BETHPAGE, NY–Preparing for the arrival of dinner date Amanda Raskin, area resident Randy Thaler conducted a thorough porn sweep of his one-bedroom apartment Monday.
“I almost forgot to do it, actually,” the 24-year-old graphic designer said. “But while I was clearing off the kitchen table, I saw the box for A Fistful Of Dolores sitting out and thought, ’Oh, shit.’”
As a pot of spinach fettuccine boiled in the kitchen, Thaler swiftly moved through the apartment, racing to collect all traces of print- and video-based female objectification before his date’s 7 p.m. arrival. First, he headed to the bathroom, where he removed from the top of the toilet a copy of last month’s Playboy and a November 1999 issue of the non-pornographic but sexist Maxim magazine.
Thaler then proceeded to the living room, where he found a copy of Girls Gone Wild: Best Of Mardi Gras sticking out of the VCR. Sliding the tape safely underneath the couch, he turned to the nearby video shelf, upon which rested a copy of Butt-Fuck Sluts Go Nuts, Vol. 31, a tape Thaler received “as a total joke from the guys” for his birthday last year. He promptly hid the hardcore anal-sex video behind a New York Giants 1998 season-highlight video.
“I almost blocked Butt-Fuck Sluts with When Harry Met Sally…, but then I realized Amanda might pick that one up and see what was behind it,” Thaler said. “So, not wanting to take any chances, I decided to block it with a sports video instead of a regular movie.”
More disaster was averted when, at the last minute, Thaler decided against excluding the kitchen from his porn sweep, remembering that a postcard featuring a row of G-string-clad posteriors and the phrase “Cancun’s Natural Assets” was taped to his refrigerator. While disposing of the postcard, Thaler also noticed the partially completed Vivid Video mail-order form that had been sitting on his phone table.
Moving to the bedroom, Thaler sifted through the stack of periodicals on the floor next to his bed, removing all of them with the exception of a single issue of Details. Thaler then took the 16-ounce tube of Astro-Glide he keeps on his nightstand and hid it in the top drawer of his dresser. A semen-encrusted sock lying next to the bed was also removed from view.
With scant minutes to go before his date’s arrival and numerous non-porn-related matters still requiring his attention before the apartment could be considered romance-ready, Thaler was forced to conclude the sweep. Tossing a copy of Perfect 10 magazine onto his top closet shelf, he returned to the kitchen to light a candle, dim the lights, and strain the fettuccine.
“It’s not like I’m some perverted, freako porn-hound,” Thaler said. “It’s just that I haven’t really dated anyone in a while, and sometimes you need, you know, visual aids.”
Added Thaler: “You don’t realize how much porn you have until a woman’s about to come over.”
Raskin, a 23-year-old social worker who was set up with Thaler by a mutual friend, complimented the apartment upon arriving, calling it “a very nice place.”
