postal scrotum: Richardson on the seamier side

Richardson riffs on my recent excusrion:

Kevin,

Your trip to the sex shop reminded me of my first time. It was 1991, I was 19 and had been in Germany for less than a week, directly from an Air Force technical school. My roommate and a few other guys from the dorm took me off base to Kaiserslautern for a night on the town. The first stop was a sex shop with a "live" sex show, down a cobblestone street, not too far from the centuries old cathedral downtown.

The sex show turned out to be a large, circle shaped, rotating stage with booths all around it. One had to put in 5 Marks (then about $3) for a certain amount of time. There was a glass window between the stage and the patrons.

So four or five of us stumbled into our own booths to enjoy the show. It was some topless chick on the stage, using her hand for... self stimulation. For a 19 year-old who'd been in the Mid-west his whole life until a few days before, it was "interesting."

But then it happened; she whipped "it" out, and by it I mean the schlong, the gochu, etc. She was a he; a transsexual. As I and the other realized this, several doors slammed open as we exited the booths in horror, as did some GIs that were not part of our group (but no Germans). Aside from being shocked/grossed out, I was a bit upset at having thrown away 5 Marks.

I took a moment to ponder about the doors that didn't open. Empty, or with folks still enjoying that show? I'll never know. About the same time I noticed a janitor mopping the floors of adjacent booths. If was a first and last time in such places.

On the way out we browsed the various videos, magazines, and implements for sale. I took a close look at the sign on the way out. If we'd bothered to try to read the German, we might have picked up "trans" something and figured it out, but we hadn't stopped to try to read it.

Perhaps that first trip colored my perceptions, but I've never been too excited about such shops and haven't been a patron since.

V/R,

Richardson

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