The first time I ever saw a female nipple, it was La Toya Jackson’s, and a Python snake was slithering across it. My dad had gone to the AMPM to buy the playboy with her spread in it after my mother screamed in horror at the TV during her appearance on the Phil Donahue Show.
My mom has a limited vocabulary that consists of the following phrases:
Would You Like Some Peanut Brittle? C’mon. How will you know if you don’t try it.
And
(Shakes head)
The head shake was in full effect on Phil Donahue day. La Toya claimed that she did the spread to break away from her parents. My mother screamed at the TV, “Oh you must be real proud of yourself. This is not good for Michael’s image.”
When Dad showed me the photos, he did it in the most matter-of-fact way possible, Trying to be the communicator that his dad wasn’t. it was though my dad was trying to say, “Just so you know, the female body is nothing to freak out over.”
I wasn’t freaking out. At all. Like at all. In fact, seeing a snake slither across La Toya Jackson was just the reassurance I had recently come to. I mean, Fabio was never covered in poisonous creatures.
My mom was so mad that my dad showed me this that she packed me up and drove me to the mall. She was in a Casual Corner Rage tempered only by the soothing sounds of Christopher Cross humming out of the Orange Julius next door, and the 30% off sale on paisley print Skorts. That day we walked past a hair salon. A very thin black man with acid wash jeans and long dreadlocked hair walked by and smiled confidently at my mom and I and said, “heeeey” then he fluffed his hair in jest, put on an apron, and started cutting.
My mom said, “Watch out for skinny men like that Sean. They walk on their tippy toes and they tuck in their shirts. Then she flipped her hand and said. They like little boys. That’s why they talk to you. Perverts. Stay away from my son.” I remember this day very well. It was the day I learned to stay away from skinny boys, snakes, boobs, and the Drakar Noir counter at Macy’s. Long Story.
I was so terrified at that moment of being thin because I didn’t want to end up like one of those hairstylists. This was the day I threw up from eating too many cherry chocolate clusters at See’s Candy, and went back, and bought more, and ate them again.
Five Years later, I was back at the mall with Mom looking for the perfect button down “top” she called them to wear to my 8th grade graduation. It was harder to find clothes now, because I was 5’10 and around 240 pounds, 30 pounds below the heaviest I would ever become. I had been going with Mom to the mall three times a week at least by now. She would ask me to help her pick out clothes for herself, (I was the deciding vote if she disagreed with Mindy the cashier at Petite Sophisticate) and if I did it without complaining, she would give me $20-$50 and let me be by myself for the next 2 hours.
On this particular day, Mom said she wasn’t shopping for herself. It was about finding me a top, if it took all night long. Little did she know…
We couldn’t find a shirt we both liked. Everything was vertical, which mom pointed out made me look busty. Big boned. Husky. Chubby. Every time I put something on I felt uglier. Mom suggested I wear a denim shirt like Billy Ray Cyrus. Mom had seen him in concert twice now and commented on how cute he looked in Denim. But I was no Billy Ray. At best I would grow up to have a voice slightly deeper than Miley Cyrus. I was frustrated. I was tired. I was defeated. And that made me horny.
As an 8th grader, my pimples were only outnumbered by my hormones. Though I wasn’t into girls, I would go put a playboy inside a Boy’s Life magazine and read it at the Scribners. I literally read the jokes page, scanned the pictures, making sure it was all girls I wasn’t turned on by, not just redheads. But I really tried not to do this. I always started by going to Kay Bee Toys to look for a new WWF action figure. I did this partly because it was less perverted, and partly because once I bought them I could take them home and simulate marriages and sexual acts between the Ultimate Warrior and The Big Boss Man in the privacy of my own room.
I believe that the song Superfreak was written about a fat closeted teenager. For all the boys who’ve ever humped the tile floor of a bathroom stall of a Sizzler, or licked the nutsack of your Jose Canseco Mark McGuire Bash Brothers poster, this one’s for you.
Mom gave me $100 and told me to go buy a shirt and pants on my own. She was sick of it being all about me, and just needed an hour to herself with someone who treated her with respect. The commission paid shoe salesman at Nordstrom. Plus, one of her contacts had fallen out, so she had to take the other one out. And her eyes were hurting. The only medicine available were pumps and flats.
In June 1992, Scribners started supplying Playgirl as well, and unlike playboy, Playgirl was wrapped in plastic. But one copy on this day wasn’t. It was of a long haired blonde guy holding a gym class rope in a jungle. His biceps were oily and his pecs were big like breasts and the heading said “SEXUAL SHOWOFF” in big letters. I found that fascinating. Magazines were the only place I saw people being naked. And they were always alone. There was no one on the magazine aisle so I grabbed Playgirl and held it low, over my boner. My back faced the back of the store so I didn’t need to cover it with a Boy’s Life. I just needed to see a boy be a sexual showoff.
I’d never done this. Read the nudie magazine uncovered. Especially, not one with dudes in it. I was shaking. Yes. A guy climbing a rope is my python picture yes I get it…and then I heard her.
“Thank you for letting me in the back door. My son is graduating from 8th grade and I want to get him a gift certificate. He loves books and he’s always in here. In case he’s in here now I don’t want him to see me.” I fumbled, I shook, I dropped it…and then there she was. She looked at me. She looked at the magazine. And she said, “Is that porno.” I picked it up and flipped it backwords. There was a cigarette ad on it.
Mom, said, “Well, you’ve spoiled your graduation gift, you haven’t bought a shirt, and Sean, that was an awfully big woman you were looking at.” I think you need to have a talk with your dad.
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