Plain Brown Wrapper

It all started with Charles Atlas. Remember Charles Atlas and his Dynamic Tension exercise system? Did you send away for it? I did, and it arrived in a plain brown envelope. All of the exercises were demonstrated by Mr. Atlas himself, who was wearing nothing but a thong.

Now that I look back at this moment in my life, the creepy factor is way up there. A man, who died in 1972, sent me a book of exercises two years after his death, and he was wearing a thong in all of the pictures because as he put it in the booklet, “You should work out in the nude, so you can see all your muscles.” Was he once an assistant football coach? Amazingly, this man was never arrested!

If someone today started a business where he sent pictures of himself working out in a thong to a bunch of boys, advising them to work out naked … well, we all know how that would turn out.

I will bet more than two-thirds of the boys who ordered the Charles Atlas system were no more than fourteen years old. Therefore, in bedrooms all over the country, pre- and mid-pubescent boys were performing the Charles Atlas system behind closed bedroom doors, wearing nothing but a determined look. How many mothers walked in on their sons mid-workout of the day, or as Cross-fitters call it, WOD?

I don’t know what would be worse, being caught by your mother lifting weights naked in your bedroom or jerking off to her latest issue of Redbook? Martha Stewart gets me hot.

I didn’t stop with Charles Atlas. I also ordered the Universal Bodybuilding System because the guy in the advertisement in my DC Comics was big and ripped and the ad claimed good abs led to good digestion. I have always had a Jewish stomach, so this was a selling point for me. Like the Charles Atlas porn … I mean workout, the Universal Bodybuilding System also arrived in a plain brown envelope. However, it didn’t arrive when promised. I checked the mail before everyone everyday, and it never arrived.

Then my brother said to me, “I hear a lot of guys at school are getting the Universal Bodybuilding System in the mail.” Not only did he intercept the envelope, he opened it!

At that moment, I learned the lesson of the plain brown envelope and the nosy brother. For more than a decade, I didn’t order anything else that would appear suspicious … until ….

When I moved out of the house, my brother and I were living together, and I ordered my first pornography. Keep in mind this was before the Internet. Back then, we flipped through real pages. My brother was home when the mail arrived, and I immediately took my plain brown envelope upstairs to my bedroom. He kept asking me what was in the envelope, and I wouldn’t answer. He found the Universal Bodybuilding materials and opened them, so he had enough information for a lifetime as far as I was concerned.

Later, I took my envelope with me, got into my car then drove over to the K-Mart parking lot. There, I sat in my car, and I experienced gay porn for the first time. Wow, I am now realizing how creepy that was. I was reading porn in a 1971 Plymouth Valiant Scamp (dark blue with a black vinyl roof if you are wondering) in a parking lot with all the windows rolled up.

It is a good thing I didn’t order videos. Hooking up our Betamax and TV to the cigarette lighter would have been a bitch. Today, cars have DVD players, which makes being creepy in a K-Mart parking lot that much easier. Thank God, none of my cars today even have electric windows. I can resist temptation.

As the years moved on, and my social life became less active, I still occasionally ordered something that came in a plain brown wrapper, but the only print portions of the materials were the instructions.

Like you never ordered an adult toy. Get over yourself.

With the occasional purchase of personal exercise equipment comes the dilemma of where to store such items. If you have a dog, as I always did, you need to keep your personal items where they won’t pick one up and trot it out during a Thanksgiving dinner.

“What does Daisy have in her mouth?”

“It looks like a dildo ... I didn’t know they came in that color.”

“That’s gotta hurt.”

Here is a bit of advice. Do not put your toys in your night stand. Condoms and lube are OK, but not toys. When you do get lucky enough to actually have sex with another human being in the room and not a battery operated friend, you don’t want to open up a drawer and display your toy box. All the questions about this and that and “how does that work” and “isn’t that too big” and “where did you find that” will spoil the mood. Just saying.

Also, once you are done, put it away. I once left a chrome cock ring out on my dresser. A neighbor wanted to see my new bedroom curtains. She asked what the cock ring was. I told her it was a crankshaft bearing for my 1959 Rambler then I immediately shoved it into a drawer. It is a good thing I am a fast thinker, and thank God, she wasn’t a mechanic. Later, I laughed at the fact that I said crankshaft.

I never had a blow-up doll, so I have no advice on where you are to hide Emma. But, don’t pinch her tits, for she will fart then fly out the window. That is the punch line of a joke about two Puerto Ricans in a whorehouse my father couldn’t tell in less than twenty-five minutes because he would be laughing so hard.

All this reminds me of when we had to “de-homo” the house when my ex’s mother came to visit. She knew we were together, but she didn’t need to see any of the accessories our living arrangement required. I am full of euphemisms today. What is this? 1967?

In other words, she didn’t need to see all the toys, leather, chains and other paraphernalia two big horny fags needed to spice up their pig-inspired sex life. And if you are wondering, none of it worked. We barely made it past vanilla. I think we once achieved Jamocha. Unfortunately, my favorite is pistachio.

A few years ago, a new toy was introduced called the Fleshlight. If you have not seen the Fleshlight, let me describe it for you. Inside a plastic casing that resembles an old fashioned flashlight (the kind that used to take three D batteries, hence the name Fleshlight if you are slow today) is an insert made of a material that is a combination of foam, neoprene and left over flesh from ritual circumcisions. The “opening” is either shaped like an ass or a vagina.

A straight friend of mine was ordering one, and he asked why ass was five dollars more than vagina. The best reply I had at the moment was “shit costs more.” I was not in my best form that day.

This toy has not only found favor with gay men, who are willing to spend five dollars more for ass, but also the vagina version, as well as the recently added mouth version, are popular among my second best demographic – straight men. I know this because I have advised several straight friends on the correct model for their needs as well as how to care for their new friends.

Herein lies the problem. The material that is used to create this most lifelike and pleasurable toy needs to be taken care of better than an insecure girlfriend with special needs. One can only use a water-based lubricant. Leave the baby oil for massage purposes. Every once in a while, you can put corn starch inside to keep it soft and reduce friction. I wonder if corn starch works in a … nevermind.

In addition, and this is the best part, it must be washed in plain warm water without soap and air-dried separately – fake flesh and plastic that is, meaning pull the fun part out of the plastic casing and put both on the counter in case you are still not keeping up with me.

As I told you, the Fleshlight is as big as an old fashioned flashlight. If you live alone, this is not too much of a problem because you don’t run the risk of having someone see your toy on the kitchen counter. I once left mine out to dry and forgot about it. Curiously, my dog walker never asked me about it. Maybe she ordered one. She and her husband do love buying stuff online. 

If you are married and you ordered one for your own personal enjoyment, you are going to need to make plans.

After discussing the care of the product with my straight friend, he almost cancelled the order. But, I helped him solve his problem. I said order a toy that will rock her world, then tell your wife, “Look what I got for us to enjoy!” It worked.

What would straight men do without me?

Did our parents have these problems?

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