I, Porn Lord

(The following may or may not be truth. Take it as comedy and with a grain of salt. It's just a story.)

When I was in elementary back in the early to mid 90's, my friends and I would talk about Naked Ladies. The thought and prospect of nude women was barely enticing our fresh and young minds. The thought of voluptous older women (ie: High School girls) made us giggle, laugh and wonder out loud.

Sex and naked ladies (we didnt use the term "bitches" for females yet, we had some sort of respect, imagine, elementary kids calling girls, ladies, go figure). Stealing Playboys was the ultimate thrill and a friend of mine oftentimes told the legend of that one magical day when his older brother (he was 13) went to a local park and found the mother lode of Porn: a stack of Playboys stashed in the bushes that he promply took home.

Well one fine day in Fifth grade, I was talking to a class mate and he told me that he had found a stash of Playboys and Hustlers in his basement. Probably belonged to his dad. For a low low price, he could provide me with said pornographic literature.

After all, I just wanted them for the articles: "Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Affair"...um, what? Yes, the issues were old and retro. By retro I mean bush.

So for three bucks he provided me with a copy of Playboy . We met clandestine-like after school, on a lonely hallway, by the Boys restroom, like we were two secret agents meeting for some shady deal. It was a shady deal. Trading, Buying and Selling pornography in an elementary school.

Hey, we were kids.

Pretty soon with my allowance money I would buy copies of smut mags from that kid. Three bucks a pop. Not bad. But um... They were just pictures. After a while they got old and sat stashed in some secret dark corner of my room, away from the scornful eyes of the parents.

Then I got a bright idea. Why not sell them to other kids.

So I approached friends and classmates. Hey wanna buy some Playboys and Hustlers? "Playboys are cool but Hustlers have some real gross stuff in them. Hardcore Naked Ladies "DOING IT". The kids were sold !

And so I established my schools first (I think? ) porn pipeline. I would buy the mags from the kid for 3 bucks a pop. Sell them to others for 5 bucks a pop. Two dollar profit from my friends. Other kids I'd charge six bucks.

Thats how most of my friends and classmates learned about naked ladies, bush (the pubic kind not the one- term president), Oliver North, Iran-Contra, doing it, and other weird crap our young minds didnt understand.

We knew they were taboo, we werent supposed to see this filth. Some guy Ron Brown had died in a plane crash, There was a war in some place called Bosnia, "Tutus" were killing people in Rwanda, Lawanda, somewhere, with machetes. Just like Jason in the Friday the 13th movies!. So, we needed to distract ourselves with porn

This went on until the end of Fifth grade. It started in Fifth and ended that year. In middle school I would move up to "heavier" stuff.

One night I found out we had Spice Channel after 10 pm. Now, Spicie Channel was the shit. Back in the day it was THE porn channel. For some reason we had it free? Huh. It was channel 0 on those big bulky brown Cable boxes from the 90's so my entrepeneuring mind had another idea.

Go to Safeway. Buy cheap packs of 6 hour blank VHS tapes. Tape 4 or 6 hours of Spice Channel Programming. Sell them for 10 bucks a pop. Profit.

So I did. I spread the idea among my friends. "Who among ye will partake in this opportunity to watch some smut in the conforts of your own rooms?" "Blessed are ye whose parents bought ye your own VCRs and had locks on your doors. "

So I'd check the listings. See what sounded enticing. "Big Booty Bikini Babes VI". Perfect. Then I'd tape 6 hours of programming. From 10 pm to 4am. Id program the TV and VCR , leave it recording and go to sleep. Go to school and sell the video to whoever asked or wanted one. Id take requests and that same night I'd get to recording.

You didnt get this from me, got it?

So I made my money. Didnt make hundreds of dollars but for a middle schooler I was good for about a year or too. Bought shoes, clothes, went to the movies, the arcade. Stashed my money somewhere secret and made sure to only spend as much as my "allowance" allowed me as to not attract attention from the Authorities (Parents).

One day a friend called me "Porn Lord", a take on the term Drug Lord. I wasn't a drug lord but I was making a business smuggling porn videos to school and selling them to horny teenagers. Porn Lord. I liked it.

Pretty soon we all got girlfriends. Started dating chicks. Losing our "V" cards. Porn wasn't as exciting as once before. The business declined. I started mowing lawns and getting legit teen jobs here and there. My criminal porn business empire came to an end.

"Have a great summer, Porn Lord" signed one kid in my yearbook at the end of Seventh grade.