The Cover-Up

Before the Ken Starr report hit the Internet, before the world knew that a young woman and the president of the United States were exchanging certain books, there was the private pleasure of the racy book.

You know, the one you used to read underneath the covers with a flashlight at night (what, “Fear of Flying” isn’t about aviation anxiety?)

Or maybe there was the time you sneaked into a theater so you wouldn’t be carded and kicked out of “Last Tango in Paris.”

Oh, it’s just way too easy for today’s kids, who are a mouse-click away from X-rated pictures and words in places including the staid confines of the public library. That puts librarians in a hot spot--they want kids to have access to resources but not necessarily to Hustler.com.

That ongoing controversy--over whether and what to censor--made us wonder. Here’s what you read and watched in those pre-cyberspace, pre-multi-channel days.

Back in the ‘50s, I had this burning desire to read “God’s Little Acre,” and I snuck it into the house, and after everyone was in bed, I took a flashlight and proceeded to read it under the covers. But there was a hole in the quilt, and my mother came in the door to do a bed check. She saw the light coming out from the quilt. BUSTED.

--Jacquelene Mary Edwards

Los Angeles

The year was 1950, and my best friend, Jim, and I lived in sleepy South Pasadena, where his dad was YMCA secretary and mine taught at the local high school. Mickey Spillane’s “I, the Jury,” was pretty hot, and we always kept it hidden in an old car on his property. The book always fell open to the same page where the author stated, “And then I knew she was a real blond.” Racy!

--George W. Minard

Solana Beach

Probably the most unexpected and innocent-looking source of juicy information for my inquiring mind was “The Book of Lists.”

Details on the lives of people like Catherine the Great, Mata Hari and the Marquis de Sade greatly enriched the late nights of my adolescent years.

And my parents thought I was thirsty for knowledge.

--Jean King

Ventura

In the ‘80s, we were inundated with films made in the “Porky’s” tradition--movies that tried their best to appeal to the prurient interest of the ticket-buying adolescent male.

However, most of my pubescent contemporaries and I went to see “Return of the Jedi,” not so much to see the avenging of the Empire’s wrongs, but to see those few scenes in Jabba the Hutt’s lair in which Princess Leia is dressed in a gold bikini.

--Kevin Vacuda

Midway City

It was the early ‘50s, summer, and I was about to become a teenager--and a reader. A friend came up to me, carrying a dog-eared Avon paperback book. He pointed to a page and said, “Read this.”

I did. . . . This paragraph I can still quote: “Frank heard the rough exchange of words, which could only mean one thing. Kenny was going to [have sex with] Ann but not before she . . . .”

--Alan Koss

Van Nuys

No contest! The book was “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” Not only did I sneak-read it at home, but also at homes where I baby-sat. It was 1959, I was 13 years old . . . . Even today, the word “groundskeeper” conjures up erotic fantasies.

--Bobbi Cherep

Sherman Oaks

During my early teens, my parents often picked me up from school, only to deposit me at the local library until dinner. This, they felt, was a better alternative to television--I wonder what they would have done had they realized that the shelf of paperback classics stood immediately adjacent to a wall of romance novels. By a random of act of misplacement there, I discovered the titillating wonder of reading V.C. Andrews’ “Flowers in the Attic.”

--Jeannie Kim, Santa Monica

In the late ‘40s when I was 10 or 12 years of age . . . I somehow became aware of a monthly list published by the Catholic Church. This wonderful publication delineated those films that were deemed to portray sexuality in an overly explicit manner and were therefore banned. . . . So, each Sunday after Mass, I would scan the list for new additions, and that’s how I discovered “Bitter Rice” and went into instant heat over Sophia Loren.

I can still today see her sweating in that far-away rice field. Can it be that my memory is so clear because I must have seen the movie four or five times?

--Nicholas A. LaFargo, San Gabriel

I was a teenager of 14 when “The Godfather” was first published. My parents had already started the book when I saw it sitting on the kitchen table one day . . . I really got more than I expected when I came across the wedding of the Don’s daughter!

The scene of Sonny’s indiscretion with the bridesmaid--I must have read that part at least 10 times.

A few months later, I had occasion to pick up the book again. . . . Well, much to my surprise, someone had ripped that whole part out. Years later, I asked my parents. . . . Neither parent admitted to doing the deed. . . . I still, to this day, don’t know who decided to either do some censoring or keep the passage for themselves (I have two younger brothers).

--Sarabeth Rothfeld

Woodland Hills

I suspect you won’t get many like this one: My mother was an RN.

When I was around 8 years old, my best friend Janis and I discovered her obstetrics and gynecology textbook, which contained photographs of women in various stages of labor and delivery. We used to sneak it out whenever we could and go through it, page by page, with “ughs!” and “yucks!”

I believe Janis went on to become a nurse practitioner; before I entered a PhD program I was an emergency room RN and delivered three babies on my own!

--Judi Kessler, Santa Barbara

The kissing scene in “The Thomas Crown Affair.” The year was 1968. As an impressionable teen, I was swept away in that erotic atmosphere of steamy Steve McQueen and fabulous Faye Dunaway. And the chess board provided the foreplay!

--Pat Brannon, Los Angeles

In our home, there were two daily newspapers, many magazines . . . books and paperbacks. Then came a plain green bound book kept in the dining room buffet. Its title: “Forever Amber.” Sneaking peeks, I was astounded. A young girl in the English countryside using men to get to London. Girls did this? But it was fiction. Right?

--Barbra L. Davis, Irvine

I remember being passed the book “Peyton Place” with whispered page numbers in junior high school in the ‘50s. Later, buying “Valley of the Dolls” and “The Carpetbaggers” [from] under the counter at the local bookstore, with the scornful looks from the clerk . . . in Columbus, Ohio.

--Terry Sue Starker, Los Angeles

I remember not just a steamy passage or two in a book but an entire orgy of floridly hard-core prose in “Fanny Hill.” I seemed to find this book at all of my friends’ houses also. It was one of the first “unbanned” books by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963 and made for fine entertainment to a 13-year-old boy back then. I bet it can still be found in many a bedroom drawer.

--Eric Parish, Vista

I was a young teenager in the early ‘40s. Thumbing through a Saturday Evening Post, I noticed this line: “ . . . she was sophisticated; hadn’t she read ‘The Well of Loneliness.’ ”

I had to find a copy. I did. I read surreptitiously--breathlessly.

Three-quarters of the way through, at last: “Stephen bent down and kissed Mary’s hand very humbly, for now she could find no words anymore . . . and that night, they were not divided.”

--Myrna J. Kurland, Los Angeles