Who Knew?

When I was young I wanted to be an Astronaut. Men were walking on the moon and I suspect, like a lot of other 5-year olds around at that time, I too wanted to be called Buzz and fly in a space rocket. In fairness, for the next few years, it remained my career of choice. Right up until my early teenage years, when one day, quite by accident, I discovered my Dads porn stash hidden in a kitchen cupboard (I mean really! Who hides anything that's important in a kitchen cupboard, let alone when it's hardcore pornography!) But that’s exactly what happened. And so, my thoughts of what I wanted to do when I left school, went in a completely different direction. There was now only one job for me - Pornstar!

Now anyone under a certain age reading this, will have absolutely no idea what a porn stash is! I mean why would you need to hide porn when its freely available on your tablet, or phone, and you can easily make it disappear with a click or swipe! But this was 1978 - Tim Berners-Lee was still over a decade away from inventing what we now know as the internet, and if you wanted to know an amazing fact to stun your friends with, it was a trip to the local library, or a volume from Encyclopedia Britannica. Not something called Google! - And porn, well it came in the form of top shelf magazines, or if you were really lucky, your Dad's video stash in the kitchen cupboard!

The VCR was in its infancy, with VHS and Betamax (now there's one for Google!) vying for control of a rapidly expanding market and we were fortunate enough to be one of the first families in our road to own one. It’s strange to think that they are now obsolete, overtaken by the technology gold rush coming out of Silicon Valley.

At this point, I should mention there are moments in life that are life changing (the birth of a child, which is amazing, magical and completely fucking scary all at the same time). And moments you will remember for the rest of your life! Like Finding a Video cassette titled "Deep Throat" behind the cornflake box in the kitchen cupboard.

As a 14-year-old kid at a Secondary modern school, I had absolutely no idea what "Deep throat" meant. But I suspected it must be good for my Dad to be hiding it in a bag behind the cornflakes!

So early in life (remember, this was the 70's!) I not only found out that Linda Lovelace really knew how to suck cock, but the guy's that she was "deep throating" actually got paid to let her do it to them. Suddenly, my eyes were opened, and my impending careers advice meeting with Mr Griffith was going to go in a whole new direction. I had found a new buzz and it had nothing to do with Mr Aldrin!

As we know porn is everywhere now. The internet has revolutionised people’s ability to view it 24/7. But believe me, 40 years ago having access to hardcore pornography as a 14-year-old boy was a really big deal. Overnight I went from being one of the geeky, bright kids that nobody really spoke to, to being everyone's new best friend. And for 2 years' I was the porn King of my school, providing a screening a day in my parents living room of Miss Lovelace's exceptional talents to a never-ending stream of fee-paying teenage boys........and girls. One of which turned out to be my soulmate, the love of my life and the wonderful mother to our two fabulous children - Did she pick up any tips? (Well that's a whole different story!)

So, thanks to Linda, my career really did go in a different direction. No, I never did become a Pornstar (Porn's loss I feel!!) - though I did spend a fair part of the eighties with a pretty good John Holmes moustache! (Google it!) And I didn’t get to be an astronaut either, though more than a few people have called me a space cadet!

What the lovely Miss Lovelace did teach me, was something that would serve me well throughout my eventual career, and that was the simple dynamics of supply and demand. If you have a product that people want, and you have the ability to understand it's worth, you can leave the other kids to their after school jobs, whilst you sit back and watch the cash roll in!

Even now, it never ceases to amaze me just how quickly my classmates parted with their hard-earned paper round money to see a talented young lady take a dick up her arse on film! It’s so good to see that at least some things don’t change!

It’s been years since I discovered that tape, and I am very fortunate that life has been good to me. I now hold a senior position in a large PLC, and I like to think that at least some of my success has been down to the entrepreneurial skills acquired as a 14-year-old kid with my very own "porn cinema" showcasing the oral talents of the lovely Linda.

And so to the reason I have rambled on about my misspent youth!

Two weeks ago I had never heard of a young lady called Samantha Bentley. But whilst sitting in the airport waiting for yet another delayed flight - which just happened to be on my birthday - I googled "people I share a birthday with" (as you do when you are bored!), and along with some chap called Matt Damon(!) up came Miss Bentley.

I have to say as nice as a trip to the local library used to be, Google is so much faster and more efficient at being the font of all knowledge! And so, I quickly discovered that not only is she a regular contributor to this platform, she is a smart, intelligent and articulate young lady...who also just happens to have been an award-winning Pornstar in a former life! (Yes, there is a theme emerging!)

Now, I could give my opinion as to whether her former career skills were equal to the talents of a certain Miss Lovelace, but I will let you be the judge of that one for yourself!

But what relevance is this? Well after 25 years of making a living screwing people over in the world of big business. I find myself at a crossroads. I can step on to the next rung of the corporate ladder and take the bucket load of money that goes with it. Or, I can take this opportunity to escape from the cogs of the machine and do something completely different that I might actually enjoy!

And so there is my dilemma! Do I? Keep climbing, keep taking it up the ass (that’s metaphorically by the way!) and continue to accept the "kings shilling" of my corporate masters. Or, do I cut and run and follow my childhood dream of becoming an Astronaut........or a Pornstar! (Well obviously neither of those two now as I am too old), but you get the gist!

And so back to the multi-talented Miss Bentley. Who, from what I can gather, did cut and run, and is now following her own dream of making music, where she seems to be doing quite well. This having walked away from the world of adult entertainment at the height of her career, where I can only assume she too was making a bucket load of money and being fucked up the ass on a semi regular basis. (And that is literally, not metaphorically by the way!)

I am not sure how she arrived at her own decision, but what struck me as I sat gazing at the departures board waiting for my plane, was that it doesn’t matter how successful you are at what you do, how long you have been doing it, or just how tight the “golden handcuffs” are that are keeping you doing it. It is possible to change direction whenever you want, and when you do, you might find you're also pretty good at it too.

So, the question is, can this old dog learn a new trick? Well, writing this is a new first, so who knows!

And there you have it. First Linda and now Samantha. Amazingly and somewhat fortuitously (thank you so much British Airways!) for the second time in my life, I may well have unknowingly and unwittingly (on their behalf) been given some pretty sound and life changing career advice by a Pornstar - Who knew!