Porn.

 

Hey Emily! Why did you name it P.O.R.N. if there isn’t any porn?

 

Today, my friends, you’ll find out why.
 
 
I’m going to start by explaining my relationship with porn.

 
 
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STRIKE ONE

 
 
In fifth grade, the internet was becoming quite popular. Our school librarian caught on to the trend and made rounds of fifth and sixth grade classrooms, teaching us how to use the internet for research. Soon after, our teacher assigned us a theme project – we were to choose a note-worthy geographical feature, and prepare a short presentation, essay and visual display about it. I, being young and naïve, chose Mount Elbrus.
 
 

 
 
Now, pretend you’re playing Mad Gab and say that name out loud.
 
 
It certainly didn’t help that the mountains were actually in the shape of a giant rack.
 
 

So when I, little ten year old Emily, got online to find a model for my diorama of Mt. Elbrus, I did not just find the picture above. No. Instead I was inundated with image after image of twisted photography from those with brains so full of sex they had no room left for creativity.
 
 

 
 
I screamed, horrified and extremely disturbed, and my mother came running, deciding that maybe we should do the research together for the rest of the project. The next day in class, she told my teacher about what had happened, and they spent a good five minutes laughing hysterically while I glared at my classmates, in their unscarred, blissful naïveté, talking and playing as if the world hadn’t come to a crashing, confusing halt in the past 24 hours.
 
 
And it wasn’t over yet.
 
 
Now I actually had to make the diorama. I set up shop at my grandma’s house, where I stayed with my cousins, Adam and Cory, after school. Adam, being the eldest, was about to start middle school, and being an almost-middle-schooler, he was King of Innuendos. Once he saw what I was making, there was no hope left for my fragile mind.
 
 
By the end of the week, I had snapped.
 
 

 
 
I was no longer a little girl in a sheltered porn-free world. There were boobs out there. And apparently they were hilarious.
 
 
So when my teacher sat in the back of the room snickering throughout my presentation, I did not shrink in humiliation. No – I giggled along with her.
 
 

STRIKE TWO

 
 
As the internet exploded into more than just a research tool, commercials popped up between children’s shows announcing new websites for kids: Barbie fun found at Barbie.com! Watch Nick shows online at Nick.com! Interact with your American Girl doll on Americangirl.com! These commercials, though harmless themselves, were a glowing red path to danger.
 

 
 
During that following summer, I spent the night with my cousin Hillary. We made movies with my ancient video camera, played princesses and aliens, argued with her brother, and ate plenty of pop tarts. That evening we moved up to the attic so her parents and brother could sleep in peace. In the far corner of the room, their computer gleamed like an unwrapped toy.
 
 
In seconds we were online and plugging in the names of websites from the commercials. Barbie.com kept our attention for a while, Nick.com for a little more, but soon we were out of ideas. Then Hillary remembered a site her mom had shown her a week before, so we went there. The site was Fun for Girls, and it was at funforgirls.com. Hillary and I thought we’d finally understood this complicated website-naming business.
 
 
Apparently, whatever you wanted to see, you just added a “.com” to the end of the word.
 
 

 
 
We were not just on the glowing red path. We were fucking knocking on Danger’s door.
 
 
Since we’d exhausted websites for toys and television shows, we decided to try our favorite bands. My favorite was A*teens.
 
 
A*teens.com is definitely NOT about the band.
 
 
Pop-ups of big titties were blasting at us like they’d already discovered Broadband. They came faster than we could click them closed, and though we desperately wanted to look away, the threat of her parents finding out what we’d done was a million times scarier.
 
 
By this point, the pop-ups had pop-ups and so many were flying at us that Hillary panicked and pulled the plug. We looked at each other for a moment in wide-eyed horror and then went back to playing dolls.
 
 

 
And thus my questionable taste in music ruined my little cousin’s innocence.
 
 

STRIKE THREE

 
 
In eighth grade my best friend and I volunteered at the elementary school’s Art Club. The children in the club were mostly fourth graders.
 
 
I know. Glowing red path.
 
 
For the spring session, we decided to make a series of murals along the preschool’s playground. One would be farm themed, another would have safari animals, one would take a look under the sea, etc. We split into groups and each chose an animal. Hillary (the best friend, not the cousin) and I begged the teacher to be in on the project, too, instead of just helping the kids. When she said yes, we decided to make a push-me–pull-you to add to the farm mural. A few of the younger students hadn’t seen the original Dr. Dolittle, so I jumped on Google.
 
 
I KNOW.
 
 
They clustered around as I typed the fated words into the search engine, eagerly awaiting this monstrosity that we bigger kids were so enamored with.
 
 
The preview of the image I picked looked innocent. Cross my heart, hope to die.  In the thumbnail, it was a push-me–pull-you.
 
 

 
 
But when I clicked on it… it was a lot more literal… in the pornographic sense.
 
 

 
 
Hillary gasped and threw her hand over the screen as I hit the back button a million times and hoped to God the kids’ short attention spans were, for once, beneficial.
 
 
And they were, thank goodness. But my terrible luck with the Internet had corrupted yet another soul (another Hillary, even!). After Art Club, I apologized and told her about Strikes One and Two. Needless to say we stayed away from Google Image Search for a long time after that.

 
 
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So, WHY did you name it P.O.R.N. if there isn’t any porn?

 
 
I guess I didn’t answer the question after all.
 
 
But… isn’t it like a bajillion times better to be addicted to my P.O.R.N. than the porn that scars children, turns people into gross horny creepers, scars children, costs money, and SCARS CHILDREN?
 
 
PS: I am not very good with conclusions.