So I was reading a story (on another site) about how cashiers will silently judge people based on what they buy…and there were a few first hand experiences, especially with cashiers describing how the behaviors were of people who would have to ask for adult magazines in a non-adult place (like the 7-11 or Borders or a street newsstand).
It made me think back on if I’d ever bought an adult magazine before and I did remember once or twice that I had. I think the last time was in 2002 or so, and it was bought from a small mom and pop store that I actually worked for, so I just bought it during one of my breaks. I also knew the owners pretty well, so they didn’t care and I didn’t feel embarrassed or anything.
Of course, these days, with the invent and rise of the internet, buying magazines has kind of become redundant.
I bought a few behind the counter magazines from 7-Eleven many years ago. Never gave it a second thought. Back in the eighties they had quite an assortment to pick from.
Do they still stock them today? The Internet has really cut into magazine sales.
Well, one time I think I was 19 or so and I asked the nice old lady at the 7-11 for a Penthouse I felt a little oogy. She politely rung it up, looked at the picture of George Burns on the cover (yes, it was that long ago) and said “Oh I like him! He’s funny!”
I kind of wondered if she later opened one to read the article and was aghast at what she found inside or if after working at 7-11 for a while she knew exactly what she’d find and it didn’t faze her.
Not a magazine but I used to go in about every 3 months for an HIV test, I am straight but I was a bit promiscous and not good about protection. The young office girls were always giving me these strange looks and giggling.
I’ve bought them on occasion, and never been concerned by anyone’s reaction. The shop staff know what they sell, and probably don’t want to to start anything with a customer. If they were to look down their nose, it’s water off a duck’s back to me.
It’s been a while, partly because of the internet as the OP says, but I can see it happening again - during a power cut maybe…
Many years ago, as stage manager of an edgy student production, I had to send a sweet and innocent ASM to the local shop for an armload of adult magazines, with which to paper the set according to the directors vision (he wanted a lot of gun pics too). I could have gone myself, I suppose, but it was her job and most jobs require some personal compromise. If she’d refused on principle, I may have relented, but she did the job and did it well.
These young whippersnappers of today, with their Pornhubs and XNXXs-dot-coms, don’t know how good they got it! Back in my day, if you wanted to see a nekkid lady, you had to sneak off to the 7-11 and buy it from the cashier, who was inevitably your Sunday school teacher, your best friend’s mom, or the cute girl from fifth period English. You had to have balls* to buy a nudie mag!
I was a little awkward the first few times I bought a magazine for onanistic purposes, although the cashiers never seemed bothered. When I got a bit older, though, I realized that some men masturbate and the rest lie, and stopped caring what strangers thought.
Back in the day, you couldn’t get gay porn from the local 7-11, so had to go to “specialty” shops. No problem. They wouldn’t hire judgmental people in places like that.
The first stroke book I ever bought was a novel (well, there wasn’t really much of a plot) from the “erotica” section of a bookstore chain. I was a teenager and I was pretty frightened that I might get caught (is it illegal for a kid to buy a dirty novel? beats me), but I was on a class trip to another city so at least I wasn’t going to bump into anyone I knew.
Years later I was in my early 20s when I decided to buy an issue of Playboy. I was embarrassed, but Playboy is pretty tame stuff.
A few years after that, I picked up a Hustler from a corner store. The people who ran the store were Chinese immigrants; I figured they wouldn’t be stocking it if they didn’t want people to buy it, right? So by that point I was only slightly embarrassed.
At the age of 17, and a young 17 at that, I bought a Playboy at a train station. I was incredibly embarrassed. Like hogarth, I wasn’t positive that what I was doing was legal. Unlike hogarth, I was in my home town and was worried that someone I knew would see me.
I also remember the clerk giving me a look as though as to say “you know you shouldn’t be doing this, right?” though he didn’t say anything, but that may have been my imagination entirely. Quite possible.
Over the next ten years or so I did this again on several occasions. Never experienced anywhere near the same sense of embarrassment though. And a good thing too.
Kind of off topic, but back in the '80s when I was in college I was told by a friend that a fraternity would haze their pledges by driving them out to a C-store staffed by a woman (preferably a very young one) and make them go in and buy one of the sleazier titles and a container of some sort of hand cream or vaseline and nothing else.
But to answer the original question…Sure…for the articles, of course.
“Let me have one of those porno magazines… large box of condoms, bottle of Old Harper… a couple of those panty shields, and some illegal fireworks, and one of those disposable enemas… Nah, make it two.”
-Homer Simpson
I haven’t done this in person but it is a shame you get over quickly. Like the first time I bought booze legally. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but the fact that I might be called out was anxiety-provoking. Generally speaking, people won’t work these jobs for long if they’re judgmental.
Kind of like buying a pregnancy test and a coat hanger, nothing else, or a shovel, duct tape, zip ties, etc.
Most of the ones I’ve bought them at have been at your basic “Adult World” pornaterias and the people around me have had inflatable sheep and double-dongs the size of your leg. A basic skin mag will hardly catch anyone’s attention.
And, okay, yeah, even today, as a full-fledged dirty old man, it’s a little daunting. It’s more daunting when the cashier is a woman. I definitely feel the lapse in my feminist credentials.
Fortunately, there’s the internet, so magazines are less and less relevant.
Never had an issue with buying adult magazines. If you’re buying them at Barnes and Noble or a similar place, they’ll only have the tamest titles. And if you’re buying them at an adult video or bookstore, you’ve already got over any shame just by entering the store.
When I was 16 I worked at a convenience store. I bought my share for a year or two unbeknownst to anyone. After moving to another part-time job I still bought the occasional Penthouse from corner stores. I couldn’t muster the courage to buy a Hustler or anything.
I wasn’t overly embarrassed, but there’s no way I was buying one from a female cashier.
In my mid-20s, after moving to “the big city” I had no problems buying Hustler or Swank, etc.
Anyone familiar with the Woody Allen movie “Bananas?” This scene (slightly NSFW)) is priceless.
Not really an adult magazine, but a kind of risky cover on the January 1976 National Lampoon. The worst part is I bought it at the local drug store from one of the religion teachers from my church. I got kind of a strange look from him, but he took my money anyway (I was 18 at the time).
The only time I ever bought one was when someone that my ex wife (then GF) went to high school with was on the cover of. I had to go to 3 or 4 gas stations and finally found it, I think, Barnes and Noble. They said that whenever there’s someone local in it, they sell out pretty fast, which was why all the gas stations/porn shops were out of it.
I’d never met the girl (which was odd since I knew a good chunk of the people from that school), but it was still strange seeing her on the cover of a Penthouse and then rising up in that world. Nowadays I’ll randomly see a picture of her with some celebrity or catch an interview on the radio with her (national, not local, ie Howard Stern etc). It’s just background noise, but since I know the name it’s still ‘hey, that’s that girl from here’.
While some friends always seemed to come up with a mag here and there, I had never bought one for years. Then, being a sports fan, I wanted to buy Penthouse for the interview with Wade Boggs’ mistress. I located the magazine then wandered around the store picking up a couple of other things and pretending to be busy while watching for a good spot to make the purchase without other customers being around.
I placed the mag and other items on the counter and had my cash ready. The male clerk says, loudly, “Hey, Penthouse! Anything good in this one?” Then he proceeds to hold it up and flip through it a bit.
I wondered it he have noticed my nervousness and was having a little fun, but a few weeks later, I went to the same store late in the evening. He had opened the porn mags to the centerfolds and was standing back to admire them.