[jacksonhole]

I agree with Rachellus that helping our parents with sex related stuff is more common than people realize. I have two funny stories, but neither involve taking pictures.

First was my Mom. This happened around 15 years ago before she got sick. It was the day before Valentine’s Day and my Mom wanted to do something special for her and my Dad. She had gone to a local video rental shop that had a back room (remember those?) with the intent of renting a couple porn movies for them to watch together.

What she had seen in the back room really surprised her and she needed someone’s advice. So she called me. Yes I know it sounds kind of weird, but my Mom and I were very close and she was always the person I could go to when I was young and had questions about sex, so I guess this was my turn to return the favor.

She was very nervous on the phone as she gave me the backstory and when she got to the part about renting porn movies for Valentine’s Day as a surprise for Dad she said something like “you probably think I’m a pervert.”

I laughed and said that I thought it was a great idea, she shouldn’t be embarrassed, and that I was sure Dad would love it. I figured that was what she had wanted to talk about so I told her to have fun and never ever tell me anything about their evening which made both of us laugh. But that was not why she was calling.

She got nervous again and I could tell there was something else she wanted to discuss, but she couldn’t get it out. Finally I just said, “Mom, what is it that has you so bothered about this? Just tell me.”

“When did everything become about anal sex? Do people still have regular sex or is everything anal these days?” my Mom blurted out suddenly. And before I could respond she went on to tell me that virtually every video she had seen in the back room had “anal” in the title, and she went on to list some of the more creative titles she had seen. I asked if she had been in a gay section and she said that’s what she thought initially too, but their were women on the covers of all the anal titles.

I reassured her that people still have regular sex and I confessed to her that I had never done anal (which was true at the time) and that I would be shocked if Dad was obsessed with anal or would even bring it up (they were in their mid-60’s at the time). She sounded relieved and said she was going to try a different video store.

And yes she kept our deal and we never spoke about it again.

Flash forward to the present, and story number 2.

My Mom died many years ago and my Dad has started dating a woman who lives in his building. My Dad also has dementia so his girlfriend takes care of him more than a normal relationship which also involves keeping my Dad away from spam on his computer and his iPhone. Unfortunately the spam that keeps showing up on his computer and his phone are serious hardcore pornography sites. At first she just thinks he is innocently falling prey to spam so she focuses on telling him not to click links in emails, and putting better filters on his email to reduce the spam.

However, nothing seems to work, the porn keeps popping up every time she checks his phone and she is quite disgusted by what she keeps seeing. So she decides to enlist my help. She asks me to put whatever I can on his phone to stop the porn, and maybe have a “talk” with my Dad about the appropriateness of looking at porn at his age.

I reluctantly put a kids filter on his phone to keep out the porn, and shut down the email account that was being targeted because I didn’t want him accidentally opening his phone to a dirty picture and embarrassing himself in public. But as far as telling him he is too old to look at porn, fuck that and fuck her. I hope I’m still horny in my late seventies and don’t want someone telling me what I can look at.

So now whenever he stays with us, I make a point to put on a good R rated movie with lots of nudity before bedtime. If he wants to rub one out before bed, more power to him.