True Porn Clerk Stories - Ali Davis [13]
Couples do not go into Porn Trance. There has already been a great deal of negotiating in getting both parties down there together. If either partner gets even a tiny fraction more interested in a porn star body than the other, the delicate balance -- and quite possibly the relationship -- is destroyed.
We have two rooms of floor-to-ceiling boxes. People in Porn Trance methodically look at every single one in their section. They don't realize they've just rented new releases because they don't realize they've moved around the entire circumference of the room. They don't hear announcements over the Voice of God mic until you get drastic. ("Sir? YOU! In the red jacket! With the baseball cap! YOU! We're closing! BRING UP YOUR MOVIES RIGHT NOW OR YOU DON'T GET TO RENT ANYTHING AT ALL!") People literally spend hours in Porn Trance. I see people look at box after box for two hours at a stretch all the time, and three hours is not uncommon. These are the same people who tell you they're in a hurry when they hit the register.
I think finding the right video is such a primal, visceral thing that people really can't think about time or comprehend verbal announcements the first time around. They've gone back down to the reptilian brain and it takes a few seconds for those higher lobes to kick back in. Or maybe, since to choose the right tape they have to sort of mentally masturbate to it, they have also mentally locked themselves in the bathroom and all other stimulus is just so much faint knocking. I don't know. I haven't asked.
3. Porn Drift
People who have been in the straight section for a while will, more often than you think, get progressively more adventurous. Suddenly videos featuring pre-op transsexuals (sensitively called "She-Males") start showing up. Most of the time that's all there is, but not necessarily. We do feature bisexual videos (and by that, of course, we mean bisexual men - bi-girl action is pretty much a given in the straight section) and every now and then someone you didn't expect will dip his first toe into the gay end of the pool.
There are way more bisexuals in the world than you think there are. I know there are way more than you think, because there are way more than I thought, and I'm bisexual. People who have finally gotten rid of all their inhibitions in that regard rent all over the Kinsey scale -- there are a few 50/50 renters, but more people just seem to throw in what suits them. It still freaks out many of my fellow clerks when people do that. "Weird. That guy rented three gay videos and two straight," comes up a lot. I usually gently mention that there are more than two options in the world, but they tend to just give me blank looks. Oh, well -- most of them are still in college. They'll learn.
I tend to notice bisexuals a lot because it's fascinating to me that there are so many more than I ever knew, but also because I really don't want them to be creeps. Some of our coolest customers rent bi, but then some of the biggest freakos do too. I'm keeping an informal mental tally and frankly it doesn't look good. I'm hoping some nice bis will step up to the plate.
But I digress. We actually hardly ever turn people gay or even bi. The clerks at our all-porn branch have noticed a fairly strict progression because their porn is broken up by far more than gay and straight. According to them, the most likely Porn Drift path for a straight male goes from all lesbian to straight sex (some guys are so freaked out about seeing another guy's penis that straight sex videos are called "gay male" in some circles) to she-male section.
We keep the transgender stuff in the straight section -- straight guys do not want to go to the gay section for their chicks with dicks videos.
And for the most part, gay men don't rent them.
(I have been