Los Angeles Central Library

I've been visiting the Downtown Library lately. Got myself a card and everything. It's a beautiful building with a large collection of books and plenty of fast computers. It's close enough that I can ride my bike there if I feel like it. Big plus.

I'm writing about this because I see a surprising amount of people at the library watching internet porn. My first time in there, I sat down at a directory terminal to find some books on a certain subject. I could see over the shoulder of the guy in front of me. He was on a 15-minute internet terminal watching streaming video of women having sex with animals. His time expired, and he sat there for a minute while the thing re-booted. No one was waiting to use the machine, so he went back at it. I was pretty fascinated by this dude and his kink, so I couldn't help but notice the amount of time he was spending not watching animal porn. Most of the time he was scrolling through links or small icons, training his eyes on the generic forms of the internet.

Last weekend I was in the computer center to check my email, and while I was waiting for my reserved station to open up, I noticed that the old dude to my right was watching an extreme close-up of a Penis going in and out of a Vagina. It was slow and methodical like science. The guy watching looked like a retired cubicle dweller. His hair was solid grey and a bit unkempt. His time expired and he moved over to a new terminal to wile away the day. No scrolling through the emptiness like animal-porn-guy. Cubicle-guy had what he wanted and couldn't get enough of it.

Does it strike you as odd that these people would be comfortable watching that stuff in public? Do they go beat off in the bathroom after they're done? Or, like watching The Simpsons, do they find the stuff compelling in and of itself? Regardless, watching strangers watch porn is an educational experience that I recommend highly.