If you’ve never known a day of your life without the internet, you are one lucky bastard. Why? Because porn. (Obviously.) With just a couple of clicks, you could be watching any number of real-life sex scenes in a matter of seconds. Then you just erase your history and your parents/girlfriend/roommates are none the wiser.
Back in the days before the interwebs, porn was hard to come by — and even harder to hide. Young men had to risk life and limb to get an eyeful — and to keep the smut out of mom’s hands. How did they do this? We’re so glad you asked. Pull up a chair, young whippersnapper, and we’ll teach you about the art of hiding porn before there was the internet.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Hiding Porn
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Hiding in plain sight.
Porn wasn’t always so obvious. Back in the day, before Playboy and Penthouse and all manner of porno mags became widely available, men turned to catalogs to get their jollies. Hard to imagine, but somehow images of women modeling bras and panties in the Sears Catalog was eye candy enough. When the Victoria’s Secret catalog came along, whoo boy. Those were exciting times.
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The double magazine switcheroo.
Back in the day, every family had a stack of magazines in a wicker basket in the bathroom. Hiding a porn mag inside something like Fine Woodworking magazine was an easy way to keep the wife and kids from accidentally discovering it.
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Under the bed.
A rookie mistake. It's the first place your mom would look.
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The brown paper bag.
It’s the classic container of shame. The only trouble is sometimes people would think there was food or booze in there and go snooping.
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In the closet.
Because what mom would bother wading through that mess?
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A hole in the ground.
Kind of a pain in the ass, but some dudes swore by this underground method.
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At that other kid’s house.
Many boys’ first exposure to porn came via another boy (aka the bad kid in your social group). He always had a steady stream of porn. Sometimes, groups of guys would share a porn stash and alternate issues every week or so.
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In a tree house.
What do you think these were built for?
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Label fake-outs.
When porn moved to VHS, most smut viewers would swap out the labels on their video cassettes, marking their forbidden viewing “Bass Fishing Tournament” or some other title that no woman would dare pop in the VCR out of curiosity.
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Like father, like son.
A few lucky dudes had dads who made porn mags accessible and didn’t discourage their sons from peeking at 'em. But did they appreciate it as much as those of us who had to work to conceal it? We think not.
