Kevin Sampsell - A Common Pornography - A Memoir

When I wasfifteen years old, I had a suitcase full of porn. It was greenish blue—the aged color of flat turquoise. Square and heavy. Two metal latches kept it shut. Two buttons popped the latches. I kept it in the back of the closet, behind the clothes, and next to another suitcase that didn’t match. We were a poor family without nice things.

The suitcase, for me in the eighties, served as a “best of” fantasy portal. Whereas now, most adults—and yes, even fifteen-year-olds—keep their “best of” porn in a folder on their computer. Who needs all that paper anyway? I could do without all the wordiness of Playboy and Penthouse . I wanted skin. Photos. Pictures. Images to fill my eyes and mind. So two things happened—I started to find magazines that were almost entirely photos, and because I was accumulating too many magazines to hide, I started to cut out just my favorite images. It was like clipping coupons.

I had various ways to get these magazines. I had friends with cars and the knowledge of a specific Dumpster. I had an older brother who had his own place. I had a cousin who hid porn in the closet. Those were my sources.

The cousin was the most interesting. She was young and married. Her husband had a mustache and drove one of those Snap-on tools trucks around (I’m not sure why that seems significant, but it does). When I was younger, even before puberty, I remember wanting to kiss her knees, to touch her legs. But my incestuous urges were pushed aside by childish angst whenever she talked to me in condescending baby talk. So it was most satisfying when I found her “marital aides.” Not only was there a box of magazines and erotica books (bedtime reading, I presume), there were also films. Not videos, but actual plug-in-the-projector-and-loop-it-to-a-reel films. This was on a night when she and her husband were out and Matt and I were having a sleepover at their house. We found the projector and tried nervously to snake the film through it. We found a blank wall to shine our jittery smut on. The grainy color film was upside down or backward or maybe both. It was confusing but it was the first moving sex pictures I’d seen. We put everything back before they got home, but I managed to slip two magazines—smaller, Reader’s Digest –size ones with foreign words on the cover—into my sleeping bag.

Later, at home, behind the locked door of my bedroom, I looked through one of them and tried to follow a story just by the photos. The language was strange, maybe French. I couldn’t make out anything. But the images gave me an idea: A young man working at a grocery store helps a woman out with her shopping cart. She has poufed-out red hair and wears a short skirt. Her legs look smooth and strong. She also wears a loose blouse that looks slack and thin over her cleavage. As the boy starts putting the bags of groceries in the back of her minivan, she climbs in the back and feigns to help him, making room and crawling on her knees in front of his face. He reaches up her leg and she looks back at him and smiles. He glances around the parking lot before climbing into the van. Her clothes come off quickly and he eagerly covers her from behind, his pants around his ankles. I put my own translation into the captions around the photos. I think the woman probably talked to him as he touched her but I couldn’t fathom what she might be saying. Maybe it was just heavy breathing. Heavy breathing is the same in every language. When I cut those photos out of the magazine, I kept some of the mysterious language in there. It was a reminder of something I couldn’t explain. I used those pictures, that story, over and over, for my own foreign pleasure.

Before the suitcase,there were Pee-Chees, folders usually reserved for keeping schoolwork in. Illustrated with images of football players, track runners, baseball hitters, and pom-pommed cheerleaders, I filled them with my favorite clippings of naked women. This was also done because of space issues. With magazines, sometimes I’d have to find more than one image to look at. I’d spread open magazines all across my bed, but that seemed so arduous. One fateful afternoon, I snagged some scissors from my mom (she often sewed in the room next to mine). I waited for everyone to leave the house and then proceeded to scavenge through the stack of magazines. I’d been keeping my stash in the ceiling of my room. It had those big suspended tiles and all I had to do was stand on a chair and push one of them aside to sneak stuff in and out. But I was getting worried about the weight and girth of my porn. It actually took me a few days to go through it all with the scissors. I had to determine which images turned me on and which ones didn’t. I found that I wanted a little of everything: big breasts, small breasts, skinny, chubby, blond, brunette, black, white, Asian, purple, short hair, long hair, big bushy hair, glossy red lipstick, clown makeup. It turned out that I wasn’t too discerning. Of course, I was also a virgin.

These Pee-Chees replaced the magazines in my ceiling. I took a Hefty garbage bag full of discarded magazine scraps and walked them over to the Mayfair Market’s Dumpster after dark. I was filled with a sense of relief, like a drunk coming out of detox. I could sleep at night now, knowing that fifty pounds of dirty magazines weren’t going to break through the tiles above me and pummel my face. I was comforted with the thought that only “the best” was up there. Nestled together in their Pee-Chees. Three of them. Overflowing with women reclining, leaning, jumping, pouting, posing, and playing. Sometimes I could just stare at the ceiling and I’d get hard. My focus and concentration were impressive. Above the Pee-Chees was nothing else. No roof. No sky. No God.

But I couldn’t stop it there. I couldn’t quit going to the porn Dumpster. Or stealing Playboy and Penthouse from the Mayfair. What I really wanted was a girlfriend, someone who would welcome my smothering affection, but I was nervous, insecure, and acne-ridden. I remember my friends who somehow attached themselves to girls and learned their rules and protocol. I tagged along with them to the park sometimes and they’d make out inside the play structure or smoke cigarettes. I waited on the swings, making myself sick. I saw Beth stick her hand down Scott’s pants. It looked like she was punching him. When she took her hand away, it looked so small. Her fingernail polish was dull and sloppy. I was so horny I don’t even think I could bear to hold hands with a girl.

As my Pee-Chees swelled further that year, I began to worry about my ceiling again. I didn’t want it to start sagging, so I found the old turquoise suitcase and piled my stash inside. I imagined what it would be like to dress up in a suit and walk around with the suitcase like a businessman. I wanted to paint it black so it seemed less suspicious. The color was odd and kind of garish, like it was announcing itself as a vessel of smut. Even the old 1950s shape of the thing seemed pervy. My family never went on vacations or trips though, so it was a safe and unassuming place.

I bought theJoan Jett cassette called Album (I admit I had a crush on her even though I was also scared of her). I listened to it a few times in my room, rocking out on my mushroom chair. At the end of side two was a secret unlisted song that had a chorus where Joan sang the lyrics “You’re a star fucker star fucker star fucker” over and over. There was also a part about a clean pussy and giving head to Steve McQueen, but I didn’t really latch on to those.

Dad charged into my room while I was listening to it and told me to turn it off. Then he ejected the cassette, pulled a bunch of the tape out, and put it on the ground. He lifted his foot high and then stepped on it. He took the cassette box from my hand and looked at the yellow cover art of Joan jumping in the air with her guitar. He said through gritted teeth, “I should just burn this crap.”