PORNOGRAPHY ON THE INTERNET
                    (C)1996 Alan M. Schwartz

is overhyped and available mostly only for cash payment except 
for maybe 300 Usenet newsgroups.  Is there anyone up for 
news:alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bestiality today?  Mercantile 
dealings on the Net are similarly bereft of passion, purpose, and 
profits.  No, boys and girls, the Internet is by far the pizza 
and sneakers of mankind - the lowest common denominator among 
folks who can type (one-handed).  The most trivial babble can 
incite international furor for days and megabytes.  Consider this 
heartfelt plea broadcast across all Terra:

    "Though 'Zest' cleansing bars are clearly superior to soap 
    bars, they still have an annoying shape that makes them 
    next to impossible to hold when wet! I wrote a letter to 
    Proctor & Gamble about this, however my wife removed that 
    letter from our mailbox, as she said, 'Only kooks write 
    such things, and I don't want P&G to think you're a 
    kook.' If anyone here has a similar observation, tell me 
    about it."
                                
Consumed within a flood of humanitarian compassion I ran into the 
bathroom, flung open the vanity, and seized a Zest three-pack.  
There it was amidst the wrapper printer's art and beneath the 
incredible list of chemicals.  I ran back to my terminal and 
started typing...

"If you look upon the Zest outer wrapper there is written the 
magic telephone number 1-800-846-9480.  A vapid young thing at 
the other end of the line is all tingly, waiting to talk with you 
about Zest.  She lives, breathes and sleeps Zest.  Her entire 
life is wrapped around syndet bars pigmented with chromium oxide 
and preserved with traces of stuff which could have felled 
dinosaurs.  With every sigh she inhales the heady scent of Zest 
volatile xenobiotica.  With every touch she caresses the waxy bas 
relief surface, drawing inner strength and nurture through her 
fingers from sodium/magnesium tallowate and/or palmate, sodium 
cocoglyceryl ether sulfonate... 

"Ever since she was a little girl she has suffered outrageous 
slings and arrows of approbation hurled by her little girlfriends 
playing with their Malibu Barbies as she snuggled and decorated 
her bars of Zest.  She wore folded Zest wrappers as bracelets.  
Zest headbands adorned her golden locks.  Her purse cherished a 
little Zest bar.  Zest cleansed her skin and furtively introduced 
her into the private mysteries of womanhood.

"Zest is her objet d'art, her raison d'etre, her god, and her 
feminine hygiene friend.  Talk to her, you animal, talk to her!

"As for the slippery part, do what I do:  Hold it between your 
teeth."

What sort of reply do you think I received?  My e-mail in-box 
soon beeped with the abundant outpouring of his gratitude: 

"There is far more in life than chemistry.  For example, I'll bet 
you don't know what a locally convex topological vector space 
is..."

In point of fact I do - it's useful as an abbreviated analysis 
paradigm when hogtying subjects during extreme bondage - but that 
is another story entirely.  How sour and empty must this nerd's 
life be to have never slithered a slippery Zest bar about his 
mate's hillocks and hollows.  At the other end of 1-800-846-9480 
there awaits a passion which now never will be consummated.  The 
man is cold, very cold.  But he did send me 49 e-mail pages about 
convex topological vector spaces, sharing his commitment.  (It 
makes you wonder why he could not handle the convex topological 
space of a Zest bar.)

What the heck, it's an 800 number.  I picked up my telephone and 
punched in the code.  The whole of modern technological 
civilization drew a deep breath, rallied its powers, and within 
seconds a slim but decisive electromagnetic tendril stretched 
from here to there.  "Welcome to Zest," crooned the nasal, high-
pitched, lisping male voice.

Whoa!  Wrong number!

"Ever since he was a little boy he has suffered outrageous slings 
and arrows of approbation hurled by his rough and tumble peers 
playing with their GI Joes as he snuggled and decorated his bars 
of Zest.  He wore folded Zest wrappers as slave bracelets.  Zest 
headbands adorned his sweating forehead.  His knapsack cherished 
a little Zest bar.  Zest cleansed his adolescent zits and..."  

Not for a second did I contemplate giving my mate Linda her right 
of first refusal, jointly or severally.  I don't think it will 
play in Peoria.  So much for Equal Opportunity.  Affirmative 
Action be damned.  At least Ivory Soap had Marilyn Chambers as 
its public model (something my body needs anyway).  Logoff!