Okay, well ... I'll go first....

The first time I saw porn was, like many boys, in my father's closet.

There, in the dark, I stood motionless, ears finely tuned for the sound of a garage door, or a car brake.

Did those magazines make me objectify women? Or make me think lower of them?

No.

They make me really want to meet one.

dmp

m  y    f  i  r  s  t   p  o  r  n

it wasn't when and where i expected. At my place. In the middle of the day, with all my friends... with my parents home.

four other guys at my house. we were supposed to make a school video project for science, but its not what it ended up being. after watching the first 5 minutes of our project, phil pulled out a video. threw it in the vcr, and hit play. Luckily, the volume want up loud. my face was glued to the screen, and everyone got a laugh finding out it was my first time ever seeing one. at the end, (short segment, 2 minutes) i heard parents and hit eject. never got caught, addicted as hell, and still loven it. my first porn.

Louish Cream {Cream@Louish.com}

My first porn experience was pretty normal. I went to boarding school so it was just a bunch of guys sitting around looking at porn mags. It really didn't interest me because it all looked so contrived. No-one in the pictures seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, which meant I just wasn't interested in seeing it.

In the last few years, until early last year, I worked in the porn industry. I started out doing data entry for their orders, ended up doing design for their catalogues. For the last six months of the job, I was editing the videos. Seeing porn all day every day wasn't really a problem. Some of the hardcore stuff was a bit sickening, but as far as lowering sensitivity to the material it didn't do anything. My sex drive remained the same, I still enjoyed the real thing without having to hear "Fuck me baby, fuck me up the arse" screamed out loudly.

So really pornography really never did, and I doubt ever will, do anything for me. I think what a lot of people forget is that erotica is all about what you don't show, not what you do. This is why lingerie is so popular. Taking it all off and spreading it wide is stimulating in a totally physical way, but erotica is far more of an emotional, as well as sexual, medium.

Simon

I wrote this for a friend's zine awhile back...

When I was in fifth grade, my brother was in middle school, and his bus got him home before me. One time when I was taking the bus home I passed my brother and two of his friends standing in a neighbor's driveway, huddled together, smiling, looking at something I couldn't make out. But instantly I had a gut feeling about what it was. Later that day, I come into the living room to find my brother reading a copy of "Astronomy". Or rather, whatever he was reading and holding so close to his face had an Astronomy magazine cover. I ran up to him and pulled away the magazine before he could stop me. Sure enough, a porno mag. He was so relunctant to have me look at it. "Don't tell Mom and Dad!!!" "I won't, I won't." And I didn't. I figured out where he kept it hidden between issues of "Boy's Life" on his book case and I looked at it a lot. I invited friends over to look at it. But I never told Mom or Dad.

About a week later, as soon as I got home from school, Mom confronted me. I had never seen her look so mad and uncomfortable.

"Gordon, I'm really mad at you."

"What?"

"Do you know why?"

"No? What? Why?"

"Are you sure you don't know why?"

"Why?"

She didn't want to explain. I was so confused.

"Why?"

"You left something on your bed this morning. Something I'm very mad that you have; something that I don't want you looking at ever ever again. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"yes ... but ... its ... not mine."

"Well, your brother says he's never seen it before ... "

Gordon {gordon@graphics.cornell.edu}

hm, never did find my dad's porn stash, if he had one, though there was that lone copy of The Joy of Sex stuffed back on the top shelf of the closet...but he had workshop drawers fulla NUTS and BOLTS...duz that count?

when i was 8, 9 i saw my uncle's stack of playboys, right there by the tv...paging thru 'em with total incomprehension...why would anybody wanna do that...naked women were pretty disgusting, they had cooties of course...but you get that first glimmer of knowledge, something's going on out there that nobody talks about...i thought the cartoons were a lot more interesting, some weird takeoff on Little Orphan Annie as i recall...flouncing around in a negligee while ol' Daddy Warbucks eyes bugged out...

then you go to summer camp and hear lewd jokes about salesmen & farm girls, and various vegetables. you laugh & you don't know why...

you get it years later...

mark {mark@ina.com}

Fucking weird. (No pun intended.)

Not that looking through the playboy wasn't a turn-on. The close-ups of a few cunts were an educational experience, even.

What was weird was my Mom handing a porn mag to me and my kid brother. "I confiscated it from a boy at school," she said with this sleazy look on her face. "I thought you boys might want it."

What was weird was being turned on by this porn, but switching off at the same time, not daring to associate my mother with these sex objects frozen on the pages.

Anon

They don't make good porn for women. Ever notice that?

It's very, very annoying.

So my first exposure to pornography was my father's Playboys. Playboy is nice because it does at least make the women look beautiful. They look like someone you would want to meet. Nice girls with a healthy attitude.

But it didn't teach me anything.

Alexis Massie {alex@afterdinner.com}

My brother and I must have been about 11 years old when we discovered the box with the Playboys in my parents basement.

Somehow I have always had this feeling that my brothet knew they were there a long time before our "discovery."

Funny thing about younger brothers, they usually know a good thing once they see it.

I, on the other hand, was afraid of getting caught.

So I aksed. We asked. Our parent that is.

"Ummmm....mom.....we found some Playboys in the basement and instead of looking at them without your permission, we thought it would be better to ask."

Not exactly the best way to keep the stash a secret.

"Go ask your dad."

Great.

"Uhhhh...dad.....we sort of found your Playboys in the basement and thought that we would be good and ask if we could look at them."

I do not remember exactly what he said, but I do remember that he was not happy. And of course we could not look at them.

That was OK though. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue came the next month, and for some reason, it did not dissapear as it had in years past.

conahanm@mindspring.com {alex@afterdinner.com}