“Dennis Hof (68) is the owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Nevada’s most famous legal brothel thanks to HBO’s late-night reality show “Cathouse,” which starred Hof and some of the working girls in his employ…In his new memoir, “The Art of the Pimp,” Hof starts the book at the beginning — his first erection. It arrived at 8 years old thanks to a “gorgeous, red-lipped blonde,” who waved to him while filming a movie at the Arizona State Fair. The woman kissed him on the cheek and asked his name. Then she told him hers: Marilyn Monroe. From then on, Hof chased only Monroes, exclusively seeking out young, voluptuous blondes.”
Author’s note: As a kid, I was similarly mesmerized by Marilyn Monroe – though not as a result of meeting her in-person, only through her infrequently televised movies. So, I think there is something very genuine and telling about Hof’s recollections regarding his sexual awakening; for instance, besides Monroe, the locus of my juvenile fascinations all came together with Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten. With most porn and sex addicts – from childhood, the ideal is often implanted in the brain early on: the perfect woman. For the gay men I counsel, there is a parallel scenario: they all have strikingly analogous tales about seeing for the first time Clint Walker (Cheyenne) or Lee Majors (Six Million Dollar Man) taking their shirts off on TV; they oftentimes state, somewhat self-derisively – “…then, I knew I was gay!” Later, as adults, like Hof, they oftentimes seek out that phantasm of perfection: in pornography, with hook-ups, or in a meaningless string of one-night stands; repeatedly, that initial image remains intact. In gay culture, there is a certain consistent series of tropes or all-encompassing symbols: the macho man, the cowboy, the biker – all thoroughly exploited in The Village People. For gay men, these icons have meaning, as they are usually linked, again, similar to Hof, to a childhood experience: the persona of an uncaring father supplanted by a fictional hero. During the 1950s, Monroe embodied the sexually available and adventurous woman in an otherwise constrictive age. In the minds of those susceptible, the young and the sexually confused – a powerful image, typically an erotically charged on, can become a pathway into a lifestyle: sexual promiscuity or homosexuality.