What's Left Behind

I inherited my grandparents' house. Over the years I have been slowly going through things left behind. When I first moved in everything was just shoved in boxes and stored in the basement. Lately I have actually started going through things and what I have found is a treasure trove of vintage stuff of a sexual nature.

Read more about (& see more) of what this lucky girl has found in It's in the Genes.

On a related note, have I shown you Estate Sales and Women's Lives? Even if I did, here's a back-to-back look at what's left to find when you die...

Ginzburg, RIP

Ralph Ginzburg passed away in 2006 -- I don't know why I didn't know this earlier... He was quite a character, calling himself a "brandied fruitcake of a publisher," and a legend.

As the Washington Post points out he didn't always win his battles regarding free speech, but he sure tried.



The Shadow has great info about Ginzburg too.

Here you can listen to Ginzburg discuss the First Amendment on NPR.

If you're enamoured, get books by Ralph Ginzburg.

Un-Natural Beauty

Rereading this for some research, I was struck by the following:

In fact it nearly became expected that we'd show our unmentionables, and therefore bare our bodies. But we couldn't bear our bare bodies as they were, so we began to go to gyms and hire personal trainers. We became slaves not just to skinny, but muscular. We were to be equally strong as men -- only we had to wear pretty panties of power too. And if all this diet and exercise was diminishing our curves, well we could fix that too; we'd get implants.

This awareness of what a 'healthy body' looks like in skimpy-scanties drove fashions which didn't allow for bodily flaws. You couldn't fit girdles & slips under these clothes -- and even if you could, you'd better not! These were body bearing fashions. Even if the fashions would hide, allow or forgive foundation garments to fix your flaws, fashion designers wouldn't.

The shoulder pads of the 80's were heartlessly ripped out as women were told to create their own damn shoulder mass to counter balance the female curve of hips. Lycra was put into everything -- including the garments we wore to the gym to work for bodies which could wear them. Hell, many of us desperately purchased home workout videos so that we could get in shape enough to present ourselves at the gym to get a membership. (And we were right to do so, for gyms were the new meat markets where sexy healthy people paired up.) We couldn't even hide behind big hair and perms for now hair became as straight & sleek as our bodies.

As if this weren't enough, work-out fashions became everyday clothing. Bicycle shorts, sports bras, leotards & leggings (what yoga suits & pants were called before they were called 'yoga suits' and 'yoga pants'), and tank tops replaced t-shirts and jeans. Clothes pressed ever tightly towards our bodies, leaving nothing to the imagination save for what colorful play wear you had at home to prance about in.

With fashion returning to the 80's will all this Lycra and body consciousness also make a comeback?

Which reminds me... Do you remember how we put our exercise expectations onto little girls? Mystie remembers Get in Shape Girl which was the way for little girls to have that "just like mommy" Jane Fonda Workout. Corny as it seems, maybe we should make more of these kits for our fattening American children...

But let's not get so carried away with it that we destroy self-esteem.

Look at these heartless beauty & diet books from the 60's and 70's.

That 'Princess' Luciana Pignatelli was an interesting cat; check out the old book review at Time. Also, The Times has a 2003 article on the status of a 68 year old Pignatelli, should you care to read how she's fared. Here's a quick bit:

And natural is not the look she has achieved. The plump lips and wide eyes remind me of a de Kooning woman. The mobile mouth seems disconnected from the frozen brow. "Let's face it, miracles don't happen," she says, as if reading my mind. "What counts is the spirit. To have young friends, to have a good time, not to be outdated. This is what counts."

My research project will be taking some time, and I'll be making some notes here -- so be prepared for more oddball and sad trips into beauty-hells-past.

More Quick Links

When women were allowed to look like women, by Gloria Brame.

Art and Seduction in 18th Century France exhibit, through April 8, 2007.

Image from Comic Book Bondage Cover of The Day.

TMI

Slip of a Girl has 'tagged' me for one of those blog games. Just this once, I'll play along...

The Rules: Once you've been tagged you can't be retagged, you have to write a blog with 10 random things, facts or habits about yourself. At the end, you choose 10 more people to tag and post a note telling them they're tagged and make them come along and read your blog.

10 Oddball Random Things About Me:

While I collect adult items, I only own three films which could be called 'porn.'

I am labeled a "straight woman," but nude male artworks leave me rather cold.

I lost my virginity to the old 'wet thumb' confusion and felt so dumb afterwards, I waited another year to have sex again.

My musical tastes are stuck in the 80's.

There are two times that I pray: When I drink too much, and when I'm out of cigs.

I love history and traveling, but Europe is at the bottom of my travel list.

I believe that true sexual freedom for women must have occurred some time in the past, in pre-history; but that it will be long after I am dead until it will exist again.

Flower arranging taught me that natural things occur in odd numbers; hence my fantasy of a perfectly natural threesome.

If money were no object, I'd remain a perpetual student going from class to class, college to college.

Being a self-employed writer, I have no insurance and find that completely unacceptable.

I tag:

Gloria Brame
Richard
That Grrl
Lusty Lady

Nude Art News

It never ceases to amaze me, but yet another complaint about nude art forces a museum to move the artwork. (At least it's only be moved, not removed.) Wouldn't Ruth Bernhard roll over in her grave. So much for resting in peace, Ruth.

At least museums are not as threatened as libraries seem to be.

100,000 Years of Sex Exhibit

Via Fleshbot, news of the new exhibition at the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann, Germany which explores the fascinating history of "100,000 Years of Sex."

The full range of more than 250 exhibits from over 60 european museums spanned Stone Age figures with oversized genitals to modern pictures with hefty sex scenes. Libertine paintings from the Greak and Roman art with lovers in all kinds of sex postions belong to the repertoire asa well as
erotic pictures from the beginning of photography. But for all that, the infamous chastety belt and the oldest condom of the world mustn't be missed in the shown erotica!

The exhibit begins Feb. 3 and runs until May 20. If you can't make it, you can look at some photos here.

This photo cracks me up because you know what they say about fellows with big noses...

Michael: Silent Gay Film

Made in 1924, Michael (Mikael) is the story of Zoret, an aging artist, as he pursues his protege Michael. A landmark silent film which explores homosexuality by the legendary Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer.

The basic plot is that Zoret and Michael work on a portrait of Princess Zamikoff, but the unscrupulous royal femme fatale becomes smitten with Michael. Michael seems to be an opportunistic fellow, forgetting all Zoret has done for him, given him, creating a triangle.

This film stars Walter Slezak, Nora Gregor, Benjamin Christensen, runs 86 minutes (silent with music score), and includes audio commentary & filmography.

This film is also known as "Chained: The Story of the Third Sex," "Heart's Desire", and "Mikael."

There's an excellent review at the Houston Voice which proclaims this film as "relevant 80 years after its release" and "a valuable piece of gay history."

Paulina Porizkova

In Are You There, God? It's Me, Paulina Radaronline.com dishes on supermodel Paulina Porizkova saying, "Former supermodel Paulina Porizkova leads an enviable life, with fame, money, looks, and a rock star husband to boot. Turns out all she ever really wanted to be was Judy Blume."

Porizkova's written a book, A Model Summer, due out this spring.

Best bit from the book (from the article) is: "I feel him harden again. Back in, back out. This time I count. Five thrusts before it's over. I'm beginning to feel like a mattress with a convenient hole. And it doesn't stop ... This sex thing is truly overrated; even Kafka would be more entertaining right now."

I'll probably get it not just because of it's promise, or the fact that I like knowing that pretty faces have literary minds, but because it once again gives me that chance to say her name.

I first 'met' Porizkova when she became the Lauder Girl and pushed Knowing perfume. Like many, I loved the sophisticated black-and-white ads, which unbeknownst to me helped transform Porizkova's public image from a swimsuit model to that of European sophisticate, and bought bucket-loads of the fragrance. She not only was beautiful, but typified myself in the late 80's and early 90's -- post Madonna, I was dropping my bangles, big hair and slutty girl attitude and wanted to project, if not be, a more elegant, sexy woman.

More fun than anything was to say her last name: Porizkova. With an accent, of course. I dare admit here, nameless and faceless so not accountable, that I used that name and accent out in bars. Porizkova. It still sounds so opulent rolling of my tongue... I may have to talk like that tonight at dinner.

Another thing to love Paulina for was her irreverence about the beauty and fashion industry. This no doubt due to the influence of her mother, Iva Parizkowa Ryggeståhl, being a liberal politician & leader in Sweden. Her disparaging remarks about the fashion and beauty industry, such as her beauty is "a matter of mathematics: the number of millimeters between the eyes and chin," and, "When I model I pretty much go blank. You can't think too much or it doesn't work," at once debunked and built myths about the beauty business.

Paulina, along with her physical beauty, is a well-read woman. Even at her most popular, the most quoted Porizkova statement was, "My boyfriend thinks I lost my true calling to be a librarian." For those of us who may not have had her look, we sure knew that reading was part of her sophistication. (Her love of reading bodes well for the book.) We justified that we wouldn't want to force our minds to go blank just to be a supermodel and marry a rock star anyway.

Marrying a rock star was tough too. Ocasek had a wife when they met, and Paulina didn't want to be the other woman, especially in the press. So they kept quiet and announced their love only after his divorce. But that didn't stop family from being angry. Paulina's been rather outspoken about the abuse she took as a step-mom with one of Rick's sons -- and about how she and that young man took his aggression out properly and bonded via martial arts. Talk about sophistication -- how many other women would have taken such a route?

Since Porizkova's book is touted to be somewhat autobiographical, I am looking forward to its release. I'm expecting it to be well-written and full of the Paulina I want to see looking back at her modeling days.

Quick Links

Gloria Brame's addicted to lobby cards -- of the bdsm variety. (Here's another of hers.)

Fleshbot has a bit on Porn from the Past.