get @baffled

I heard an amusing story the other day about a fellow who was brought up in a fairly conservative, religious family. Back in 1975, when he was about 15 years old, his attention began to turn rather earnestly toward girls, women and sex. From time to time he was able to surreptitiously purchase a copy of Playboy magazine, which turned out to be a fairly satisfying experience for him. His conservative, religious upbringing though, also saddled him with tremendous feelings of guilt for purchasing the magazine (quite clearly not for the articles but rather for the plentiful pictures of naked women). So it was that he felt compelled to somehow dispose of or destroy the magazine, and one evening as the family gathered around the fireplace after dinner it dawned upon him that after everyone had gone off to do whatever it was they were doing, he could throw the Playboy into the fire and be done with it. Nobody would ever know. He would be in the clear. 

So, when the moment presented itself, he sneaked into his room and retrieved the magazine and put it into the fire. Much to his alarm, the magazine did not burst into flames; it just sat there, barely smoldering. Research tells us that back in those days, Playboy was a much heftier magazine than it is today, so it wouldn't burn as easily as it might now. Undeterred, our young man grabbed the poker next to the fireplace and began to stir up the fire, hoping to ignite the offending article which was now sitting in plain view, should anyone happen to wander back into the living room. His brother did wander back into the living room to watch television, so our young man had to sit blocking the fireplace, turning the magazine page by page so they would ignite. It took the better part of an hour for him to secretly burn the Playboy. To reinforce his feelings of guilt, when he observed himself in the mirror afterwards he noticed that the side of his face that had been closest to the fireplace was actually burned (just a little); a physical reminder of his shame.

Listening to this story got me thinking: surely there must be other examples of this phenomenon out there, no? Young men everywhere, at some time or other, fearful of their mothers looking over their shoulders, must have tried to get rid of their porn and ended up in a situation not unlike our young man here. What a tricky business it is growing up...