Come on in, fellas! Live nude girls! No cover! One drink minimum!
Admittedly this is going to seem like an odd topic, but it wouldn't be the first one. Let's talk about pornography. Lock the kids in the closet if you need to. If you were to use the common stereotype of conservatives, then you might assume that I am against the stuff. Au contraire, mon ami! I have been getting in touch with my inner libertarian and while there are some things that I would rather my fellow citizens get involved in, it is their right to do so. Besides, I'd be lying if I said I've never bought any. The argument that it is degrading to women is a crock. I'm assuming that they get paid fairly well. If not, they are getting paid something. Sure, some of the women might use their pay from the photo spread or porn flick to support a drug habit, but it beats knocking over a liquor store. So once you get past that argument, what's the harm? A few psycho killers and rapist types have stated that they had a thing for porn, which brings a great hue and cry from the moralists of our nations. "See!" they say, "Pornography leads to rape, murder and other bad things!" Yeah, and a lot of people like to drink, but not everyone who does drives drunk. A lot of people own guns legally, but so few of them are used in the commission of a crime.
Anyway, I'm not here to mount (no pun intended) a defense of pornography. I recently purchased a couple of men's magazines. (Shock and stunned amazement!) I'll leave out the name of the mags because it is not a relevant point. I'll just say that they are the kind you could probably purchase at your local 7-Eleven or truck stop. I must admit I had not purchased such "reading material" in some time. I was a bit surprised by what I saw in the pages of these fine publications. Laws or regulations must have changed recently. Let's start with a brief history lesson. Once upon a time in the fifties, Hugh Hefner came along and decided to publish a magazine in which women posed nude, or at least semi-nude. In the old days, all he could get away with was headlights and rear bumpers, T & A. It was years before the first pubic hair even made an appearance in a Playboy centerfold. Then came along Bob Guccione and Penthouse in 1969. It was a racier version of Playboy in which the women showed more of themselves, if you know what I mean. Larry Flynt started Hustler five years later and broke all the barriers. Fewer articles and more skin. In the years that followed, magazines such as Swank, High Society, Chic and Velvet, to name a few, jumped on the Hustler bandwagon and have taken a more gynecological approach to things. Until recently, that was all you could get away with in a mainstream men's magazine. Pictorials of women with legs spread wide showing God and everyone their baby exits. Some publications featured men and women (or women and women) in simulated sex. All the parts were there, but never did a penis touch a vagina, a tongue touch a penis, etc. They could come very close (again, no pun intended), but no contact at all was shown. I'm assuming there was some law somewhere about that. It couldn't have been an unwritten rule in the industry, because the little cripple Flynt would have shot a hole (pun intended) in that rule years ago. There must have been something about softcore over-the-counter sales v. hardcore adult bookstore kinds of things. Well I'm here to tell you that the old rules apparently no longer apply. Full oral and vaginal penetration, baby! Also, under the old rules the cover girl had to have her areolas completely covered. Sometimes they would be obscured behind some flimsy clothing or an arm or something. Sometimes a well-placed circle was added to the photo or they were even airbrushed out completely, which looks a little funny but did the trick. Now only the nipple itself is blotted out with a little circle. I don't really understand the whole nipple-covering thing to begin with. I mean you have some woman exposing her massive (and likely fake) 42DD's on the cover of a magazine and covering the nipple is supposed to make it better somehow? As another sign of things having changed, even Playboy is starting to show a little pink, something that never happened before. Not "Wow, I can see her ovaries!" shots, but just a tease.
Next on our tour of vice is prostitution. After all, it is the world's oldest profession. I must admit that I used to be 100% against it. I'm not now 100% for it, but I'd be for legalization. There are several logical reasons for doing so. Safety is a concern. If prostitution were legalized, states and municipalities could register the hookers as is done in some other countries and require them to undergo periodic health checks. Legal brothels could be established and customers would know that Crystal and Amber are clean. Then there is the revenue issue. This would make government spenders happy because the transactions could be taxed. There would have to be a bureaucracy established for the health inspections and revenue collection, but the revenue greater than that needed to sustain the new departments (the Tennessee Department of Gettin' a Little has a nice ring to it) could go into the general fund. And it would be a selective tax. Unlike an income tax or a sales tax, which cannot be avoided by the general citizenry, this would be a usage tax, so to speak. Lastly, from a libertarian point of view, why can't a woman rent her special place to some guy for an hour or so? It could be said that there is some negative effect on families and society in general, but there are so many legal activities that don't do society any good either. Besides, if a man is going to cheat on his wife and family, he'll end up doing it with his secretary or neighbor if not a prostitute. If both parties are in agreement over the terms of the transaction, nobody gets hurt. In fact, at least one of the parties is going to be the opposite of hurt. Besides, I can just envision the kinds of premiums that brothels could start offering customers. A frequent fuckers card. Buy six sessions, get an anal session for free. Two (girls) For One Tuesdays. Just a thought. (Disclaimer: No, I have never purchased the services of a prostitute, though if there was ever a guy who needed one...)
Lastly in the cavalcade of body parts are strip clubs. I have no opposition to strip clubs. I don't go to any. It has always seemed to me like going to a new car showroom without being able to buy, test drive or even touch the cars. And metaphorically, I don't even own a car! "Hey big boy! Let me shake my tits in your face. Like 'em? Well you can't have 'em. You can't even touch 'em." Who needs that kind of aggravation and pay for it? I realize that a lot of guys with wives and girlfriends go to these places, but at least when they go home they have a pair they can play with. They might not be as nice as the ones at the bar and maybe they aren't allowed access to them as often as they may like, but they are available. What do I have? Nothing. But I digress. I cannot say I've never been to one of these places, but I haven't in years and can't see going anytime soon. But if I was ever to wander down to our local Deja Vu or Ken's Gold Club I would expect to see totally nude women. None of this pasties and g-string stuff. If I'm going to give this chick a hard-earned dollar bill, I want to see coochie (and those oh so critical nipples). I think they tried to pass a law here in Nashville a few years back that required g-strings and nipple covers on strippers. It was appealed and either it was overturned or a stay of enforcement was issued. However, I disagree with what I believe to be the reason for the appeal: infringement of free speech. A woman stripping with her pink feminine flower exposed for all to see isn't speech. It's a stupid law, but not for that reason. Have you noticed some of the ways they try to get men into those clubs? No cover or no minimum nights are not unusual, but several clubs in town advertise free lunch buffets. I like food and I like naked women, but depending on the proximity of each, something just does not sound terribly hygienic about the whole thing. I mean, I don't know where those women have been. "Waiter, there's a small curly hair in my soup!"
And another thing...