My Very First Time

Parents and coworkers, just move along. Nothing to see here.

Have you ever been to a porn shop? This is probably a silly question. Who hasn't? Aside from me, of course. I've reached the age of nearly 38 and never so much as darkened the door of such an establishment; which is odd, you know, because on the whole, I'm not particularly maiden-auntish.

But after Bryan's happy hour last night, over strawberry margaritas and a chile relleno at Baby A's, Robbie said, "Hey. Want to go to the Adult Video Megaplexxx?"

I shrugged. "What the hell," I said.

In college, I had a housemate who worked for Pleasureland Video for a while, just down the street from our co-op. He worked at the counter, but one of his job duties was general tidying up, including the viewing rooms. He quit after about a week and a half, and that's about all I really know about porn shops. So this one was rather surprising.

The customers didn't look right at all. I've always assumed these places were frequented by furtive, mustachioed men in trenchcoats and dark glasses. But the clientele - minus one or two guys you'd immediately peg as major-league pervs - looked so normal. There were several couples, both gay and straight. There was your obligatory Friday-night bachelorette party. Overall, there were a lot of healthy, cheerful, regular-looking folks, most of them college-age or slightly older, almost none of them waggling their eyebrows or wheezing lasciviously.

The clerk carded us at the door, and laughed when she saw my ID. "You're beautiful," she said.

Nothing I saw in there was really all that much of a surprise, except I didn't know they made dildos quite that big. (Welcome to all my new Google visitors, by the way!) And oh my God. The things people will put in their butts! I was shocked.

The visit was both educational and fun, and probably good for about a month of working from home. But since none of my coworkers have read this post, nobody will understand why.