What Before the Internet?

ha ha ha … too hot? Goodness, it is so tame and poetically sedate that secondhand bookstores couldn't even give copies away. Back in the 1990s they were everywhere and for give-away prices.

Yes quite, a line drawing book that implicitly seemed to represent sex in the context of love. But still it was hard to obtain. Don't forget that just 12 years earlier, Penguin books was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act for printing D. H. Lawrence's 1928 novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. And that was just words! Penguin won fortunately. Only as late as 1967 did the the law change and the UK stop imprisoning homosexual men.

Thought provoking - I mentioned in a previous post my liking of Evergreen and Grove Press for their erotica publications ('60's - ‘70’s). That got me thinking and, on a lark, I did a search on “Victorian erotica” …WHAT A BONANZA!!! Try it; I think you'll be amazed at the treasure trove that pops up!! Enjoy…now, go hang a bag!

I remember looking for information on enemas anyplace I could. Any books on anything medical and I would look for any mention of enemas. I never remembered caring if it made me weird or anything. It felt good and thats what mattered.

Of coarse I did try and leave equipment where I found it to avoid any embarrassing situations as I would hide a porno or anything else. Nowadays it sort of seems exciting to be exposed and everyone knowing.

The first time I ever noticed there was actual enema porn on video and in magazines I was probably 15 or 16 and I was in a shady porno store in a very unsavory neighborhood where no one ever seemed to notice or care that I was not old enough to be in there and ask for an ID or tell me to leave.

There was no internet for all my early life. Just chatting to other people, whose information could be good or bad. Playing and experimenting with others. Medicals were more common in my early years, so I had some practical rather then theoretical experience.

The only thing my siblings and I had was each other. We started explored each other at an early age and continued as we got older, exploring the changes that were taking place. After we were taught personal hygiene as preteens and enemas were our responsibility, exploring went into overdrive.

How did I get my (erotic) information? From my older brother “out behind the barn”. Seriously, we grew up on a small farm 😮. No touchy-feely stuff, just two bros talking.

Then came Playboys my brother obtained. No idea where/how he got 'em, but WOWZERS! 😵‍💫

Then, after leaving home, in magazines/trashy books from adult book stores.\

Pretty humdrum stuff.

I think my favourite soft porn magazine of the 1970s was "Men Only" .Aged 17 in 1975 I was visiting a friend who lived near Marble Arch in London. This was the location of the first "Ann Summers" sex shop. On this particular day Ann herself was holding a book signing event. I recall she was a very sexy Australian blonde lady probably then aged 30ish? Couldn't afford the book but I did buy a copy of the aforementioned magazine at 70p (for which she wrote an agony aunt column) & somehow got up enough courage to ask her to autograph the front cover for me. I was rewarded with a big smile & a felt tip autograph. I mentioned this recently to a friend who said she thought it might have some value as a collectors item if I still had it. I said that it was probably in the loft but wouldn't be worth anything "Why not?" she asked "Because all the pages will still be stuck together!" Yuk.

I was thinking about where I learned about “kink and fetish” and how it has influenced my “secret life”, as opposed to my amazing but sadly “vanilla marriage”…. Long before AOL dial up and even before DVDs, I came across a non-descript little adult book store that was directly in the heart of Times Square, not hidden away on a side street, but right there in the days when Times Square was truly seedy and not the tourist destination of today… Kinematics was unique in that they had booths that played “less than mainstream porn”. They had a couple of booths that projected the movies onto the wall of the booth. They played European fetish videos, stuff that I never even imagined existed…l was hooked and I remember going there anytime I could get to NYC -armed with my handful of quarters.

One day I went and Kinematics was gone as part of the vision for cleaning up Times Square. I was devastated and thought this kink thing was over. And on a whim, I looked in the phone book and found that they relocated to a larger space in the 30’s just off 6th Ave.

This was at the beginning of Video tapes and not only did the have more booths, they displayed 100s if not 1000s of video cassettes by genre as well as catalogues of the various companies that produced content….that is where I found Beth Tyler amongst other specific fetish providers…. I’ll put together a new post reminiscing about folks of “our age” that started their kink journey in the 70s at the transition from magazines to videos and beyond…

Beth Tyler’s catalogue is how it all started for me…

Forum magazine was fairly open to we klysmos. I remember a fabulous letter describing a visit to a specialist enema nurse. She not only carried out a digital examination "you are very constipated but l will soon sort you out", applied a vibrator to his penis, hardened by her working the nozzle between each squeeze on the Higginson syringe and told him to "hold it" until he came, but also offered a cup of coffee after he had showered. Her words, after he had drunk it, "to keep the toilets to hand as it was well dosed with a most effective laxative" give me Goose bumps to this day. If only!!!

Another magazine described a visit to a German pro-dom. He pleaded "anything but an enema". Her response, once he was strapped to her treatment table??? "You are to receive two gallons, and if you release before I tell you I will make you lick it up". Oh my goodness.