Of course you could have been protective from the start and never given out an e-mail address you don't want spammed -- i.e. your work or school account. For those things like PUT YOUR E-MAIL HERE FOR FREE GAY PORN!!1 you give your hotmail/yahoo/otherdisposablemail account.

Incidentally, my main hotmail account (out of 3 or 4) gets ~150 spam a day, but boy that gay porn was worth it.