Whatever Happened To Antonia Larsen?
2002-11-03 21:34:36

Too shy in high school to secure the real thing, I sought it in print. At the beginning of 11th grade I bought a pornographic novel at a used bookstore and carried it home. As I read, I became aroused. I rubbed myself and felt the pressure build to an unbelievable peak followed by the spurting of sticky grey drops all over my book, legs and couch. I felt stunned, then horrified, embarrassed and ashamed. Cycling through the major stages of grief while wiping up, I vowed that I would never abuse myself again.

I kept my vow for 24 hours.

I began collecting magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, High Society and Hustler, which I stored in the woods outside my home. Almost every day I visited them and studied their sacred contents, becoming intimately acquainted with porn stars like Seka, Veronica Hart, Marilyn Chambers and Gloria Leonard. I dreamt of them as the perfect women - always available and yearning for sex, and never menstruating and emotionally complex. Imagining myself locked in passionate embrace with these goddesses soothed my inability in real life to connect with others.

In the summer of 1983, just before my senior year of high school, I attended a week long journalism training camp in the San Francisco Bay Area. On a field trip into the city, I led three other boys my age down Broadway Street. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we longed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I walked into a massage parlor and inquired about the price.

“Do you have ID?” asked the skeptical proprietor.

“In the car,” I said and the group filed out laughing at me. We walked farther down Broadway and a man hustled us into a club where an overweight Asian woman stripped on stage. The club wanted $15 from each of us for entrance. We demurred and trudged on.

Our search for hardcore was finally rewarded when we found a porn shop with peep shows in the back. After feeding the machines with quarters, I saw sex for the first time in my life. I saw everything - complete nudity, vaginal penetration, blow jobs and come shots. Despite the sticky semen-stained disinfectant-smelling dank surroundings, it was a glorious moment.

When we tired of pouring our quarters down the slots for fleeting satisfaction, we ponied up $5 each to go downstairs to a dark wet room with used rubbers on the floor and hardcore movies playing continuously on a big screen TV. The first flick was in Swedish but you didn't need a translation to understand the screwing. The next one featured two American women who had a massage and lesbian sex until joined by a man. After the money shot, my mates dragged me out of the store. I could’ve stayed there all afternoon watching porn. I vowed that one day I’d watch all I want.

My classmate Lesley wrote in my 1983 yearbook: "What a pervert! You'd think guys from Australia would be shy! Obviously you were deprived of things during puberty!"

Eric, the editor of my high school newspaper, wrote: "I know that you're going to do a good job as editor. Watch the libel, huh? Watch out for the team, and don't get people angry."

Mary wrote: "Don't boss people around too much next year. Don't read so many dirty magazines."

I got into trouble midway through my tenure as editor for publishing a page long story about a prostitute. My friends Shannon and Barry wrote in: "We feel that your article titled "Wow Hawaii"... exemplifies your staff's recurring usage of dramatic poor-taste. The article...made the "professional hooker" occupation seem appealing. The journalistic mood created... seemed appropriate only for a cheap piece of pornographic literature."

In early 1984, Shannon and I (17 years of age, a senior in high school) checked out the video camera from our media class and drove to the Auburn Toyota car dealership to interview the February 1984 Penthouse Pet of the Month, Antonia Larsen, photographed by Hank Londoner.



Unfortunately, I'd not seen her pictorial. My only clue to her looks came from the newspaper ad. I walked into the dealership and asked the secretary if she was Antonia. She was not. The car salesmen and staff laugh at me.

Shannon and I stumble outside to his car and wait for the arrival of the Pet. We're terribly embarrassed but dogged in our determination to get the story. Twenty minutes later, a big truck drives up and we can see a tall slim model get out. It's our girl.

I introduce myself shortly after she walks through the door. She's happy to give me an interview. We sit down at her booth. She she lets the line of men to get an autographed picture build up while she answers all my questions. She says that all the girls who represent Penthouse are coached on how to represent the magazine and she gives me highly rehearsed answers about women having a right to do what they want with their own bodies. A couple of times our knees touch and my body thrills that I'm so close to what I'm sure is a sexpot. She signs a picture to me that I keep for the next eight years, "To Luke, Thank you for a good time in Auburn, CA."

Shannon and I return to school. Replaying the interview, we find our microphone didn't work and none of the sound came out. We use the footage anyway on our school's cable TV news show.