Home Alone!

Horatio writes: Brad from New Jersey raises a fascinating philosophical question.

My parents were pioneers. They got a video recorder early on and kept it in the bedroom. It was a Betamax and they held onto it long after the VHS format got the upper hand. One day I broke into their room with my brother and some of his friends in search of something better to do. To our delight we discovered that although my parents only had seven videos, six of which unedited tapes from our Bar Mitzvahs, the seventh was a porno video with a through line about some aliens who land on earth and become sidetracked from their original invade and destroy mission once they discover the human vagina. We watched the alien lovemaking in total silence before replacing the tapes exactly as we had found them. So was born my addiction to porn. From that day onwards, I manufactured every opportunity I could to be left in the Home Alone scenario. The second the front door slammed shut I would rush upstairs, into my parents room and slam in that tape in for some UFO humpy pumpy. And here was the the thing. Every time I put the tape in, it started at a different place -- which meant that this video gem was an active part of their love life. And because I had to pay witness to the exact second they were stopping it, I had a front row glimpse of their sexual peccadilloes (They loved the women on women scenes, especially the one with lead alien watching in the corner whilst pleasuring his terrestrial penis), something which sounds funny now, but that I would wish on no other twelve year old. I wonder if any of your other readers experienced this kind of scenario because if they did, I want to know the following. To rewind back to the exact place you found the tape originally or not to rewind? At first, I always used to, with a great degree of accuracy, driven by both a respect for, and fear of, my elders. But after a while I stopped doing that because it injected such a stress level and a technical dimension to what should be a quintessentially relaxing and pleasurable experience that it seemed counterproductive. Would be fascinated, and relieved to know what others make of this human dilemma.