Most of my sex education came not from first sources or official literature but via unsupervised access to 80s sex comedies. It’s not exactly my parents’ fault—these movies ran basically constantly on TBS (or was it TNT?) at the time. Even edited to eliminate language and nudity, there was no escaping the central thrust of the story, which began and ended with getting laid. A going concern in the 80s.

I thought it might be educational or at least fun to revisit these movies as a much-older person for whom the great mystery has been revealed. What rang true? What do the movies lie about? Would Booger realistically be so popular with the Omega Mus? 

I hatched this idea well over a year ago. My noble quest was delayed by an inability to watch Loverboy (1989), the movie in which a young scrawny Patrick Dempsey becomes the world’s most unlikely gigolo and gives false hope to millions of young scrawny boys the world over. 

You can’t find Loverboy on any streaming platform, or anywhere else for that matter. Big Streaming is dead set against this film being seen. I can only assume they’re making a stand on behalf of anchovy pizza lovers everywhere. All two of them. 

How does that cautionary poem go? 

First they came for Loverboy, and I did not speak out—because I was watching Netflix.

I was able to stream the movie thanks to a really shady website I found on page 4 of the Google results. Would not recommend unless you like movies buffering every 10 minutes because an Eastern European hacker is tunneling through your firewall. To whom I say: Joke’s on you, pal. My data’s been leaked so often I just delete the notifications now. It does raise a philosophical question: If someone goes about posing as me, should they also adopt my preoccupation with Timothy Olyphant? I say yes. Otherwise it’s not a good copy.