Porn Identity

I know there are some things that one should never admit in public, let alone in a blog as wildly successful as this one. Like admitting that you always look into the toilet bowl after you’ve done a Number Two. That wouldn’t be me. I never look. But I know other people who look and since they’re not in the least bit embarrassed by it, I don’t feel in any way guilty about naming my flatmates Saffy and Amanda in public.

“I don’t know how you don’t look,” Saffy said the other day. “How else will you know what you’ve been eating?”

I stared at her for a moment. “You don’t know what you’ve been eating?” I asked finally.

Saffy shrugged. “Well, of course, I know what I’ve been eating, but it’s always interesting to see what a dinner of chilli crab and sambal kangkong looks like at the other end!”

“I imagine it would look like dhal!” I said as I got up and left the room.

As Saffy later said to her best friend Sharyn, if that particularly vivid image didn’t put you off Indian food forever, she didn’t know what would.

“Why you people talk about such strange things, one, hah?” Sharyn wanted to know. “Why you not talk about normal things like, like porn?”

Saffy spluttered into her teh tarik.

Sharyn edged away from the table. “Ay, you don’t anyhow spit, can? This is new G2000 blouse, OK?”

Saffy waved her hands as her eyes watered. “Porn? You watch porn?”

Sharyn leaned closer and whispered. “Yah, but don’t tell anyone, hor! My favourite is ‘Gossip Girl’! Damned sexy, that show! If my priest find out, I sure kena one hun-red ‘Hail, Mary’!”

Later that night, over a dinner of spaghetti bolognaise at home, Saffy wanted to know in which parallel universe would ‘Gossip Girl’ be considered porn.

“Maybe we’ve been watching the censored version?” Amanda asked. “Did you ask her what was so pornographic about it?”

Saffy slurped noisily on her pasta. “Mmm, I did. She said it was all those 18 year old girls having sex before marriage and drugs.”

“That’s what she considers porn?” Amanda asked, utterly amazed at the modern definition of porn. “What does she call actual porn, then?”

“I don’t think she’s ever watched any,” Saffy said. “This is a woman who is still having sex with her husband with the lights off!”

“And anyway, are there any drugs on that show?” Amanda asked.

“What about Jenny’s affair with that drug pushing ambassador’s son?”

“Oh, he’s cute. But a bit too short. And no one was actually seen taking any drugs. He was just selling them!” Amanda paused and looked worried. “I can’t believe I just made that distinction.”

Sharyn’s disclosure occupied everyone’s attention for days though Amanda couldn’t shake off the feeling that somewhere along the line, she’d somehow become desensitized to the greater moral issue that Sharyn seemed to have grasped very early on.

Saffy said that Amanda was over-analysing things. “It’s just a show! Real people in New York don’t look like Serena van der Woodsen or Nate Archibald! It’s all make-believe! I’m sure even Chace Crawford doesn’t wake up each morning looking that gorgeous! In fact, I’m sure Chace Crawford doesn’t even exist. He’s probably a special effect!”

Amanda frowned. “Yes, but that show is all about teenage sex, drugs, illicit affairs and scheming. Don’t you think it’s disturbing that we’re not disturbed by any of that and that we classify it as entertainment?”

“It’s make-believe!” Saffy repeated, her ample bosom heaving in rhythm. “It’s not real! Therefore, all the normal rules of morality don’t apply.”

And as if to prove her point, the next time they met, Sharyn said that she was now addicted to ‘True Blood’.

“Everyone is naked on that show! You can see their pee-gu!” she said breathlessly. “And the werewolves damn sexy! Wah, if my priest ever find out, hor, I sure excommunicated, one!”

“I told you it was a great show,” Saffy replied virtuously. “I am in absolute lust with Eric Northman.”

“I like Bill!” Sharyn admitted. “But when I watch, I have to hold my rosary in my hand.”

“There are no vampires,” Saffy said patiently. “You do know it’s all make-believe, right?”

“Ay, you don’t joke about such things, OK?” Sharyn said, her glasses fogging up with concern. “My mother say she once got attack by Pontianak!”

To which Saffy said if the Pontianak looked anything like Alexander Skarsgard, he could attack her any time he liked. The next day, she lent Sharyn her old DVD of ‘Banging Private Ryan’.