A porn collection is for life, not just for Christmas

[zuckerman]

OK, it's time to hit the Excel graph wizards or do some figuring out with a pencil and paper, but how does your porn use relate to your marital/romantic status?

Do you banish the stash to the attic the moment the babe in the bar gives you her mobile number, to focus on the 'real thing'? Do you sequester the smut in the garden shed to add a little spice when the missus isn't at her amorous peak (say, Monday-Sunday, 51 weeks a year)?

I got to chatting about this with a mate who tends to roll his eyes and look semi-suicidal when thinking about the number a great tit mag collections he's binned down the years because the new girlfriend was pushing all his buttons at the time. But of course she moves on and suddenly he's staring at a paltry copy or two of New Talent and Razzle from the petrol station wondering if its too late to get to the landfill tip and find his complete set of 70s Mayfair and P___house he thought he'd never 'need' again.

Maybe you find that a little bit of what does you good between the sheets is so more-ish that your porn use goes up, unless you're smooth enough to bed all your girlfriend's girlfriends and the tarts in the canteen (darlin', I never even look at another bird, you're enough for me)?

Perhaps you're the refined collector-type and the time you spend cataloguing and scanning erotica for posterity's sake remains more or less constant no matter how much candlelit loveplay with Kind of Blue playing on the Bang & Olufsen you indulge in (I only have them for the articles on steam trains and vintage cars)?

However the porn fits into your life, or lifestyle, it must wax and wane with circumstances and the years. Was it useful for a time, did it fill a gap? Or is it a constant source of comfort and inspiration?

So, fess up. Let's hear about your moments of madness with the binliners that you now regret, or how you manage to keep your stash, which now fills a volume slightly larger than Ben Nevis, hidden from your loved ones. Tell us how porn made you a better person or why you became so admired around the office after your download history found its way onto the group e-mail system.

I'm sure your cautionary tales will help less experienced collectors to avoid potential pitfalls. Your paeans to porn will inspire a new generation to guilt-free enjoyment. Sociologists need to know how the allure of porn transcends the mere need to crank one out into a bunch of Kleenex in the berth when your truck is parked up. Future historians will want to know how this generation of smut fans and erotica devotees alike managed to keep alive the flame and preserve the precious archive of one of Western civilization's greatest inventions.

There's so much nonsense talked about the pernicious influence of porn that I think it's worth going on the record about its positive role in a healthy lifestyle. As an industry it outgrosses Hollywood yet finding someone who will admit to being a porn fan is harder than finding a hedge fund manager that believes government should stay out of the free market.

Above all, what does porn mean to you? Dirty little secret; your pride and joy; habit-forming trash; misunderstood art form; misogynist propaganda; liberating free speech — all these things and more?

Get typing. And please try not to make the keys sticky.

[django mutney]

Originally Posted by zuckerman

OK, it's time to hit the Excel graph wizards or do some figuring out with a pencil and paper, but how does your porn use relate to your marital/romantic status?

Doing a thesis are we?

[zuckerman]

Not at all and I imagine academia would consider it unethical to try to garner free 'research material' from a forum such as this. I'm not an academic, just an enthusiast.

I'm genuinely curious about the phenomenom of porn and especially the collecting impulse. There's no way I can compete with the stunning material posts on this forum and I have no special knowledge of vintage erotica which hasn't been derived from knowledgable sources such as this. So that tends to consign me to lurker status. But what I like to think I can contribute is a little bit of reasoned discussion with those who might share my interest and that, after all, is what I hope the VE Talk area might actually be for — casually ruminating on a topic I'm very fond of.

But no one has to respond, especially if they're worried that I'm ensconced in the sociology department of Sussex University with a notepad and pen at the ready. I'm used to that response: I get it in fora discussing net censorship issues, the decline of recorded jazz, or the relative merits of the two flavours of Battlestar Galactica. As I said, it's the phenomenon that interests me, not commenting on specific content. Maybe I just come over like somebody with a clipboard.

I show my appreciation for the content of porn in other ways, ways that make typing impractical. But sometimes it's nice to take some time out and give my second favourite organ some excercise ... by thinking.

[billybunter]

I can honestly say I have never binned a porn mag. I have however hid them a few times.

[johnchirac]

I find the rationale of your subject actually very interesting.
I do have a collection of "feline" stuff to call it this way and as you mention the only situation where I would definitely bin it would be only if I would know that I'll be dying (like by having a very serious illness or considering a suicide as for say a hypothetical example) simply because I don't want anybody else to know that I was/would be into it.It's quiet funny because VE would be important enough in my life,although I'm really not interested in today's material (too fake,too commercial,too much "in your face" for my taste) also probably because now sex has become fully admitted or banalised whereas the vintage has the quality to convey an era where porn was underground and therefore the thought of that make it much more exciting.But yeah have I to fully agree that this material is like the wood that you store for the cold days as well,it surely gives you some sexual confidence if say your girlfriend is leaving you or even worst, when you are considering leaving your girlfriend because you can not fully attain this type of excitement with her as much as VEF can provide you!

[Schwenck]

A Very Interesting Topic!
I binned a large collection when I first moved in with my girlfriend, who I later married.
I kept, quietly, a few choice items. This was a major mistake, though a bit of a clear out of some of the less enticing stuff would have been sensible.

With my second marriage, I was more upfront about porn (and lots of other thins, like not doing any DIY or Gardening), which my wife is mostly ok about, apart from tetchy remarks about the space they take up - she's a very tidy person.

So, thanks to ebay, I have rebuilt my porn magazine collection, often buying magazines that I stupidly discarded, but also others from my favourite magazines. I also have a large amount of porn on my computer.

Thinking back earlier, I did have to dump some porn scrapbooks when we moved from London to Edinburgh when I was 14. My hiding places didn't have room for everything. As porn, it was rubbish, but on a purely nostalgic note it would be nice to see some of that again.

[Jism Jim]

Back in the nineties I had almost completely switched from magazines to watching DVD's. The porn rental shop was a few minutes away. So when I needed more storage space in my small appartment it seemed like a good idea to throw away my porn mags. And that's what I did.
Years later I joined VEF. All those mags I could have contributed were gone.

For example; I had Teenager 32, which still hasn't been posted, and probably more.

[silkies]

Never with porn, but once with my lingerie.

I had lost my virginity in my teens, and had sex a few times with different women and girls my age, unattached. But in my early twenties I met Christie. We dated and had sex and as my first regular lay, I had decided that I needed to behave like a real man for her. I bagged up all of my slips, panties, nighties, stockings, babydolls and peignoirs and threw the, in a dumpster. I had urges and twinges of regret, but I resisted. Three months later while we out with her friends she screwed an old flame in the ladies’ room of the restaurant where we were having dinner.

The next day was Sunday and I went to the mall. This was the mid 90’s and Victoria’s Secret still had some silk slips and underwear. I spent $200, went home forgot about Christie, but remembered the lesson I had learned.

Since then, sex has been one night stands, escorts or internet hookups with women who don’t mind.

The lesson Christie taught me? Pussy won’t change for you, regardless of how much you try to change for it.

[banquomerc]

the garage and shed were invented for this reason; inventory must be protected....