PHOTOSHOPvsPORNO

I'VE always wanted to be a collector but I couldn't decide what to collect. I do have a criteria:

Should be cheap.

Should be something I like.

Should be worth more than what I paid for in the future (at least to some ignorant fool).

I wanted to collect comicbooks at first (I just love 'em covers) but they are so expensive. Plus you meet these collectors who look at you like "Who the hell are you trying to ask for X-Men No. 1? You don't even look like you can afford it!"

Well, they're right. I did look like the ignorant fool. Good thing they didn't like me, though. At least it prevented me from being a member of a society of men who cling on to pre-adolescent obsessions. So, I moved on to a more mature preoccupation: Adult Magazines.

It's definitely a toss up between Hefner's Playboy or Flynt's Hustler. Both get my tick mark for being "something that I like" and might be "worth more than what I paid for in the future." But just like having a mistress from a whorehouse, maintaining this kind of erotica collection will be hard to sustain financially. They're like hot coal in your pants, burning a hole in your pocket at first, then giving your thigh a third degree.

Living in a third-world country sometimes limits your choices to third-rate materials. Yes, compared to the first two, FHM isn't really scorching hot. But it's still warm enough for those cold, rainy nights. And when I started my old collection, around the first months of 2000 AD, believe it or not, it had a retail price of 100 pesos (roughly 3 USD)-- unbelievably cheap like your friendly neighborhood pokpok. FHM didn't burn my pocket but filled its corners with something else. Like an old Van Morrison song, it filled my heart with gladness and took away all my sadness. Because like it or not, being an FHM subscriber meant I am now officially a collector. (Hah!)

I enjoyed being a collector. Nothing beats getting your freshly printed, plastic covered copy every month before mere mortals who buy their copy from the newsstands. I enjoyed the freebies you get in between the pages, like beer coasters, bookmarkers, and once, even a CD of Patricia Javier's first and last attempt to get a singing career going.

I enjoyed reading all the informative articles it provided, the friendly banter between the editor Eric Ramos, FHM's intelligent readers (like me, I assumed) and the people who think publishing a magazine like this is a big slap to Filipino values. At least, I thought, a little spanking will help some of us remember that we did have some. Values, I mean.

I also enjoyed the ladies of FHM. I'd be an obvious fag if I didn't mention this. It's really like having a different girlfriend every month. A girlfriend who's a 10, but willing to take her clothes off just to please lil'-ol'-loser-me.

My relationship with my FHM girlfriends (coupled by my sudden fascination with anything Nivea) went on, and on and on... until.

I noticed something peculiar: All my girlfriends in between the pages of my one and only collection are missing their... nipples?!

I couldn't believe it myself. But then, if a girl's chest is covered only with an actual fisherman's fishing net, logic says there should be a prune or two showing in between the strands somewhere--yet, there was none!

A picture of a model in dripping wet t-shirt should at least have a shadow of a black sago, right? Wrong. The sago, nor its shadow is disappointingly not there. I'm no expert in CG but I'll know a photoshop stamping trick if I see one.

Like what my Science teachers have taught me... I therefore conclude that the nipples have been erased! (Duh?)

To support this hypotheses, I started scanning the rest of my collection and discovered that the missing nipples mystery started only in the last quarter issues of FHM 2000. Meaning, the first batch were yummier than the last batch which tasted a bit stale if you ask me.

That's when I decided I had to stop collecting repressed versions of my fantasies. Who would want a censored version of a supposed attempt at erotic art. It definitely violated FHM press freedom, the models' freedom of expression, and of course, my human rights. Also, my human lefts. For there were times I did use both right and left.

The December 2000 ish was the last time I held an FHM mag. I wanted to write to Eric Ramos to tell him the jig was up. But he resigned before I got to writing a scathing letter. I think he was as principled as I am that a man's magazine has got to do what a man's magazine should do: tickle our funny bone and boner. To this single act of courage against the powers that be, I salute Eric Ramos for blazing the trail and starting a revolution in men's magazine.

The FHM year 2000 started with a bang with Eric and ended up with a ffttt with a wannabe. The fire blazed, fizzled and then it was gone too soon.

My FHM 2000 collection of nipple-less models has now started its own collection of... dust.

It looks cheap.

I don't like it anymore.

And you might see it on Ebay in the future. (LjI0408)