notes on dan savage

All men masturbate (most women do, all should), all men look at porn (many women do, more should), and all women need to get over the porn and masturbation thing. If you want a male in your life who you can order never to look at porn or masturbate—or if you want a male you can castrate—get a dog.

Speaking of all men look at porn, and my comments about The Blue Lagoon being one of the first "pornographic" images I was able to see, I'll talk about Playboy. My father has a subscription. Always has. Well as long as I can remember. They were also never extremely well hidden, allowing me (and the occasional friend) easy access for sneak peeks. My father never hid them, obviously, or I wouldn't have seen him reading it so many times. Also remember my mother handing me a picture of Rudolph Valentino to use in a 1920s project I was working on. It came from the magazine. It was part of an ad. She told me to use it, just don't mention where I got it at school. Sometimes she would even let me read interviews with celebrities I liked. I never looked at the photos in front of her but I did hold a copy and read it in front of my mother.

Maybe it's weird for people to think of their parents as owning porn, let alone allowing you to use it in middle school projects or lending it to you for an article, but honestly, I don't find it that weird. It's funny, every month my father's Playboy comes in the mail wrapped in black plastic hiding the cover. I'm pretty sure all my sisters knew what it was by the age of 10. I don't know if they've ever tried to look at it, but we've all seen him or my mother reading it (and yes they do actually read the articles).

Perhaps this is why I don't have any hangs up about porn. I have plenty of retro porn (usually novelty and not the kind that would get me off), I even bought some for my brother in law. I honestly do love watching strange porn and seeing what gets people off for I assume that every porn has at least one person who masturbates (or uses it later for fodder). I have no problem that male friends have porn and I find it hilarious when they go through the lengths to hide or deny it. All I can say is "dude, I know you masturbate. All sane men do, and men are visual. They need to look at something. Get over it."

You watch porn. You read porn. Video, magazine, book. Whatever. Just own up to it. Don't deny it.