Okay, so last year I wrote this post about my first awakening to erotic romance on TV (aged 12), and how one obscure and frankly naff show seems to have influenced my writing since. And I threatened to reveal the moment of my, um, non-romantic TV/sexual awakening - the moment my hormones kicked in. Which, it must be conjectured, took place some considerable time earlier.
And here it is, in all its awfulness: H.R. Pufnstuf.
Ahem.
For those of you not raised on 1970s American kids programmes, H R Pufnstuf was about a little boy named Jimmy who (along with his magic talking flute - don't ask) gets kidnapped to a fantasy island ruled by a wicked witch called Witchiepoo - pictured at top there. Anyway, she wants to steal his talking flute (Am I getting a Freudian vibe off this?), but luckily Jimmy is given shelter by a kindly dragon called Pufnstuf. They have fun adventures, many as far as I remember involving talking trees and mushrooms.
Hmm. In hindsight there may be a number of drugs references. Those hippy TV types, eh? Looking at it now I wince slightly, mostly from the costumes that make Barney the Purple Dinosaur look like the height of sophisticated realism.
BUT the particular moment I remember was when Pufnstuf the harmless yellow baggy-eyed dragon gets captured by Witchiepoo and she ties him to a big spit and roasts him over a fire. Helpless.
Bang. Hormones. And a feeling like wot I had never felt before.
So there we have it folks - dragons, wicked witches, bondage and torture. It explains EVERYTHING, doesn't it? Now I'll just crawl off and hide, and you'd better go take that TV out of your kid's bedroom, because you don't know what sort of depraved filth they are watching on the Cartoon Network, or how it will corrupt them FOREVER.
;-)
AW, you posted it! Hurrah!! Brave woman!
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a story like this. I just played slaves a lot. Yup.
You played Slaves a lot?! Come on! Tell!
ReplyDeleteWow! Kinky!
ReplyDeleteI remember the show, but I never watched it. I remember that theme song, though, so I must have sat through that much more than once. Or had the show on in the background...
Hmm. Power of suggestion? H.R. Pufnstuf subliminal messages?
Kids shows... Remember all that teletubbies hype?
Hmm.
Oh, and yeah, I want to hear more about Jo's slave games too!
ReplyDeleteYes Craig - my first sexual experience has a catchy theme tune...
ReplyDeleteActually I decided to post this, Jo, because I was flicking through Michael McIntyre's autobiog and he devotes quite a few pages to adolescent awakening. Same goes for a bunch of others I can recall - lots of stuff about masturbation. It seems to be normal to admit to it now - if you are a man.
But I don't like the double standard. Girlies do sexies too!
lol, catchy theme tune.
ReplyDeleteI think fear of associating sexuality with one's younger self is political correctness gone too far, actually. I think everyone's agreed children are sexual beings in their own way by now. Freud had some things right.
As for adolescent awakening - denying that it exists is just silly. Talk it up, I say.
And not sex slaves. Just ... slaves. You know. Evil punitive captors. Being tied up. Suffering. Escape attempts. Romantic names! Being tied up. That sort of thing :)
Sweet!
ReplyDeleteAlso, yeah ... And thanks, Jo, for the support!
I was also wondering what on earth motivated yhou to post this story, Janine. But yhou've answered that question. Now that I never go to sleep at night I'll be around a lot more. HOpe I make sense. Tonight the culprit that kept me awake was a chocolate. I wanted that chocolate badly but I also wanted to keep it to eat with coffee. Mmmmmmm. . . so finally it is officially morning and I can have a cuppa joe and the chocolate and oh God oh yes, it was worth waiting for,
ReplyDeleteWhere was I? Oh, right, childhood turn ons. First Id like to tell you one of my very first memories: I was watching TV. The Flintstones was on.
ReplyDelete\I was utterly confused (my state of mind most of the time, as a kid). The show was definitely a cartoon. (That's what we called animation back then - cartoons.) Yet the characters were adults.
Lois was ironing. I was confused.
As for childhood memories that became adult desires: Fear is a heady sensation. I think if and when daddies stop spanking their little girls, some twenty years or so later there will be a major drop in the number of subbies who need a good spanking. Although Jack Nicholson said, "Every woman needs a spanking every once in awhile." I'd like to call him a sexist pig but much more than that I'd like to call him.
Period.
Wuilma was ironing. I was confused. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Before I stop blog hogging, I have a TV memory tht actually fits the topic of your blog, J.
The ad for an upcoming new TV show called 'Bewitched.' A couple, Darren and Samantha, are in the honeymoon suite, post-wedding. She sits at a vanity, brushing her hair. She is WEARING A NEGLIGEE! Darren comes up behind her and puts his HANDS ON HER SHOULDERS. She says "I'm a witch" and he says, "I can deal with that and grabs the brush, tosses her over his knee, shoves the silky nightie up and spanks her writhing ass, heedless of her screams for mercy, until her ass is swollen and tracked with violent ribbons of red and purple and - no wait a minute.
I think Darren comes up behind her and puts his hands on her shoulders and they have a nice little chat.
God. I guess the idea of a woman in her negligee, in a hotel room with her brand new husband, meant they were gonna DO IT any minute now and that was enough to make me squirm. As for the hairbrush, well, I remember Samantha was brushing her hair with it.
I think when mommies stop spanking their little girls with hairbrushes, twenty years later there will be a definite drop in the number of bi-curious subbies looking for forty strokes across the ass.
Just sayin'.
G'night.
Madeline ... have you considered a nice cup of Ovaltine before bed?
ReplyDelete;-)
But, yes, sorry, now I've stopped laughing ... They used to censor any TV depictions of married couples sitting in their bedrooms, and CLEARLY THEY WERE RIGHT! Look what it did to your fragile young imagination!
Of course, that's a battle the censor is never going to win. He's got the whole weight of biology against him. As it said in Buffy:
Willow: "Xander; you're a 17-year-old boy. Does looking at guns really make you horny?"
Xander: "I'm a 17-year-old boy: looking at linoleum makes me horny."
Wow.. Madeline...!
ReplyDeleteFunny :)
You're right about all the mommies and daddies, no question.
I'd like to cite an episode of The High Chaparral in which a female character (Virginia? I'm vague on the show as a whole) was put on a cart with her hands tied behind her back and a sack over her head.
ReplyDeleteI watched it for ages afterwards, eternally hopeful for more of same, but alas...
Oh yeah - Those cowboys series were just Trojan horses for BDSM.
ReplyDeleteThanks Justine!