America Unzipped

CHAPTER 1 The Sex Mogul of Hillsborough, North Carolina I Explore Phil Harvey's Empire Pleasure is so difficult to come by in this culture. I say fight for your right to enjoy your porn, your sexual fantasies, your masturbation and your orgasms. -Betty Dodson, 2003 He may just have been trying to shock me, but out of the blue, over breakfast, he asked what I thought about threesomes," Kathy Brummitt told me of a conversation she had with her fifteen-year-old son. Kathy is a forty-something brunette from central North Carolina with a short, sensible haircut, a little extra middle-aged weight, and a soft lilt to her voice. She resembles my Catholic-high-school Latin teacher, the one I used to torment by choosing to read aloud Roman narratives about bathhouse prostitutes and by displaying Roman good-luck drawings of erections. So normally it would have been easy for me to picture Kathy dropping a spoon into her heart-healthy Cheerios, grabbing her minivan keys, and dragging her son to school to demand the principal explain just what kind of education the kid was receiving. But I was having a tough time imagining Kathy's kitchen, because just as she launched into the details of how she handled this ticklish mothering challenge, I became preoccupied with a pretty brunette sitting naked and open-legged in a love swing. A scrawny middle-aged guy with thinning black hair had his hands on the two straps attaching the swing to the ceiling of a dreamlike darkened room. He was naked, too, and gently pushing the swing back and forth about six inches at a time as he watched his erection slide in and out of the brunette. She, meanwhile, was wearing a big, satisfied smile. Though the scene on the video monitor just over Kathy's shoulder was running without sound, it had the effect of turning Kathy's voice into so much white noise. I thought I heard her say, "So I asked him why he wanted to know," but I couldn't be sure because-really-I was very impressed by the precision measurements that must have been involved in setting up the swing. Think about it: What are the chances you could hang a swing from your ceiling while factoring in the critical height differential between a hard and a flaccid penis, the weight of the person in the swing, and a dozen other variables, without making multiple trips to Home Depot? How were those calculations made? Did they consult a carpenter? Was a laser device involved? Meanwhile, Kathy was chattering away like a concerned PTA mom, seemingly oblivious to the video sex going on right behind her. "And it turned out that a friend of his wanted to have a threesome with my son's girlfriend and his girlfriend . . ." I tried paying attention to Kathy, but now I couldn't help counting all the reasons why, and I mean never in a hundred million years, I could never have broached this subject with my mother. "He really said this to you?" I asked, interrupting the story. "I mean, you two actually discussed threesomes?" The guy on the video screen started moving the swing a little faster, bending his knees as if bearing down on a difficult task. "Yes, of course," she said. Then he arched his neck and stood up straight as if struck by lightning. His butt cheeks clenched. Apparently the love swing worked. "And so then I asked him, 'Well, what do you think of threesomes?' I didn't want to appear shocked at all because I think he was testing me, though I do appreciate that he felt free to approach me with such a question, and he said, 'It might be okay.'" Most mothers would have become hysterical at this point in the conversation, but not Kathy Brummitt. Thinking about threesomes is part of her job. I didn't realize it at first, but Kathy was manning a convention exhibit booth for an outfit called the Sinclair Intimacy Institute, and as I soon learned, sAlexander, Brian is the author of 'America Unzipped', published 2008 under ISBN 9780307351326 and ISBN 0307351327.