it?

Last week we got the June issue of Playboy magazine which features the very first Playboy Playmate from Maine. Within a day and a half the store in the chain that I work for located in Waterville, the closest to where this girl is from, had sold all thirty-five copies it received of the magazine. The store I work at is a bit farther away but by Monday morning we had sold all thirty-three copies we had received. Thirty-three is a few more than we usually receive and yet we sold far more than we usually sell of those in a month and it happened in five days. Not only that but I had one of the few women who didn't give me an excuse about buying porn come in and buy just one thing- a copy of that magazine. I can only think it must be the fantasy that they're interested in. The thought that this girl- this beautiful girl, is from their hometown or from their state. Despite the fact that she doesn't actually live in Maine (to my knowledge) there is still the possibility of getting with her and that's what they're buying.

The other day a guy came in and looked at the porn for a while without touching it and then moved over to a near-by section and looked through Hooters magazine and a magazine called The Women of King. He then flipped through Winq, a gay magazine, and Out, another gay magazine but didn't touch The Gay & Lesbian Review. He then moved back to the porn and lifted several of them up so that he could look at them better. He then bought a Hustler. I was deeply confused about this behavior. It also made me wondered if he was a little confused as well.

I once had a gay English friend of mine request that I send him some American porn. He was even willing to pay for it and for me to ship it to him. I wasn't particularly embarrassed about this despite the fact that explaining it might prove awkward so I said that I would if I could. It turned out I couldn't. Not because we don't sell gay magazines. We do, we have a small selection and sell quite a few of them. The problem was that all of our gay magazines are from the United Kingdom. And why would I buy something ans ship it to him that he could go to the nearest place with that sort of stuff and get himself? I can only conclude that either we do not make gay porn magazines in America (highly unlikely) or none of them are popular enough to include in our selection (significantly more probable).

I can think of a couple of men who have actually gotten visibly and audibly angry that we did not have a particular pornographic magazine. One of these men called over the phone to find out whether or not we had a magazine called "Transformations". We do carry this magazine. Transformation is, well, I have to say I have never actually looked inside it (nor would I want to). I just cannot figure this magazine out. Do you like women or do you like men? I know a number of bisexual people and none of them have ever expressed any particular desire for someone who is a transvestite or transgendered or a hermaphrodite. Transformations is about people who have been transformed from one gender to the other. Sort-of. Or maybe mostly, as I said I haven't looked. I do know that Transformations is a quarterly magazine and that when this man called the old one had already been sent back and the new one had yet to come out. This was explained to him politely but he sounded disgusted and angry that we didn't have it when he wanted it.

The other guy I can think of in particular who got angry because we didn't have something came into the store and was looking for a magazine called "Family Affairs". We did not have this magazine. And in case the title doesn't do it for you I will connect the dots. Family Affairs is about affairs between immediate family members. The actors are not actually related (to my knowledge) but they are depicted that way. I have never once had any other person request this or any other incest magazine. This guy, though, actually yelled because we didn't have it. He eventually stormed off without buying anything and I haven't seen him back. I can't say I'm particularly upset about this.

We carry some "age" magazines. Obviously we have some with purely eighteen-year-old models but we also have ones with nothing but forty or older models, fifty or older models, and sixty or older models. When an older guy comes in and gets a forty and up magazine this seems normal. I assume that either he prefers to fantasize about the kind of women he could actually have sex with at his age (unless he has tons of money) or (more likely) he doesn't want to piss off his wife should she find his porn stash. When a guy young enough that I have to card him comes in and gets Purely 18, or Barely Legal that too seems more or less okay as he is actually around the age of those girls. And when an older guy comes in and buys Barely Legal it feels a little weird to me but older guys being into younger women is more or less socially acceptable. But when a younger guy comes in and buys 60s magazine without explaining to me that it is a gag gift for a bachelor party it feels really weird to me.

We have this one guy that comes in every few months whom we have dubbed "Drunk Guy" because he usually is. And he never buys anything other than magazines. And he often drops close to or exceeding two hundred bucks on magazines. He usually gets some crosswords and word circles and such so I assume he actually likes them or else gets bored at his cabin in the woods (which he has told me about every time I've seen him). He once purchased a bunch of gardening magazines and another time a bunch of horse magazines. One time when he came in when a coworker of mine was there he got a bunch of teenage girl kind of magazines and explained that they were for his daughter (and I really hope they were). But the bulk of his purchase is always porn. And he comes up to the counter with an armload of magazines and just kind of drops them haphazardly. He then proceeds to launch into a long, rambling, explanation of why he needs all these magazines and tells us about how he is going to his cabin in the woods for a while (I guess he must have a house to live in otherwise but lord only knows). He talks incessantly (out of embarrassment perhaps or maybe just because he is drunk) the entire time his magazines are being rung up and only wraps up his story and says good buy after he has his giant bag full of magazines in hand.

I had a much older gentlemen come in and ask me one time if we had any copies of the regular (and he pronounced it this way) "tuh-boo" magazine, not the illustrated one. And we did. Because he was really looking for Hustler's Taboo magazine which is about bondage and sadism (among other things). He just couldn't find it because there happened to be so many issues of hustler that we had moved it to the top of the next shelf to make room.

A guy came in the other day and besides InTouch Weekly he purchased Show (which is a magazines sporting more or less naked women wearing "clothing" I assume is made out of dental floss and one of the few adult magazines that is not wrapped), Smooth Girl (more or less the same), Heavy Metal (weird illustrated sci-fi porn also not usually wrapped), and Taboo Illustrated (illustrated porn containing subject matter that would be illegal to subject real girls to so they have to illustrate it). It was hard to decide if he preferred his porn not wrapped in plastic (though Taboo Illustrated was) or if he prefers illustrated girls?

Mostly I do not understand. I also do not try to understand. I can attempt to wrap my head around their reasoning but asking them to explain it? Never. One thing I can say is that unlike The Parking Lot Movie (surprisingly interesting), making a Mockumentary (never mind a documentary) about this subject might be interesting but would only explain what was actually going on about as well as a video on string theory I watched in applied physics in high school. Maybe it's just not meant to be understood.