Post-Coital Smoke?

Such a frightening ad portraying a woman woken in the middle of the night to find a cat burglar smoking in her boudoir.



British Abdulla Cigarette Advertisement, 1926.

Hey Dad, We Just Needed More Sexy Ads In Playboy

We used to own a Just Pants store; it was a miserable failed business experience, in part due to the double books being kept at the time of the sale. ...But maybe it was a lack of advertising?

Found in the December 1970 issue of Playboy, a decade prior to our owning the store, a sexy ad that actually lists the store we owned. Maybe if we had kept up with ads like this, I'd still be measuring men's inseams & climbing that denim wall.

(The scan is huge; I can't tell you how much this find thrilled me.)

"Paint Me"

I found this at eBay and know little about it -- but that only fascinates me more...

Unusual 50" X 27" poster for "Texoprint printing paper". Little circles of women with painted bodies are glued over the poster in spots.

Odalisque Perfume Ads Stink

Nettie Rosenstein's Odalisque Perfume ads in the 40's and 50's romanticized "odalisque" including the risque use of artistic nudes in the print ad campaigns.



"Odalisque" is a French form of the Turkish odalık, meaning "chambermaid." The term specifically signifies a virgin female slave who, being the lowest ranking member of a harem, was not allowed to serve the sultan but instead his concubines and/or wives.

There's not a whole lot of romance there, Nettie Rosenstein; not in being a slave, not in being the one to deal with the piss-pots of the harem, not in being too-lowly to even deal with the master -- unless, of course, you could prove a 'talent' and work your way 'up' from piss-pots to male pissing tools and be a sexual servant.

But Nettie was not alone in romanticizing these women. In the 19th century, odalisques were common fantasy figures in the Orientalism movement, featured in many erotic paintings from that era.

GE Wants You To Keep The Lights On

The Pink Pussycat Of Hollywood

Ephemera from The Pink Pussycat of Hollywood, 7969 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood 46, OL 4-0280

Pop Tart traded all of this to me for a player to be named latter. Thank you!

A napkin (one of two!)

The Pink Pussy Cat
Burlesk
"A STAGE FULL
OF THE MOST
EXCITING
GIRLS IN THE WORLD"

A table topper, proclaiming a two drink minimum per person (exclusive of food):

HARRY SCHILLER
presents
The Pink Pussycat
BURLESK
you'll
PURR!!!
when you see
"A stage full of
the most exciting
girls in the
world."

But The Pink Pussycat was more than a club... It was a college of strip tease too. Per Time, November 10, 1961:

Once upon a time, little girls agrowing used to think dreamily of the day they would matriculate at Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr or Sweet Briar. But with the population explosion, those colleges, can no longer take care of everyone, and some girls have to settle for less. In Los Angeles, for example, there is the Pink Pussycat College of Striptease.

Founded six months ago, old Pussycat is steeped in tradition, and the campus bustles with a sense of purpose. "There are lots of girls who want to strip, but few know how," said President Harry Schiller in his first baccalaureate address. "Now they got a place where they can come and learn."

Tuition at Pussycat is $100 for a ten-session curriculum. After such basic, required courses as The History and Theory of the Striptease and The Psychology of Inhibitions, girls can major in everything from Applied Sensual Communication to Dynamic Mammary, Navel, and Pelvis Rotation. The entire faculty is Sally Marr, 52, mother of four-letter Comedian Lenny Bruce. With knowledgeability gained during her career as a tank nightclub comedienne, Professor Marr lectures her pupils: "Keep your eyes on the audience at all times. Learn how to look at one man and take your clothes off for him. Not too much bump and not too much grind—that's passé and went out with Minsky."

To prepare for a screen role in Seven Thieves, Actress Joan Collins dropped in at Pink Pussycat College to see how it is done. But most undergraduates are less celebrated—ambitious unknowns with names like Dee Pontius and Jo Lynn, who will go out into the world after graduation with new professional names selected by the college's vocational-guidance department: Peeler Lawford, Fran Sinatra, Toni Curtis.

Old Pussycat, says President Schiller, is filling a vital need "in a field barren of talent and ideas." Indeed, just as Cambridge University developed soon after Oxford, old Pussycat may some day stand at the head of a great line of U.S. institutions of higher learning, ranging from the University of Pantsylvania to Tartmouth and M. I. Tease.

And I've got the application too, © 1962. The cover:



From the inside:

Admission Requirements:

1. Over twenty one

2. High moral character

3. Seriously interested in the art of strip tease

4. Voluptuous body

Tuition: $100

Vocational advice and assistance is provided for all students

COURSES OF INSTRUCTION

1. History and Theory Of the Strip Tease

2. Psychology of Inhibitions

3. Controlling the Structural Components Of the Anatomy

4. Applied Sensual Communication

5. Elementary Bumps and Grinds

6. Methodoology of Teasing, Tantalizing, and Titillating

7. Fundamentals of Taking-It-Off

8. Dynamic Mammary, Navel, and Pelvic Rotation and Oscillation

9. Experimental Workshop

10. Advanced Studies and Seminar In New Trends and Techniques Of the Strip Tease

Here's the application itself.



And tucked inside, an insert for a Pink Pussycat Tease-Shirt, © 1966:

What's pink and cuddly and worn almost all over? And has "THE NAVEL ACADEMY OF THE WEST" written in purrrfectly svelte black velveteen? And is 100% warm, cuddly, pussycat-pink cotton? And you can buy it only from the famous Pink Pussycat in Hollywood? And costs only $5.00
Give up? She will... when you give her the Pink Pussycat Tease-Shirt.

The order form:

High-Five Fridays

This week's High-Five Fridays...

1) The Femmeinist Fuck Toy's guilty pleasures: 50s and 60s (sexist) movies.

2) Here's Looking Like You, Kid dishes on Sophia Loren's seduction in The Millionairess (1960).

3) Do you know who Jeri is? Pop Tarts wants to know.

4) Slip of a Girl is amused by this vintage lingerie ad.

5) Gracie shows us Wives Legal Rights, a Dell Purse Book, 1965.

I Am Officially Amused

Ads on page 14 of the San Francisco-Bay Area Official Amusement Guide, Week beginning May 4, 1967.



Galaxie ad: "Pretties Topless Dancers", featuring Jeani Monroe, original amateur topless contest, record stars Rick Stevens Four.

And ad for Finocchio's Worlds Greatest Female Impersonators, featuring Jackie Phillips, "The Riotous Redhead."

Moulin Rouge promo for Marta Dane -- "The Gorgeous Dane".

And Follies Burlesk, oddly enough, promoted themselves as having "S.F.'s only live stage show" -- which implies that Jeani, Jackie, Marta and the rest were dead? The Follies Burlesk also had "Girls Galore" and "Zany Comics" (dibs on that last one as my stage name!)

To Provide For The Various Phases Incident To Love, Courtship & Marriage

Love Letters With Directions How To Write Them by Ingoldsby North includes "the Art of Secret Writing, the language of Love portrayed, and rules of grammar" -- Because the various phases incident to love are affected by grammar.


An ad in the back of Donohue's Vest Pocket Webster's Dictionary & Complete Manual of Parliamentary Practice, copyright 1901.

Reprints of the book are readily available.

That Ends Well, I Guess

I went to the Trash or Treasure events at the Plains Art Museum this past weekend and had Wes Cowan appraise that naughty bit of ephemera from the Jac F. Donges Hat & Glove shop/Schuch's Resort.



Cowan said it was "an advertising trade card", and worth "a couple of bucks".

I can't argue; that's what I paid. But what is it about ephemera which makes it so valuable to me yet utterly worthless as an antique or collectible?

I should just count my blessings that I can afford things like this which thrill me.

The lasting effect of the experience is that I'm acutely aware that I have more research to do on this piece. Perhaps that's my happy ending; more intellectual masturbation.

Lamps & Shades For The Red-Light Disctrict

A selection of ads featuring pin ups pushing lamps & lampshades.

Putting Holes In Vintage Lingerie Ads

Thank heavens that the background on this 1961 Kayser lingerie ad isn't pink -- it already looks like she's walking through a vagina.

Stereo-Typing Makes The Woman

Lauren Roberts' Typing Makes the Woman is a great read.


I command you to read it; or the boobies won't be bared here for quite some time. (Intelligent comment & discourse will be accepted as proof of reading.)

If That Pirate's Hand Were Any Limper...

This vintage ad, via Kitschy Kitschy Coo, extols the sex appeal of stamp collecting while exploiting horrible gay stereotypes.



Speaking of stamp collecting, one of my friends used to collect stamps but she tired of "all the lame jokes about being unwilling to lick things". As in, "She choses philately over fellatio," and "He'd rather lick stamps than his girlfriend -- but as a collector, he never licks stamps, so...".

I told her any cunning-liguist would have been able to turn each of those around to his or her favor; certainly any jokes about my collecting never deter me.

Marquee De Sade

Guy de Maupassant's The Private Affairs of Bel Ami is a film I've never seen (Bosley Crowther's review in The New York Times (June 16, 1947) was hardly kind; but it the film seems to have fans today, such as the folks at the Harvard Film Archive), but it matters not for my discussion of the film's posters/marketing materials, one of which I glimpsed at an auction recently.

These are examples I found on the web, the black & white looking like what I had briefly seen:



There were apparently (at least) two versions, each depicting a young Angela Lansbury fixed as firmly as a Chihuahua to a guest's leg (if not actually humping it), in desperate attempt to keep her man. This is as dramatic as film posters should be, and apparently in keeping with the story. But...

It's the taglines which draw my interest:

"All women take to men who have the appearance of wickedness"

"Are women too weak to be wicked?"

I suppose it's unfair to rile at such stereotypes when you have not seen the film nor read the novel, but from all accounts the story is that of a man who eschews love for power, willing to step on & then over women to get what he professes to want, which is money & social standing. How then does one feel free to label all women as drawn to the appearances of wickedness, an entire gender as weak? Wouldn't it be more fair to make the judgments about the man himself? Or at least use the word "some".

"It's to sell movie tickets," you say. But that's the part that bothers me.

If you want those who see the posters and read the ads to buy a ticket, you entice and seduce, not libel and offend -- or at least you do for an entertaining film, not a activist documentary. And so the point is that the taglines were not just accepting of such beliefs, but titillating -- indeed glorifying -- victimization, complete with damn-near titular advice on how to victimize women by exploiting the general gender gaffe.

Remember Bob

CR/LF talks about how Enzyte Bob got the shaft. Enzyte had some of the my very favorite commercials; I hope all this legal mess won't affect Bob -- I don't know that there's a pill for that *wink*



You can watch more of them here.

Hey, You've Got My Mermaid In Your Religion

Thanks to mlfoley of Irish Wit and German Sadism for showing us the "two great tastes that go great together", mermaids and Jesus, which forms religious prostitution: Flirty Fishing.


Don't let the candy-sweet comic illustrations of the pamphlets fool you, there's something here to stick in your craw, alright; it's the cult part that's like too much peanut butter -- sticky & hard to swallow.

Flirty Fishing (FFing) was the use of sex to show God's love and win converts as well as a means of raising financial support. It was practiced by the Family of Love (aka Children of God, the Family, and now the Family International or TFI) from 1974 until it was officially discontinued in 1987; due, in part, to the AIDS scare. The cute euphemism is traced to Matthew 4:19 where Jesus says "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

In the latter part of the '70s and early '80s, [David Berg], responding in part to the sexual liberality of that time period, presented the possibility of trying out a more personal and intimate form of witnessing which became known as 'Flirty Fishing' or 'FFing'. In his Letters at that time, he offered the challenging proposal that since 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8), and His Son, Jesus, is the physical manifestation and embodiment of God's Love for humanity, then we as Christian recipients of that Love are in turn responsible to be living samples to others of God's great all-encompassing Love. Taking the Apostle Paul's writings literally, that saved Christians are 'dead to the Law [of Moses]' (Romans 7:4), through faith in Jesus, [Berg] arrived at the rather shocking conclusion that Christians were therefore free through God's grace to go to great lengths to show the Love of God to others, even as far as meeting their sexual needs.

XFamily.org has more Flirty Fishing ephemera as well as additional writings by Berg or transcriptions of his speeches, called Mo Letters (the name "Mo Letters" derived from David Berg's pseudonym, Moses David).

Her Final Strokes...

Left him wet.


Image: Detail from Hunts Tomato Sauce Ad, Life, 1948, via Jello Kitty.

Where Hookers Rake It In

Via captain_boots.

"If Husbands Only Knew--"

Deanna (aka Pop Tart) knows how I do love these old trashy gossip magazines, so she sent me this scan -- and promises more to come...

If husbands only knew how much they are missing they would not wait another moment to read "Sex Fulfillment In Marriage." Many men (even those who have been married a long time) don't get half the delight because they don't know the knack of sexual intercourse!

As Deanna wrote in her post, some things never change.

The ad boasts of "Sex Charts and Explanations", including the female sex organs, "front and side views... The Internal Sex Organs... The External Sex Organs... Entrance to Female Genital Parts..." (Click to read the large scan.)

Ruan Lingyu Shanghai Posters

YueFenPai or Shanghia Posters are Chinese posters from the 1920's, often used for advertising. This one by Hu Boxiang is called LakeLadies and features Ruan Lingyu (and a friend) relaxing beside a lake.



This next one, also with Ruan, is a British American Tobacco Company Advertising Poster.

On Manners, Rude Dicks & Klondike Bars

Pop Tart at KKC shows us a few pages from her copy of Your Manners Are Showing, by Betty Betz (1946). My favorite one is this one:

How crude and rude of Dick to eat
While walking gaily down the street
(Perhaps he nibbles on the roam
Because he's starved by folks at home!)

If one is to believe that a crude and rude dick's behavior is based on how well he is satisfied at home, then no man earns a Klondike bar; his woman does.

And, by the same token, this girl is to "blame" for this rude dick's use of the LG Shine.

Does "Private Practice" Mean "Divorce Attorney"?

I imagine bald-but-hairy-chested attorney Neil Price swaggering through the discos, gold chains nestled in his sweaty chest hair, passing these out to similar looking married males...



Less work than chasing ambulances; and I'm sure they saved them, making them a pretty good promotional tool.

But still, images of gold-chain-wearing 70's dudes creepily fingering their matchbooks are going to keep me up tonight.

And no, I don't want to know if he had different versions for his potential female clients.

Via eBay.

London's Interglam Escorts, 1974

Via sixtiesbooks at Flickr.

"Moonshine, Jugged Elegance... Great For Makin' Hay"

Men's cologne ad from a 1966 Playboy.

In The Church Started By A Man Who Had Six Wives, Forgiveness Goes Without Saying

Ugly Doggy shows us this example from the "The Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue and Their Impact on American Culture" exhibit at the New York Public Library’s Science, Industry and Business Library.



(Apparently, The Episcopalian Church counts on Americans not to recall that Henry VIII killed two wives -- even after he broke with Catholicism so that he could get a divorce annulment of the marriage to his first wife. To secure such right to annul, he executed along the way. Forgiveness? My definition must be different... Unless Episcopalians are expecting forgiveness for calculated murders and other crimes; which could be a mighty fine religious selling point for some.)

At that post, Ugly Doggy also writes:

But going back to history, I have always sustained that through advertising you can tell a lot about a country's psychology.

In that sense, the same goes for the history of advertising. When seeing ads from the past, is easy to realize how our habits, manners and values have changed. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worst.

But as with our own pictures, where most of the time we couldn't believe we were wearing that or using that hair style, old advertising becomes the photo album of us as a society.

If you want to see some more old ads, check also these ones and this postings as well as these TV commercials.

Sounds a bit like our trips through sex history, ey?

Found via Tom McMahon.

Miss America Rates Dates

Miss America magazine, March 1947

Via LJ.

Lili St. Cyr Offers You A Hard On

A not-so-subtle ad for Lili St. Cyr lingerie.


I had no idea there were opera hose... Opera length gloves, sure; but not stockings. (Something for Slip of a Girl to educate me on, perhaps?)

Via Flickr.

The Best Hostess Always Proffers Pie

How's a man supposed to choose between Josie & Alexandra, Betty & Veronica, or Ginger & Mary Anne? Well, he chooses the girl who promises the most pie, of course.



Via LiveJournal.

Do You See What I See?

If you've been having difficulty seeing what I see here, perhaps this post will help.

Snopes investigates -- and confirms -- that an illustration from withdrawn Yellow Pages ad reveals risqué image when a portion of it is viewed upside-down.





There are a few other examples at Snopes of this image in advertising too.

I Taught An Old Dog New Tricks - With Nostalgia

Well, I certainly try!

Why Your Dad Wears Old Spice

All it took was one blonde babe and some smutty text -- enough to build a dream on.

Lea Mallenius has a soft spot for guys who wear Old Spice.

Girls like it. Is there a better reason to wear Old Spice?

PS Lea Mallenius seems to never have existed outside of this ad.

High-Five Fridays #22

High-Five Fridays is still on hiatus; but I'm still playing.

1) The Headless Werewolf finds Vampirella in his comics haul.

2) Slip of a Girl talks about sex history & lingerie as family heirlooms.

3) Dark Roasted Blend shows us lovely ladies of yesteryear.

4) Found In Mom's Basement shows us the amazing vintage ad shown at the left. I have only one question: Is it always illegal to kill stupid advertising guys?

5) A huge high-five to Will (of Hang Fire Books), for helping me get Pop Tart a belated birthday gift. I selected the Sunshine Biscuit ephemera (found in a first edition of the Kinsey report) with the a wacky signed note from Verce of Hexperience. Absolutely love it! So thanks -- and next time I'll have to buy something *wink*

Sea Of Parted Legs

One Leg Leads to Another is a gallery of graphics using the view through a person's parted legs -- via Thingsville, US.

What The Donges??

I picked up this scrap of paper at a sale recently -- and have become obsessed with it. Dating from no later than the 1920's, it's a promotional piece for an old genteel establishment selling hats & gloves to gentlemen (but as you shall see, there's much more to it!)

Jac. F. Donges
Founder of DONGES BAY
Who has GLOVES to Burn
And some that don't Burn
HATS and CAPS

319 Third Street
MILWAUKEE, WIS.

Now, this is interesting for several reasons... The Jac F. Donges Hat & Glove shop was a Milwaukee institution, only just closed in 2001 (replaced by :gasp: a Subway restaurant). And Donges Bay is a place I have been (hello, Sybaris in Mequon!). But little information exists on the company or the man who founded it &, apparently, Donges Bay.

Heavy research provides us with the fact that Jac and his brother, Charles, founded the area.



Charles, also a partner in the hat business (then called Donges Brothers), died June 28, 1894, and while he managed to be listed in the 1902 Notable men of Wisconsin, he's all but ignored in history and Jac gets all the credit.



Perhaps this is fair, for Jac was quite the character.

In 1842, his parents, Mr. Jacob Donges and his wife, emigrated to Milwaukee from Germany. In 1860 they had a son, Jacob Jr. Jacob Jr. or Jac, as he preferred to be called. Jac inherited the position of janitor at Milwaukee's City Hall from his father and then worked in the garment business for some friends, which led to opening his own shop.

As an entrepreneurial businessman, his financial success led to investments in real estate along the north shore of lake Michigan, specifically purchasing the Basler and Kemp farms along what is now known as Donges Bay. These were lands he'd seen in 1884 calling the beautiful deep ravine with a creek at its bottom empties into the lake "Fairy chasm", and vowed to own. This land, along with land co-owned by friends (such as Fred Usinger, founder of Usinger Sausage Co.), became part of the holdings of the Fish Creek Park Company, established September 13, 1892. The company issued 146 shares of stock, one each for the 146 acres, at $285 per share and offered to mainly friends of Jac's, creating a private summer resort community.

During the first ten years of Fish Creek Park, the stockholders were permitted to use the land in any way they chose, from informal Sunday picnics to the construction of summer homes.

Enter the other side of the old promotional paper.

WITHIN THE LINES
IN THE GOOD OLD U.S.A.
AT
DONGES BAY

ALL'S WELL
AT SCHUCH'S RESORT

I found no information on Schuch's Resort; however, there was a friend of Jac's, John Schuch, who built Chalet on the Lake resort and restaurant in the area, which is now called Mequon. (According to the Fish Creek Park Company records, things got dicey after the first decade, and the community of Fairy Chasm evolved into two sections, North Fairy Chasm becoming Mequon in 1957 and South Fairy Chasm becoming Bayside in 1955. Absolutely fascinating stuff, but I digress.)

Here's a vintage postcard of the dining room, and a platter from the restaurant:




Little else could be discovered about the Chalet, other than Mark Harmon's Dillinger was filmed there (with the location used to represent Little Bohemia) and that it was owned by Jerome Perlson from 1966 until 1990 when he retired and the restaurant was sold, replaced by the development of private homes.

Could this chalet been the Schuch's Resort of the old little flyer? Maybe...

But what makes this all interesting enough to be here at Silent Porn Star is what happens when you fold the piece of paper...


The classic finish to "All's well"... "That ends well." Complete with nude bottoms up in the air as mom, dad, and junior do handstands under the water.

Cute and risque, especially for a gentleman's hat & gloves shop, but I discovered even more.

Holding and worrying over this bit of old paper, trying to find more information on Donges. I read the few lines so many times, hoping for another clue...

That line, "within the lines" stuck out for me. It didn't seem to make much sense. A colloquialism? Mmmmaybe. But being aware of riddles and puns, I then noticed the strange lines about the boy in the water... Was there something within, between them?

My husband says I'm just seeing things, but if you block the image at the one line, and turn it upside down, I see some even more risque antics beneath the water...


Is it just me? Tell me what you see...

And please do tell me if you know more about Jac Donges et al. (I'm itching to get back to the area soon to see what I can research... And stay at the Sybaris, of course. *wink*)

PS Yes, I'm putting this under "Beefcake" because Donges was so wealthy, no doubt he was heavily pursued and likely quite a playboy or other which such privilege allows. At least until I'm proven otherwise.

Girls Like To Be Taken In

Vintage lingerie ad via A Slip of a Girl:

1980's S&M Advertising Cards

Vintage S & M advertising cards from England, 4" x 5 3/4".





These and others at a Tias

Memo Regarding Your Dirty Girl

Son, if you want her, chances are everyone else does too -- she may have even had a few. So be prepared to protect yourself from your angel with a condom.



Via StrangeCosmos.com.

Have A Fag

I'm going to.



Via Kitschy Kitschy Coo.

Clever Cleo

I'd love to know more about this pin... All the seller says is that it's a "Vintage Risque Clever Cleo Advertising Pinback Button." Not even any measurements. :sigh:

If anyone knows more, please do tell.



(Cleo may have been clever, but a seller sans information is not.)

"And Now A Saucy Word From The Sponsor..." 1967

The May 1967 issue of Pageant magazine (though apparently by this time a Macfadden-Bartell publication rather than a Hillman Periodicals one) examines sex in advertising.

"Ads are sexier than ever, whether they're selling cars, champagne, perfume, lingerie, movies, or even typewriters. What -- and who -- is behind this trend toward sugar-coated spice?" asks Claire Williams.

Naturally, the 10-page spread includes examples of ads filled with "erotic promises". (As usual, click to read the larger scans.)






On page 23, the article concludes:

So, it seems, sex in advertising is here to stay -- that is at least for awhile.

One thing the general public does not realize is that, until recently, advertisers were a powerful force for sexual restraint. But they were sensitive to the growing freedom of expression, the trend toward uninhibited communication. They recognized that times were changing and made adjustments so that they could talk to people in the language they could understand.

Thus, bright, saucy ads started to appear, and it is logical to assume that this risque spirit will catch on with the people writing the articles, too. The sexual revolution is infectious and seems to be spreading.

Meantime, stay tuned for a word from the sponsor; it may be the sauciest part of the show.

Get used to the covers; as you can see there is much more worthy of sharing from this issue. (Over time.)

The Pleasure Primer

An ad for an adult bedside reader found in the back of a 1950s vintage Western pulp magazine. Below, a copy of the book's jacket.

You Know What They Say About The Green Ones

Via Ads of the World, via Sara Winters.

"Young Marrieds are married to Peppernell"

And divorced by what, Cannon?

Vintage ad for Lady Peppernell Sheets (1957).

The Bare Truth Of Mountain Dew

Mountain Dew
One drink enough to make you hunt the bares

Seen on eBay -- I was hoping to find a better image and more info, but so far, no luck.

Retro & Risque Comedy Film Posters

Via Planet Fabulon, who raped and pillaged for the medical ones, come these fun British movie posters.




Also not to be missed, the collector's 'mission statement', titled Why Do I Collect?, which begins:

I have encouraged my wife to believe my collection will be worth a fortune to her when I die. I don't think she is totally convinced and is right to be skeptical. It is just the best justification I can come up with for what is a pretty strange and expensive hobby: collecting discarded advertising material.

Oh, just go enjoy the whole site -- you'll be glad you did.

The Happiness Of Context

As the blog header states: this isn't just smut here, it's sex history. And in order to have better historical perspective you need to understand the time, the place, and the culture of that time and place for 'culture' varies. For example, 1955 New York was not the same as 1955 Nebraska and neither were the same as 1955 Sweden or 1955 Angola (which were not alike themselves) -- even if, to you smut-hounds, the breasts look deliciously the same. (Similarly exotic, enticingly differing breasts may not necessarily be an indication of differing cultures.)

I've written before on the importance of context, either anecdotally or with entire posts such as Context Is The New Bullshit, and if you haven't let that sink into your brains please take a moment to do so; this post will help with that. If you share this love of history in context, then you'll just enjoy this post all the more.

One of the best ways to glean a general overview of times and places, especially with Western cultures, is via newspapers and magazines.

For example, look at 1955 Fargo-Moorhead newspapers. There, along with the news of the day (such as "Yogi Could Be 'Great'" and the odd news item regarding the police's possession of woman's lingerie), and the ads promising pork loin at 39 cents a pound and the debut of the 1956 "PowerStyle" Chrysler, you find old advertisements for films.

In this case, thanks to Deanna (aka Pop Tart) & her husband, Derek (aka Azrael Brown) who wrote the article at Collectors' Quest on the 1955 newspaper & sent me the scan (I love it when collectors share info!), we see this ad for One Summer of Happiness:


This Swedish film, based on the novel Sommardansen by Per Olof Ekström, was originally titled Hon dansade en sommar and was directed by Arne Mattsson after the producer decided he didn't want to "risk Ingmar Bergman's 'Neurotic Vulgarity,' and fired him".

The film starred Folke Sundquist and Ulla Jacobsson as teenage lovers who meet on a farm -- complete with a short outdoor nude swimming scene and "unambiguously implied coitus, minor aspects on which most Swedish critics did not bother to comment in their reviews of its premiere in Stockholm in December 1951."

The film went on to win awards and recognition. Time for sex in Sweden: enhancing the myth of the "Swedish sin" during the 1950s:

For that matter, the sexual aspects drew little attention when Hon dansade en sommar won the coveted Golden Bear award and received more popular approval than any other entry in the Berlin Film Festival the following June (see "Tag" and "Festspiel"). Its score also won a secondary prize that year at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was shown under the title Elle n'a danse qu'un seul ete (see Magnan). Reviews in several European countries were favorable and in some cases definitely enthusiastic. In the United Kingdom, however, One Summer of Happiness was not allowed to be shown until 1953, and in some parts of the United States of America local authorities forbade it entirely.

Once again, the prudes enter the arena and are upset by a little bit of boob. OK, so it likely mattered that it was a story of teen boob; but only the idiot kind of boobs throw out storyline and cinema for a bare breast.

My first thought upon seeing the ad was, "Hell, they had Roxys in Fargo?!" and then, vaguely remembering this film was 'notoriously naughty', I wondered how it had been allowed in theatres in such a conservative, rural, place as 1950's Fargo-Moorhead.

Was I engaging once again in "rampant presentism"? (I love tossing that comment from brave 'anonymous' in now and then; forgive me.) Perhaps I seem to be. But any good or decent historian or anthropologist will allow such reactions -- they are a natural part of human reaction -- and then examine them. To acknowledge my limited experience, knowledge & thought doesn't mean I have to stay stuck in it.

While some places were upset by the film (see info on the 1954 Memorandum of the New York State Education Department regarding this film), places I'd imagined more 'small town' (both in terms of selling tickets and the proverbial closeted attitude) were less likely to make a stink over the film. (Actually, over time the opposite picture is emerging and I'm beginning to see that larger cities are often the ones more inclined to raise such legislative stink -- but that's another musing.)

Now I know that not everyone in 'the charming conservative Midwest' was as prudish in the 50's as I had stereotyped. Point taken; lesson learned.

Related:

For more on this film, in Swedish film context, see Swedish Film 1946-1960.

For a more anecdotal look at how a bit of boob in One Summer of Happiness affected a teenage boy in the 1950's, read a confession in More Nostalgia From the Innocent 1950's: Those Adult Movies.

"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?

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!

Elsie de Wolfe

Most folks think "Lesbian" and "decorator" when they hear the name Elsie de Wolfe, but she was also an avid promoter of cancer-sticks -- and not just with ads like this Lucky Stikes ad (in the Delineator, February 1929) either.



When Elsie said, "I recommend a Lucky in place of a sweet - when your figure must be considered," she meant it. She wrote a book on it too: Elsie De Wolfe's Recipes for Successful Dining (1934).

Of course, one must remember that smoking was not just fashionable; such promotion was well compensated.

For more on Elsie, see Band of Thebes birthday tribute where they say, "Baby boomers who act like they invented being young at sixty are forgetting about Elsie de Wolfe who at sixty-one in 1926 attended a costume ball in Paris dressed as a Moulin Rouge dancer and made her entrance doing handsprings."

Take Charge

A 1969 Vivitar ad (from Playboy), which Red-Blooded Thing says pushed the envelope:

...while Playboy was naughty, most advertisers played up the suaveness rather than the nudity aspect of the magazine. Vivitar ran with it and worked some female objectification into their ad.

Walt Disney's The Story Of Menstruation (1946)

The companion booklet to this Kotex educational film, Very Personally Yours, contains Disney artwork yet the copies I've seen have no mention of Disney copyright.

Way To Blow Your Pay Check, Canadians

In Canada, the average pay check rarely lasts two weeks. It's more like twenty songs.

(I didn't have the heart to put the ad text in all caps.)

Ad for Revelstoke Whiskey, via The Gender ADs Project's Strippers and Dancers collection.

A Vintage Bumper Crop Of Boobies

This promo piece (measuring approximately 13.5 x 11.25 inches when fully opened), dating from late 1940's to early 50's, was from "your electrical contractor", and boy is it a hoot -- err, about hooters.

A Bumper Crop
by Sample Simon

Emil J. Weber
Your Electrical Contractor
San Francisco

I WANDERED IN THE GARDEN

I love fruit and in my time, I've
sampled varieties from many lands
and every clime.

In this little brochure I present hard,
but happily-won knowledge, some
gained on the campus, but none in
college.

Sample Simon

Then, once you lift the flap (you have to -- boobies beckon!), you get a billboard warning:

DO NOT
LOOK INSIDE

PROCEED ONLY AT YOUR OWN RISK

Apparently you, like I, are only more determined to see what our favorite electrical contractor, Mr. Weber, has selected to show us -- specifically, that which Simon has sampled.

Opened all the way we see 17 sketches of women whose breasts are clearly visible beneath clothing -- each depicting a specific form of produce...

Apricots I love or not --
Depending on what they've got.

Oranges so round--rich in Vitamin C
Are good for the vision.

Crab apples -- if not too green
Are a marvelous treat.

Cranberries -- every one really is
A delectable bite.

Give me luscious PLUMS and
Let me dream!

Nature with man her goodness shares
In the succulent PEARS.

Those ripe red CHERRIES
Hold hidden dangers.

Prune is a little flirt!
Gets in jams and desserts.

X-??? An experimental fruit
Yet undeveloped.

Cucumbers look harmless but --
Are they?

Cocoanuts--It takes plenty of paring
To reach this treat.

Many states of PEACHES fine.
But I'll take Georgia's any time.

Avocados are quite all right
For the "educated" appetite.

Honeydew I love to eat
Cause it's so naturally sweet.

Grapefruit is very "calorifc"
And big ones are terrific.

Watermelon -- AH.........
So big -- so satisfying!

Pumpkins -- when they're round and
Firm they're best of all.

After all...

Variety -- They Say --
Is The Spice of Life

So is vintage sexist advertising. *wink*

Finding The Parents' Stash

Secondhand Rose recalls her first exposure to adult magazines:

I must have been about 10 years old or so when I found my parents stash of porn. My sister and I were home alone, playing hide-and-seek in the house. I went to hide in the one space I knew she'd never find me -- the one space I'd also be afraid to seek in for fear of a person jumping out at me -- our crawlspace.

...After a few heart-pounding minutes in the arid space, I turned on the light (which could never shine through to the other side as the door fit tightly and it was daytime anyway) and looked for something to occupy myself. I poked in the box closest to the door. That's where I found the then-current porn magazines.

I flipped through them, saw all the photos. Mostly women with their come-hither stares, big and wild hair (both on their heads and covering their genitals), and glossy lips. I didn't feel much of anything at first. Certainly not uncomfortable, for I continued to flip through the pages of first one magazine, then another and another. Until I hit an illustration.

I think it was an advertisement for a bondage swing, but I can't really recall... This paper-white woman with ink-black hair was set against a vivid purple square. Her fascinating red lips were pursed around a ridiculously large black circle, its black lines drawn against that white-white skin, holding the ball in place in her mouth. Her body was also bound in the leather strips, providing more black lines against white skin -- lines to read between. This woman was bound, apparently suspended from what I could only imagine was a ceiling painted as grape as the walls, and naked she sat, or swung, on display in a position similar to my sit-squat against the wall. Splayed. Bound. Gagged.

Instead of being disgusted, or even confused, I was mesmerized.

Photo via Flickr.

Once Naked As A J-Bird

CR/LF of Red Blooded Thing wasn't content with looking at the ads for nudist camps in his old magazines -- he took the time to see if he one could still visit them.

Vintage Book Ads

Via the Paper Cuts blog at the New York Times (on hiatus until next week) comes this lovely collection of Book Ads: The Golden Age, 1962-73. These are some of my favorites.



June 27, 1968

Rex Reed was at the top of his game in the summer of 1968, when this ad for a collection of his show-business essays and profiles appeared in the daily Times. Reed was a celebrated New Journalist, the next Tom Wolfe. But it still made commercial sense to drag Jacqueline Susann into the mix. She was fresh from the success of “Valley of the Dolls” (1966), which sold more than 19 million copies. Reed's collection was reviewed in the Book Review by Nora Ephron, who began her piece this way: “Rex Reed is a saucy, snoopy, bitchy man who sees with sharp eyes and writes with a mean pen and succeeds in making voyeurs of us all. If any of this sounds as if I don't like Rex Reed, let me correct that impression. I love Rex Reed.”

Oct. 27, 1968

“Hanoi” was the second of three books Mary McCarthy wrote about the Vietnam War — the others were “Vietnam” (1967) and “Medina” (1972). All three would later be gathered into one volume, “The Seventeenth Degree.” McCarthy's trip to Hanoi was not met with outrage, as Jane Fonda's would be four years later. But many critics chafed at her rosy portrait of North Vietnam. In Time magazine, a reviewer wrote that “Hanoi” suffered from “a Lincoln Steffens I-have-seen-the-future-and-it-works naïveté.”

See more in the slideshow.

Whip Me, Beat Me, Make Me Buy Dumb Things

From Spank While you Sell: Corporal punishment imagery in print advertising:




Of particular note:

Schoolboys in Disgrace

This is a record sleeve, which I suppose is a kind of advertising. The album, by that most uncompromisingly British of veteran rock bands, The Kinks, dates from 1975. This cartoon image (credited to one Mickey Finn) was already the height of retro when it first appeared, and the era alluded to is probably really the late 1950s, when Kinks leader/songwriter Ray Davies and his brother Dave were at school in suburban north London. The lyrics of one song on the disc, Headmaster, clearly refer to getting the cane. From a cultural historian's point of view, it's extremely interesting that there is such a clear reference -- in the lyrics and in the drawing -- to bare-bottom canings, since even in the 1950s that was not at all the norm for ordinary local secondary schools:

Headmaster, this is my confession,
I've been such a little fool.
I've dishonoured one who trusted me,
I have broken all the rules.
I've been such a little fool.
Don't tell all my friends I bent over,
Don't tell them you made me cry.
Don't tell them I've been sacrificed,
Don't tell all my friends or I'll die.
Headmaster don't beat me I beg you,
I know that I've let you down.
Headmaster please spare me I beg you,
Don't make me take my trousers down.

How To Draw Girlie Cartoons

"The Kind We All Want To See!"

From the Product Placement gallery at OokWorld.

Also worth seeing, the Newsstand, a gallery of magazine covers.

Mondo Exploitation Advertising

Another print block, measuring 8.25 x 3.5 inches; this one is for exploitation film features called MondoRama.


I had 'the tech guy' (the husband) once again monkey with Photoshop to create what the paper print would look like.


It's pretty clear that this is an ad, likely from a newspaper, promoting the Mondo Rama film triple-feature.

The text reads:

203 Minutes Of The Most Incredible Scenes Ever Recorded On Film

Mondorama

All In Raw Color!

SEE

Bloody German Duels

Black Magic In London

Human Pin Cushion

ECCO

In Technicolor

Erotica of the East

Exposes Odd Customs

TABOOS Of The World

Color

Tattooed Virgins

Male Geisha Girls

MACABRO

African Love School

Technicolor

SEE THE WORLD in the RAW
Overpowering, fascinating -- often shocking!

What little I know about the films themselves is the following:

ECCO is Italian for Look! And a review of the film, along with more information on Mondo films, is available at DVD Drive-In.

Here's the film's trailer:



Marv Miller, television's The Millionaire, went on to narrate Macabro in 1966 (and then began cranking out porno movies). Via Something Weird Video.

Also at Something Weird, Taboos of the World is part of the Twisted Sex Volume 13 DVD.

Hot & Steamy

Li'l Abner and the buxom, steamy Daisy Mae pitching Cream of Wheat:



If sex sells, the kids had to eat it cuz dad brought it home.

From a 1947 Life magazine.

Body improvement and Hostess fruit pies. What a pairing.

For those that believe I focus more on female sexuality...

First I must say that as a woman, that's both what I know more about and see as manipulated in a bad way.

Second, I will say that I have posted male myths before.

And third, I will draw your attention to Free Muscle Secrets and Instant Romantic Sideburns: Comic Book Advertising, Part One in which the author notes the marketing to a male dominated readership:

This kind of advertisement featured five distinct categories : body improvement, wacky products, money making schemes, Hostess fruit pies, and individuals selling other comics (often interspersed with the comic publishers selling their own branded accessories). As the decade came to a close, ad space was taken over by full-color ads for video games, candy and Saturday morning cartoons, but a page or two of black-and-white untruths lingered on.

Body improvement and Hostess fruit pies. What a pairing.

I'm looking forward to part two and will alert you as well.

Single Finger Vintage Vibe

Reading over at Slip of a Girl, I found this post about a Wilco Fashions booklet. A trip to the listing and I discovered that it contains an ad for the "Vibra Finger".

The listing says: We are told this is to stimulate tired aching gums, tendons, muscles and joints of the face and head. It reads further "The probing finger creates tingling sensastions any beauty conscious woman will appreciate. Use it on the face, scalp, anywhere."

Well, believe it or not, I have that page for you, right out of the Wilco book. (Click to enlarge the image -- it is readable!)

I don't know about you, but a single finger vibrator doesn't scream 'oral health' to me. I doubt it did to anyone then either.

Vintage vibes are one of my passions. Finding one of these would be most cool.

Because I have quite the digital & paper library of things I have not managed to find or acquire, here's another ad for the same product.

Sex Machines

I first discovered that sex machines weren't 'new' things when I watched Weimar Love: Hot Sex in Pre-Nazi Berlin and learned that they existed in the 1920s. I knew that dildos and even vibrators had been around quite some time, but I thought fucking machines were relatively new to the sex scene.

In The Technology of Orgasm Rachel Maines chronicles over fifty sex devices developed before 1900. Ranging from small hand operated appliances to large steam powered machines (which required a crew, in a separate room, to shovel in the coal), all created under medical 'concern' for curing women of "hysteria".

In the 1930's and 40's, these machines were advertised heavily, if a bit secretively.

Most often they were in women's publications, but sometimes they were marketed to their audience in smutty publications, which clearly shows they were not so much for "hysteria" as pleasure.

Other times they seemed to be more comedic than the advertising they're purported to be -- like with this "Rape - All" copy.

Supposedly made by the "American Rolling & Frigging Mills" company, the copy is "wishful" if not silly.

In case you think this 'ad' is serious, note the corporate location in "Duchebag Wisconsin".

This drew into question, in my mind anyway, if this "Universal Intercourse Machine" wasn't also a joke...

A closer look at this 'ad' (found in a 1930's Tijuana Bible) exposes this too is a joke. Note the small boxed text at bottom left: "Tune in on Station A.S.S. and Hear Big-Tit Mae using a Universal"

For more on real sex machines:

See this review of Weimar Love where you can also watch clips.

Read the first chapter of The Technology of Orgasm

Collecting Peter Arno's Works

Peter Arno perfected the single speaker captioned cartoon, is the father of the gag cartoon, and is a master illustrator.

His cartoons may not be what you think of as far as the Golden Age of Comics, but his use of humor to make editorial statements about society certainly gives him a place in the Golden Age of satirical art. And let's not forget that his depictions of voluptuous women being pursued by lecherous men are not only a wonderful treat for the eyes, but broke ground for the cartoons and illustrations seen in Playboy today.

As a huge fan of Peter Arno's work, I naturally collect his works as I can.

I'm not going to write a bio for Arno because the definitive Peter Arno biography, including more art, is here. (Seriously the best anywhere.) But I will tell you collectors a bit more about where to find Arno's work.

In the mid-1930s cartoons and comic strips briefly dominated advertising. So, the work of Peter Arno appeared not only in The New Yorker as 'content', but also in the ads as well. This includes advertising in other magazines in the 1930s.



Arno even appeared in an ad for Angus Scotch whiskey.



Along with ads, his work appeared in anthologies, playbills etc. So there are plenty of places to look for Arno besides his books.

Just take a look at what a search for "Peter Arno" turns up at eBay!

His books though, are gems. Here's a list of Peter Arno's books:

Whoops, Dearie (1927)
Parade (1929)
Hullabaloo (1930)
Circus (1931)
Circus (London: The Bodley Head 1933)
Favorites (1932)
For Members Only (1935)
Cartoon Revue (1941)
Man in the Shower (1944)
The Bedside Tales (1945)
The Peter Arno Pocket Book (1946)
Sizzling Platter (1949)
Crepes Suzettes (1950)
Ladies and Gentlemen (1951)
The New Peter Arno Pocket Book (1955)
Hell of a Way to Run a Railroad (1956)
The Penguin (1957)
Lady in the Shower (1967)
Peter Arno (1979)

A note to collectors: as usual, books with dust jackets are rare, but this is especially true for 'Favorites'.

I recommend looking for Peter Arno's books at ABE; book dealers know what they are talking about as far as conditions.

Arno's work can also be found in Sketch Book of American Humorists (1938, and collectible for several reasons), College Humor (1937), Helena (1950, dustjacket illustrations for Evelyn Waugh), and The Bedsides Tales: A Gay Collection (1945, illustrations).

This list is by no means 'all'; if you have other titles or know of other works, please post them in the comments area!