How My Mother Got Me to Stop Buying Dirty Magazines

My mother was creative. She was an artist who did things her own way and didn't care much for the predictable. That's why her response to finding a Penthouse magazine under my mattress was so darn funny. (Such a clever place to hide porn, I know. No one would ever think to look there, right? Especially not the woman who cleans the house.)

I should mention that getting one's hands on pornography back in the mid-1970's was not as easy as it is today. Now they send it to your home, and if you're sneaky enough, you can actually look at it for free. In those days, you had to find a friend with an older brother who was willing to go into the store and buy it for you. Then the friend came into school with a plain, Manila clasp envelope. You handed him a five and hurried to your locker, where you stashed the mag. Your palms were sweating and your breath was short. There was a tickle somewhere south of the border, knowing that after school you would lock yourself in a bathroom and peruse a whole new group of nymphs.

So, I must have come up to my room one day, ready to do some serious nymph perusal, when I pulled this particular copy of Penthouse out from under the mattress. Saving the best for last, I started with the Forum letters, all of which start with the classic first line, "I'm just a regular guy from a small town, and I never thought anything like this would ever happen to me." Well whatever outrageous event this man found himself in must have had the desired effect, because I was ready for the nymphs.

On this occasion, as I turned to the first featured "Pet," I saw something so unexpected, so strange, and just generally unreal that I had to stop and shake my head. She had something black covering over her breasts and "naughty bits," as they say in England. "Oh, no," I said aloud. "Oh no, oh no, oh no."

I repeated this mantra as I turned the pages and saw that my mother had duct taped every naughty bit she found. She wasn't sexist, because in the "couples" spread, the guy had his junk taped over, too.

It had what I'm sure was the desired effect: I was mortified, embarrassed and I never bought porn again. (That's probably not entirely true. But I certainly didn't bring it in my mother' s home if I did.) She never mentioned it, and neither did I when we saw each other that night.

Years later I reminded her of this event. She struggled to recall it, but laughed at the notion. I never questioned my brother or father. Duct tape? Come on; that was the artist. Marching to her own drummer.

I was going to say I'm going to use that tactic with my kids, if and when, but then I thought of something:

How do you put duct tape on a computer screen?

God, I'm in so much trouble.....