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Canadian author Lynn Coady has an opinion. This is her edgy but hilarious online advice column exclusive to DearAnyone.com.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Vol. 1(5) - Take Your Pick and Run With It

Coady of Conduct:

I have a simple question. I have been with my man for 14 years. I am 29. He is 33. I have recently seen for a month straight all kinds of porn he has been watching online (I have been snooping). Then all of a sudden it stopped. Should I be worried he is acting on it out outside the home as well?

A Lil' Confused in Bean Town

The wisdom of cable television is vast and far-reaching, so let me answer your question with reference to an episode of Chapelle's Show. What would happen, Dave Chapelle muses, if the internet were a real place? He ambles about what looks like an average mall, albeit populated with many an offer of penis enlargement. Soon a greasy dude in a trench coat pops up, inquiring if he'd like to see Halle Berry nude. "Of course I would!" Chapelle affirms, and is led into a dark room. Eventually he emerges, happy, refreshed and ready to return to reality. But wait, exhorts Captain Greasy, I've got other things you might be interested in. Greasy paints a brief, crude picture, and Chapelle agrees to return to the room. This time when he emerges, he's not so much happy as bemused. You don't like that? inquires Greasy. Well then how about. . . a look of queasiness passes over Chapelle's face as Greasy whispers into his ear, yet, helplessly, Chapelle returns to the room. The final sequence has him bursting through the doors in nauseous outrage, invecting against something called "Goat Play."

The point being, the very slippery slope of internet porn surfing (like when you click on "GGW" only to learn the first G refers to Goats) can end up making your average innocent surfer feel like a disgusting sleazebag. Sometimes skeezed-out voyeurs will swear off internet porn the way people swear off booze after one embarrassing lamp-shade-on-the-head too many. Maybe that's what's going on with your guy. That's the generous interpretation, as opposed to the distrustful worst-case- scenario you've concocted. Here's an idea: you've been with the man for 14 years--what about talking to him instead of tracking his browser history?