I was walking downtown in Solvang and there was a shop (or probably, shoppe) that, among its assortment of wifty gifty wares, had displayed RIGHT IN THE WINDOW a number of...I don't know what to call these..."erotic faeries" does not quite cover it.
And I was like, if that isn't the apotheosis of some particular spur of geekery, I don't want to see what is.
I was like. "Whoa." "Right in the window." "REALLY?"
And then, right around round the corner there was a CAMERA shop (that also had two long racks of camouflage fatigues and the like), but they had in their showcase window some pretty large statues, lovingly recreating scenes from fantasy paperback novel covers. You know the ones. Ripplingly-thewed barbarians frozen in mid-shout, hoisting swords high whilst half-prone nude wenches clasp themselves tightly around the warrior's right thigh. I was kind of thunderstruck to see it. I'm no prude, mind you! And there is nothing in the human form...not even the highly-idealized human form...that should ashame. But COME ON! What kind of camera shop is this? There's a bakery next door, and a florist on the other side. I think the proprietor was trying to prove some point, maybe.
But that doesn't explain those faeries, either.
Anyway. Solvang, CA. On the surface, a glittering slice of faux-Danish to delight the kids with and appeal to the droll side of the adults. But there's also some kind of unseemly, worked in between the seams of this picturesque gingerbread tourist town.
And as I said, I'm not a prude or an anti-porn crusader. But you just don't put something like that out there in your shop, do you? Is there not some bead-curtained back room you could usher people into, with a wink and a leer? I mean, you just don't see other reputable shops and businesses, with people of the general public walking through looking to buy something, and right in the middle of the rest of your merchandise you have a nice table all decked out with a selection of epic and majestic pornuary. Is it just the Ye Olde Magickal angle that renders all this OK? Or are Gift Shoppes automatic "anything goes" zones?
Look, I'm not knocking anything that anyone does with oneself, as long as it's consensual. But I have to level with you: if you're goofing on a statue of rainbow-scaled hornèd dragon that has a nekkid lady with bug wings riding it like a horse, the fact that I'm not knocking you for that is pretty much irrelevant to your main problem.
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