A Library Computer: The Demeaning Places You Had To Try Source Porn In The 1990s

BEFORE the advent of smartphones, WiFi, and 4G, accessing pornography used to be an absolute faff. Here were some of the most depressing sources.

Magazines in a hedge

Somehow, lots and lots of porn seemed to find its way into roadside hedges during the 1980s and 1990s. There was no more shameful a wank that could be had than attempting to pleasure yourself to a faintly rain-sodden copy of Playboy that some panicked farmer had chucked through the window of his tractor when he saw his wife walking down the road.

Clothing catalogues

Perverts – like cockroaches – are infinitely resourceful creatures. They’ll go through whatever hardship to get to a source of what they need – in the cockroach’s case: food, and in the pervert’s case: porn. Any image of an attractive person would have to suffice, and so, you found yourself valiantly wanking to a picture of some wind-swept cailín standing on the Cliffs of Moher, desperately convincing yourself there was something erotic about their chunky-knit Aran sweater

A library computer

As soon as county councils started rolling out internet-connected computers to local libraries there was an influx of seedy bastards who suddenly decided to get library cards. They were full of shifty looking men, often wearing trenchcoats, all pretending to browse the bookshelves while they desperately waited for the one computer whose monitor faced the wall to become free. All for the privilege of waiting 20 minutes to download a grainy jpeg of some tits.

Art in history books

Whoever sculpted the Venus de Milo back in Ancient Greece would surely be livid that, some 2000 years later, a grubby bastard called Keith in Birr, would be furiously trying to rub one out over a two-inch image of his statue featured in an art history book he’d found in his parents house. Though, maybe that sculptor would’ve been thrilled to bits at the thought – those Greeks were a bunch of kinky freaks by all accounts.

A VHS of Basic Instinct

A VHS containing any vaguely erotic scene was a prized possession for all masturbators throughout the 1990s – and a copy of Basic Instinct would surely have been the jewel in the crown of any of their collections. Though it was surely a nightmare trying to explain to your parents why their VHS seemed to go all weird and grainy during that bit where Sharon Stone flashes her vulva, because you’d rewound it so many times.