Boogie Days

I have always liked pornography.  Not in an empirical, knapsack-under-the-bed (or in the laptop), proud-of-my-treasure-trove way.   I don’t collect it.  I don’t watch it.  I don’t study it.  I rarely think about it. But I’m glad it’s there.

I have a neat day job.  I work for a pornographer.  Though my boss says he’s a pornographer, he isn’t, really.  We don’t make the stuff.  We distribute it.  We are a conduit.  We literally fulfill the needs of people who like to own porn.  As my boss often says, “It’s shoes. Just like shoes.”

Since people always ask this question:  No, we sell nothing related to child pornography.  No snuff either.

Lest you think I’m a fluffer or script girl, forget it.  In a real way, my very smart and entrepreneurial boss is right on with the shoe analogy.  We have more in common with Zappos than not.  There is a website, a very expansive and easy-to-navigate porn superstore.  There is product to choose from — a ton of it. Thousands of shoes, thousands of DVDs.  Zappos sells socks and Spanx; we sell Jack Rabbits and strokers.  You search, you shop, you buy.  We order the product, we take your money, we send you your order in a discreet package.  We ship hundreds and hundreds a titles a week, to people all over the map.  To the Ivy League, to trailers in the Bible Belt.  Married couples, singles of both genders, platoons in Afghanistan.

I really like this job.  It entails marketing and accounting and customer service and helping a business succeed.  I like these things.  As someone who learned the initials ACLU with my ABCs — thank you, my progressive family — I take pleasure in putting into practice some dearly held ideals.  Yeah, I don’t like all the shit. FAR from it.  But I believe in free will.  Someone wanted to make it, someone got paid to make it, someone likes this stuff, someone has the freedom to buy it.  I may not understand it.  It may give me the willies for a variety of (mostly aesthetic) reasons.  Is it for me to judge?

No.