House Porn
First published 4/1/1999

"Every happy home is the same, but all unhappy homes are different."

-Tolstoy

 

"Every home can be improved by knocking out a wall and adding a patio, deck, or glass-walled terrarium!"

-Bob Vila

They lurk in the upper reaches of the cable spectrum: the uninvited cable channels. The golf network. The country music network. The outdoor life network. You don't want them, but they came with your cable package, and you don't know how to work your VCR well enough to make them go away.

Up there in the twenties or thirties, along with the other uninvited guests, you've probably got some kind of house channel. You know, home renovations. Gardening tips. The odd trip to the lumber yard to see how they make different kinds of plywood. Stuff like that.

I call these channels house porn channels. Like pornography, they're not realistic. Like pornography, the people on them aren't having as much fun as they're pretending to have. Like pornography, you'll never be like those people without getting a lot of expensive work done.

If you own a home, the house porn channel can become oddly compelling. Compared to the perfect TV houses, your house starts to seem...

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