Punch Card for Porn

A friend and I were recently talking about pornography. "I'm not really a fan", he said. "A fan?" I responded. "It's not like baseball or Tom Cruise films." Immediately the idea of pitching for Tom Cruise made this a bad analogy. "But you do watch porn." We both agreed that, with rare exception, all gay men watch or have watched pornography. And we both agreed that any gay man who says that he doesn't is probably lying.

I rent porn. I admit it. Every now and again I walk down to the local video store and pick up a movie. I gravitate to a few regular studios and have my favorite "talent" which, according to my friends and despite my demure, tips me from the amateur to the afficionado. And I suppose the employees would probably be able to identify me as a customer in a lineup. But I would hardly call myself a regular. I don't have a library at home, I own very little. In fact, many years ago when my mother was helping me clean my apartment, she completely bypassed my meager stash to instead ask me if I still wanted the bottle of pina colada "suntan lotion" at the bedside. Bless her heart.

I don't see anything wrong with occasional pornography. While I have no Constitutional right to watch porn, I don't believe that I am harming anyone by supporting the industry. I don't use porn as a substitute for intimacy and I don't need to watch porn to get the juices flowing - if you know what I mean. My straight brother once told me that he believes that watching pornography creates false expectations for sexual relationships. C'mon, I live in the real world. I am fairly sure that if two hot Mormons knocked on my door, asking them to get on their knees in prayer would not advance my standing with them. And if I started rubbing my crotch in front of my plumber, the only thing I would get up my ass is a monkey wrench - and not in the good way. Maybe in San Francisco (where of course all good porn happens), but not in Wisconsin.

I've gotten over a few "humps" on my road to being an admitted porn watcher. In the beginning, I would walk into the video store and look at all of the mainstream selections first before sheepishly ascending the stairs to the second floor. As if to say "hey, there wasn't anything good down there, I am forced to rent porn." I'm beyond projecting my own judgement of myself upon the staff wondering if they think that I rent too often. If it's been quite a while, I no longer have the urge to blurt out "I've been having real sex with another real person, that's why you haven't seen me." I got over my hesitation renting videos with explicit titles like Taking It From Behind 4. I mean, I didn't want the employee to get the wrong idea of me and I surely wouldn't want him to think that I had seen volumes 1 through 3. I mastered the awkward moment when someone I knew would walk in. "I've always wondered what it looked like up here."

But despite my comfort, I had to draw the line somewhere. At my last rental, I was asked if I wanted a punch card. Rent 10, get the next one free. Now, I have a punch card for the local coffee shop, and if someone ever saw the card or if I redeemed the thing, it isn't a leap to say that I like coffee. "Damn, you drink alot of that stuff" one might say. To which I might reply, "Guilty!" But to walk into the video store with my punch card for porn and say "I have rented so much porn that you now have to give me a freebie", is a badge I just don't want to sew. The card stamps me a valued porn customer, a porn frequent shopper. Truth be told, I am likely already in the club. I just don't want to be a punch card carrying member.