Nasty Teens and Fifteen-foot Ejaculations!: A Deconstruction of Virtual Come-ons

Some one named "Harper" is concerned about my ejaculation distance. In an email, Harper promises to increase my ejaculation by exactly 581 percent. 

"NO Gimmick... REAL SCIENCE! Winner of the BURDETT RESEARCH 'GOLDEN STAR' AWARD. New Medical break through has now created a revolutionary herbal pill that is guaranteed to increase your semen and EJACULATION by almost 600% in just a few short weeks! This amazing new product works by simply taking two pills every day!"

The pills are all natural and will allow me to "Shoot up to 13 feet!" That's just short of five yards. The ceilings in my house are around eight feet tall, which means I may have to remodel. NOTE: I assume that Harper is male. It's been my experience that women do not concern themselves with ejaculation measurements for, what I hope, are obvious reasons.

Never before can I recall so much interest by so many strangers in my performance, my penis length and circumference and my sexual drive. Every day I receive notes from concerned citizens offering help, and worse, demonstrating poor spelling and the indiscriminate use of exclamation marks and UPPER CAPS. I am middle-aged, and maybe this is a rite of passage -- like when you turn fifty-five and receive Modern Maturity, discover the advantages of polyester-blend pants (they are fire-proof) and the excitement of the Weather Channel.

Percentages are a key hook in the enticement to a larger, firmer and more potent middle piece. "Would you be interested in increasing energy levels by 84%? How about Increasing Sexual Potency & Frequency by 75%? Would you like to increase your Muscle Strength by 88% While... at the same time... Reducing Body Fat by 82% and Wrinkles by 61%?" No doubt these percentages have been scientifically tested in a lab somewhere in the Ukraine.

"George" writes that if I visit his website, I can "Wow 'em With A New Larger Penis!" (New?) Is this another permutation of our current fascination with all things super-sized? Is there a SUV-sized penis parked behind my zipper? I shudder just thinking about it.

To be equal to the sexes, George also throws in a link to a "New Giant HUGE Breast XXX Site! Tons Of Pics, Movies & More!" HUGE breasts frankly scare me (too much handling responsibility), but how could George know this?

Speaking of breasts, the message "Sweet Tits ibdugdn (sic)" or "Real Sweet Tits" arrives every other hour from Wet_Pussy-bzdisj@bigfoot.com. "We have the HOTTEST girls on the net showing off there [sic] soft breasts and firm ass. PERIOD."

There's Viagra-Meridia-Phentermine Online and Explosive Sexual Energy! With a click of my mouse I can have AMAZING SEXUAL BOOST-NO PRESCRIPTION NECESSARY. I can "Increase sexual energy and Reduce body fat." But mostly I can watch Nude Teen Babes, celebrities and tennis stars with perky nipples engage in a smorgasbord of sexual activities.

"Wow!!! Now we can say that she is a hot li'l star!!! We all know that she can't play tennis for crap! So why is this russian [sic] little bomb shell such a HUGE success with the public??? Well Let's just say She is Very VERY persuasive, and we have the photos to prove it! A MUST SEE!" Ah, they must be talking about Anna Kornikova who, along with Britney, are regular afternoon delights for porn webbies with their desk-top boxes of Kleenex at the ready.

Animals are hot right now. Here's a recent message: "FREE Teen Zoo Sex Vids and Pix." One day I woke up to the offer: "GET A HUGE FAT HORSE COCK!!!" The message is from "Mr. Ed," one of my childhood idols. A horse is a horse, of course, of course, unless...

There's also a class consciousness that permeates one porn message: "LITTLE RICH SNOB TEENS GETTING HAMMERED!" The implication is that a wealthy, spoiled teenager, in all her bitchy insouciance, needs to be deflowered. Or something.

On day I received a note meant for someone named Kelly: "Kelly, The sleep over the other night with the other girls was great ! My first Lesbian experience. I loved it. Jenny and Lisa sure know how to make a girl feel good. Please don't tell my boyfriend about this. I uploaded all the nude pictures so you and Beth can see them. Click here to see the pictures of us girls."

Instead of pillow fights, we now have HOMOSEXUAL LESBIANS GETTING FREAKY! Of course, there is little in the way of helpful advice on establishing a real, flesh-in-the-blood relationship with a woman unless, that is, you count the following missive:

"Guys! Did you know you can learn to hypnotize women into bed? Come on, dude-you can't tell me you don't need a little extra edge when it comes to scoring. It's FUN, and it will CHANGE YOUR LIFE!"

The change-in-life promise is probably a prison term.

The confluence of capitalism and hard porn makes for a collision of odd subject lines. "Rock-Bottom Mortgage Rates!" and, a question on the minds of most Americans, "got septic tank problems?" arrive the same afternoon as "NASTY ANAL TEENS!!" In this world, nasty is good.

GREAT OPTIONS ON DENTAL PLANS comes the same day as "S. M. GELLAR BOBBING FOR COCK." I am not a prude, but the only word I want following "bobbing" is "apples."

One can even run message lines together for hours of non-stop, adult family fun: 

"If you have excellent credit, watch luscious leggy college babes spread 'em!"

"Work at home and make better Britney Spears Blow Job Movies!"

"Eat what you want and still sex me up!"

"School girl eats the whole team and looks thinner!" 

"Congratulations!  You won disgusting farm sluts!" 

Instead of an enticement, this constant onslaught of all things sexual has left me grateful for my eight-year marriage with my wonderful wife. Unlike the unrealistic virtual world, we adore each other. And even though my wife gives me everything I could ever want in a lover, increasingly the best times together are non sexual. Our evening strolls through the quiet neighborhood of this bucolic farming town, watching for possums and toads. Working in the yard together. Glasses of wine at the end of the day. Cooking together. My favorite moment is snuggling my head on her shoulder in the morning while she sips coffee. We listen to the first birds, pet our fat cat Mickey, and silently thank our lucky stars. If the morning turns amorous, well, it makes the day that much sweeter.

If our marriage were an email subject line, it would read, "Midwest couple has sweet modest life punctuated by held hands, hugs, and snuggles." However, don't look for us to pop up anytime soon on a server near you. Our passion is our business, and ours alone. EAT YOUR LARGE THROBBING HEART OUT!
_____
About the author:
Stephen Lyons is a native of the South Side of Chicago and, after living for almost thirty years in the West, now resides in a small farming town in central Illinois. He's been employed in nine different states as a tree planter, daffodil picker, dude ranch cook, ice cream vendor, magazine editor, phone solicitor, newspaper reporter, professional tofu maker, grain truck driver, assistant dairy herdsman, and agricultural extension editor.
He once worked for a week in Colorado pulling nails out of two-by-fours, and for one twelve-hour day picking hops in southern Oregon. He was fired from the hops job after accusing the foreman of having bad karma. He was also fired from the phone solicitor job when he was overheard telling prospective customers that the deal (a lifetime of magazine subscriptions at creative interest rates) was a scam.
Lyons is the author of Landscape of the Heart: Writings on Daughters and Journeys, a single father's memoir. Author Terry Tempest Williams wrote about the book, "Stephen J. Lyons has offered us his grace and compassion...These essays are the deliberations of a sensitive and intuitive mind, a mind not afraid of exploring regions of the heart, so often side-stepped by men. Mr. Lyons's writing reads like poetry and has the effect of a lingering memory of love."
Stephen writes articles, reviews, essays, and poems for a variety of national magazines, newspapers, and journals including Northern Lights, Salon, Newsweek, Sierra, USAToday, High Country News, Manoa, Commonweal, The Sun, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Whole Earth Review, Hope, and The Christian Science Monitor. He is a member of National Book Critics Circle.
Lyons' poetry appears in the anthologies Passionate Hearts, Bless the Day, and Split Verse. His prose appears in Living in the Runaway West and Idaho in Black and White. Lompico Creek Press published an essay by Stephen in its just-released anthology Love is Ageless: Stories about Alzheimer's Disease. University of Iowa Press will publish prose by Stephen in its forthcoming anthology Father Nature, writings by fathers about children and nature.
This past year Lyons was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for "Seymour's Last Dollar," an essay about his step-father that appeared in the October 2001 issue of The Sun. This year he received a 2002 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose Writing.
Stephen is a lively reader and he has appeared at many writing venues including Elliot Bay in Seattle and as guest writer at the YMCA's Writer's Voice in Billings, Montana. For appearance fees or to send Lyons feedback, email him at: midlife@austinmama.com