Chicago [chicagoist.com]- You’ve heard about “those” video stores. They have the regular videos in the front, but they do brisk business from the videos in “the back.” We actually worked in one once. It was called Video Update.
It was the weirdest video store. It had the lamest selection of videos, was oddly arranged, and was the brightest, whitest, most fluorescent place ever. But the real cash was made from all the Napervillains (we went to college there, sue us) who needed to get their porn on. It was surreal. Even better was the overlap of customers who came from the liquor store we had worked at previously. Apparently, the best place to raise kids loves their liquor and porn.
Well, the moms in West Chicago aren’t having any of that. They think Family Video should take the porn out of family. They are protesting the store on Route 59, saying they should take the porn section out of their back room, citing the fact that a couple of children have ended up there by mistake. How do you explain that one? “Mommy, what’s an “Anal Invader? Is that a new Transformer?”
West Chicago resident Leta Dean says she has stopped going to Family Video along with many of her neighbors, and is not trying to put the store out of business, but that a place that sells pornography is not in line with West Chicago’s trying to improve its image as a good place to live. (Unless of course, you really like porn.)
A manager at the West Chicago store says the room the store clearly designates the space for adults and closely monitors for underage customers. In fact, he thinks since they don’t advertise their adult videos, the protestors may actually be alerting people to the fact they exist. Yet, Dean plans to seek help from the City of West Chicago in the form of a local ordinance banning the rental of sale of porn.
We dig sex, and we wish there was more women-made porn that was sexy without being so lame or violent or unrealistic. But now we come to our least favorite crossroads. We aren’t fans of porn per se … we think it degrades women, puts unrealistic ideas of sex and objectifying fantasies into men’s heads, and rarely seems to benefit anyone but the people cranking out the movies every month (and people cranking other things).
Still, the bottom line is, we’re anti-censorship. If people want to go to Family Video to get their porn and there’s a market for it, they should be able to. People know it’s there now, they need to watch their kids more carefully. Or boycott the store as they please. But to get an actual ordinance banning it? Well, that’s downright obscene.