Back in my college days, I had a job at a newsstand in the centre of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The name of the place was Out of Town News, and it was well known for having newspapers and magazines from around the world. In fact part of my job – I worked two nights a week and usually both days on the weekends – was to drive the company truck out to Logan Airport and make the rounds at the cargo terminals to get the weekly drop of papers – Alitalia for the Italian papers, JAL for the Asian papers, Air France, British Airways, blah blah. I enjoyed the fact that I worked a “real job” (not some internship) while I was finishing up my undergrad at Harvard; I never really meshed with the regular Harvard house types, neither the rich legacy kids nor the overambitious strivers nor even – though I tried – with the artsy pseudo intellectual crowd. I was by no means of the proletariat – my family wore its bourgeois stripes proudly – but I felt more comfortable hanging out with the locals who worked the newsstand and complained about Sheldon, the owner of the place, and who introduced me to the cops and the semi-professional panhandlers and the rest of the locals who worked minimum wage plus tips to service the university crowd. It also meant I could walk into any local – not the ones catering to parents or students, but the proper locals – and drink without being ID’ed, which was good because I looked like I was twelve years old back then.
In any event, when I wasn’t driving the truck, I had two other tasks. The first was “inventory” – which meant once a week checking out all of the magazines and refilling them from the small warehouse about two miles away. The weeklies – Time, Newsweek, The Economist – we kept in a closet in the subway station below the store, as they cycled through our supply almost daily. But most magazines are monthly, so once a week, we did a count of how many were left on the shelf, and restocked in the late evening to get them back to either five or ten copies on display (depending on their popularity). What was entertaining about inventory, however, was the fact that Out of Town News, in the pre-Internet era, was the largest semi-respectable purveyor of pornography in Cambridge: we had about sixty or so titles, running from the pedestrian – Playboy, Penthouse – to the extremely awkward, the ones catering to the many varieties of kink and fetish. The funny thing was, they were located next to where we stocked most of the weeklies. So inevitably, you’d find a copy of Jugs or Barely Legal or Twink shoved behind The Atlantic Monthly. Actually you’d find them scattered everywhere; lots of curious college kids discovered their true sexual calling while pretending to read Auto Trader or Hello! Australia magazine, and when spotted by one of the store clerks, would hastily replace both magazines. Inventory times let us see what the kids were looking at – were they bi or gay curious this week? Were the finals clubs boys exploring their kink side? This made for great conversation at drinks after work, at midnight when we shut the place down.
The third job I had was that of just general store clerk. For any given shift, there were usually two of us – one ran the register, and the other kept the store and the outside area clean. The cleaning part was mostly about keeping things looking neat, although if it was windy, that job was almost impossible. It also meant running down to the subway station for more copies of the weeklies or the daily papers, and bundling up the dailies at the end of the day for recycling. The one who ran the register was kind of trapped; it was monotonous, and either too hot on sunny days – the register cage was a kind of greenhouse of plexiglass – or too cold in the winter. The customers made up for it, though, in their quirky behaviour. Most people were in and out – 35 cents (back in the day) for the Globe or 75 cent for the Times, a few bucks for Time plus a Newsday, in, out, done. They might make a comment about a headline, but only rarely. It being Harvard Square, we also had the academic folks. They came around and bought five or six poetry journals, a lot of Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Review of Books (in fact that’s how I became hooked on it). The middle aged men would condescend to you, barely able to stand dealing with the common folk taking their money in dirty trade; the middle aged women would talk about what they were buying, annoyingly so if things were busy, welcomingly so (to me) if things were slow. The younger academics used plastic to pay and one wondered if the card would be rejected or not at time of sale.
Then there were the porn buyers, the ones who actually bought the porn, not just leafed through it in the back corner and shoved it back randomly into the rack. There were four types:
- The collectors: Most porn magazines were actually produced by one of four publishers – one shop specialized on gay stuff, the other three were more diversified – but they all dropped new issues at the same time of the month. Just before the new stuff came out, a dozen or so guys would each come around and buy eight or ten magazines. You’d ring them up awkwardly but politely – after all, they were some of the higher priced items at the newsstand, so this was serious money – as you gingerly touched the still-fresh copies, knowing they wouldn’t be fresh for long. A week later, a different crowd – and a larger one – would do the same thing with the new issues. Interestingly, these buyers were unabashed – they came in midday, after work, on the weekend, basically whenever.
- The curious student: We sold most of our gay and lesbian hardcore porn to this group of buyers. Undergraduates mostly, but probably some high school kids too (we weren’t choosy about ID’ing), they were not unabashed; no, they were definitely bashed. They would lurk in the literary section for a bit, furtively head to look at the weeklies while actually eyeing the porn section, maybe grab a copy and hide in the corner with the gun and auto magazines which was shielded from the cashier’s station, and when ready – when the was down to zero, when the store had emptied out enough – they came and put the magazine on the counter, face down, with money on top. This provided the bulk of our sales after 9pm and before closing, and I was told by the morning crew that it was a reliable trade before 7am as well.
- The college pranksters: Our most reliable buyers of kink porn were from the ranks of the Collectors, but we did a steady business selling to college kids who were clearly going to pull a fast one on a dorm mate / ex-boyfriend / ex-girlfriend / hated parent / et al by placing a copy of BBW or Hustler Fantasies or Stud in an undesirably obvious location. These purchases were also unabashed; indeed sometimes they would ask for shop clerk assistance (“What’s this one about?”; “Which of these makes you guys freak out?”), and often the purchase was by two or three people, at least one of whom was unable to stop laughing and would keep declaring for one and all “I can’t believe you’re buying that!”. We were out to make money; they paid in cash.
- Last but not least, The discreet middle class buyer: This made up a substantial portion of our sales, but not because they bought a lot of porn. No, the discreet buyer would construct what we called a “porn sandwich”. They’d buy a lot of magazines – sometimes almost in a contrived attempt to prove their moral character, The Atlantic plus The New Republic plus The Economist and a few academic rags as well – but nestled in the middle of the stack would be Penthouse Letters or Rough Boys or Hustler’s Barely Legal. They’d always ask for a bag, and they would get visibly nervous as you tallied up each magazine and got closer to the porn. They’d look around as you priced the porn, and I used to enjoy looking them straight in the face (not the eye; that was impossible, as their eyes were anywhere but looking at you) while I punched up that price, and then once you turned it over and went on to the issue of Time lying underneath, they would relax.
I have to be honest: I had much more respect for the Collectors than for the Discreet Middle Class Buyers. The former were unembarrassed; they had found their peace with their masturbatory fantasy needs, and they simply made their purchases. The latter, on the other hand, wanted you to somehow think they weren’t going to go back to their house and whack off, or use the fantasies to try and get their wife or partner to try something, or even to get off and then not tell their wife or partner about it at all. More likely the last, actually. The College Pranksters were annoying but hell, I was 19 years old at the time, and had watched Porky’s too (and Porky’s Two) – dumb ass pranks fueled by sexual embarrassment have a long tradition in western society. I felt a little sorry for the Curious Students; I’m guessing a lot of them eventually evolved into Discreet Middle Class Buyers, which was sort of sad, but my hope was that at some point they just came out of their closet – whatever branch of LBGTQ+, kink, or just attraction period – and felt good about their own bodies. Well, eventually I thought that – again, I was 19. At that age, I was trying to figure out if I had any classes with them so I could see what they were like in real life; more than a few ended up recognising me as “that guy at Out of Town News” in class with some shock, and inevitably would avoid me from then on.
Back then, I was sort of recognisable on campus, although not for any particularly good reason. I shaved my head on a bet a couple of months into my time at Harvard, and because it was a pretty good party, had my eyebrows shaved as well. I had round wire rimmed glasses and looked like the evil Nazi guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and to make it worse, I wore a West German surplus winter army jacket. So for the first year there, the university population had to get used to a guy who looked like a returned POW from the Eastern Front selling them their newspapers, magazines – and pornography. As the year wore on, my eyebrows grew back (thankfully), but I took a fancy to the shaved head look and so maintained the sartorial grace of the recently freed. During the year my classmates, professors, and grad instructors polarised into a large group who avoided me on principle, a small group who avoided me out of guilt, and a much smaller group who got along with me really well.
But then, there are no mysteries – anyone who knows me well knows I’m still that guy.
I bring all of this up, though, because people always surprise you. One of the Discreet Middle Aged Buyers was actually a very, very famous professor of evolutionary biology. He was in line behind a Collector on a quiet Sunday evening, and he glanced around as I rang up magazine after magazine of the filthiest stuff Out of Town News had on offer. I still remember the tab, because while I was ringing the guy up I saw the next guy in line and realised “hey, isn’t that famous professor guy?” – the Collector paid $119 for his smut. He didn’t mind, and since I’d seen him for a few months running (he was one of the crowd that came for the new issues, not the old ones) that we’d had a delay on one of his publishers but should have a new rack in next week. He thanked me and smiled as he left, and up to the counter came Famous Professor Guy.
“Can you believe some people?” he said, with a chuckle and a smile under his thick moustache.
“Professor, you see all kinds here. By the way, I tried to get into your class but missed the lottery this semester and ended up in EO Wilson’s Sociobiology class. I’m sure it’s not as good as yours would have been.”
He blanched a bit.
I rang up the Economist, a copy of Sports Illustrated, a copy of Penthouse Forum, a copy of Hustler, and a copy of Time. I had a strong feeling Time and Sports Illustrated wouldn’t make it further than the garbage can by the crosswalk.
“Have a great evening Professor – hope I get your class next year.”
“Um, yes.”
My best friend, a townie from Somerville who wrote really good poetry, saw the whole thing – he was on inventory that night. So did the night manager, who was a philosophy PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Boston and thus was considered underclass in Cambridge, perked up when I mentioned the professor’s name and also witnessed the exchange. Both knew a porn sandwich when they saw one. We looked at one another after the professor had left and after the door had closed solidly – it was a strong steel door – and then we all lost it. I had just sold pornography to possibly the highest paid, possibly the most prominent, and definitely one of the most recognisable professors at Harvard in 1993. After work we had too many shots to count and told everyone we could find about it. Most didn’t care but they loved the porn stories from the newsstand, and it beat talking about the Patriots, who sucked back then.
There is a point to all of this.
I was in EO Wilson’s sociobiology class, which was extraordinarily popular for students trying to check the box on their “life sciences” requirement and have the chance to tell people in the future that they had met a famous professor. I hated the class; it was grandstanding, not teaching, especially not at the undergraduate level where even I knew we were young and susceptible to demagogues (then again, I was a history major). Wilson’s explorations into the lives of ants in the Amazon – which admittedly was pretty stunning work – led over the course of a few decades of pop philosophy fed by American Presbyterian moralism into a weird doctrine which espoused the fundamental interconnectedness of nature. I don’t have a problem with that; I have no idea how nature works, nor did I back when I was in college. What I had a problem with is the kind of positivism that says “because X in my corner of science, then X in all things.” I also have a natural aversion to kindly thin elderly white men imparting wisdom. Call it a Mark Twain thing, but I find kindly thin elderly white men generally are going to try to sell me a health tonic or sugar coat some sort of exclusionary teleology and make it feel “natural”. I’m pretty sure Wilson was doing a little of both.
Wilson’s last lecture of the semester ended with a rousing call to arms for environmentalists, ecologists, ant lovers, and to anyone who would just believe – and the 300 plus students rose to their feet in applause. I didn’t. I snuck out the back, which was where I usually sat anyway. I got a B-minus – the Harvard equivalent of a “we’re only passing you because you know the material but we hate you” grade – and resolved never to read anything by E.O. Wilson again. We had, after all, had to buy three of his books as part of the class, and although I was a history major I could still pass as an economics major: in addition to his salary, he had forced us to pay him and additional $2000 in royalties simply by owning the required reading list.
The Discreet Middle Aged Buyer’s class was also very popular, which that meant that the lecture sessions were held in the school’s largest lecture hall, the same one Wilson’s class had used. The next year, I snuck into classes and sat at the back – wearing the West German army jacket; it was still my schtick – and felt bad. The porn buying professor was teaching a real course, asking students to think, accepting questions and not dismissing them but applauding the skepticism inherent in the question. He taught how to think about Darwin and evolution – not what to think, but how Darwin had re-posed questions, how we’re still grappling with those new questions, and while he presented his work, he presented it as work in process – and emphasised that that was what all of science was. He preached skepticism and the advance of a journey. No one applauded at the end of the course, but lots of people wanted to shake his hand.
I have to admit, knowing where that hand had been, I wasn’t looking to join in. But despite having only audited the class, I signed up for office hours. I arrived for my 15 minute slot during the spring semester of my last year, and walked in.
“Hello Professor. Thanks for the time – but I just want to be up front – we’ve met before.”
“Oh have we?” he asked.
And I told him how we had met. He was embarrassed but I quickly told him that I was there to thank him for the class, and to tell him how much E.O. Wilson bothered me, and to ask him why some scientists gravitate towards polemics and how he stayed on a path of rational skepticism. He recovered, he was shocked I was Catholic – he’s an atheist – and we had a lovely half hour conversation. We also talked baseball; he was quite a fan. I was wrong – the copy of Sports Illustrated was probably an actual purchase.
The Discreet Middle Aged Buyer and E.O. Wilson were famous for despising one another. The former was an atheist urbanite who specialised in fossils and theory; the latter was a rural Southerner who glamorised field work in the rain forest. E.O. Wilson, at least on my shifts, never came into Out of Town News, but as I reflected on it even at the time, of course he wouldn’t: he was too patrician. His assistant probably would have sent a grad student to buy any periodicals, and the assistant probably would have been personally tasked with any porn purchases, and I wouldn’t have recognised her. It would, of course, have been a her. But the other professor did come into the store, and while yes, he did do the cheap disparaging of the Collector who had been in front of him in line, I had to admit, that’s what all of the Discreet Middle Aged Buyers do. It was as much a distraction and a kind of nervous tic as it was any real judgment. The guy who builds a porn sandwich is already judging himself.
I think about his theories often, especially today as the world enters what will probably the be most challenging years of the anthropocene. Mankind has been changing the face of the earth for much longer than our hubristic post-Industrial Revolution society thinks. Human beings killed off the slower megafauna of the Earth largely before agriculture existed; there is a theory that it was the elimination of easy prey that forced human communities to find a reliable source of bulk foodstuffs and that’s how farming societies – as opposed to the simple knowledge of how to farm – were forced to emerge. Mankind’s development has been one of punctuated equilibrium, no less so than that of all species on Earth – but now mankind’s capacity for global scale change of the environment is once again resonating with itself. Climate change will change us, even as we created the climate change.
What the good, if perhaps sexually frustrated, professor taught was a framework for dealing with the historical evolution of species and ecosystems; but even in his class, he acknowledged that what happens in the periods of punctuated, rapid change is impossible to model or predict. Lots of species fail; lots of creatures die; lots of landscapes are transformed forever. It’s not easy for those living through the changes – ironically for us as humanity, because we are the likely motive cause of the changes. And we can’t predict what the next equilibrium will bring. We can only keep asking questions, we can only stay on the path, and continue on the journey.
It’s funny to look back thirty years ago and remember that wait, we did all know that human climate change was real. Remember even Exxon and BP were commissioning internal studies back then to estimate the impact, largely as a way of estimating future exploration and production costs (“When sea temperatures rise, how will reinsurance costs impact return on equity for Gulf of Mexico offshore rigs?”) but still – they knew it was real. We’ve evolved to deny certain realities about our seven billion strong stranglehold on the planet since then. Countries have quaint Paris treaties, while many continue to increase coal-based power production. Here in America, one political party has made it dogma that human climate change is a fantasy – which actually was a fringe concept even for them back in 1993.
I should have mentioned that there was one more category back in the day with respect to the porn we sold at Out of Town News: the righteous non-buyer. I guess technically there was a null category – the actual non-buyer – but they truly didn’t care about the porn; they were only there to buy a paper or a magazine and get out. The didn’t engage with the porn the way the buyers did. But the Righteous Non-Buyer did: they would sometimes come in and complain as we took inventory about how much smut we were selling, or harangue customers in line – especially the Collectors. On some level, the Righteous Non-Buyers were more obsessed with the porn than anyone else (well, except the Collectors).
E.O. Wilson reminded me, I think, of the Righteous Non-Buyers, and in his science especially so. He’s that kind of ecosystem or environmental theorist who flies around a lot to conferences and the like, who produces huge amounts of media noise, who speculates on how much the world will heat up unless we eliminate carbon output by 2030 while he’s at those conferences which require those flights. What strikes me about the Righteous Non-Buyers, though, is they never get anywhere. Human nature seems to be highly sexualised in general – the tiny minority of asexuals out there notwithstanding, and if any readers are in that group, understand I’m writing about the mean human experience, not the entirety of it. Given that we are highly sexualised, we’re probably going to use the means at our disposal – high speed photographic quality magazine publishing, or the Internet, or etchings – to further our sexual desires or appetites or fantasies. Condemning it is just silly.
I retain my fundamental sympathy for the Curious, and hope they have emerged into a healthy, non-transactional, loving expression of their sexual being. And I have to admit, reflecting on the Discreet Middle Aged Buyer professor, I’m also sympathetic to their reluctance to publicise their secret desires. I think it’s helpful to map these to our environmental thinking, actually. The College Pranksters are, sadly, most of us: we love our toys, we’re unthinking about them – cars, boats, wasteful consumerism, air conditioning – but in the presence of our encouraging friends, we indulge. The Collectors are thankfully few – those who unabashedly pollute and don’t care about the consequences. And the Curious Student is, of course, flipped a bit on its head: it’s that large group that’s afraid of admitting the real cost of our environmental footprint, but secretly knows it’s real and it’s out there, but can’t quite bring that believe out into the open just yet.
Meanwhile, the Righteous Non-Users – the Greta Thurnbergs of the world – spout uselessness, how we have to return to a pre-industrial level of energy production in the next five years or we’ll all die, cowing the otherwise potential broad middle class of the world from being ready to look between the covers of the environmental sandwich in the full light of day. Instead, they just hope it – and the righteous vitriol – will all go away. In the meantime, the world keeps on turning.
Out of Town News shut down two years ago, driven by a combination of being unnecessary and its ground lease being more valuable to the city as a means of bringing in higher value tenants nearby. The Discreet Middle Aged Buyer professor is dead, but his theories continue to find traction as frameworks, surely as he would have wanted; E.O. Wilson lives on, as the righteous often do, although his theories are dated and largely discredited, and he increasingly writes for an echo chamber. The bars I went to after work have all been replaced. I don’t drive a truck, or run the register anymore. I still take inventory as much as I can.