# Have you ever bought an adult magazine in a store? How embarrassed were you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 28, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209 "2015-03-28T15:10:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/41 "2015-03-30T15:05:46Z")
When I was in college Larry Flint put a Hustler store in downtown Cincinnati. The city gave this store constant shit, cops always around, sending in kids to try to buy porn, etc. Shortly after it opened me and a friend went there to check it out. The place was dimply lit, kinda shabby looking with oddly sized shelves and crappy painting. The other people in the store were your classic sleazy older men with their heads down looking embarrassed as they shuffled from shelf to shelf. Meanwhile, me and my friend are running around yelling ‘Wow, check this out’ to each other. We ended up buying a few magazines, and the look the cashier gave us on our way out was priceless. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/42 "2015-03-30T17:45:31Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > I knew someone who would always pair his condom purchases with Circus Peanuts candy. I still don’t know why that particular candy, but everyone who knew of this still refers to condoms as “Circus Peanuts”. I was going out with a friend one day, when her room-mates asked her to pick up an item each from the local megastore while we were out. One wanted an ultra-sized box of condoms; the other, a frozen turkey. That was all we bought at the store. The checkout cashier’s eyebrows raised a little at this odd juxtaposition. I instinctively blurted out “oh, they aren’t for _us_ - they are for _friends_!” The cashier’s eyebrows raised a trifle more … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/43 "2015-03-30T17:48:40Z")
Embarrassed? I was incredibly proud. One of the first things I did upon turning eighteen (as in the day of my birthday) was buy a copy of Playgirl. Sigh, if only I had been a born a little earlier I would have been able to legally buy alcohol that day. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/44 "2015-03-30T17:59:10Z")
I bought _Penthouse_ a time or two, if that counts, but the clerk didn’t care and it didn’t occur to me that I should be embarassed. OTOH, my wife wanted to see a porno tape, for the experience (she led rather a sheltered life before she met me). And she wanted to see a particular one, called IIRC _Bodacious Ta-Tas_. Asking for that specific one by name was a little offsetting, since the video store clerk was 18 or thereabouts, and it was a general purpose video store, not one dedicated to that specific genre. They didn’t have that title in stock, and, when asked for a recommendation, the clerk shrugged and told me that unless I was looking for a specialized type they were all pretty much the same. So I wound up with _Debbie Does Dallas_. It only occurred to me later that going up to the female clerk and asking, “Pardon me, miss - do you have bodacious ta-tas” was setting myself up for a punch line and/or a sexual harassment lawsuit, but the clerk let the situation pass without comment. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/45 "2015-03-30T18:18:12Z")
When I was in my late teens/early twenties, I’d get my porn mags from the Tower Records near me. I used to spend ages agonizing about which mag to buy, and then selecting appropriate “cover” purchases to go with it, and then ages more trying to gin up the courage to take it to the counter. This was mostly pretty vanilla straight guy porn. Oddly, I got over the majority of my embarrassment when I started buying gay stuff. Because now, if the clerk silently judged me for my purcahse, instead of _me_ being a sad sack pervert, _they_ were clearly some sort of a homophobe. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/46 "2015-03-30T18:59:15Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I bought it for a class assignment. > > Yes, we had a class called “Sex, Literature, and Culture” as a senior elective in 1974. All the students referred to it as the pornography course and the reading included _Fanny Hill_ (not a badly written book, BTW), _My Secret Life_ (The abridged version; talk about making sex dull…\*) and _The Story of O_ (The _50 Shades of Grey_ of the 60s). > > One assignment was to buy a porn mag. Now, Schenectady at the time had a bunch of “newstands” (which were really bookie joints). Their selection of magazines and newspapers was meager, but they did have plenty of porn. I walked in nervously, picked out pretty much the first book I saw (IIRC, it was called “Sex and Suds” and consisted of naked women in the shower) and bought it. The clerk didn’t give me any looks or made any comments.\*\* > > \*The writer’s seduction technique was to grab a servant girl, whisper a bunch of dirty words in her ear, and then screw her. He did this thousands of times, in excruciating detail. You kind of wonder when he had time to write it all down. > > **I suspect the clerks in those places don’t really care. I used to work at Spencer Gifts and you’d see women get all nervous about buying vibrators.** \* For us, though, they were just merchandise. We’d tell the women to clean up the “bath” section, or go back to restock the 9-inch models and they treat it like if we told them to restock the t-shirt letters. > > \*\*\*One tried to return one. She said it didn’t work. I put batteries in it, and it operated, so I’m not sure what she meant ;). (And we returned it to the main store for disposal). I had a similar college class on Law and Society. One lecture was on obscenity and pornography, and the professor brought in multiple copies of _Playboy_, _Penthouse_, and _Oui_. I wondered what _her_ experience was; an African-American woman in rural North Carolina, buying multiple copies of three different porn mags. As for me, breaking up into small groups and looking through _Penthouse_ magazine with female classmates was _my_ most embarrassing porn experience. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/47 "2015-03-30T19:39:15Z")
I’ve bought a few porno mags in my time, usually because I had just moved and the internet wasn’t hooked up at my new place yet. I always bought them at liquor stores. I figured a patently “adult” place that that wouldn’t be judgemental. It was a bit embarrassing the first time, but from the second time on I didn’t care what the clerk might think. Same thing with condoms. It was a bit embarassing the first time I bought some, but now I’ll just toss 'em on the drug store counter like it’s nobody’s business. I would probably wait if there was a little kid standing there, but otherwise I’m not going to be shy about it. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/48 "2015-03-31T00:18:14Z")
I’m completely unembarrassed buying condoms, except the one time I had to go to a place where they were behind the counter and it was where my parents went for prescriptions. I do get embarrassed going into adult shops, even the clean and well-lit variety. In fact, especially those, because my fear is not that they’ll think I’m a perv but that they’ll think I’m a poseur. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/49 "2015-03-31T00:35:20Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I had a similar college class on Law and Society. One lecture was on obscenity and pornography, and the professor brought in multiple copies of _Playboy_, _Penthouse_, and _Oui_. I wondered what _her_ experience was; an African-American woman in rural North Carolina, buying multiple copies of three different porn mags. > > As for me, breaking up into small groups and looking through _Penthouse_ magazine with female classmates was _my_ most embarrassing porn experience. Only in North Carolina would those three magazines be considered “porn.” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/50 "2015-03-31T00:41:24Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Only in North Carolina would those three magazines be considered “porn.” 😛 As a point of interest, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that real porn could be bought in Ontario. Up till then Penthouse and Hustler were about as porny as you could get: nothing showing any kind of penetration was allowed, pictures or movies. ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/51 "2015-03-31T05:16:56Z")
I remember buying Anne Rice’s “Sleeping Beauty” books from B&N or Waldenbooks when I was about 14, and was only a bit nervous that someone would ask my age. I’d be more embarrassed now, simply because they’re pretty stupid. (At 14, you aren’t as particular, though!) As it turned out, the cashier didn’t bat an eye. Probably didn’t even know what they were. On that note, I used to check out raunchy Fabio-cover romances even younger from a teeny rural library–where I was quite chatty with the ancient cat-lady librarian–and didn’t think much about it. OTOH, I checked out a dozen books a few times a week, esp. in summer, and pretty much exhausted their collection by the time I was 13. The librarian may have thought I was just being thorough in my reading, and she wouldn’t have been wrong, exactly. I do remember buying ONE naughty film at an “adult bookstore” when I was about 20, and hugely pregnant, and it oddly costing about $50. That was the most embarrassing instance I can think of. It was a pretty bad one, too, IIRC, but then I’m extremely picky about film. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/52 "2015-03-31T05:45:19Z")
I rented an x-rated tape at a video store some years ago and wouldn’t you know, it got chewed up in the VCR and broke. I had no problem renting it but had to take it back and tell the clerk I busted a dirty movie that retailed for $50. But he said no problem, tapes got broken all the time. I used to peruse curious magazines on the stand at a gas station/convenience store. How could I not, with articles like “my visit to an anal sex resort”? Didn’t buy any. I guess they were there for truckers to buy, or maybe all those suburban housewives filling up their Toyotas. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/53 "2015-03-31T06:33:24Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > As a married woman I had no problem buying “dirty” magazines even though they were behind the counter and had to be asked for. If the covers were wrapped I’d even ask for three or four to look at so I could make my choice. (I do like to comparison shop.) > > But as a teenager I embarrassed somebody else. I was working the pharmacy counter at a drugstore and had been told that when asked for something I wasn’t familiar with to say “Can you tell me what it’s used for?” When a young man came to the back of the store and asked for prophylactics—yep, that’s what I said. He turned all shades of red and asked to speak to the pharmacist, who later told me what they were. I remember wondering then why didn’t he just asked for rubbers? I remember going to our small-town pharmacy with a high school friend the week before Prom, and suddenly he came running back to me, shoved a box of condoms at me with some cash, whispered “buy these for me and meet me at the car”, and quickly ran out the door. Confused, I went to the counter, and then suddenly realized the reason – the cashier was the owner of the pharmacy – and it was his daughter that my friend was bringing to the Prom. I could hardly keep from laughing. And he noticed, and thought it was because of the condoms – so he reassuringly told me I was very smart to buy them, and he wished more boys my age would do so. ---
**Author:** ![chancetx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@chancetx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chancetx)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/54 "2015-03-31T06:37:12Z")
I worked at a bookstore in my 20s and I can assure you that none of us cared what porn magazines anyone was buying. (This was at a Barnes & Noble owned bookstore so there was nothing too raunchy.) It was more annoying finding copies of Playboy, Penthouse and the little Kama Sutra guides hidden around the store at the end of the night by the looky-loos too afraid to actually buy a copy. I never took any but one of the “perks” of working there was getting free copies of the old porn mags when the new issues were put on the shelves. We would tear the covers off the unsold issues and send them back to the magazine distributor for credit, then “destroy” the rest of the magazines. Most went in the garbage but some people would take copies. The store dumpster was always trashed at that time of the month by people who knew about the procedure. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/55 "2015-04-03T04:32:10Z")
> [@Elemenopy](#): > > I remember buying Anne Rice’s “Sleeping Beauty” books from B&N or Waldenbooks when I was about 14, and was only a bit nervous that someone would ask my age. I’d be more embarrassed now, simply because they’re pretty stupid. (At 14, you aren’t as particular, though!) As it turned out, the cashier didn’t bat an eye. Probably didn’t even know what they were. I only ever bought … erotic materials … around the beginning of the internet being available to normal people (before that I was too young to want to and after that I realized I didn’t need to). I went into a bookstore and paid cash; I thought it was ridiculous that someone would buy something like that over the internet with a credit card with their name on it. The clerk at Barnes and Noble didn’t know my name. (The aforemetioned _Playboy_ purchase might not have been in cash, but that hardly counts as porn.) > [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > I remember going to our small-town pharmacy with a high school friend the week before Prom, and suddenly he came running back to me, shoved a box of condoms at me with some cash, whispered “buy these for me and meet me at the car”, and quickly ran out the door. > > Confused, I went to the counter, and then suddenly realized the reason – the cashier was the owner of the pharmacy – and it was his daughter that my friend was bringing to the Prom. I could hardly keep from laughing. And he noticed, and thought it was because of the condoms – so he reassuringly told me I was very smart to buy them, and he wished more boys my age would do so. [Hah, so it really did happen](http://www.snopes.com/college/risque/blinddate.asp) (that’s not sarcasm). ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209/56 "2015-04-03T18:35:43Z")
I don’t remember ever buying one. When I was a teen in the 70s I used to sneak my dad’s Playboy, Oui and Penthouse mags. If I were to buy one now, I would be no more embarrassed than when I purchase sex toys in one of my local porn shops. I’m not embarrassed - if I was, I would purchase them exclusively on line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-bought-an-adult-magazine-in-a-store-how-embarrassed-were-you/716209.md?page=2)