# When did you first Dope? And how? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 21, 2000, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027 "2000-09-21T18:09:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/1 "2000-09-21T18:09:39Z")
I was thinking the other day of the day when I first encountered The Straight Dope. [nostalgic drivel] You know, it was a long, long time ago…it was the summer of 1987, and I was 14. I used to collect books of random facts, and I saw a new book in the store called “The Straight Dope,” and I bought it with my pocket money. I knew right away that old Cecil Adams was the sharpest fact-finder of them all. I’ve been a Doper ever since. [/nostalgic drivel] So…when did you first hear of The Straight Dope? And in what format–column, book, Usenet group (alt.fan.cecil-adams–my first post there was in 1995), website, or message board? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/2 "2000-09-21T18:13:19Z")
I found it in the spring of last year from a link at Yahoo! I had never heard of Cecil Adams before, but the columns were informative and funny, and soon I was hooked on the message board. ---
**Author:** ![Gazoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ce73a5/32.png) [@Gazoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazoo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/3 "2000-09-21T18:15:45Z")
Summer of 1990. I was at the University Bookstore to get books for my last undergraduate class and wandered over to the paperback section. Suddenly a bright light shone on a single book, _The Straight Dope_ by Cecil Adams. I read it that day and evening and have been witnessing to the masses ever since. Can I get an AMEN??!!?? ---
**Author:** ![Suo\_Na](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Suo\_Na](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suo_Na)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/4 "2000-09-21T18:17:07Z")
Someone on [The Nitpicker’s Guild](http://www.nitcentral.com) posted a link. I followed it. I read the column for a while and then decided to read the message boards. The rest is lost in the mists of my memory. ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/5 "2000-09-21T18:17:16Z")
I was bored at work as usual, so I started cruising the internet. I like trivia and strange facts, so I did search in Yahoo and found the website. The rest is history . . . ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/6 "2000-09-21T18:19:51Z")
I first ran into The Straight Dope in the late '80’s; a friend of mine owned a copy of _More of the Straight Dope_, and I borrowed it. I enjoyed it so much that eventually I bought my own copy. Once I found that the Washington City Paper carried Cecil’s column, I tried to go out of my way to pick up a copy to read Cec (and News of the Weird). Unfortunately, unless one actually goes _into_ DC (which, as a scared young white teenager, I didn’t), it’s damned hard to find copies of the City Paper. In November of last year, I was working at a job where basically I got to surf the net for eight hours a day (great work, but weird hours and lousy pay). At one point, just out of curiosity, I did a search to see if Cecil’s column were reprinted on the web somewhere, and lo and behold! this site. After a month of lurking, I got up the courage to start posting on this site, and proceeded to start a new thread in the wrong forum. Somehow my karma kicked in and it was **UncleBeer** who showed up to gently chide me rather than some gung-ho anti-newbie squad who wished to smother me and dessicate my corpse. The rest is history. Or, actually, present. ---
**Author:** ![Turpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Turpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/7 "2000-09-21T19:01:23Z")
Ah, I can’t remember the year, but I was a wee young 'un and my dad gave The Straight Dope to my brother for his birthday, telling him that there might be some innapropriate material in there, but he could was probably mature enough to handle it. I think he was 14 and i was 11. So i went into his room and borrowed the book, borrowed it so many times it became ragged, and i’m not sure my brother even read it. The most interesting chapter was the one entitled " S-E-X". Like i said, i was 11 years old and I was intensly interested in the caloric content of semen. Years later I enjoyed a brief but colourful stay in a mental hospital and my dad visited me and brought me Return of the Straight Dope, the highlight of my day there. I got in trouble because I refused to participate in their dippy mental-hospital sports groups and arts and crafts time and the Halloween party, preferring to sit by myslf and read my new Cecil Adams book. I finally participated in the stupid Halloween party under the threat that they would take my book away because i was isolating myself by reading it all day, over and over. ---
**Author:** ![ren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@ren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ren)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/8 "2000-09-21T19:18:42Z")
In the pages of the Chicago Reader, when I first moved to that fair city in…let’s see…1991? I ran into the Web site not long afer it went up, but then it hasn’t really been up that long… ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/9 "2000-09-21T19:30:46Z")
It was the late 80s and I used to read a little independent newspaper (aptly called _The Independent_). Right on the same page as Life is Hell was a column called the Straight Dope. I read it because I thought it was about pot, and have been enlightened ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/10 "2000-09-21T19:35:49Z")
Gosh, its been a long time. I was about 10 when my dad got my one of Cecil’s books. That was 15 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/11 "2000-09-21T19:49:21Z")
[How some other people were turned on to Dope.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=11939) ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/12 "2000-09-21T22:17:30Z")
I just find it humorous that I found the 'Dope through a link at [http://www.sexualrecords.com](http://www.sexualrecords.com) (trust me, it’s not a porn site). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/13 "2000-09-21T23:01:29Z")
I first discovered it in the mid-80s. Some people had moved to town and we had planned to meet them. I happened to notice that one of them wrote a letter to the local paper debunking the “Louie Louie is filled with dirty words” legend. She quoted the lyrics. When we met, I told her how impressed I was that she knew the lyrics. She told me she got them from the first _Straight Dope_ book, which I then bought and devoured. ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/14 "2000-09-21T23:06:14Z")
I started reading the colum in “The Reader” in college in 1984 - I went to school at University of Illinois at Chicago. My sister also gave me one of the book ten or so years ago. Started reading it on-line maybe 3 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/15 "2000-09-22T02:15:57Z")
I don’t remember the year, but I saw The Light while channel surfing, and watched the SD TV show religiously until its demise (that should pin down the year). Forgot about it until May '00, I got a computer with a working modem and typed in [http://www.straightdope.com](http://www.straightdope.com) on a whim. Here I am. ---
**Author:** ![Tabithina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f04885/32.png) [@Tabithina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabithina)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/16 "2000-09-22T03:32:32Z")
Back in the late eighties, I got really hooked on trivia and unusual facts, and I checked out a copy of The Straight Dope at the library. I loved it, and hunted down a copy of my own at a bookstore. I was delighted to find The Straight Dope website. I was sitting at my computer, surfing in a desultory way, when I looked up at my bookshelf and saw one of Cecil’s books. I just typed in “Cecil Adams” to see if he had any new books out, and that’s how I ended up here. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/17 "2000-09-22T03:43:22Z")
In the fall of 1983 I was at seminary in Chicago, and the school was right across the street from The University of Chicago. A student newspaper, or some kind of free paper from there had The Straight Dope column. I even remember the question “Is it true that male pigs have corkscrew shaped penises?” It was the funniest thing I had read in ages, but for a long time I wasn’t aware there were books too. Then I got a computer, found the SD on it, and have been here ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/18 "2000-09-22T04:19:49Z")
I first came upon The Straight Dope from a link at [http://www.bored.com](http://www.bored.com) I read my first column–and then spent the next several hours reading a couple hundred more. I didn’t get addicted to the message boards until just recently. I’m more used to communicating via MUCKing or very rarely, throuh IRC. -Ashley ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/19 "2000-09-22T12:38:41Z")
I saw an article about Cecil and the Straight Dope in a Reader’s Digest. I was so impressed I kept the magazine. Two years later, I saw the first book, bought it, and immediately ripped out the article and put it in the book. I’ve been hooked ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/20 "2000-09-22T12:52:21Z")
The first book was a Chanukah present in either 86 or 87 courtesy of Mom Chance. Bought the others myself and wandered over her earlier this year. Lurked for months and then started posting. What else is there to life? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027.md?page=2)