After my parents placed orders for everyone's gifts, the catalog was no longer needed but my brother and I would continue to look though the toy section for hours on end. We'd fantasize about which toys they might get us and during the late 1970s, Star Wars action figures, plastic army men and Tonka trucks were the primary objects of our affection. During the early and mid 1980s, we mostly longed for Transformers and G.I. Joes and if boys didn't need enough temptation, Sears offered a few exclusive paint schemes for some G. I. Joe vehicles. In an era before instant gratification, those photos of toys in the Sears Catalog captured our attention year after year.
As I got a little older, something curious happened. Instead of only looking through the toy section, I started to take notice of the pictures of women wearing lingerie and swimsuits in the clothing section. Back then, I had no idea what sex was about but the very shape of a woman's body was now grabbing my attention. My fantasies about toys were giving way to daydreams about these women. My brother wasn't immune to their effects either because some pages of the Sears Catalog would go missing and wind up hidden in his room.
It's funny how boys spend most of their childhood thinking girls are gross, but when puberty starts to kick in, all that changes. I still remember how strong waves of desire washed over me, even if I was too young to do anything about those feelings. The 80s were still a time of innocence. When I was a kid, seeing images of naked or scantily clad women was an extremely rare occurrence. Children were largely protected from such things because of the many safe harbors society had set up so we had to settle for whatever we could find.
In addition to the Sears Catalog, there was an edition of Time Magazine that made quite an impression on me because it featured a risqué photo of actress Mariel Hemingway from her movie Star 80. A few films from my youth featured very sexual content despite being edited for television but even media that wasn't overtly sexual would still fill me with desire. Whether it was a nameless character in the background of a movie who wore a bikini or a beautiful woman selling laundry detergent in a commercial, what I saw as sexy was heavily influenced by my raging hormones.
Then everything changed when my older brother found my dad's stash of old nudie magazine that were hidden in the basement. Like the images of toys our younger selves once fawned over, we were totally enamored by what we saw. It may seem silly now, but I actually found myself wishing for the ability to jump into the photographs. There would be many more visits to the cellar from that point on and we'd always tell our parents some excuse like how we were looking for a lost toy or working on building something with the scraps of lumber stored there.
All of this represented the first few steps in my journey out of childhood and into manhood. I was still discovering what attraction was all about and having daydreams involving the women of the Sears Catalog and my dad's magazine collection was a normal part of growing up. Unfortunately, some Catholics just love to trot out Matthew 5:28. “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” They claim it's always wrong to be filled with lust no matter what. Nonsense!
That particular Bible passage can be interpreted in other ways and I highly doubt Jesus was discouraging teen crushes but look who runs our Church...celibate unmarried men. The truth is, attraction plays a big part in how we propagate the species and it's through having healthy sexual fantasies that males like me tried to figure out how to love. Call them mental simulations, they were anything but sinful.
It's sad that Matthew 5:28 has now crept into Catholic dating only to sabotage it. So many traditional Catholic women are under the impression that any man who has ever looked at a woman in a lustful way must be a pervert. They use terms like “porn addiction” and write off any guy who has ever had lustful thoughts. Well ladies, you just ruled out 95% of all guys because here's the thing: MEN LOVE LOOKING AT WOMEN. We are attracted to them visually and we are turned on by their beauty. There's nothing wrong with that. Men and women are just different. Our own Church says so. While there are many things wrong with pornography that I will address in a future post, I don't think dismissing men who would actually make good husbands is healthy for the future of our religion either.
