During a time when a stealth Bush Baby is running around trying to steal an election like the Grinch who stole Christmas, and then stamping his feet in a temper tantrum, proclaiming, "I am the President!"--like Al Haig after the attempted assassination of, I forget his name, that Alzheimer patient in the Oval office, proclaiming "I am in control"-it is nice to view some comic relief.

Come to think of it, after all that has happened recently, who needs more comic relief-just because an election is being stolen?

Probably inadvertently, Diane Gramley of Franklin, PA tickled my funny bone. I wouldn't say she tickled any other for fear of being accused of pornography. But it was interesting to find out, according to the cover of The (Oil City) Voice that "Pornography [is] A Local Problem." Funny, since puberty, I always thought it is a universal problem-that one can never find it when one needs it.

Nor could I understand why one would need a Pornography Awareness Week. I thought everyone after puberty was perfectly aware of pornography, and needed no help. I remember sitting behind a little girl in the sixth grade and often looking over her shoulder and down her halter top at the little pink buds developing braless on her chest. At that tender age, I couldn't get enough looking, and she couldn't get enough showing. But we were both fully aware of the game we were playing. We just didn't know, or couldn't spell, the word for it. So it came as a shock that there is a problem of awareness of pornography.

But the author of that piece-woops, I don't know if that is a permissible tern in our world of political correctness-should know if a lack of awareness of pornography is a local problem. After all, it says she is President of the American Family Association of Northwestern PA. I can see why she would be concerned to promote awareness of pornography. It is absolutely essential for the production of families-the reproduction of children.

If people were not sexually aroused by the appearance of sexual characteristics in their partners, there might be a lot of innocent romance, but no babies. There is only so much milage you can get from sitting on a swing holding hands in the twilight and sighing platonic thoughts of the beautiful and pure.

God, by whatever icon and/or logo you signal the creative processes underlying the creation and maintenance of life and the world, had the good sense not to leave reproduction up to the romantic whims of wives without whoopee. Rather, He hardwired our senses to our brains and our brains to our gonads and created the circuitry to all kinds of little hormone and other pumps throughout our bodies to assure that upon the glimpse, thought, or even intuition of anothers' sexual characteristics, all this amazing mechanism would start pumping and lubricating and preparing us for reproduction-and motivating us to seek a proper outlet and/or receptacle for those urges, lubricants and baby-making fluids.

And it works-wonderfully-or even too well. Or at least it did. There always was plenty of awareness of pornography, of the pure representations of the sexual characteristics that arouse and motivate all God's chillen to fornicate and propagate and celebrate His procreative processes. But now, alas, we are told that there is insufficient awareness of pornography!

What is a community to do? Well, if kids just ain't getting it any more, we b etter have another look at those sex education classes, to see what can be done to excite the young-uns. Here the problem always used to be that God's plan worked too well for the convenience of people-well except for many of us older ones who seem to lose the effect of the senses as we age. Our mechanisms and pumps run down and we need the likes of Viagara to think in terms of Niagara.

So I can see how a lack of awareness of pornography might be a problem, especially as the graphic presentation of the sexual characteristics of our partners become insufficient, with age, to turn on the pumps. So a little innocent and impersonal indulgence of the senses in pornography may become a necessity. And if we aren't aware of where to get a piece-of pornography that is-to help stimulate the old urges, that could be a problem.

Thankfully, I didn't think there was any problem getting any pornography we need or want. After all, by thwarting our youngster's natural pornographic activities, necking, petting, being naked together and making out-we have created a major market for artificial pornography. So I thought pornography was regularly available, although I have to admit

that my mind is sufficiently imaginative to undress with my eyes any woman I meet, so I need no artificial stimulus. But that comes from having painted nudes for many years. (Don't worry, I always used water-based paint and we showered together afterward-just kidding Diane!)

Look, there is nothing wrong with sex. There is nothing wrong with the human body-well with most of them, more or less. There are problems created by God's plan being so damned efficient. In a world where it is not economically feasible for families to be any longer started by adolescents because of the learning curve necessary to reach productive adulthood-that differs from the natural curve present to reach reproductive adulthood, we have a problem, Houston. But it is not a problem with pornography. It is a problem with unnatural abstinence needed to give kids time to get ready for the responsibilities of handling the results of sex.

When adolescents worked on farms it made economic as well as biological sense for them to start pairing off by mid-teens, and in the context of an extended family, to learn to raise their youngsters from their own parents. We live in a different world in which the product of our pornographic activities are more than an inconvenience-but a real problem for the individuals involved and society at large.

But rather than trying futilely to thwart God's plans for human nature, we need to teach kids to live with it, to survive under these new circumstances made by men and women-not by God. It is no more effective to "Just Say No" to the pornographic aspect of sex than it is in the War on Drugs. We need to use our brains instead of our myths and muddled ideas formed long ago relative to other conditions.

We need to get it through our thick heads that we are not going to keep our kids from indulging in sex. That is not an option. So we must teach them to manage their pornographic instincts so that their indulgences may be safe and conducive to living a happy life, neither denying nor exaggerating the temporary pleasures not encumbering them with untimely responsibilities.

Growing up on farms when I was a kid, kids got a pure education in the power of pornography the moment they saw a bull lick the back end of a heifer and curl up his nose to the sky, as if thanking God, and proceed without any romantic pretences at seduction to jump on that heifer and hump away. We understood it wasn't "love" although the bull's single-mindedness was akin to worship. Sexual stimulation is just nature's way of procreating. We knew what was needed to keep that from happening. No one was surprised with babies. We knew the need for condoms. And that is no bull!

So let's make peace with nature and quit pretending that God's made a mistake. We are the ones who have made the mistake of not dealing with these urges and changing conditions intelligently. Kids need to be taught how to deal with their and others' pornographic sexual urges in such ways that they will not get in trouble either from babies or from diseases.

Our own awkwardness in handling sex, based on our foolish Victorian up-bringings, makes it very difficult for most of us to cope with our kids' sexuality. We want desperately to just say no because we know the problems sex can cause. But we also need to know what to tell our kids so that the sex won't cause the problems.

Kids need to learn to deal with the flesh by being exposed to the flesh. They need to learn to take moderate pleasure in the flesh, so they don't get involved in binge sex. Just like liquor, if kids don't learn to moderately indulge in a safe manner, to experience the joys of sharing social drinking, they will, when they come of an age when they are "allowed," over-indulge in binges. They need to learn to moderately and safely indulge in social consensual sex with kindness, respect and consideration of their partner or partners. That is all we need or should hope for.

We need to make sure our kids are taught pornographic survival techniques of relieving their and their friends' adolescent sexual tensions in a world where both thwarted sexuality and unrestrained, careless natural indulgence is unsafe and unwise. It is bad to instil kids with romantic myths, or the confusion of sex and love. The worst thing we can do is to make sex in any form taboo-for that is just what will make them put beans in their ears-and they won't hear us anyhow!