The first time I rented porn alone I wasn’t really alone. There were other customers in the store, a small chain, popular in the days before Blockbuster had swallowed and sanitized most neighborhood VHS rental outlets. Back then most video stores had a back room where you could find adult films, typically separated from God’s wholesome sunlit earth by a set of white, swinging saloon doors, so that you'd feel like a big sex outlaw just by swaggering in.
Which you never did. You skulked casually past a few times before sidling into the pervert annex and getting knocked in the face with an array of filth beyond your wildest dreams.
I was not always the only woman behind the swinging doors but I was almost always the only one who was alone.
It was a little discomfiting but it was also exciting. I was young, curious and not about to let a embarrassment stand between me titles like “The Czech is in the Male.”
