It’s so gross. It’s SO GROSS. It’s so gross to think about your father when you think about sex. I’m 35, and I’m still trying to compartmentalize an assortment of Freudian core beliefs. Maybe the biggest development is that now when I look at Dad’s books, I don’t see cartoon cats and funny naked ladies, I see fat-shaming and slut-shaming. I see misogyny in its ugliest guise. It makes me sad. Because I understand that in fast-forwarding through kissing scenes and intercepting sexual sounding Bon Jovi cassettes on their way from my hand to a cashier’s conveyor belt, my dad was trying to protect me from the creeps and chauvinists of the world. Because he knew they were out there. And because he was one of them, or, at least, he wrote to an audience of them.

I think if I picked up one of these books now, without context or familial association, I’d think they were benign. Kind of boring. I might chuckle once or twice. Maybe not. After all, they were published in the '70s, and most of the jokes don’t have staying power. They just seem kind of hokey.

My dad died this year after a battle with Alzheimer's, and I miss him so much. In a way, though, his death feels like a breakthrough in my own sexuality, perhaps because I no longer harbor a neurotic paranoia that he has a Santa-like ability to know when I’ve been naughty or nice. Although, maybe his ghost does. I wonder if he’s up there drafting ghosty porn jokes/jokey ghost porn right now.