I was about 10 when I saw my first naked woman.
Not in the flesh, in a Playboy magazine. My father's friend Phil Hubbard (who drove an MG convertible while wearing a jaunty plaid cap) allowed me to look at his latest issue -- and with my father's blessings. My mother was quite distressed, but my Dad and Phil thought it would be kind of amusing and instructional to expose me to Mr. Heffner's talent pool.
"He's old enough," the men insisted. I thought it was pretty great. No, I thought it was really great. I considered putting a subscription to Playboy on my Santa's Wish List but knew that would be pointless, for I knew my mother would "draw a line in the sand" over that request.
I would just have to grow up, so I could buy my own Playboys -- and while I was at it, picking up some Gents or maybe a couple of issues of Swank.
Gosh, I had so much to look forward to.
When I finally did get older, I never bought a one. Perhaps it was my Catholic upbringing or more than likely it was my reluctance to place these flesh catalogues on the counter and look the cashier in the eye. What if the cashier were a woman, what would she think?
Currently that reluctance to appear like a depraved individual to a complete stranger has apparently vanished, like an allergy to cat dander that one day just goes away. Which might explain why, last week, I felt completely comfortable on the set of a porn shoot. It goes something like this ...
My new neighbor Marco, a soft-spoken Englishman, told me that he was a photographer. I collect photography and was only too eager to show him my prized collection: Doisneaus, Ansel Adamses and Irving Penns. He appreciated them, but not as I would have imagined a fellow photographer would.
Weeks later, he averred that the pictures he took were of an adult nature. Some might call him a pornographer, others, a working member of the Adult Entertainment business. I told him that I worked in television as a writer-producer and that there wasn't that wide a gulf between our professions.
One evening Marco invited me to a local bar to attend a wake in honor of a friend who was in the "business" and had passed away suddenly. As an Irishman I never pass up a wake, and soon I found myself in a swirl of Porn People -- producers, cameramen, actors, actresses and costumers (after all, they have to have something on, to remove) all spoke tenderly about their co-worker.
I was moved by their expressed affection and sorrow over this man's passing. Then Polaroids were passed around of the honoree -- posing with one naked woman after another, he always assumed a bored expression. No matter what the young lady was performing on him, his countenance expressed ennui. Anecdotes were recounted and tears were followed by waves of laughter.
