Everything I know, I learned in...

Submitted by Reuben Kane from New York:

It is fascinating to ponder the extent to which kids are spoiled for porn today. Thanks to the Interwebs they don't just know which websites they prefer, they have defined the exact fetishes they lust after. Think eleven year-old kids who already know they are into asian dwarf action or footplay. Back when I was thirteen, I had just aquired my first magazine. The way i came upon it was unremarkable. What is more interesting for the purpose of this project is that it remained the only magazine in my possession, and hence my sole source of information on the fairer sex, for the next three years. If you consider the fact that i "perused" the magazine's content between two or three times a day during that span, you can begin to appreciate the massive impact those 120 pages have had on the rest of my life.

The magazine, an English one called PARADE, was a mix of photographic spreads and the written word. The photos were rather explicit, especially for the neophyte I was back then. The pictorials were of sloppy, dolled-up women dressed as nurses treating a patient or drivers being pulled over by a policeman. The premise was but a detail as clothes were shed quickly and limbs were soon splayed over a nearby desk or car seat. By no stretch of the imagination could these women be deemed attractive. Many had acne coating their ass cheeks -- a similar looking form to that which crusted my adolescent face. It did not take long for me to decide that I was more of a stories kind of guy. Thankfully there was a lot of written material -- both fictional essays and letters, purported to be sent in from readers. Both types covered the same terrain: a fabulous bed breaking sexual encounter occurring mostly when the particpants least expected it -- in the workplace, whilst shopping, or while trying to fix a blocked drain. All of these masterpieces covered the material with the same graphic, thrilling rhythym. And it was from this material, and from this material alone, that I learned about the intricate labryinth that is a woman's mind. To wit:

1. All Secretaries live to bang their bosses:
Let's face it. Filing is a chore. And these women, whose life achievement is to take dictation from a mid-level manager at some sales office in an industrial outpost in the North of England quickly become irresistibly enamored with their boss. After weeks of arousal signalled by the wearing of ever more plunging necklines and skirts which end an inch or two above their pubic mound, unforgettable sex is inevitable. Failing that, all store rooms with a photocopier in them have the power of the most potent aphrodisiac.

2. All women LOVE to give head, all of the time:
A couple of the stories were written from the female point of view. To be honest, I cared little for them, saving them as a last resort on those literal rainy days when I had too much time on my hands and needed some variety. The one line all of them shared came at the beginning of the sexscapdes, when both partners were still relatively well-clothed. The woman would drop to her knees, unzip her partner d'amour's pants, and use her mouth to ready him for the orgasmic action that was guaranteed to follow. The interior monologue was always the same. A line to the effect of "I love to suck cock. What woman doesn't?" I made a mental note and kept reading.

3. Working class men get laid. A lot.
Growing up in a suburban milieu, the expectations for my future were clear: Lawyer, Doctor, Investment Banker etc. But these professions did not feature too prominently in the pages of Parade magazine and gave me pause for thought about my career options. Most of the story scenarios were about random, unexpected encounters between bored housewives (was there any other type?) and the men in their lives who were not their husbands. The plumbers who came to fix their faucet, the pizza delivery man who came to provide sustenance, the mechanic who fixed the car. Real men, who saved the day, and wore overalls that could be quickly and easily removed. These men lived lives that seemed to be rollercoasters of anonymous yet incredibly satisfying humpy pumpy in which the payment they received in non-monetary fashion far outstripped the riches apparently on offer to the white collar worker.

4. Most women love nothing better than to be thrown over a waist high object, forced to spread their legs and then made to look back at their partner with the kind of snarl Billy Idol perfected on the White Wedding Tour.

5. Nothing is sexier than a Loser
What connects the nervous warehouseman who drunkenly confides to the office receptionist that he has not been laid in years to the virgin college sophomore who stumbles into the room in which his best freind's mother is tanning herself on a sunbed naked or the bookish librarian who helps the divorcee find a book deep in the stacks? Women love a man who plays the incompetence card. They love to kiss a frog and find a prince. Need I tell you that in the case of these stories, all of the above turned out to be expert swordsmen who knew how to blow a woman's mind? All they lacked was the opportunity.

I want the world to know that the fact I did not get laid till I was 21 has nothing -- Nada -- to do with any of this. Actually, it probably does. But those acne ridden ladies amd the writers -- neigh bards -- who created that single edition of Parade magazine gave me so much pleasure over an extended period, that given the chance to start over and do things differently, I would not change a thing.