i stumbled upon this article, “what women want: porn and the frontier of female sexuality,” which
came out a couple of weeks ago and profiles my personal porn favorite,
james deen.  the first half of the article discusses his entry into
the business and how exceptional he is as a straight male porn star, something i’ve been trying to get the word out about myself.

a lot of the information about the realities of the adult industry
were not surprising to me, as i have made it a point in my life to have
an in-depth understanding of what goes on there.  what i was
surprised to learn, however, is the existence of a network of teen james deen fans on tumblr:

the young women trade deen videos, post candid photographs, and
pluck out all the minute details that turn them on: the way he looks at a
woman, touches her, stares into her eyes, whispers in her ear. “there
was just something about the way he moved,” emily says of her first
exposure to deen. he seemed to be “speaking to the girl, but not with
his mouth, with his hand over the girl’s throat, and with his
eyes.” 

deen’s young fans gush over the sight of him thrusting into a
woman while holding her hand. they sigh over a private photo of a
clothed deen commuting by plane. they create animated gifs of deen’s
greatest moves so they can watch him execute them again and again and
again without rewinding. they pepper their deen fantasies with “harry
potter” jokes and circulate them to other girls. several propose
marriage.

reading about this community and their obsession with james resonated
not only with my 26-year-old self who also loves james, but with my
12-year-old self who was over-the-top obsessed with leonardo dicaprio.

the effect of watching leonardo dicaprio in romeo in juliet
is, in many ways, similar to that of watching james deen.  his
incredible looks, coupled with his ability to stare deep into claire
danes’ soul, was about as hot as hot could get in ’96.  then in ’97
you have him sketching a gorgeous nude kate winslet (can’t wait for that in 3d)
and the legendary
hand-swiping-the-condensation-on-the-inside-of-the-old-timey-car-in-the-depths-of
the-titanic scene and, well,  let’s just say there was no other
guy worth thinking about as far as i was concerned.

unlike a lot of my peers who never really went beyond watching romeo and juliet and titanic, i spent good chunks of time watching his earlier, lesser-known works like this boy’s life, basketball diaries, and even suffered through growing pains
reruns in hopes of seeing him as luke brower (these kids with netflix
today don’t even know how good they have it).  i also watched him
in total eclipse, where he plays french poet arthur rimbaud
and, most importantly to me at the time, has an incredibly brief nude
scene (we’re talking the blink of an eye here).

remembering myself in my bedroom unsuccessfully trying to pause a
rented vhs tape on that insanely short nude scene is completely
hilarious. vhs? my god. if only i had had a dvd i could have gone frame
by frame.  but this was a different time, and i had to resort to my
next best option: dial-up internet.  armed with my
middle-school-issued internet research training and my best friend at
the time (who was a fellow leo fan and, also of a unitarian upbringing,
sex-positive), i proceeded to find that naked leo still on the internet
and then printed it out for the both of us on the inkjet printer in my
dad’s home office.

the quality of the picture, both in terms of its eroticism (he’s just
standing with a flaccid penis) and how it looked printed, was marginal
at best.  however, i was 12 and had no standards to speak of for
naked pictures, so printing off something material that was
representative of my budding sexuality was cool enough for me.  the
two of us stealthily hid our low-quality “porn” inside of the jewel
cases of our respective cds.  for some reason, i can remember that
my friend hid hers in a 4 non blondes case, but i can’t remember what i
hid mine in.  probably letters to cleo or, perhaps, fiona apple.

in the weeks to come, i felt sufficiently like a badass. this lasted
until i learned that there was such a thing as a browser history, which
happened when my brother asked me one day out of the blue, “were you
looking at naked pictures of leonardo dicaprio on the internet?” i don’t
remember exactly what i said, but i do remember denying it, even though
i was the only one in the house with a veritable leonardo dicaprio
shrine, not to mention my parents and older sister pretty much never
used the internet. despite the fact that it was obviously me, it was
left at that and was not brought up again.

when i look at the animated gifs of james deen doing some
spanking/licking/hard fucking that these teenagers are posting on
tumblr, my story of printing off leonardo’s junk seems almost innocent
or quaint by comparison.  it’s strange to think of the changes and
impact that 14 years of technological development can have on teen
sexuality.  i’m sure if i was a teen now, i would be all over that
james deen tumblr and would probably be super unimpressed by that still
shot of leonardo dicaprio.  be that as it may, i would not trade my
experience for anything, because it is so awesomely and thoroughly
’90s, and it’s a hilarious anecdote that i’ve enjoyed telling friends
for years.