Rings Around Of Rosies...

Asses, asses, will they all fall down?


Bacchus has found this vintage image he's calling "Ring Of Sodomy" -- and if you know anything about it, please do share!

One lead has suggested the image may be from the Barbican, but they opt for few images on their site... As with this Between the Futons: Japanese Erotica of the Early Modern Period exhibit.

Public Viewing Of Vintage Nude

Another slide found in a box of vintage men's magazines, this one is clearly a snap of a magazine page (Body Beautiful, 1955).


At first I thought the idea of photographing a magazine page rather odd... After all, if you have the magazine, why make a copy of it -- and one which isn't exactly subtle viewing?

I imagined a man, alone in his bachelor pad, preferring to project copies of naked photos on his screen (or wall) rather than turning the pages of the magazines; and it didn't make much sense. Neither did images of him inviting his buddies over for a night of naughty slide shows -- even if such commercial slide sets were available.

Well, OK, maybe this was like stag films; a private party event with semi-public viewing of risque & nude slides... Perhaps this magazine photo was a favorite and needed to be included in the show?

But the idea of such naughty boys' nights 'in' just seems strange to me.

Perhaps it's our current closeted ideas of sex which render the idea so unfamiliar... Even strip clubs seem less popular than ever, with more and more city ordinances (in all the cities and states I've lived in for the past decade) cracking down, removing licenses, and generally just saying 'no' to adult entertainment. So wrapping my mind about such lurid group viewing seems odd...

And then it hit me.

Like any collector -- like this collector -- the original owner produced this content for public viewing, for sharing. This vintage slide, a copy of a magazine page, was produced with the intent to be shown off, with pride, to anyone who'd care to see it. Just as I do with this blog.

The slide show was that guy's blog.

Sugasm #116

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #117? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks
In Case Of Fire
“His hand slid around the back of my neck and pulled me close - easily, no effort at all, letting me feel the power of his arms and the warm puff of his breath against my ear.”

It was a long night…
“I gasped as he slowly pushed in one finger, slippery with oil, and began to wiggle it and spread me open.”

Sex Worker Confessions: Gracie Passette
“But underneath it all, sex workers are all about bridging, in body & soul, word & deed, the irreconcilable differences between realities and desires.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
The Persian Kitty Alternative

Editor’s Choice
Baker’s Birthday

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

NSFW Pics & Videos
Guy fucks an English babe’s bum in free gangbang clip
Half-Nekkid on Wacky Hair Day
Joanne Arnold, Extra Nipples & A Request
Justine Joli
Lucy C topless (Met Art)
Naughty Toons
Our movie debut
Pornsaint Mandy Morbid
Sex Toy or Dog Toy…Or Both?
Thistle
WebMistress Feature Gallery: The Shaving Celebration

Sex Work
Sex Worker Solidarity: Rachel Kramer Bussel

Sex & Politics
Choice Only Begins With Abortion
A Taste of History and Ethics

BDSM & Fetish
Catalina loves Old Friends
Intensity
Learning my place
Morning Wake Up
Punishment
The Secret Room
Sex Party of Five
Sight
Submission
The TAO of Slavery
Tinkle Tinkle
Viper

Sex News, Reviews & Interviews
Bisexuals Are No Longer Confused
Gwen Diamond Cuckolds Her Husband And Forces Him To Eat Cum
Interview with Rachel Shukert on Jewish girls and blowjobs
The ultimate titty finder

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Cum-shots, spanking, and the role of blogging in feminist porn
Fear and Loathing of Phone Sex
Just Ask For It
What is sex?

Sex Advice
The Two Best Sex Positions for Delaying Ejaculation

Erotic Writing and Experiences
Choices.
A Clandestine Liaison
Cock
The fluent cunnilinguist
For You….
Guesterotica
Haute Couture - Part 1
Mood
Recovery - Part III
Seven minutes
Table Seventeen
Teaching a blowjob lesson
That Girl

Mute Monday: Collection

Today's Mute Monday theme is "collection/collections", which is pretty much what this blog's about, so I'm participating -- with one caveat: that I can narrate as needed. *wink*



Diana Dors in Yield To The Night: Because prisons are collections, right?



Via PostSecret, this is a reminder that my collection of porn, or any other's, shouldn't make one feel this way. Do your eyes, body & part sizes, belie what you feel?



I guess that's e-Nus said. *wink*

Nude Tarot

More images from the deck of tarot cards I mentioned here.



As mentioned, the deck offers two versions of The Lovers cards for sexual preference options.




The Daughter of the Moon Tarot, originally called A Matriarchal Tarot, is built on Dianic Wiccan principals and features many female goddesses -- and lots of nudity. Shown below are Kali, Pele, Mawu, Calafia, & Malama; examples of many cultures, colors and physical types.







The round card shape is also considered to be more female in symbolism. Those familiar with tarot cards will note the uniqueness presented with round cards -- depending upon your grace in reading them, round cards are that much more challenging or fluid to read.


The book gives brief legends for each female archetype, goddess, and image used; and yes, because I'm one of those kind of womyn, my copy of the book is autographed by author Ffiona Morgan at the National Women's Music Festival in '93 (in Indiana that year).

Vintage Polynesian Beauties

Sometimes, when the smut gods & goddess have decided to smile upon me, I get large boxes of vintage porn. These are most delightful as there are often odd things found in the boxes, including non-paper items. In a recent box, I found a these three vintage "Polynesian Beauties" slides. (Set 1053 Finley's Color Laboratory)

Of Secret Dolls

I've been resisting writing about this for weeks; but I can no longer stand it. Click here and scroll to the two dolls near the bottom...

"Scooba-Doo" is so insane I sorta dig her -- and her crazy black stockings. Yeah, I think she's a little inappropriate, but then get a load of this one:


The "Baby Secret" doll is in a category of its own.

Not only does the dressed in red Baby Secret doll say, "Hold me close and whisper!" but they stress that her lips move and that she can be put in any baby-like position. (My mind is seriously in the gutter.)

You're not the only one with a mind in the gutter... Every time I look at it, the words 'incest' & 'pedophile' scream in my head and I think, "It's the Daddy's Little Secret Doll."

Yeah, I know you're all getting ready to send those hate emails and offers for mental health help; but damn if I don't feel better for posting it and getting it out of my head.

Seeing these dolls, and knowing of adult dolls, including but not limited to blow-up dolls, and the fascination humans seem to have with dressing their dogs in clothes, I have to reconsider the purported history of dolls.

Perhaps dolls weren't really children's toys... or at least they didn't really begin that way. Look at the immense popularity of boudoir dolls, which were made for adults, not children. There are so many adults whose dolls, baby or fashion, completely out-number that of any pampered child. It makes me think that dolls are about some sense of control -- balanced with companionship, sure -- but ultimately it's the control. You dress it, pose it, order or alter it to your standards, and when you are done, you put it on a shelf, or drape it across your bed.

No wonder sex robots, including the desire to marry them, aren't considered far off.

High-Five Fridays #2

High-Five Fridays provide the chance to not only be nice, but for me to catch-up on missed posts I should have made during the week. Here's what you almost missed this week...

#1 Sam introduces us to Bernard Natan, "The most important pornographer you've never heard of."

#2 Vintage Pulchritude has lovely vintage erotica. My only complaint is that of the typical collector -- where's the information on the object/photo? But if you just like to look, never mind my collecting concerns and enjoy the antique art nudes.

#3 I'm not just a smut collector -- or even just a collector; I'm many things. But another area of collecting I'm into is religious items; I think any smut collector has to note, but not necessarily like, the connections between sexuality and spirituality, especially when it comes to organized religion. It's like the other side of the coin, I guess. So this anti-Christianity antique postcard is very interesting.

In my best Monty Python imitation I say, "And now for something completely different..."

I direct you to Gracie Passette's political post, #4, Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right; Or Do They?; I'm utterly surprised there are no comments as she's dared to go completely non-pc. Related, #5, Girl With Pen's Deborah Siegel wonders Do More MEN Think Us Ready for Madame President?

Find out how to give your High-Five Fridays here!

The purpose of this meme is to give high-fives to 5 people, posts, blogs and/or websites you've admired during the week. I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 5 high-fives on Friday. Trackbacks, pings, linky widgets, comment links accepted!

Visiting fellow High-Fivers is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your High-Fives in others comments (please note if NWS).

Find more High-Five Friday folks here!

Ruby Wax Info Sought

Gracie at Sex Kitten is trying to help a UK film researcher find "a documentary Ruby Wax did with porn stars a few years ago". If you have any leads, own a copy, or can help with any info, please post.

Info on Ruby Wax & her show, Ruby, on Lifetime.

Sex Worker's Art Show, 2008

This info comes via Chloe Jo's Newsletter:

The show is a jaw-dropping evening of performance art created by people who work in the sex industry and are artists, innovators, and geniuses!

Hitting the road in two big vans loaded with a stripper pole, fifteen ponds of glitter, and an ipod, the acclaimed cabaret-style show brings audiences across the nation a blend of spoken word, music, drag, burlesque, and multimedia performance art. Intelligent and hot, disturbing and hilarious, the performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebrations of sex positivity, to views of the darker sides of the industry.

This year's incredible lineup of performers includes international burlesque sensation and recipient of the "Best Body in Burlesque" award, Miss Dirty Martini; infamous feminist author Chris Kraus; award-winning author of the coming-out memoir How I Learned to Snap, Kirk Read; porn star and writer Lorelei Lee; performance artist and comic queen of cleavage The World Famous *BOB*; performer and musical theatre mutineer Erin Markey; internationally infamous drag-subverter Krylon Superstar; dominatrix and destroyer of Asian feminine mythology Keva I. Lee; and tour founder and director Annie Oakley.

The show includes people from all areas of the sex industry: strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, internet models, etc. It smashes traditional stereotypes and moves beyond "positive" and "negative" into a fuller articulation of the complicated ways sex workers experience their jobs and their lives. The Sex Workers' Art Show entertains, arouses, and amazes while simultaneously offering scathing and insightful commentary on notions of class, race, gender, labor and sexuality!

Also featured at the show will be a new anthology of sex worker writings, Working Sex: Sex Workers Write About a Changing Industry (Seal Press), edited by Annie Oakley. Working Sex features work by several of the show's performers, as well as Eileen Myles, Bruce LaBruce, Nomy Lamm, Michelle Tea, and many more!

For more info visit http://sexworkersartshow.com

A Nice Vintage Pair

A pair of vintage nude paint by numbers, of which the seller says:

From Craftint Manufacturing Company, "600" series. #600-H "Model At Water Fall" and "Model At Pool." 1958.

Paintings measure 18" x 24" each.

For more, see Nudes By The Numbers.

Joanne Arnold, Extra Nipples & A Request

Playboy's Playmate for May, 1954 was Joanne Arnold. Her pictorial is deemed noteworthy (by me, anyway) as Arnold had a superfluous third nipple on her left breast which can be seen in several of the photos.



I do not mock Arnold and the photographs are exquisite. I am just impressed that Playboy opted to use the photos and not equate supernumerary with imperfection.

Of course, it could also have had something to do with the fact that prior to the June 1955 issue, Playboy purchased photos rather than took their own (at least for centerfolds).

I believe the centerfold photo of Arnold for the May 1954 issue was taken by John Baumgarth Company (the calendar company who had taken Monroe's famous nude), but I'm not certain who took the gorgeous pictorial. As I don't own any Playboy magazines with Joanne Arnold, I'm not even certain which, or if any, issues these photos are from. Any info is appreciated as I'm completely smitten with the underwater shots!

Not that I could afford the actual photos; eleven black and white photographs of Joanne Arnold, circa 1955, some by Lee Friedlander, sold for $3231.25 at auction in 2002. But I'd like the info anyway. (Makes one re-think the high prices of vintage Playboys, doesn't it? *wink*)

Anyway, for more on supernumerary nipples -- in the 'magic number' of three -- see The Superfluous Nipple. Otherwise, just enjoy more photos.






Related:

Joanne Arnold was also on the covers of the March 1954 and August 1955 issues of Playboy, and appeared in many other men's mags (here too).

Sometimes credited as Joann Arnold, which is better than all the uncredited films.

Though it seems IMDB missed 1954's Girl Gang -- a hoot of a review of the flick can be found at 50-Foot Reviews (top, right side).

Sugasm #115

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #116? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks
Debauched nothings
“You promised me you’d give me your cock.”

Sex Trophies
“Inside the drawer are two pair of panties.”

Who gets to talk about sex?
“I was thinking the other day about who gets to talk about sex and sexuality.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Cashback

Editor’s Choice
The houseboy’s rebellion

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Erotic Writing and Experiences
About Chantal, now…
CyberGirl goes beyond amazing
Lady Chatterley’s Ruf
My New York Indiscretion
Off on the right foot
Table Top
Tonia (Part 2)
The Train
Valentine.
Walking Home In Her Panties

Sex Humor
A joke

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Because.
Bragging rights and the name game
Circumcise Me
An Eco-Sexy New Year
I mean this in a caring way
A Time For Sex Ed Innocence
An unexpected sexy anniversary
The Way I Like It

Sex Work
Keeping It In The Family II
What Do You Look Like, Rose?

NSFW Pics & Videos
Aradia Ardor
The Cam Lover is lonely and needs rough sex with a new doll
Crystal Klein super hottie
Kyla Cole
Missy Nicole - I’m Bored

Sex News, Reviews & Interviews
Adult Entertainment Expo 2008
Dana DeArmond Submits To The Training Of O (Bondage, Forced Orgasms)
Fetish Fair Fleamarket recap
Harmony HotMovies Interview
Jamye Waxman Wants You to Find Your O Face

BDSM & Fetish
Effervescent
Flavours of Pain
Half-Nekkid Toe Licker
The houseboy’s rebellion
LA Story: the night I learned to f-u-c-k
Padme amidala: My history of blowjobs
Recovery
Sexy porn turns into a sexy mental fantasy
Spanked Her Off to Work. - The Husband
Trick or Treat
(The Worst?) Profile of the week

Did Garbo's Books Just Want To Be Let Alone?

The bookplates beg to differ -- the ex libris proclaim that the books just need to be returned.



This Greta Garbo bookplate was designed in 1939 by A. Herry and is just one that Bookplate Junkie, Lewis Jaffe, shows you from the 1930 Yearbook Of The American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers.

Lewis promises more as part of a Sunday series, so keep an eye there.

Young Zulu Woman

A young Zulu, 1880

Via LJ Vintage Photo Group.

High-Five Fridays #1 (On A Saturday)

The Marketing Whore decided to start a Friday meme late on a Friday, so blame her for a Friday post on a Saturday. *wink* Anyway, it's a groovy way for me to point to a few folks who had great posts this week which I didn't manage to mention here (especially as I don't comment 'round the blogosphere as I should could). So where we go.



#1 Celebrate Cary Grant's birthday at Band of Thebes.

#2 Pal (is is too soon to call him that?) William Smith, has started his series, Bookseller’s Gazette at Bookshop Blog, because, "I was thinking how much magazine articles, tv and radio notices, blog posts, etc. drive the used and rare book trade. I decided to start collecting these references in one place so alert booksellers could take advantage of potential spikes in demand." Excellent.

#3 Bless/curse $pread Magazine for publishing a historical article, Hos in History, From Marilyn Monroe to Rudolph Valentino, in their latest issue, forcing me to get off the pot and subscribe already.

#4 Groovy Age of Horror reviewed Crimson Orgy before it hit the streets.

#5 Fabulon dishes All That Heaven Allows, starring Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, and Agnes Moorehead. (That's where the pic below is from.)


You're not done! Find out how to give your High-Five Fridays here!

The purpose of this meme is to give high-fives to 5 people, posts, blogs and/or websites you've admired during the week. I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 5 high-fives on Friday. Trackbacks, pings, linky widgets, comment links accepted!

Visiting fellow High-Fivers is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your High-Fives in others comments (please note if NWS).

Find more High-Five Friday folks here!

Becoming The Object Of Lust

I get quite a few people who arrive at this blog searching for "where porn stars come from", "making of a porn star" and the like, which I'm guessing leads to some rather disappointed people who arrive here. I mean if you're looking for a how-to on becoming a porn star, this history-slash-collectibles blog isn't likely what you hoped for or expected to find.

But then again, I doubt there's any site which could really tell you, let alone teach you, what you want to know in that regard...

There's no formula to becoming a porn star or any sort of celebrity. You can study your craft, assume the position, be in the right places, and even know all the right people -- for any gig. But to become a star, a celebrity, a legend, well that requires that undefinable 'it' factor that cannot be learned, purchased, nor even, to the chagrin of some, given away should you have it.

People make you popular, and what makes the people want you, like you, and in the case of porn, desire you in that way, is elusive to define. Certainly if there's one thing that's obvious here at this blog, it's that. There just isn't anyway to know for certain why some become the sex symbol, the object of lust, the icon of sex; or why others do not.

To that end I mention Bobby Fischer's passing.

“It was Bobby Fischer who had, single-handedly, made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as football, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as esthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, as intellectually demanding as any form of human activity,” wrote Harold C. Schonberg, who reported on the Reykjavik match for The New York Times, in his 1973 book, “Grandmasters of Chess.”

Surely Bobby, as the rock star of chess, had his groupies -- those who knew geek-chic before there was a name for it, those who likely giggled at "Checkmate" or used it as a euphemism.

Heck, Bobby had 'it' before there was even 'porno-chic'. And as such, he deserves at least these passing remarks at Silent Porn Star. Rest in peace, Bobby.

Love Me Or Leave Me

I was up late, into the wee hours, reading pulp novels for you dear readers (ah, the things I do for you -- watch for the reviews) and decided to flip on the TV. It won't surprise you that I'm a huge fan of Turner Classic Movies, so being the last channel I watched, that's the channel that came on. The movie had already started, so I missed the opening monologue by Robert Osborne, but quickly fell in love with Love Me or Leave Me.



The film stars Doris Day in a role -- a film -- which I had not expected. She's much more like Monroe than I had ever imagined in this film, but being so cozy from all the reading, I felt myself drifting off... Until, that is, I heard Day singing Ten Cents A Dance (YouTube). Wasn't that a Ziegfeld Follies song?

Suddenly I found myself leaping off the couch to check the Internet to verify my dim recollection of the song. Sure enough, that song is a classic -- with a classic performance by Ruth Etting (YouTube).



And that's when I discovered that Love Me or Leave Me was the film adaptation of Etting's life.

Well, Ruth Etting's life along with her manager-come-husband, Chicago gangster Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder, and her pianist, Myrl Alderman, the 'love interest' -- all of whom were still living and paid well for consulting during the creation of the film (which still took Hollywood liberties here and there). The film portrays the real life story of Etting's discovery, rise to stardom as America's Sweetheart of Song, and the jealously or love triangle, complete with shooting.



While Etting divorced "Moe the Gimp" in 1937, Moe wasn't the kind of gangster to let it go...

According to Laura Damuth and Anita Breckbill, who wrote a paper on The Ruth Etting Archives/Collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln:

Moe returned to California and in a jealous rage shot and wounded Ruth's pianist and boyfriend Myrl Alderman. The subsequent sensationalized trial brought her career to a halt. Snyder was tried for kidnapping and attempted murder. The trial was a sordid scandal and an ordeal for Ruth, lasting from October through December of 1938. Snyder was found guilty and sentanced to prison. When he appealed the decision, Ruth and Myrl Alderman declined to appear in court, and he was released after a year in prison.

One of the more interesting items in our collection is a scrapbook of newspaper clippings dedicated solely to newspaper coverage of the trial. The Los Angeles Examiner had an especially talented writer, James Lee, whose writings on this trial gave an interesting snapshot into journalistic ethics adn trial coverage of the mid-30s. Lee makes a drama of the proceedings, complete with characters: Ruth Etting is "The Little Lady", her ex-husband, Moe Snyder is "The Gimp", Myrl Alderman is "The Piano Player," and that all important scene prop, the gun, is called "The Equalizer." Here, for example, is a description of "The Little Lady" on the stand.

She was dressed sedately, but expensively. She wore a knee-length gray jacket of very wooly lamb, a severe, dark blue tailored dress, and a blue felt hat that looked like the campaign headgear worn by the Union officers in the War Between the States, only with a good deal more chic, of course. (Los Angeles Examiner, 12/13/38)

This kind of writing, plus word-for-word transcription of some of the courtroom scenes, make for entertaining and sometimes painful reading on this portion of Ruth's life.

After the trail and Ruth's marriage to Myrl Alderman, the two lived in seclusion on a small ranch in Colorado Springs.

The reason this film strikes one as so much different than most Doris Day flicks likely lies in the fact that Love Me or Leave Me, made in 1955 with MGM, was the first film made by Doris Day after her 'liberation' from Warner Brothers. It's rather obvious MGM wasn't viewing Doris Day as just another funny, fluffy, cute, good girl who could sing -- because in this role Day wears sexy costumes, drinks, and has the ambitions as well as the actions of a woman who was less girl-next-door and more on the make.


Maybe saying Ruth Etting was "more on the make" seems a bit too much, but we all know Doris Day's image -- and Ruth, the torch singer, was far more sex pot.

It's said that when Mae West first saw Etting (in the Ziegfeld Follies), she said, "The curtains opened, and here was this girl. Not what you'd call a classic beauty--but unusual. She had a sex quality that seemed to mesmerize the audience. And when she finished singing, they just kind of went crazy."

The Ruth Etting we see portrayed by Doris Day is far more aggressive than most of Day's characters (before or since -- however, I'm not a Doris Day aficionado). Day's abilities as an actress and MGM's faith in Day aside, one shouldn't underestimate Day's understanding of Etting. TCM says:

A final irony about Love Me or Leave Me is the fact that the relationship between Ruth Etting and Marty Snyder had some disturbing parallels to the relationship between Doris Day and her husband Marty Melcher. Like Snyder, Melcher also controlled Day's business affairs, made creative decisions for her even though he had no musical experience, and lived through her work. When Melcher died in 1968, Day discovered that he had mismanaged her entire life savings of $20 million dollars, leaving her completely broke.

Clearly Day wouldn't know how well she understood her character until years later, but it's worth noting.

Derald Hendry at DorisDay.Net writes:

And, she knew as the filming progressed that there was something special about the movie. Most film critics consider it her very best role. She certainly should have at least been nominated for an Academy Award. But there is something strange about Academy voters. A person in a singing role is rarely taken seriously. Few musical stars have ever been been nominated for an Oscar. She worked very hard on her role. During the first seven weeks of shooting, she had only one half day off!

Cagney said of Doris: “As an actress, she perfectly illustrates my definition of good acting; just plant yourself, look the other actor in the eye, and tell him the truth. That’s what she does, all right.” He considered this film one of his top five pictures.

And the picture turned out to be a “smash.” It was nominated for six Academy Awards. Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Song, Best Original Story. It makes you wonder what Doris’s film career would have been like if she had been at MGM from the very beginning of her career.

Related:

For more info on Ruth Etting, America's Sweetheart of Song, see www.ruthetting.com, the official and family run website. (Where it seems both JLo and Angelina Jolie want to be in a remake of Love Me or Leave Me.)

Also, this page is run by a "palruth" who is researching Ruth Etting for a book.

Both sites welcome input/information.

History of Western Porn

Marianna Beck's series, The Roots of Western Pornography, is being published at Libido Film's blog. As they put it, "porn is not merely about sex. It also has a social and political context." Amen.

So far, there are three parts:

Part One: an introduction and Italy in the 16th-century in Italy (titled: I modi -- the birth of the stroke book)

Part Two: French Enlightenment in the 17th-century

Part Three: England Bites Back With Fanny Hill

Watch for the rest because it's excellent.

Image from Pietro Aretino's I modi.

Ron Jeremy, Wherefore Art Thou?

Angela at Zen Fetish has posted a bit of an ode to Ron Jeremy, including some excellent film clips and other cool linkage, with her post Ron Jeremy: Catholic Pervert or Porn Star Super Hero?

I've posted a film challenge there, for you all, in the comments. *wink*

Image of 80's Ron from Patricia Sheridan's Breakfast With ... Ron Jeremy. (Worth the read!)

"Lure Him... Away From The Poolboy"

I discovered this Jantzen ad at Found in Mom's Basement -- is there any other way to take this ad other than the acceptance that men are sweet on poolboys?

Where There's A Will...

Will Straw, PhD, Department of Art History and Communications Studies professor spotted my Hollywood Follies post and sent me an email requesting some information.

While I dig around in my collection (I have a system, but it's not very friendly to research requests like this), Will has allowed me to share his email so that any here with info can help.

Hi -- I was googling "Wayne Sabbath" and, after five pages of references to religious books, found your site, with the scans from Hollywood Follies. Thanks for those. I've been trying to reconstruct the career of Wayne and of his partner (who may, in fact, be him) "Cap'n Joey"/Jo Burten, who published spicy magazines from the 1920s onwards. Burten's Follies was the best known of these, and "Follies" turns up in many of his titles. The last record of any of them I can find is a reference to Joe getting busted c. 1959 for obscenity. Do you know any more about these guys?

In any case, thanks for the interesting read,
Will

If you have any info please post it here and/or contact Will via contact info on his webpage.

At the risk of distracting you...

Readers may be delighted to know that Will is the author of Cyanide and Sin: Visualizing Crime in 50s America, a history of true crime magazines in America with an emphasis on its visual content, including 196 color illustrations. The book is also available at Photo-Eye and the Andrew Roth Gallery; a review, with a slide show, can be found at Men's Vogue, and you can download the book's introduction (PDF) here.


Will also writes the Canadian culture blog at McGill.

** Don't forget! If you have any information on Wayne Sabbath, "Cap'n Joey" Jo Burten. or the follies publications, please let us know!

A Time For Sex Ed Innocence

A Time For Innocence (A Kid's-Eye View of the Facts of Life) (1969) is a Fireside Book reissue of Sex and the Single Child by Sam Levenson with illustrations by Whitney Darrow, Jr. I found it at a thrift store this weekend and flipping through the pages I was smitten enough to read the back -- then take it home.


The books are dirt-cheap at Amazon, so if you are at all charmed by what you see, grab a copy for as low as a penny; however, even if the books are cheap, I didn't want to ruin the binding on the scanner, so excuse the photos.

"Hey, Ma. How come I'm so plain and you're so fancy?"

If find it a bit surprising that a publication which would admit -- and not scream in horror -- that it's possible and normal for children to see their parents nude. Certainly no one in today's culture admits to such things, despite millions of people who do so. (Infants, perhaps, as we believe they cannot remember such things; but more likely they just can't talk and therefore share the secret.) How refreshing!

Because you know I love storks:

"The stork only brings the parts. The doctor puts them together."

"The storks come from the Chicago stork yards."

"I hope he doesn't scare Mommy; she's pregnant you know."

From the back of the book:

When Sam Levenson, as a boy, finally mustered up the courage to ask that age-old question, "Where did I come from?" he got some pretty discouraging answers:

"When you'll have children of your own, you'll ask them."

"Ask your mother. You're from her side of the family."

"If God wanted us to know what's on the inside he would have put it on the outside."

The revolution in sex education has changed all that. Today the facts of life are rampant among children, but, as Levenson points out, "One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination."

In a series of funny, touching, unabashed and uninhibited vignettes, Levenson--aided and abetted by the incomparable Whitney Darrow, Jr.--quotes the lovely, innocent logic of little people as they express their views of the big people's world. "The difference between men and women is that women dance backwards." "We come from seeds just like vegetables; that's why they call us human beans." All are woven together with a commentary that glows with Sam's own brand of humor and wisdom. For him, "Sex is a three-letter word which sometimes needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning: words like give, care, help, kiss, feel, love; words which even a child can understand."

All of which makes A Time for Innocence one of the most lovable exposes in years.

The book is lovable. Filled with cute illustrations by Darrow and equally cute quotes from children.

"Girls have the same circles on their chests as boys so the doctor will know where to put the stethoscope."

"A lady becomes a mother when she concedes."

"How come if there are no bull-girls, there's cow-boys?"

"If you want girl babies you marry a lady. If you want boy babies you marry a man."

Along with the cuteness, the humor, the warm and fuzzy feelings, are things which are perhaps not so funny.

At first I thought this book was a product of the sexual revolution -- even a product being positive about the sexual revolution. But reading the text before the one-page cartoon panels and the pages of childish quotes, one finds a less clear message.

From chapter one, page 12-13:

From the time of my childhood to my child's childhood the subject of sex has passed from the less said the better to we can't stop talking about it. We are now answering more questions than our children are asking.

We are bearing down too heavily on the minds of little children with explanations they cannot fathom. They do not yet have the emotional maturity to understand a clinical dissertation. It can be frightening.

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination. Come to think of it, we gown-ups are pretty good at that sort of thing, too, especially these days when there are so many facts to choose from.

The fanciful facts of life that our little primitives invent serve to decorate the walls of their psychic dwellings places deep in virgin forests. We expatriates feel obliged to lead them out of their sheltered caves. "This way to the truth. So sorry."

It often happens that even after you have led the children into the clearing he will run back into the forest. Don't we all?

Of course I believe that sex is like anything else we teach our children -- answer what they ask broken down into the size pieces they can handle. When asked by my children, "How do babies get in the mother's tummy?" I do not respond with every bit of plumbing, let alone every detail about sex positions, sexual pleasures and relationship issues. I start with the fact that part of what is required to make a baby is an egg, which is already inside a woman's body. If they ask more, I tell more; if not, that's all that's said. Until the next question is asked anyway.

But...

I disagree that sex education need be a "dissertation" or beyond their emotional maturity. Most education involves some element of fathomlessness, else it would be something they already know; but answers and education need not be "bearing down too heavily."

From chapter three, pages 43-44:

Many of our schools are now enthusiastically involved in crash courses on Sex Education for the post-potty-trained. Breeding has been added to reading. The curriculum may go from how a baby is the born in the first grade to how not to have a baby in the eighth grade.

Really? As a child born in the 60's and in elementary school in the early 70's, I can neither remember nor imagine such things. Certainly at the tail end of elementary school we had those assemblies where we were split into two groups, male and female, and watched films which described our changing bodies; but baby making in first grade? I don't think I had finished planting a successful marigold seed or rooting a sweet potato much before then.

Levenson continues:

The child, it is hoped, will no longer pick up stuff in the gutter, as I did. (I must say that along with the undesirable things I picked up in the gutter there were some highly desirable items like immies, rubber bands, pennies, checkers, buttons...)

In order to qualify for a Sex Education license (in this case an unfortunate word for certification), the applicant must have majored in Sex (at least twelve credit hours) as an undergrad and pursued (another poor choice of word) private (still worse) investigation for at least thirty-two hours, half of which must have been field work. He/She must above all show proof of a passionate commitment to La Dolce Vita family style.

The classroom approach to sex education is scientific. A spade is called a spade, but the child is not allowed to call any part of the anatomy a spade. Correct names are recommended. This often created problems at home where the unenlightened parents call things by euphemistic and affectionate nicknames--"Your pip-pip is showing, honey." "Wipe your too-too, darling." While a pip-pip by any other name still performs certain specific functions, it is best to use dictionary rather than confectionary terms. Even when models of the human body are used, they are no longer of a neuter gender since what is seen is no longer regarded as obscene.

And why should it be?

One of the valuable fringe benefits of the program has been the wealth of information the parents have picked up from their children. "No kiddin', Georgie!"

Teaching the act of love is easy. The feeling of love, without which man becomes just another animal, can be taught only by people who deeply believe in love. For the true believer love is compassion, empathy, sympathy, tenderness, devotion, benevolence, friendship, sacrifice, respect, affection, brotherhood, sisterhood, giving, receiving, exchanging--a spiritual heart transplant.

I (continuously) object to the constant denial that human are animals and that we need to separate ourselves from them. I know this lofty goal is for our spiritual betterment (which is where religious zealots get their toes in to the conversation and legislation), but honestly, when it comes to biology we are animals; so let's stop arguing that there's another scientific taxonomy to work from.

Next follows the three-letter word requiring four-letter words part mentioned on the back of the book, which is rather decent advice, and then...

We must not hesitate to tell the child that love also means pain.

It is easy to become a father or a mother. It is much harder to become a full-grown person. This is basically what true Sex Education should be about.

The home is the first and most influential school. The way parents treat each other in the living room will help a child to understand life in the bedroom.

I wish he had continued more about the subject of pain... I would whole-heartedly agree, but as I'm not quite sure where Levenson is heading, I'm naturally reluctant to do so. Also, the notion of a becoming a full-gown person, and that this is what Sex Ed should be about is too ambiguous. Does he mean that sex should be reserved for grown-ups? To that I agree. But he really should clarify here.

The matter of parents and their treatment of one another at home in the living room and its relationship to life in the bedroom is a great line that I also wish he had underscored with more detail.

I believe his intentions were to say that any discussion of sex, any Sex Education, needs to include the pragmatics of responsibility -- not just for pregnancy, but relationships and health -- but the lines were poorly drawn. (And if you argue that the book was merely a cutesy look at innocent kids in the world of grown-up matters, I'll argue right back that Levenson has preached a bit too long on what's wrong with sex ed.)

Over all, it's a cute book, a funny book; but it's also a reminder of several things:

* even during the sexual revolution, sex education wasn't necessarily accepted
* pictures alone do not always tell the story

Paris Strip Club Flyer Was Coolest of 2007

This vintage strip club flyer from Paris, circa 1950's, was the coolest piece of ephemera in 2007, as decided by Ephemera at Typepad.

As for who will be selected as having the world's coolest piece of ephemera in 2008 they say:

Today, I officially announce the quest to find this year's coolest ephemera. To be considered, I must receive your entry by January 31, 2008. To enter a piece of ephemera from your collection, send me an email with an attached JPEG image of your item and a brief description of it. I'll select the winner and feature the item in a post in early February.

I'd consider entering, but I'm always too excited to post my stuff here. *wink*

Warning: Depraved Collector At Work

He says he's providing a valuable service, "to depraved landlocked sailors anyway."

Being neither a sailor nor landlocked, but just depraved, I believe his blog, Hang Fire Books, and his Flickr sets are valuable services -- only, please, William, start including titles, authors (text in general) in your descriptions at Flickr. (I'm batting my lashes and everything!)

Can't believe I hadn't found William and Hang Fire before; but now that I have, on the sidebar they'll be.

You Can Leave Your... Socks On?

Realizing it's been too long since I gave you any vintage smut...



Ever notice how ladies with stockings and hose still on are sexy & cute -- but men who leave their socks on are not?

Lucrezia

New magazine Lucrezia takes its name from Lucrezia Borgia:

Consort, lover, schemer, wife and mother: Lucrezia Borgia, the most notorious consort during the Renaissance, runs rings around the bad girls of the 21st Century. Her clandestine beginning began before birth. A daughter to Pope Alexander VI and mistress Vannoza de Cattenei, her path was primed in her infancy. Was she a lady of privilege or leisure? Artful benefactor or scheming whore; the question of her complicity intrigues our contemporary times. According to a courtier, "her whole being exudes good humor and gaiety." Lucrezia is sex, and the personification of freedom. She is the light and the dark, the subversive and divine: sexuality in all its iridescence. Sexuality is as explosive or spicy as Lucrezia Borgia, hence our title. Sexuality continues to intrigue. Although many try to downplay it, they are still drawn to the mystery. Human sexuality ruffled feathers when it debuted in mainstream society at the time of Freud, and it still manages to ruffle a few feathers in the new millennium.

Belle Gunness

Belle Gunness is listed as #6 on the list of the Top 10 Most Evil Women:

Belle Gunness was one of America’s most profligate known female serial killers. At 6 ft (1.83 m) tall and over 200 lb (91 kg), she was a powerful Norwegian-American woman. She may have killed both of her husbands and all of her children (on different occasions), but she is known to have killed most of her suitors, boyfriends, and her two daughters Myrtle and Lucy. Her apparent motives involved collecting life insurance benefits. Reports estimate that she killed more than twenty people over several decades–some claim more than one hundred–and possibly got away with it. She became part of American criminal folklore, a female Bluebeard.

The story of Belle caught my eye today as Andrea Simmons, graduate student at the University of Indianapolis, has exhumed Belle's remains, and is now analyzing them, comparing the DNA with DNA samples from Belle's letters, with hopes to clarify if the body is really Belle's. While a good historical mystery is fascinating, the life and deeds of Gunness are even more compelling -- in a morbid way.

From CrimeLibrary.com:

Belle Gunness' history was re-examined and reporters wrote about the sudden inexplicable death in 1900 of her first husband, Mads Sorensen, who had been well-insured for $8,500. Two of her adopted children had died a few years earlier from conditions that might well have been due to poison, and several of her insured establishments had burned down. Belle traded her home in Austin, Illinois, for a farm in LaPorte, Indiana, and soon married Peter Gunness, who died eight months later when, as Belle reported, a meat grinder and jar of scalding water fell on his head (although no burns were present on the body and the blow to his head did not quite fit the supposed weapon).

Belle then placed matrimonial ads in various papers to lure men without family ties and with money—many of whom disappeared. That is, until they were found buried on her farm.

From Belle Gunness, La Porte's "Lady Bluebeard" we learn that Belle was in this for the money:

Belle Gunness was born in Selbu, Norway in 1858, and emigrated to the United States about 1886. She married Mads Sorenson in 1893. They owned a Chicago store that only turned a profit after it burned and they collected the insurance. In 1900 Sorenson died of convulsions and Belle received about $8,000 from his life insurance.

And she lured men via ads, like today's personal ads:

Belle began advertising in Norwegian language newspapers, "Widow, with mortgaged farm, seeks marriage. Triflers need not apply."

Apparently many answered her letters. Belle would introduce them as relatives. Belle's pretty, 18 year old niece, Jenny Olson, got suspicious because the suitors always left the farm during the night. Soon Jenny was away at school in California, according to Belle.

Do we have to guess where Jenny likely ended up?

It is believed that Belle had killed at least 25 people (other say 40 or more), including children, and the fire April 28, 1908 at Belle's home led to the discovery of many bodies -- but it also appeared as if Belle was now a victim herself.

From Crime Library:

The prime suspect in this apparent arson was a former hired hand named Ray Lamphere, who had worked for Belle about a year and who continued to have issues with her. He was even seen near her farm that morning, and he admitted he saw the fire, but said he had not felt compelled to warn anyone. Lamphere was arrested and detained.

But not everyone believes Belle was murdered, or that she even died in that fire. La Porte County Historical Society:

Ray Lamphere, Belle's hired hand, was eventually charged with murder and arson. He was convicted only on the later charge. Before dying in prison, he maintained that Belle had escaped. For years afterwards there were numerous sightings of the murderess across the country, but none were confirmed.

Now, with the work at the university, we may find an answer. However, there are still surprises:

Already, however, the researchers have made a shocking discovery: The casket they exhumed contained not just an adult woman's body, but also the partial remains of two children.

To Nawrocki, this surprise further confirmed that the initial investigations of the fire and Gunness' crimes were botched from the start.

"It makes me doubt every conclusion these people came to," he says. "Instead of answering questions, it just opened up more."

All the more reason to keep an eye on the story.

Photos (including grizzly photos of victims bodies) and other information at the La Porte County Historical Society.

Ben Casey: The Strength Of His Hands

A Deeply Moving Story About America's Most Exciting TV Personality

A New Novel * Never Seen On TV * First Publication

A Lancer Original paperback, by Sam Elkin, Copyright 1963, Bing Crosby Productions

From the back:

A WISE AND JUST MAN

Ben Casey: He Must decide on the wisdom of writing a book based on his experiences...

Ben Casey: A great humorist has lost the will to live... what can he do?

Ben Casey: Was he falling in love, or was this a superficial attraction...?

Ben Casey: The most exciting television personality of the last decade.

Ben Casey: The Strength Of His Hands: an unforgettable, completely new novel. Never on television! Never before published!

The Trix Rabbit Was A Penis Bearing Trickster

Upon learning that the Trix Rabbit "is probably the most striking example of a cereal trickster who closely follows the mythic conventions of the North American tricksters in particular," I began to ponder "tricksters" again.

In case you are too lazy to click the above link (tsk tsk), here's some info from Tricksters and the Marketing of Breakfast Cereals, by Thomas Green, The Journal of Popular Culture (Volume 40, Issue 1, Page 49-68, February, 2007) that you'll need to keep along with the class:

In his basic form, the Trix Rabbit resembles mythical trickster figures in that he is an anthropomorphized animal, like the hare trickster Wakjunkaga. He exhibits the insatiable hunger typical of Wakjunkaga, but not for foods typically associated with rabbits. He desires only the Trix brand breakfast cereal, and is willing to cheat and deceive in order to get it. In the early days of Trix, the variations on the specific disguise that the Rabbit adopted were still closely identified with the plot premise: He was attempting to appear as something other than a rabbit, so a little old lady or astronaut disguise would do. In more recent years the disguises have begun to take on the form of whatever the advertisers perceive as popular with kids at the time, so in the 1980s the Rabbit disguised himself as a breakdancer, and, most recently, a karaoke singer. In any case, the Rabbit is using these disguises, to appear more human than rabbit, which emphasizes the way in which the Trix Rabbit most closely corresponds to the archetypal Radin/Jung trickster.

Jung, in particular, theorized, in a now largely discounted but still interesting way, that the trickster figure represents the psychological state of humanity making the transition from animal to human. Using Radin's description of Wakjunkaga as a touchtone, Jung describes the trickster cycle as demonstrating how the trickster gradually comes to greater levels of control over his selfish, predatory, animalistic impulses—associated with animal physical forms such as the hare, the coyote, and the raven. In this way, according to Jung, Radin's trickster evolves into a thereomorphic culture hero who sacrifices himself to give gifts to humankind, which is the hallmark of humanity in this scheme (144).

But what Green doesn't tell you may put your breakfast cereal in a whole new red light.

Paul Radin, who Green mentioned, was an anthropologist who focused mainly on folk literature and religion among Native Americans (among others) and wrote The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. This initial trickster treatise was published in 1955 after studying Winnebago myths.

Of this work, Karin Glinden writes Trickster:

The Winnebago Trickster cycle of forty-nine stories is central in his book, The Trickster and is the most referenced trickster figure of his writings by subsequent students of Native American tricksters. According to Radin the translation of the tricky one in a Siouan language of the Winnebago is wakdjunkaga; accordingly this specific trickster cycle is also known as the Wakdjunkaga Trickster cycle.

(Please note, there are several spellings of wakdjunkaga (Green used "wakjunkaga" and I've also seen "Wisakejak" & "Wisakedjak" for the Cree trickster.)

Among the forty nine stories are the story of Wakdjunkaga taking his extremely large and weighty penis from the box off his back where he carries it to send it across the river to impregnate a chief's daughter and the story of the talking laxative bulb consumed by the trickster resulting in effluent scatological comedies.

According to Glinden, Radin concludes his study by saying:

The overwhelming majority of all so-called trickster myths in North America give an account of the creation of the earth, or at least the transforming of the world, and have a hero who is always wandering, who is always hungry, who is not guided by normal conceptions of good or evil, who is either playing tricks on people of having them played on him and who is highly sexed. Almost everywhere he has some divine traits. These vary from tribe to tribe. In some instances he is regarded as an actual deity, in others as intimately connected with deities, in still others he is at best a generalized animal or human being subject to death (155).

But the effluent scatological comedy plot thickens... as Glinden writes:

Trickster myths are found in nine of the eleven Native American Regions (Hynes 3). Koshare, Koyemshi, and Neweke are trickster clowns of the Pueblo people who display wanton voracity, sexual and otherwise, but are confined to ritual ceremonies (Leeming 46). Other common animal-person tricksters besides the Hare and Spider are the Raven and Coyote. "Coyote…easily the favorite…crosses tribal boundaries with as much ease as he crosses moral and social ones. He exists is the West from Alaska to the great deserts, he is everywhere on the Great Plains, and he ranges even to the East Coast"(Leeming 48). Coyote is often a teacher by counter-example as he employs base human traits including lying, cheating, and sexual misconduct.

It should be noted at this time that tricksters are not really thought of as shape-shifters; they may have the ability, but the key is that the trickster is disguised, just as the Trix Rabbit, in order to fool or expose foolish things. Trickster may fool, be fooled, but he also teaches; this is his purpose.

Also, the trickster is not male or female but rather is genderless meaning that a trickster may be of any gender -- but they are not Two Spirit People, expressing the gender continuum.

While a trickster may appear as any gender, most often they are depicted as male. This is for two reasons.

One, in stories where the lesson lies in sexual misconduct the male member is most useful -- nothing illustrates sexual impulsivity like a penis!

The other reason lies in cultural constructs which allows and disallows freedoms based upon gender. In Transformation Of The Trickster, Helen Lock writes of the cultural situationality of trickster gender:

...both Landay and Jeanne Rosier Smith, in Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Literature (1997), which focuses on women writers, make the crucial point that tricksters are culturally specific. In the patriarchal societies that produced the archetypal tricksters Hyde discusses, the very qualities that enabled the trickster to operate belonged culturally to men, or, as Landay puts it, “[I]n a sexist society, the male trickster clearly has the advantages of masculinity: mobility, autonomy, power, safety” (2). These advantages are in themselves gender-neutral, but are gendered by cultural association. Trickster is not gendered—only cultural perceptions of the freedom and mobility necessary to be trickster. Thus, premodern tricksters were imagined as primarily masculine, though with gender-changing abilities, while the alchemical age saw Mercurius as fully hermaphroditic (representing also the “female aspects of matter” [Nicholl 32] as part of his elusive ambiguity), but gave this transformative spirit the masculine name of the god whose powers they perceived it to embody; and now, particularly in modern Western literature and culture (although such figures abound elsewhere, also), Landay and Smith find many female trickster figures, from Toni Morrison’s Pilate to Catwoman. Each age redefines the trickster it needs, as the boundaries of the possible, in this case for women, continue to shift; and although Hyde may be right that there are no modern tricksters in the sense of the archaic archetype that depended on a world of polytheism, it seems more appropriate to say that tricksters have always resisted the confinement of archetype, and modify and transform it whenever a new age gives them a chance.

Speaking of new age...

I find it interesting that there are a number of tarot cards which feature Coyote Trickster. On one hand, this is due to a popular resurgence of interest with Native American culture, sometimes on a more pop level than a scholarly one. But it certainly makes sense that tricksters would hold an appeal to those who like to deal with symbols, including not only authors but those who use tarot cards.

There is something fascinating about the mutability of tricksters which easily lends to twists, modifications and new or different interpretation. My Daughter of the Moon Tarot, a very female centric tarot deck of Dianic Wiccan principals, offers a Coyotewoman card which is optional to use rather than the Pan card (the only male card in the deck -- and a positive male energy card).





It was, strangely, this Coyotewoman card which made me once obsessed with tricksters.

Which is not surprising, given my Judeo-Christian up-bringing. From Glinden again:

Taking note of this is to underline a fundamental difference in the psyches of Native and non Native Americans. Inherent in Christian mythology is the concept of tragedy as one can fall from a rigidly defined sense of order. When there is no coherent order to fall from, rather a creation birthed from paradox that is inclusive of both sacred and profane, there is no tragedy. Tricksters bring instead comedy, a communal adhesive.

Oral stories were told for specific reasons within the separate cultures of Native Americans; the revered storyteller tailored the story while speaking to distinct people of the group being addressed. It is difficult to ascertain the full extent of the messages from these historic trickster stories as they were respectfully told to and altered for the people they were told to, which also accounts for the myths' mutability. However, the trickster is prevalent in contemporary Native American literature. The messages are apropos in light of the movement of Native Americans to deconstruct old stereotypes of American Indians and renew a vital consciousness about their identities and clearly accessible to the contemporary reader.

For more on tricksters, see the Introduction to Native American Tricksters by K. L. Nichols.

Image credits: Image of coyote and stars by Layne Miller, via.

Playboy Factoids: March, 1956

It was in the March issue of '56 that Playboy debuted the triple-page centerfold and Marian Stafford took the honors.



Stafford also was the first to be photographed with a dog, her own poodle, in Playboy.


I suppose I should be posting such things in a timely manner and make this post in March; but I'm not that organized I'm whimsical.

Cover via.

More photos of Marian Stafford here.

Dirty Money

Did you hear the one about the guy who parachuted out of the plane he'd just hijacked clutching a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash -- only to disappear? No, it's not a joke; it's the story of DB Cooper, the 1971 mystery in which neither Cooper nor the marked money was found.

However, in 1980, a young boy, 8-year-old Brian Ingram, playing along the banks of the Columbia River, found wads of the decomposing twenty dollar bills from Cooper's heist. A few years later, at age 14, Ingram was given a portion of the found money as a sort of 'finder’s fee', but the finder's not playing keepers; he's now auctioning them off.


So is his ex-wife, Christy Austin, who received some Cooper bills during their marriage, claiming the proceeds are earmarked for their daughter, Kara.

Austin claims Ingram, her ex-husband, owes $60,000 in child support for Kara and says, "I wanted to see if I could sell one of mine. Since our daughter may never see the majority of her child support Brian owes her, I thought this may be a way to add to her college savings fund I have for her."

And that's how dirty wads of Cooper's money are now a part of Kara's family tree and her own sex history.

Men, Not Sure What To Do With Your Lingerie Collection?

If you're not sure what to do with your lingerie collection when you pass, check out Panty Tontine -- and if you're not sure why this is needed, read the full-panty-scoop here.

Now, a gratuitous vintage lingerie Playboy pic (Gloria Windsor, April, 1957):

See More Of Debra Paget

Found at Infomercantile (becoming an addiction, even though it's rarely smutty), is this slide of Debra Paget:


My guess is that it's an amateur shot taken at a performance sometime in the late 50's or early 60's -- which was around the time of her two marriages and matching divorces, and perhaps explains the confidence-building skirt slit, sans panties.

Strange Are The Ways Of Love (MP3 hosted again by the fine folks at Sex-Kitten.Net), but we all understand the need to bolster one's self-image post divorce -- even if it involves showing a bit more below the belt than the fashions and times warrant. (No wonder some love Paget more than Monroe.)

Strange Are The Ways Of Love was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Song, for The Young Land (1959).

There is more to see and hear from Debra at this fan site -- but be warned, the colors may harm your retinas.

Paget's still alive, but I don't suppose this post will help me garner an interview.

Show & Tell Adult Meme: End Of The Year Edition

I don't normally participate in memes, adult or not, but The Marketing Whore's year end meme seemed worthy of participation as a way to reflect on a few things...

1 What was your very favorite post you made this past year?

My first thought was my post on why this blog's not about me, but as I'm playing this meme about me, it seems rather too ironic... So I'll go with the Bumper Crop by Sample Simon because it exists nowhere else and I'm proud to bring that to the 'net. *wink*

2 What post was the most effective post you made this past year? (Based on links to it, comments, emails, sales etc.)

Are my comments to be included or am I to subtract them from the count? Since it's my blog and I opt to avoid too much math, I'm deciding that my comments do count (am I not important too?)

That means the post on the adult collector community wins. However, as I whore that at the top of the sidebar, I'll note the runner-up too, which is this Mute Monday post. But, since that is a meme, if we're to rank which of my posts which stands on it's own merits, that would be What We Learn From Porn & Men's Magazines.

3 What are three of your favorite posts/articles that you've read this past year? (Not your own, but the works of others.) And do tell us all why you selected them.

First I'm going to mention Peter's Beauty in Darkness because it's an excellent blog digging up history of BDSM. I wish I could comment there, but it requires me to register and I hate another login dealio... (However, as he continues to find very cool stuff and ponder history, I fear I may have to.) Since I have been too lazy to do so as of yet, I point to his entire blog.

Now, as for particular posts...

Shon's post on porn moves me because he, however incorrectly, ponders to what degree his porn collection was the responsible for the end of his marriage.

While I will continually stress that porn does not end marriages -- incompatablity does -- his honest musing of such territory is to be commended. (I'm sure Shon would prefer I point out a stellar piece of fiction, for which he is deservedly famous, but I have to be honest and direct you to what I feel is noteworthy for it's alternating ugly anger, apologetic justifications, and lusty loathing. But while there, please do stop and enjoy a saucy tale.)

Last, but certainly not least, is Secondhand Rose's short story Warm Wet Velvet. It's rare that I point you all to an erotic story, that's true; but this story captures the essence of early sci-fi, the aroma of loneliness, and the texture of, well, warm wet velvet, bringing them -- and the reader -- to the sort of climax that lingers... Kudos, Miss Rose.

4 What was the most surprising thing you learned in 2007?

That the posts which consistently receive the most comments are the short posts of mainly images. Duh, the blog's got 'porn' in the title... And people have short attention spans.

I guess that's not as surprising as the fact that I keep on making larger, juicy, written posts. *wink*

Those longer posts do get comments -- and emails too. But some days, I wonder why when there is the most to talk about, there is less for others to say... Is it possible that I say everything that can be said? *wink*

5 What was the most valuable thing or lesson you learned in 2007?

Every blogger dreams of being selected for the cool kids' table by being mentioned at sites like Boing Boing and I was thrilled to actually achieve this honor in 2007 (Wo0t! -- this is me, beaming from ear-to-ear!) From the honor (and other similar linkage) I learned the following:

* that few visitors bother to visit the rest of the site

* that, again, the popular posts are quick and image laden (while I bust my hump to provide detailed, original and well-researched posts)

Ironically, and I refer you to question #4, I don't seem to stop the long posts.

But the big lesson here is that ultimately I blog here because I find this stuff interesting; the rest of you be damned.

6 Is there anything you wanted to learn this past year that you did not? Why not? And are you going to make this a goal for 2008?

Learn? How about "covet"? Couldn't that be an option instead? No? Damn, you're a demanding Marketing Whore!

I still am looking for information on many of the items listed in the help label/tag.

I continue to search, but am hoping readers will provide help -- hence the tag, dear readers.

Optional (but worth 100 extra Marketing Whore Bucks lol): For most of us, guarding our identities means not taking/publishing photos, but I double-dog dare you to take some photo of yourself, crop it to remove what you think is necessary to keep your privacy but still gives something special (and hopefully naughty) of you away ~ and publish it on your blog.

I might consider breaking my rules if Marketing Whore Bucks were redeemable for Gracie's vintage porn & historical sex stash -- I've seen bits of it, and I want it!

Because I am so greedy, I will consent to taking & posting an obscure photo of myself...



Yes, that's my slightly-aroused nipple looming over the cover of a March, 1969, Playboy.

Gracie, the porn had better be in the mail.

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Dario Moreno & Brigitte Bardot

Via Schadenfreudian Therapy we find this delightful video of Turkish singer Dario Moreno dancing with Brigitte Bardot, from the film Come Dance With Me:

Modern Vs. Vintage Porn: Is The Problem The Director's Cut?

In Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge, Gracie carries on with our discussion of vintage Playboy covers:

The details of what the viewer could do, would do if given the chance, was all inside their own heads; viewers were therefore their own directors. But with porn and video the action was no longer inside our own heads, others directed it. All we had to do was add lube and work our hands.

Sometimes I am convinced that what most people are complaining about when they say they hate porn, even wanting to restrict it further, is not that they are against publications or films which are solely for sexual arousal and release but rather that they are unmoved by it. Porn has in many cases removed the imagination of the viewer, directed us not as we desire, but forced us to see things which remove the mystery. We no longer have time to be seduced by the people before us before we are tossed into the action; graphic images of genitalia spread across our screens before we've even decided we'd take him or her home.

I'd love to hear what you have to say, so if you promise to go read it & comment, I promise to post more images later today...

Marilyn Chambers Collectible

Limited edition Marilyn Chambers Statue: Collectible 18 inch tall resin painted statue featuring sexy removable clothes and a highly detailed sculpt; pre-order for shipping Wednesday 30 April, 2008.

Female Art Nudes by Mancini

Nudes by Antonio Mancini, featured in both The New York Times and The Broad Street Review due to the current exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Cora! Cora! Cora!

I've loved this photo for a long time -- the image of the waspie waist woman as she tries to inhale off the fancy cigarette was etched into my mind the first time I saw it years ago. However, being posted in a forum, no one knew who it was a photo of; it was just an image which circulated in the kink & vintage erotica communities I've visited through the years. Each time I inquired for info, but even the image name was just a bunch of numbers.

Eventually someone knew this was a photo of Cora; I now had something to work with.

I wasn't the only one searching... Andrea Johnson, before I, was searching for the woman too. She had spotted this photo in a copy of a 1972 Domination Annual and became smitten:


The story of Andrea's search for info about Cora (who she has dubbed Cora Korsett) is a great collector's story. So go read it -- there are lots more photos of Cora there too.

And if you have any info on Cora, please do share it!

Vintage Playboy Magazine Covers

Does anyone else miss the kitschy cut-and-paste-y covers of vintage Playboy mags?






Even without nudes or teasing vixens the covers were cute.




Via.

Of Mae West, Radio & Dummies

On December 12, 1937, Mae West appeared in two sketches on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's radio show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, then the currently the highest-rated program of the year. She appeared as herself, promoting her Paramount Pictures film, Every Day's a Holiday. On the radio show, West, as to be expected, flirted with Charlie McCarthy, Bergen's dummy, and displayed her risqué wit & sexual euphemisms.


Here's an snippet of the second sketch, via the Mae West Gala blog:

Charlie: Could you even like Mr. Bergen?

Mae: Ah, Mr. Bergen. He’s very sweet. In fact, he’s a right guy. Confidentially, yuh’ll have to show me a man I don’t like.

Charlie: That’s swell! Bergen’s your man. You know, he can be had.

Mae: On second thought, I’m liable to take him away from yuh.

Charlie: Well, if you take Bergen away, I’m speechless. (Laughter.)

Mae: Why don’t you come up … uh, home with me now, honey? I’ll let you play in my woodpile. (Laughter.)

Charlie: Well, I’m not feeling so well tonight. I’ve been feeling nervous lately. I think I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown. Whuup! There I go.

Mae: So, good-time Charlie’s gonna play hard to get? Well, yuh can’t kid me. You’re afraid of women. Your Casanova stuff is just a front, a false front.

Charlie: Not so loud, Mae, not so loud! All my girlfriends are listening.

Mae: Oh, yeah! You’re all wood and a yard long …

Charlie: (weakly): Yeah.

Mae: Yuh weren’t so nervous and backward when yuh came up to see me at my apartment. In fact, yuh didn’t need any encouragement to kiss me.

Charlie: Did I do that?

Mae: Why, yuh certainly did. I got marks to prove it. (Snickering from audience) An’ splinters, too. (Laughter).

If that last line sent the NBC censors and the FCC into panic, it was the earlier sketch which was the most trouble.

The earlier sketch starred West and Don Ameche as Adam and Eve in the Garden Of Eden. Here's part of it, as reported by Time on Jan. 24, 1938:

Snake: That's the forbidden tree.

Eve: Oh, don't be technical. Answer me this—my palpitatin' python—would you like to have this whole Paradise to yourself?

Snake: Certainly.

Eve: O.K., then pick me a handful of fruit— Adam and I'll eat it—and the Garden of Eden is all yours. What do ya say?

Snake: Sssounds all right . . . but it's forbidden fruit.

Eve: Listen, what are you—my friend in the grass or a snake in the grass?

Snake: But forbidden fruit.

Eve: Are you a snake or are you a mouse?

Snake: I'll—I'll do it. (hissing laugh)

Eve: Now you're talking. Here—right in between those pickets.

Snake: I'm—I'm stuck.

Eve: Oh—shake your hips. There, there now, you're through.

Snake: I shouldn't be doing this.

Eve: Yeh, but you're doing all right now. Get me a big one. ... I feel like doin' a big apple.

Snake: Here you are, Missuss Eve.

Eve: Mm—oh, I see—huh—nice goin', swivel hips.

Snake: Wait a minute. It won't work. Adam'll never eat that forbidden apple.

Eve: Oh, yes, he will—when I'm through with it.

Snake: Nonsense. He won't.

Eve: He will if I feed it to him like women are gonna feed men for the rest of time.

Snake: What's that?

Eve: Applesauce.

The sketch was written by Arch Oboler (before his Lights Out fame). According to Old-Time.com:

NBC wanted to present something special for Miss West, so the powers that be turned to one of their most promising young writers, Arch Oboler. "That script came about this way," Oboler recalled on television’s The Merv Griffin Show on August 2, 1973. "NBC called upon me one day in Westwood . . . they were in trouble on the Edgar Bergen show. I knew they always were in trouble on that show, but they were in particular because John Erskin had written a book called Adam and Eve. Miss West didn’t like it, Charlie didn’t like it, Edgar . . . didn’t matter [jokingly laughs], and Don Ameche was playing the lead. So they asked me, would I write this ten-minute sketch? Well, I wasn’t interested in writing for Miss West. Finally, they waved enough money at me, and my good resolves went down the drain, but I made one condition: I said I would write about Adam and Eve only if I could take it out of the book – which I collaborated with years before – that is the Bible [jokingly]. The show was to be rehearsed on Saturday, going on the air on Sunday. This was Thursday, so I stayed up all night with my dear wife, who I married because she knew how to take things down, and I wrote this sketch. It was taken right out of Genesis."

..."Now one thing the powers-that-be forgot," recalled Oboler, "that in those days, unlike today, there were three things that an actress could not do. One was to have a child out of wedlock. Two, she could not swear, and three, she could not wear glasses. It was thought terrible for an actress to wear glasses. Well, Miss West, having all the usual good sense of all of us, didn’t wear her glasses during the rehearsals so she, being very nearsighted never saw my script. She bluffed her way through. It wasn’t until air time that she walked on stage waving these glasses, put them on . . . and for the first time saw the script. The result was disaster. What she did to ‘Adam and Eve’ the Arabs had never done so miserably."

Dorothy Lamour recounted in her 1981 autobiography, My Side of the Road, "One week our special guest was Mae West, who was to play Eve to Don Ameche’s Adam, in a takeoff on the Bible story. Church groups were outraged and the mail came pouring in. I can’t even remember what she said that was so terrible, but I’m sure it was mild by today’s standards."

What Mae West said wasn’t so bad as how she said it. Telling the serpent that "I feel like doin’ a big apple" was one comment ad-libbed, but when the serpent got stuck between the picket fences in an attempt to fetch the forbidden fruit, West exclaimed with the emotion of a woman going through an orgasm, "They’re – They’re! Now you’re through!"

Edgar Bergen was shocked. "We had to have a star each week," he recalled, "and she seemed a logical choice. She was a sex star. We were fully aware of that. ‘Adam and Eve’ as you probably know, had been performed before without any untoward incidents. Possibly our program being on Sunday and having a little fun with the Bible was dangerous. We always had two rehearsals; one on Saturday evening, after which we rewrite and tighten, and then we would do a Sunday afternoon read-through. At that read-through, Mae read her lines straight. It was obvious she knew what she was doing – how to lay out line – but she didn’t give things that Mae West twist until the broadcast. I’ve always said that we had far more permissive material on a previous show."

The conversation/performance was considered so risqué & bordering on blasphemous that not only was the FCC involved, but West was banned from being featured -- or even mentioned -- on the NBC network. She did not perform again on radio until 1949.

Of her performance, Mae West, in her autobiography Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, said:

There was nothing offensive in the dialogue or it would never have gotten on the air in the first place. I only gave the lines my characteristic delivery. What else could I do? I wasn't Aimee Semple McPherson. Or Lincoln at Gettysburg, or John Foster Dulles, or even Eleanor Roosevelt. I was Mae West. Sunday on radio doesn't alter one's personality. The trouble wasn't caused by the portion of the program in which I traded wisecracks with the bundle of splinters called Charlie McCarthy. It was the 'Adam and Eve' sketch, with me as Eve and Don Ameche as Adam. The sketch had been approved by the radio people and their usual vice-presidents, as all material must be before it is permitted to be broadcast to an innocent America. I had scarcely had time to read over the sketch before the broadcast rehearsal.

But West's performance wasn't the only trouble with the Adam & Eve sketch.

A woman from Texas had written a story about Adam and Eve and claiming plagiarism she sued the network, NBC, and Arch Oboler. Oboler had to go to court and via that same Old-Time.com link, the writer recalls:

"His first question," continued Oboler, "was ‘Mr. Oboler, where were you on February twenty-second – blah, blah, blah.’ And as long as I live, I’ll remember my answer because I was under oath. I said, ‘In the bedroom’ because, you see, Miss West does all of her business in her bedroom. She pays her bills in her bedroom, and she rehearses in her bedroom. So the judge’s next question – he looked at me very suspiciously as if I were the Henry Kissinger of my time – and he said, "Exactly, Mr. Oboler, what were you doing – and remember you’re under oath – what were you doing with Miss West?’ And his face turned bright red and he said, ‘I withdraw the question.’ And that was the end of that."

Ha!

Few opportunities and heavy NBC censorship means there are few radio shows with Mae; you can find a few of them at Old Time Radio Show Catalog, and at eBay (including this record album).

When asked about being censored Mae West reportedly said, "I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it."

Xavier Cugat: Creative Cool-Cat With All The Kittens

Xavier Cugat, the Rhumba King, is as known for his love life as he is his Latin rhythms.



A notorious womanizer, he married five times:

#1 Rita Montaner
#2 Carmen Castillo
#3 Lorraine Allen
#4 Abbe Lane (In his bands for many years, until their divorce.)
#5 Charo (She & Cugat were the first couple to marry at Caesars Palace when it opened in Las Vegas in 1966.)

Cugat also has many film credits, mainly for playing himself.

From Stage Door Canteen (1943) here's Lina Romay (not this Lina Romay) with Cugat & orchestra, performing She's a Bombshell from Brooklyn:



Lina Romay sings Antonio in the motion picture The Heat's On (1944)with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra.



Cugat supposedly gave Rita Hayworth one of her first jobs, and so later appeared with her in You Were Never Lovelier, but I remember him from so many of Esther Williams films, including the remake of Annette Kellerman's Neptune's Daughter.

Via A Damn Find Product's post we learn that Xavier Cugat was also a talented illustrator. Exhibit A, cover of Game & Gossip, 1932:



Exhibit B, Fandango - Dance Rhythms - IV (from Game & Gossip, 1932):


Perhaps the most fascinating is this fold-out with 74 caricatures of the most popular Hollywood celebrities such as Fanny Brice, Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, Constance Bennett, Billie Dove, Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin.


For more names, see the list of names and the key; but note the following: Dietrich could not even pose in Cugat's imagination with Garbo, and note how powerful women were -- their names & personalities still awe.

That Cugat would was an illustrator shouldn't be shocking. Golden Age of illustration notwithstanding, Cugat was a bit of a money-grubbing sell-out jack-of-all-trades who's been quoted as saying, "I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve." According to Solid!:

Cugat was often depicted in publicity photos holding a chihuahua and a pipe, even though he didn't smoke. He was never the one to miss out on a good business opportunity, however. He cashed in on this image and began selling his own line of pipes. He also started a chihuahua breeding business which featured documentation certifying that the dogs were Cugat dogs. Cugat never met a marketing deal he didn't like. Over the years he hawked a diverse line of products, including cigarette lighters and shirts, and also owned several Los Angeles-area restaurants. In addition Cugat was a talented caricaturist. His work appeared in newspapers, magazines and galleries around the world. During the 1920s he worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times newspaper while playing music at night.

Perhaps this is why Cugat was never without beautiful women.