Pornography is one of those popular pursuits like tobacco and gambling that has never interested me. Actually, that's not entirely true. When I was a boy I was quite fascinated by the naturalists depicted in the minister's son's copies of Helios magazine. (Only in retrospect does it seem curious that all naturalists were buxom young women.)
It is true, however, that I've never been in Sven Adult Books, or any other adult book store. Still, I know exactly what it's like. It has fluorescent lights, racks of magazines and videos, and a dirty linoleum floor. It is a place where pathetic men go to revel in their loneliness and misery. No one is fooled by a Scandinavian name; adult book stores are as American as cheeseburgers and pills.
I know exactly what's inside because Sven Adult Books is a perfect cliché in every detail from the shuttered windows to the three empty bottles of cheap wine on the door step.
