my memory. By the time I caught sight of the first picture, with a thrill that whistled through my mind, she wasforgotten. These pictures, these magazines, would be my companions.
Thus was I introduced to that poisonous Western concept: the beautiful female body. Thus did I start my ingestion of naked paper women. I was always in mortal fear of being found out by my parents, so it was a secret, paranoid activity, performed with my ears cocked for the least signal of their unexpected early return from work. In direct contrast to the headless, colourless bodies from the volume on sexuality, which gave my imagination the minimum fuel with which it could fly, the pictures in Playboy sent me sky high. These disrobed young women displayed a beauty that was truly incredible to me, yet there they were, smiling, laughing, prancing, looking pensive, speaking of themselves and their families, of where they lived and what they did, of their favourite books, singers and movies. That these monthly beauties were from the American sixties, from an era that seemed so colourful and momentous, gave them an added degree of attraction. I ogled not only their breasts, but their hippyish ways and dress, their lingo, their politics. Masturbating while looking at these young women was far and away the most powerful, sensuous experience of my adolescence. I remember how one time, after a particularly intense moment of gratification, I came up from the basement and stumbled outside. I was in a daze. I lay on the grass, looking up at the sky. It began to rain, at first gently, then with the unfurling waves of a storm. I didn’t move, but stayed there till I was soaked through and through and my teeth were chattering.
My desire went in cycles. Sometimes I would spread out several magazines and masturbate compulsively, as much as three times in a row. Like a sultan going through his harem, Iwould flip through the Playboys searching for just the right smile, just the right breast, to push me over the edge. As I got to know my Playmates I became pickier, flipped longer. At other times I felt bloated with overconsumption; it came with a feeling in my stomach, a pit of solitude. Then I masturbated to a single picture, or none at all, using only my imagination.
In this erratic hunger for paper women — I want many! I want none — I might have perceived the real poverty of my diet, an intimation of what it was doing to me, but the pleasure was too great. It’s the way I see myself then: I binged on paper women, stuffing my mouth, then I vomited them out violently. Can you see a boy on his knees over a toilet bowl, a finger down his throat, vomiting pictures of naked women? That’s me. A boy suffering from pictorio-sexual bulimia. Although, in truth, that’s not the way it went. At the time, I ate. It was so good, so amazingly good. It’s now that I vomit. Now, when I see pornography, I am instantly seized by nausea. It’s beyond my control. My stomach flips and my mouth waters unpleasantly.
I was busy (there was school, there was exercise, I read books and saw movies, I watched plenty of television — no longer an enemy but the companion of my lonely hours — there were my furtive minutes of ecstasy, there were all the moments of anguish, idleness and discovery that make up adolescence), but I would say that my busyness took none of my time, for the one thing that truly consumed me was emotions — and my consistent approach was to shy away from the greatest source of these emotions.
In the lineup at the school cafeteria, Carolyn once got close to me and pressed one of her breasts against my arm in a waythat penetrated even a shyness as obtuse as mine. I feigned not to notice, then masturbated about it at home. Some time later, when I first saw her holding hands with Graham, I felt all the pain of dashed love. When they languorously kissed by their lockers for minutes on end, eyes closed, heads gently moving, I pretended to be busy at my locker
Thus was I introduced to that poisonous Western concept: the beautiful female body. Thus did I start my ingestion of naked paper women. I was always in mortal fear of being found out by my parents, so it was a secret, paranoid activity, performed with my ears cocked for the least signal of their unexpected early return from work. In direct contrast to the headless, colourless bodies from the volume on sexuality, which gave my imagination the minimum fuel with which it could fly, the pictures in Playboy sent me sky high. These disrobed young women displayed a beauty that was truly incredible to me, yet there they were, smiling, laughing, prancing, looking pensive, speaking of themselves and their families, of where they lived and what they did, of their favourite books, singers and movies. That these monthly beauties were from the American sixties, from an era that seemed so colourful and momentous, gave them an added degree of attraction. I ogled not only their breasts, but their hippyish ways and dress, their lingo, their politics. Masturbating while looking at these young women was far and away the most powerful, sensuous experience of my adolescence. I remember how one time, after a particularly intense moment of gratification, I came up from the basement and stumbled outside. I was in a daze. I lay on the grass, looking up at the sky. It began to rain, at first gently, then with the unfurling waves of a storm. I didn’t move, but stayed there till I was soaked through and through and my teeth were chattering.
My desire went in cycles. Sometimes I would spread out several magazines and masturbate compulsively, as much as three times in a row. Like a sultan going through his harem, Iwould flip through the Playboys searching for just the right smile, just the right breast, to push me over the edge. As I got to know my Playmates I became pickier, flipped longer. At other times I felt bloated with overconsumption; it came with a feeling in my stomach, a pit of solitude. Then I masturbated to a single picture, or none at all, using only my imagination.
In this erratic hunger for paper women — I want many! I want none — I might have perceived the real poverty of my diet, an intimation of what it was doing to me, but the pleasure was too great. It’s the way I see myself then: I binged on paper women, stuffing my mouth, then I vomited them out violently. Can you see a boy on his knees over a toilet bowl, a finger down his throat, vomiting pictures of naked women? That’s me. A boy suffering from pictorio-sexual bulimia. Although, in truth, that’s not the way it went. At the time, I ate. It was so good, so amazingly good. It’s now that I vomit. Now, when I see pornography, I am instantly seized by nausea. It’s beyond my control. My stomach flips and my mouth waters unpleasantly.
I was busy (there was school, there was exercise, I read books and saw movies, I watched plenty of television — no longer an enemy but the companion of my lonely hours — there were my furtive minutes of ecstasy, there were all the moments of anguish, idleness and discovery that make up adolescence), but I would say that my busyness took none of my time, for the one thing that truly consumed me was emotions — and my consistent approach was to shy away from the greatest source of these emotions.
In the lineup at the school cafeteria, Carolyn once got close to me and pressed one of her breasts against my arm in a waythat penetrated even a shyness as obtuse as mine. I feigned not to notice, then masturbated about it at home. Some time later, when I first saw her holding hands with Graham, I felt all the pain of dashed love. When they languorously kissed by their lockers for minutes on end, eyes closed, heads gently moving, I pretended to be busy at my locker
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