I was going to include this story in the note to the readers this week; however, we're short on content and some of those who appreciate the male form were wowwed by cover boy Victor Rios.
That's Ty's issue of Latin Inches.
It was not his first porn mag.
Jess, Ty and I were roommates back in our undergrad days.
In early 2003, Ty became particularly cranky (after the end of a relationship) and went on a Felix Unger trip that was totally not Ty or even remotely Ty-like and the object of his vocal objections was my "immense porn collection."
It consisted then of one Playboy video and maybe six magazines (all Playboy, nothing hardcore). And it had been around our place for some time. Jess and I talked trying to figure out what was really going on and decided it was the break up. Then I told Ty he could leave his porn out, that it wouldn't bother me in the least. (The Playboy video was on a shelf by the TV, otherwise my porn was stashed unless you were foolish enough to walk in on me.)
Turns out Ty had no porn.
How could he have no porn?
It bothered me.
Jess had no porn but Jess is like Mr. Super Cool Catch A Wave Dude and probably too busy trying to figure out where to buy Hemp products to actually flip through a porny one-handed.
But it bothered me that Ty had none.
I felt like he was being short changed.
So I began buying him some.
I made the mistake, because I like Playboy, of assuming that Playgirl would be a solid choice. Wrong.
"No erections. Not sexy. And the men were too White. And, by the way, Jim, every guy is not cut."
Ty informed me of that and more after flipping through one in about 20 seconds.
Okay.
I don't give up easy.
Latin Inches was probably the sixth or seventh mag I bought for him. It was the first one that he didn't toss out or gripe at me about.
(Ty's involved in a longterm relationship, as most readers know, and the man is Latino, as most readers know. When I bought him Latin Inches, he hadn't yet met the man.)
We needed a short feature this edition (unless we wanted to tick off Dona) and there was an obvious choice. Ty said, "Oh, let's use a magazine to illustrate this. I have a copy of Latin Inches that would be perfect." So we wrote it in and then Ty went to get the issue much later in the edition and we scanned the cover, at which point, the cover, the mag and how Ty ended up with it became a source of conversation.
It's six years or so since I gave the magazine to Ty. Good to know it brought him so much pleasure for so long.