All my sisters were aware of the magazines that our dad bought when we went to the newstand. They were located on the opposite side of the store so Dad went to the right, while we went to the left to search for comics. For me, I new the magazines were there, but they were not tempting to me.
As an adult, my father has entered the end stages of his life. He was only in his fifties when my mother died, and he started through a series of girlfriends. They would move into his home, but the relationships always fell apart. In all those years, my father never had videos or access to online porn, but instead continued buying his magazines. Until one woman moved in and brought all of her sexual toys and videos with her.
Within a matter of years, my father became addicted to newer, more exciting methods of arousal. The couple would travel out of state to purchase new items and videos. But the Woman was also emotionally abusive toward my father and a divorce was in sight.
As we moved all of her items out of my father’s home, my sisters and I came across the videos and toys that were in the home. My father wanted my older sister to deal with the toys in the bottom drawer, and he asked that I pack up the videos to go with his ex-wife’s belongings “except a few, I like a few of them.”
I saw the opportunity to explain that it would be like finding drugs in my sister’s room and instead of destroying them, you allowed her to pass them on to someone else. We destroyed all the videos.
It was heartbreaking for me to discover that our trips to the newstand when I was a kid, led to a 70+ year old man keeping toys, videos, and even admitting to multiple people being present during the videos. It is sad when a 45 year old woman confronts her father over such issues and seeing how it has impacted his life.
Today my father is in a nursing home, blind from diabetes and legally deaf but is notorious for being too touchy with the nurses and using sexual language to tease them. A habit that started for him when he was about 12 is still haunting him in the nursing home.
