nothin' on?

nothin' on?, originally uploaded by --evolver--.

Some children decided to play a prank the other night –well I say children, to be honest they didn’t sound that young… or intelligent. They phoned our house asking for Richard and then posed pointless questions about gay sex – I suppose it was meant to be intimidating but frankly I am more intimidated by cold calls from mortgage companies. They didn’t realise that I have worked in sexual health services for nearly 20 years and there is very little you can say on the phone that could shock me. Perhaps “Mr John, you’ve won the lottery!” or “Mr John, your blog has won the Booker prize!”

In my time, I have spoken to countless people often worried about sexual shenanigans outside their main relationship with the complications of guilt and secrecy adding to the lack of knowledge of sexually transmitted infections. Men beginning their call with “I’m not gay but…” (But you are Blanche!) and “I don’t know why I did it but…” (cos you liked it!). So a call asking about what sort of sex I liked was none too worrying especially as I haven’t had time for sex since … oh, since Labour got in I think. For many people who work in sexual health, going home and doing it is like homework which we try and avoid. I would rather watch the telly!

However, there is a new phenomenon I have noticed which combines the two. Long ago pornography was posed, then acted, then airbrushed and finally made using computer graphics to enhance…, well let’s call them “the props”. We had a backlash and people made uber-real porn, no condoms, poor lighting, hand held wobblycam and lashings of…, well let’s call it “baby gravy”.

Dear reader: This censorship is for your benefit in case you are halfway through an eggnog or tucking into a saveloy and chips. You know how easy your stomach turns: how queasy you get when I mention seepage.

But now we have Flickr and men (and women I suppose but I am not really looking there, am I?!) post their own photostreams which tend to have a mix of all the photos they take without any editing. So we have a poorly cropped snap of the corgis, followed by an interesting (not) wall seen in Dorset, then a blurry pic of Aunt Mabel and her new invalid carriage, and finally a sepia-toned (artistic!) shot of someone’s knob taken in the living room. Usually on what appears to be a DFS sofa or sometimes a DSS sofa. They have wallpaper borders and tongue'n'groove dados, artex ceilings and often a Christmas tree regardless of the time of year.

• Does that shock me? No.
• Does the fact that they are appallingly dressed worry me, or that they kept their white(ish) tube socks on? No, not really.
• Having their head sometimes cropped, or covered in black scribble or blurred out? No biggie – they probably look better that way
• Does the fact that they left the TV on in the background distract me? A little…

I suppose I like photos to have some integral cohesiveness. If you photograph your erogenous zones with a macro zoom then I don’t expect to see Natasha Kaplinsky’s face in the top corner of the picture or a shot of conflict in Iraq/Darfur/Burma/Littlehampton. I saw one guy who had placed himself with his back on the floor and his legs up on the brown corduroy sofa, then photographed himself in mid-pull while Chris Tarrant continued to ask the question “Would you like to phone a friend?”

If they were playing porn I could understand but not everyday TV offerings. Sport maybe – skimpy shorts on Rugby League players, footballers’ thighs, now that may do it for me but Tricia? If you were gyrating to MTV or ogling E!Babes perhaps- but Richard and Judy? BBC News 24? These are the people who have Maggie Thatcher as a pin up!

What is the world coming to? The blurb on the members page who posted said items often has lines like “my dogs are my best friends”( I suppose the don’t fight for the remote control) or “I’m a pretty normal guy” … we’ll see?!

If you are sitting by your computer reading this and the TV is also on just think about it… does it get you going? Why should it, you’re watching Delia Smith (I could understand Nigella Lawson by the way!!)

So what are you watching now… let me know if you dare by comment or by email at fathobbit@ntlworld.com