… in and out, in and out, in and out of age brackets that swap the lens through which the world sees us, and thus, the reflection through which we return the world’s gaze.
Now that I’m a year older, I felt compelled to buy something to acclimate myself: the April 1999 issue of Playboy Magazine. For those of us in that 35-50 age demographic to which I now belong, the tasteful airbrush of erotic photography still holds a special place in our pants. In an age of Pornhub pastiche and Photoshop gone feral, we remember a time when fapping was more art than science.
Back in the day, an onscreen titty usually only came free amid a vortex of harsh swirls and scratchy lines meant to block the action entirely. When we turned to channel 68, the Spice Channel, all we got was static. We knew there was porn on the other end, but it was unauthorized for our viewing pleasure. And yet, we hunkered down anyway. We waited with bated breath, we waited with stiff resolve, and we waited with naughty thoughts already overloading our mind’s eye. Until at last, poking out like a wink to sticktoitiveness, a nipple! Sure, it could’ve been a dude, but it didn’t matter. Our imaginations had already run wild doing all the heavy lifting. The mind at work, always a marvel.
And as quickly as it appeared, the nipple would fade back into the flurry of fuzz, once more lost to the ancient paywall. So, for many, many more minutes would we persevere through the scrambled whites and jagged grays assailing the screen. And for our valiant efforts, occasionally, not always, but occasionally, would we be rewarded with a brief glimpse of the entire sexy scene—abound in ankles and ass and amiability—more than enough to bring the sacred biological exercise to its self-completion.
In and out, in and out of age brackets, not even technology is spared. The static of the Spice Channel faded out of favor, replaced by the softcore infamy of Skinemax, home to that indelible combination of smooth jazz and erotic petting. Sure, it may have only offered simulated sex, and yeah, sometimes the dude looked like he was trying to impregnate a belly button, but the picture was clear, the production value was high, and most importantly, the cost was already included in the cable packages our households were paying for anyway. No need to slink in and out of the sex store, mortified by the possibility of running into your tennis instructor.
There were other drawbacks, of course. You had to wait until late at night, oftentimes eluding your legal guardian or your significant other. Or waiting for your significant other. You know, whatever you’re into. And then there were the feature-length storylines to muddle through. Fifteen-minute bouts of plot progression and bad acting interspersed with scenes where the performers could finally start ‘acting badly.’ Cue the smooth jazz.
It was the sort of thing that could chew up an entire Saturday night; sitting through the full runtime of the 1:00 AM skin flick, rapt with lustful vigor, and yet not wholly satisfied. But no cost is truly sunken when the sinking itself proves erotic. Really, it was the synopsis for the 2:30 offering that really got the synapses firing straight down to the naughty bits. Pregnant with possibility must a movie be when titled “Game, Set, Snatch!”
One has to admit that all the watching and waiting did develop a certain charm. It was like many great songs, always returning to the familiarity of the chorus. We would slog through a scene depicting an actual tennis match, guided by the promise of the pleasure that awaited. And much like with the Spice Channel before it, Skinemax kept our imaginations at the wheel, eagerly anticipating the plot twist where things would turn sexy: “Oops, I think I left my tennis racket in your… Ooh. That’s not my tennis racket. It’s much too thick.”
Sudden dick like that was standard fare, but like a great lover, Skinemax had also the capacity for surprise. Just when you thought it was sexy time, man, could things go left: “Oh, no. That actually is my tennis racket, but a dead person is holding it! I’d better call the police. (Door opens) Oh, thank you so much for getting here so quick, Detective. You have no idea how… Ooh. That’s not my tennis racket…”
A 1999 Playboy must appear an odd anachronism to the modern eye, but people my age grew up swinging on the umbilical cord that once enjoined analog and digital. We’re young enough to love the internet because we grew up learning its inherent value, but with memory enough to be wary of the need to live entirely online. To have bought Playboy 25 years ago, maybe only the 7-Eleven employee and the nosy old lady behind me in line knew what nudie mag I bought. To buy it new, in 2024, the purchase lives on my Amazon account indefinitely. And though I could have bought it used, anonymously, that also means it would have gotten used…anonymously. That’s like having that job at YouTube where you have to watch and then delete all the uploads too horrific for even the 1st Amendment, like that one dude selling skin. That, but then the video is a magazine so you have to touch it also. Fuuuuuuck that. We left that sort of thing to the people who would go to the restricted room at the back of the old video stores and rent porn tapes.
Now we live in a world of paradox and cognitive dissonance. Spoiled for choice, but for how long? There’s free fucking in 4K, with such niche granularity that you’d be hard-pressed not to find what you’re looking for: “Yeah, do you like that? Huh? Do you like that, John Smith, who lives in a duplex at 38 Elmwood Lane? Do you like it when I hyperextend my elbow because that one girl you liked in 7th grade also beat you in tennis? Do you like beating me in tennis? But in a naughty way and your social is 263-52-4937?”
People on the site often enough hardly have to get past the landing page. It is a cherished ritual of pleasure become rote, merely pipe cleaning. And while the porn stars may have their cuts and snips, what you see is what you get. They’re in a visual business after all, and there’s a clear link between baring skin and ROI. Well, unless you’re that one guy on YouTube. But it is the viewers who hide behind VPNs and digital alterations. Too normal to warrant any heightened scrutiny, and yet so special, so attractive a proposition as to ‘merit’ every follower, to go viral even. “See me! But do it when the lighting is ideal and I’ve poofed away all my rough edges.” Such is the status quo in a world where anything less than to be noticed far and wide is abject failure. Oh, how easy life would be if one could simply sell their used tennis socks from an OnlyFans account. To make enough not to care about consequently losing the job as a tennis instructor.
Curation is the flavor of the moment. Porn made to order, phony thirst traps, sanitized digital identities. Editing tools so enmeshed as to make any beginner quickly proficient. Oh, that video where you tried to masturbate sexily, but instead just ejaculated prematurely? Boom! There was actually a voyeuristic extradimensional alien low-key chilling in the corner, erotically speeding up time; a perfect plot for the short-form attention span. More time left for the side hustle.
Still, curation invites mistakes. Discernment itself is bred by imperfection. All those easy-to-edit photos mean flawed originals. Free porn means browser history. And as a wise former friend once told me, right before he tossed a crumpled dollar at my head to get him a beer, “People are generally willing to pay the lazy tax.” And at this moment in history, convenience is being purchased at scale. There are no longer enough hours in the day.
But what if the levy weighed is amorphous at the outset? What if the true cost arrives encrypted? All the jumbled static that is our private data gets batted back and forth across the globe, only the authorized few given permission to see. Fuzzy logic gates and scrambled algorithms employed like a net in the name of compliance. And while the regulators chase after the tireless volleys from virtual peeping toms seeking toned tennis tits, the clear link between security spending and ROI remains elusive. Sure, you might get the errant set of nipples that pop up through the cyber haze. Celebrity is too desired not to get leaked. And yes, a few million social security numbers may get posted on the dark web from time to time, but that’s because there will always be those persistent bad actors. The trick is to finally catch them when they’re acting badly. Cue the jazz music. And the copyright strike.
In and out of industrial revolutions. A worldwide pandemic spawned by the machine’s rise has now also facilitated its deeper ingratiation. The need to move inexorably into the future, ‘tis a tale as old as time. AIs and APIs, computing on the cloud and on the edge; it is these proficiency tools with which we buy back hours of our life each week. It is this digital convenience that has been purchased with a blank check, cashed in our eventual humiliation.
See, because all the X-rated booty pics and unsolicited eggplants are already out there for the fappening. The consolidation of data lakes that we can all skinny dip in with the misguided assurance nobody will ogle. Not unless it’s monetized, of course. Permission is the crux, the weight-bearer of the entire denuded illusion. The baddest of baddies has credit card statements that make even her bankers blush. The dude with a six pack, 10 inches, and 25 mil in the bank also has Snaps better left unchatted. The tapestry of humanity, awesome and ugly, is now woven in ones and zeroes. It is a sleek 8K resolution where everyone’s warts and all are so visible, they might as well come with an itemized list: #14-Brazilian butt lift, #37-Ozempic face. The tax write-offs of an influencer.
The day is inevitable as progress itself when the static of the internet becomes clarity, and the image is everything you’ve ever done. Then will your ding-a-ling be dangling at an angle-lean least flattering, and in the same stroke, unraveling will your mind be at such smattering of a good thing gone maddening!
Discovery: the risk of wasting time in the hope that the time proves never to have been wasted at all. By relinquishing our need to imagine, we’ve sold for ad space the real estate in our very minds. Somewhat unwittingly have we bartered time and money in exchange for our brains in motion, stripped down to the raw nerve and bundled in convenient PDF format. That same corner where fantasies used to avail themselves, maybe with the private aid of a nudie mag or some softcore, is instead now imprinted on the web; a trap open to anyone with the knowledge and wherewithal to muddle through the plot of your online existence. Fifteen-minute bouts of doomscrolling interspersed with credit card purchases and increasing gradations of pure id: A book about not doomscrolling unless making money from it ($8.75), a pair of tennis racket nipple clamps to match the book ($12.95), and even a cleverly edited video depicting a person doomscrolling with a rubber tennis racket in a manner which brings their partner to a profitable orgasm (free with ads). Oh, what inner thoughts can be gleaned from one’s down time. Oh, how time will always tell.
To commit our behaviors to the internet’s permanency seems to fly in the face of our modern society’s borderline compulsion to heavily edit what we want people to think is going in our minds—a partial censorship spurred by the likelihood that each thought will end up getting shared in one forum or another. Sometimes even the Pornhub comment section can host the deepest truths. And the most relevant truth is thus: Pandora’s erotic box has already been flung wide open. The yearning of an entire species, crying out in the collective moan of an existential deepfake. The question isn’t whether the unedited version of yourself will make it to the internet. You’ve already clumsily jammed it in. The real question is, when the trend towards sharing and leaking reaches its climax, when it all comes pouring out, when all that static comes inevitably into focus, will you be able to handle the new lens through which the entire world can now see the real you???
Dear Playboy:
“I read your essay, and I have to agree with what you said in the first half. I bought the issue in used condition and trying to read the second half was… not a great experience. 1 star.”
William W. – Huntsville, AL
“Bro, you sound like every old person ever. With progress, the synthesis then becomes the new thesis, dumbass. When we get to a true post-privacy world (It will take another cycle), having no secrets serves as an evolutionary advantage in that it makes people more secure in themselves, and thus, stronger and more resilient mentally and emotionally. Not to mention the drastic reduction in falsehoods, Mr. Real Talk. Isn’t there a cloud somewhere you should be yelling at? Oh, wait. You just did!
Don G. – Cambridge, MA
“Impregnating a woman through her belly button isn’t the least intuitive thing I’ve ever heard.”
Peter F. – Minneapolis, MN
“JESUS. All y’all MF’ers need JESUS in your lives!”
Latonya S. – Fayetteville, NC
[SOURCE: Lived experience]
