Oh My God! It's Not Porn!

An acquaintance of mine in Sydney loves his porn. He loves it so much that if you ever have the chance of going to his place, you will find one room dedicated to gay porn. Everything from porn videos to porn magazines, from porn postcards to porn posters. Even the lounge suite in the room is covered by material showing guys in different positions having sex, as is the coffee table with its dildo-like candles and the like. One could describe it as porn paradise.

If anyone had to find a shrine for gay porn, Alain's place would definitely have to be the one where gay porn lovers would make the pilgrimage to. Most people that have seen his porn room, only see it through the doorway; very few and only close friends ever set foot inside. Yet despite his desire for porn, he is a pretty quiet, level headed guy. By day an accountant for a small suburban accounting firm in Padstow, he spends his weekends visiting various adult shops in Sydney and Canberra, adding to his collection.

Jokingly, the comment was made once that he should set up a porn gallery, exhibit his collection and raise some money to expand it. That comment went down like a ton of bricks! Like how dare someone even make that suggestion? Who in their right minds would let other people touch his priceless collection?

I would classify this as an obsession, just like people who see Elvis Presley at the local supermarket or Star Trek fans who eat, sleep and dream of Vulcans and Klingons. To Alain, it's a hobby even if it is a very expensive and time consuming one. However like most people with obsessions like his, they become predictable. Every birthday and Christmas party he has been to, the present is always something revolving around pornography. Whether it is a tastefully produced book on male nudity or some grotesque statue of David with an oversized "power tool".

So it came as a no huge shock to a friend of mine who knows Alain, when he got his birthday present. Wrapped in the typical camp paper, it felt like a large coffee table book. Jason, like everyone else, knew it would be just another gay porn book. So timidly and slightly embarrassed, he gently unwrapped the present whilst trying to hide from his parents. The first glimpse of the cover was - sure enough - pornographic.

Jason timidly opened the front cover to read the inscription Alain had written for him. There in blue ink, Alain had written "Happy Birthday Jase. Never judge a book by it's cover. Hope you like it. Love Alain". Thumbing through the pages, Jason's face just changed astronomically. From a timid embarrassed look, his eyes gleamed and from his mouth came those now-famous words "OH MY GOD! IT'S NOT PORN"!!

Alain had given Jason a book on Japanese Gardens and how to maintain them - a new hobby of Jason's - but had replaced the cover with a porn sleeve.

I suppose the reason I wrote this article is two-fold. One, even the most predictable of people can sometimes shock you, and secondly, as Alain had written, one should never judge a book by its cover. It's the content that matters and what's really inside. And my real purpose for this article? well, I really don't have one, except that I was clearing my inbox for my email account and stumbled across an email Jason had sent me a couple of months ago.

Don't know what triggered it, but I remembered that birthday and the events around it. Just another happy moment in my life that brought a smile :-)

James