Boner’s Plight.

There used to be cinemas that featured news and documentaries only. At least in Holland they did. They were cheaper than movie theatres and ideally available for those with little money. School boys and girls who earned pocket money by collecting and selling rags and newspapers after school hours would be included in any audience. I did too but supplemented my meagre earnings by stripping (stealing) lead flashings from underneath windows. It would have been 1955. A year after, my parents took that five weeks voyage to Australia. Goodbye friends, goodbye school, goodbye everything including the Newsreel Bioscoop.

Back to 1955. I vividly remember getting to see my first erotic movie. I have never forgotten this since. In fact, I am only just now getting over it. Please, all of you, get a bit closer to your screen, écoutez bien! It was my first adventure in a burgeoning world of sexual awakening. My imaginings running amok. Erections were unpredictable, diabolically spontaneous and unstoppable, especially in front of the class-room. I used to feverishly fantasize being run over by the tram, all to no avail. I somehow understood ‘it’ finally had to go somewhere, but where? No one had told me yet. All I was told by my mother was ‘whatever happens, keep your hands above the blankets,’ or ‘ eat an apple, read a good book.’

I was seated in the cinema and probably watching the news with an Eisenhower urging on troops in Korea or other foreign country when out the blue came a short B/W documentary of an African nature. It was some kind of parade of young beautiful African girls WITH BARE BREASTS. My first sighting of the real soft breasts of which I had dreamt. I already had looked at some of my mother’s women magazines but they, the desired breasts, were always encaged in sturdy white or cream panzer like brassieres underpinned by steel. It wasn’t enough. I wanted the real (reel) item. This short movie of the African beauty parade was a God’s send. I somehow learnt where all this was going to finally lead to. The erection was palpable right down to the end of my shoelaces. It was my first honeymoon.

I caught the tram home, erection still in full flight while I was hanging from the leather strap. As the tram stopped and started I was jolted backwards and forwards. It was a delicious trip back home. I have seen many breasts since but none as impressionable as those first ones on the white screen back in 1955. It had to do for a long time. Australia experienced in Revesby and Bankstown a rough awakening. I am sure this would have helped me in front of the classroom.