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.
Unorthodox in the extreme is Bartlett's method of gathering material for his programs. Every day promptly at 2:05 he whirls into the Chicago Home Arts Guild, an institution supported by national advertisers, to lunch and show 100-odd women the sponsors' 100-odd products. Tommie shouts "Hello, girls!" at the assembled matrons. Ten minutes later, after the girls are all in spasms at Tommie, who thinks nothing of rolling on the floor to get them giggling, WBBM technicians begin to record Meet the Missus. Twittering like sparrows, yanking nervously at their girdles, some of Tommie 's girls answer questions about their clothes, husbands, honeymoons, aspirations, frustrations, children, while the rest of them hoot and howl.
Apparently, Bartlett was quite the man; earning 20 wedding proposals and the moniker "housewife’s pinup boy".
Not a bad looking man. And I can only assume that even as his hair whitened and his middle thickened, his wallet's growth from all the Wisconsin Dell's attractions only served to make him more attractive. If girls and matrons once "yanked nervously at their girdles" (and isn't that a delicious bit of vintage imagery!), I bet that once the girdle was banished, the smoothing of hair & skirts, the licking & biting of lips, and other signs of lusty interest continued.
But Bartlett never married.
This would not interest me so if there weren't such a blank in the press about the man's private life. A legendary figure in the Midwest (and beyond), you'd think his exploits would be documented. Even here on the Internet, home of all things imbecilic & impolite, there is no tribute to the man, no home for all things private (let alone pervy) regarding Tommy Bartlett.
How could such a public man lead such a private life?
If he was a playboy bachelor, where are the celeb stalkings? There's no dirt on his wild youth, no dish on his radio hey-days, no smutty speculation on his incredibly wealthy years as a kitsch mogul. Where was the scandal of his will after his death? No rug-rats crawling out of the woodwork for a piece of that pie? And there's virtually no photographic evidence of his life.
Too damn quiet, if you ask me.
So I wonder, was this man gay?
Now I know you're going to accuse me of perpetuating stereotypes. Suggesting the maker of stacked water skier spectacles is anything but hetero certainly seems "typical" of a hetero. But honestly, where's the trail of his romantic life? Only a gay man living the life of such a large local legend would keep so secretive.
If you have any knowledge, news clippings, photos, anecdotal evidence, please spill it.
SPS: I was reading about Greenleaf and the apparently surprising popularity of gay works at that time... It is said now that many women are fans of such books and films -- straight women are the primary fans of written works and lesbians a large part of film sales. At the time you were producing gay publications for Greenleaf did you notice this?
Earl: I did notice how very popular the genre was, and that it was almost totally forbidden at the time. I also noticed that female writers (even straight ones) of lesbian material were off the wall possessive of their opinions that were often in conflict with our editors and our sales. Also numbers of straight male writers wrote gay novels. Also purchasers of gay material were more willing to pay for quality up to and including the type of paper the books were printed on.
These days, I find very little difference between our '60s books and modern bestsellers. Except perhaps that females use more dirty words and figure more prominently in them...as writers and readers and especially as protagonists on the prowl. Harlequin grown up and no holds barred for female readers.
SPS: Your comments about female reading materials is a bit foreign to me personally... I do know that it's said that women are the majority of book buyers, but as for that formula, it's not really me.
Earl: Locally they appear to be in the majority. Most local men would deny that they ever read any book.
SPS: What's on Earl Kemp's "must read" list?
Earl: I don't have one. I enjoy William Diehl very much. I can tolerate an occasional James Patterson but sure wish he had some Creative Writing classes and an editor and a proofreader. Some of my old friend writers still thrill me these days, notably Lawrence Block and Donald Westgate. Even Hunter did it too until he died, but in all of their books I find myself and our common past and all the things we learned how to do together.
I momentarily forgot (it's difficult to remember quickly and make snappy comments) two of my all time favorites, Elmore Leonard who can write no wrong and Larry McMurtry.
SPS: "Ahh," she said nodding.
I'm not certain I can articulate what resonates about that, nor follow it up with anything. If I were talking my thoughts, I'd open my mouth as if to speak then think better of it; then repeat the process several times. It's rare anyone can move me to such a silence.
Is this, do you think, the same for your dislike of TV, films etc... This lack of being able to find yourself there?
On the other hand, that seems a bit odd for a man who was hooked by other worlds... But then not feeling 'at home here' seems to have been a common theme I hear/read from sf authors.
I realize there is no direct question there. Just a few scattered thoughts. I might have been better off just keeping my mouth shut.
Earl: Oh, no. I always find myself there. At times even before the film begins or the novel opens. I am the original "reader identification" guy.
Of course. I was never "at home there." I was born into a foreign place with a language that I never understood among people doing nothing very slowly. A stranger and afraid in a world I never made. I didn't come alive until around the age of 30 and wasn't born a human until I was divorced. I'm still trying to shake off my teenage years and become an adult.
[As for keeping your mouth shut] You don't learn/exchange anything that way.
SPS: Given that sf was such a 'family' community before, I have to ask about Tiptree...
What did you think of her? Her writing? Did her stand-offishness affect your connection/appreciation? Did her secret affect your opinions of her &/or her writing?
Earl: I have no thoughts about her. She's after my time. I've never read anything by her.
SPS: How can Tiptree be after your time? You're still here. You're still reading. An aversion, perhaps?
Earl: Possibly. I think I explained that when I was a working editor I had not the slightest chance of reading for personal pleasure. Now I do. Now I'm very selective in who wrote it and whatever it is that I think I want to read. Currently around a novel a day with a little nonfiction thrown in for grins.
The Miracle Mile. These are places that no longer exist, but look/sound like they were a blast back in the 70s/80s:
- The Slot, 575 Folsom - The Stables, 1123 Folsom - Red Star Saloon, 1145 Folsom (15 cent drafts and 15 cent hot dogs! OMG. I would have been there all the time!!) - The Hungry Hole Saloon, 1190 Folsom - Fobos, 11th and Folsom - The Cave, 280 7th - SF Plunge, 11th and Folsom - Folsom Prison - Trench - The Bolt
Geriatric Gays, please confirm/deny. School my generation about times of the past. Thank you for your fealty.
In London on July 17th, Sothbey's will auction off a collection of case notes on autopsies, records kept by Sir Bernard Spilsbury in a wooden filing cabinet with four drawers, each labeled 1905-17, 1918-1927, 1928-30, and 1931-32. Who was Sir Spilsbury?
the professional records of the father of professional forensic pathology. Bernard Spilsbury (1877-1947) was the foremost pathologist of his day, with a formidible reputation as an expert witness: "his opinions were so impregnable he could achieve single-handed all the legal consequences of a homicide - arrest, prosecution, conviction, and final post-mortem - requiring only the brief assistance of the hangman" (quoted in Rose, p.xix). The post of Honorary Pathologist to the Home Office was created for Spilsbury, who made his name with some of the most famous English murders of the twentieth century, such as the Crippen case, the "Brides in the Bath" murders, the Voisin case, and the Brighton trunk murders, and who conducted over 20,000 autopsies during a career that lasted over forty years. Spilsbury was a media celebrity - Britain's "living successor to mythical Sherlock Holmes" (Time, 2 July 1934) - and was the original figure of the infallible forensic pathologist that is so familiar in contemporary crime fiction. According to his obituary in The Lancet, Spilsbury "stood alone and unchallenged as our greatest medico-legal expert". Recent research has shown, however, that the awe in which Spilsbury was held, combined with his own inflexible opinions, led to a number of miscarriages of justice, including several wrongful executions.
While Sotheby's won't let us look at what is inside, they will tell us some of the tantalizing details from the nearly 4,000 3x5 index cards:
There are many stories recorded in these terse notes, from horrific examples of neglect and abuse to bizarre cases such as the unfortunate Helen Elphinston-Dalrymple, who died of the effects of a dry shampoo applied at the Harrods salon in 1909. On 12 February 1918 Spilsbury performed an autopsy on 16 year-old Nellie Trew, and also examined her clothing for blood and semen: she had been raped then strangled on Eltham Common. The subsequent trial has recently been described by Rose as "one of the most blatant" miscarriages of British justice of the 20th century. Spilsbury's notes for 16 June 1919 record the autopsy of a 72 year-old widower who had been admitted to hospital two days previously: "He stated that on June 13 he had glass of beer ... Then stopped by 2 men who offered him whiskey. Drank 2 tablespoonfull which burnt his mouth". He had been given hydrochloric acid, which burnt through his stomach wall. In October 1923 Spilsbury examined the remains of a soldier, James Frederick Ellis ("H[anker]Chief & piece of cloth tied over mouth ... limbs had been tied ...when found body was reduced to skeleton except portion of lower limbs which were clothed in tight fitting garments..."), who suffocated as a result of masochistic sexual practices with another member of his regiment ("...he & Ellis proposed playing Cowboys & Indians & he trussed up Ellis who then told him that he was all right...").
Otto Peltzer Really Ran Cross Country; But Then With The Nazis, So Would You
Otto Peltzer was a German track hero in the Twenties, was vilified and jailed for his sexuality in the Thirties, survived a death camp in the Forties, then found a remarkable new life in the Sixties. Tim Pears tells the unknown story of the world-record holder who stayed true to the amateur ideal in Otto the strange: The champion who defied the Nazis.
40-year-old Joseph Fletcher said to 20-year-old Jacob Crawford "All right, you young bugger, we'll have a fuck too'. Crawford said 'Alright, put it up my bloody arse, Joe."
A year later, in 1889, Robert Gant, a photographer resident in the Wairarapa, was taking photographs of himself and his friends dressed in drag enacting women's tea-parties, the Chinese porcelain tea pot forever poised, unpouring, above the cup.
Saucier was the publicist for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for nearly four decades, and this was likely all the authority needed to author a book of cocktail recipes for the elite -- and which appear to be, at least in part, credited to the elite.
For example, Bottoms Up is the first known reference of a vodka martini in the United States, a recipe credited to celebrity photographer Jerome Zerbe. (Zerbe was a long-time companion of the society columnist and writer Lucius Beebe. Beebe reportedly made so many flattering references to Zerbe in his newspaper column, "This New York," that rival columnist Walter Winchell suggested that the column name should be changed to "Jerome Never Looked Lovelier." Together, Zerbe and Beebe created El Morocco's Family Album.)
As a side-trip, some info on the Waldorf-Astoria -- and certainly such a grand old hotel deserves it's due at a sex history blog. (If only to see that our fascination with celeb watching isn't all that new.; perhaps at a later date we'll dish on the more sordid happenings of bedrooms.)
The hyphenated name caught the public's fancy: a great hotel—a name big enough to apply. The comedians and humorous writers of the day took it up and played upon it—a sure sign of popularity.
"Meet me at the hyphen," said one wag.
"Where is that?"
"Between the Waldorf and the Astoria," was the reply, That joke immediately traveled to Kalamazoo, jumped to Des Moines, leaped to San Francisco, and was soon told in the Hong-Kong Club. Going the other way, within a few weeks it was served as a relish at the Sphinx bar in Cairo with the newest American cocktail. By the spring of 1899 somebody was singing on the stage a song called "The Waldorf-Hyphen-Astoria," whose words various New York papers printed.
Here's a scan of Waldorf "Hyphen" Astoria, words and music by E.C. Center and Jackson Gouraud (via NYPL Digital Gallery).
Here are the lyrics:
We have all met those guys who affect to patronize The hotel with the hyphenated name But if it should befall that on them we'd try to call, It would be hard to find them just the same. After hunting long and well through each separate hotel, Without result, a fellow must decide, They may be on the square, but if they are living there, It must be on the "hyphen" they reside.
Chrous: At the Waldorf "Hyphen" Astoria, No matter who or what you are, Be sure you not to Oscar as you enter. Just speak to him by name, And for "ten" he'll do the same-- That's the proper thing at the Waldorf "Hyphen" Astoria.
The 'Oscar' mentioned, according to Nancy Groce in New York: Songs of the City, is "Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf-Astoria's powerful and punctilious headwaiter". And the song may have mocked the name, but was more about the who's who which stayed there -- and resulting gawkers:
Of course, like today, not everybody seen there was actually a guest or a patron of the hotel's extremely expensive restaurant, the Palm Garden. Many, like the poseur in the 1897 song "Waldorf 'Hyphen' Astoria," simply hung around for a glimpse of the rich and famous.
The song was sung by John Parr in A Reign of Error, a musical farce featuring The Rogers Brothers.
It seems the production had been around earlier, and the song added later (March 19, 1899, The New York Times)
The same allure & authority Saucier & the Waldorf-Astoria held for publishers captured the attention of Hefner and Bottoms Up received a dandy review in the second issue of Playboy -- sure the nude illustrations helped *wink*
Nor can she help (nor be stopped) from noting this little piece of irony discovered during her research...
In 1931 some clever person (known only by the initials M.C.) 'respectfully' suggested that "the militant suffrage movement, now on the rampage in England, be referred to as 'The Reign of Error'."
It would seem that M.C. was unaware of both theatre & popular music to feel they had coined such a phrase. (Unless they were just 13 years of age at the time the letter to the editor was penned.)
So we begin with an illustration of a naked lady using ice tongs to select men she'll consume and end with a person wishing women would remain less than equals in the eyes of the law.
Gwen's Leather/BDSM/Fetish History Scrapbook has lots of information of interest to collectors. Look by years for landmark publications, issues & publishers, as well as clubs, persons and events -- including censorship actions.
Note: There are more female covers/images at the site, but few larger than thumbnails; hence the male & gay focused erotic works here.
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?
Searching for additional photos for the Mahu post I ran into this cover of Le Crapouillot. Found here, along with several other issues of the old magazine, I struggled with the ambiguous table of contents in French and even if Tahiti, the cover photo, and the issue's theme of sexuality strongly suggest that a feature of the Mahu, it wasn't clearly stated enough for me to feel comfortable to use it then.
But (too) like many things, the cover & possible contents intrigued me.
High school French suddenly seems more important, and my deepest apologies to Mademoiselles Pfieffer & Glass who both did their best to instill a love of the language.
Jean Galtier-Boissière founded Crapouillot (name of a small trench cannon) in 1915, at first distributed it only to his fellow soldiers. After the War he branched out, took a partner, began to make journalistic history with a brand of fearless muckraking which caused French citizens' eyes to pop, French officials' hair to rise. With stark facts and photographs Crapouillot took out such disagreeable subjects as the origins and secret causes of the War; French mutinies of 1917; Wartime homosexuality and prostitution in the Army; false Wartime propaganda. It sandwiched learned, readable issues on automobiles, cinema, wines, books between explosive exposures of "The Truth About the Saar," ''Mysterious Deaths," "The Masters of the Wrorld." Greatest Crapouillot beats were on Wartime censorship, on munitions makers in general and sales of French munitions to Germany in particular.
OK, so the few issues I had seen were perhaps a bit less typical, with post war years seeing a deviation from the original intents and purposes -- broadening and growth, if you will. Or it could just be my salacious-sweet-tooth.
This article explores the origins of late twentieth-century reactionary political culture through an analysis of Jean Galtier-Boissière and his magazine Le Crapouillot, founded in 1915, which finally ceased publication in 1996. Deriving from both the avant-garde of the belle époque and libertarian politics, the magazine, re-launched in 1919, played a major role in the shaping and expression of political and artistic `non-conformism' in the inter-war years. However, this `non-conformism' began to present certain reactionary characteristics which were accentuated in the immediate post-Liberation period by Le Crapouillot 's fellow-feeling with dissident right-wing political and artistic currents, with which it shared a particular tone, `insolence'. Throughout the Fourth and early Fifth Republics, until Galtier-Boissière's death in 1966, Le Crapouillot presented increasingly recognizable reactionary characteristics, culminating logically in the final phase of the magazine, when it had an explicitly right-wing, and even extreme right-wing, management. An exploration of the history of the journal, together with a discussion of the role of its founding editor, provides a useful insight into the long-term origins, both political and cultural, of late twentieth-century reactionary culture.
With this article, it's not the ability to read French I am lacking, but a membership to the site. :sigh: Well, there's two things to work on: French lessons and a higher income bracket.
But find out more I must because nearly any publication featuring the Profumo Scandal is my kind of publication. Well, that and anti-censorship sentiments, of course.
striking woman with very long wavy hair, tropical print dress, leis of whitish flowers around her head and hanging from her neck. gaze to side of camera.
believe this to be a photograph of a Mahu--a person born as a male but raised as a female in Tahitian culture. A practice not only of Tahitians but of groups in India, Indonesia, and other places. Considered as part of the Third Sex by contemporary gender studies.
I wondered how the seller could make such a claim -- other than close inspection of the photo showing more 'masculine' traits in the face. Even then it is rather a big leap.
I did some research of my own on the Polynesian Mahu.
The definition of 'third sex' and 'person of ambiguous gender' is a bit misleading. While Mahu are thought to possess the virtues of both men and women, Mahu are most definitely males -- males who physically remain male but dress and act like women, right down to typical household chores of cooking and taking care of children. (Males who do more than behave like females, who become females, are called Raerae -- transsexuals.) In some ways, this makes the Mahu your every day gay. But that's a simplistic gender view.
According to Like a Lady, In Polynesia by Roberta Perkins Mahu have ancestral customs and were socially accepted -- even admired for the special roles they play within their communities. It's a somewhat complicated picture:
For the English, French and Dutch seafarers who visited the South Pacific Islands in the 18th century, confronting the Polynesian transgenders was a mixture of shock, fascination and repulsion. The best reports of these early contacts come from the HMS Bounty expedition to Tahiti (1789-91) under Captain William Bligh. One of his officers, Lt. Morrison, wrote: "They have a set of men called mahu. These men are in some respects like the eunuchs of India but they are not castrated. They never cohabit with women but live as they do. They pick their beards out and dress as women, dance and sing with them and are as effeminate in their voice. They are generally excellent hands at making and painting of cloth, making mats and every other woman's employment" Being a thorough gentleman who considered it his duty to investigate everything, Captain Bligh's curiosity got the better of him "I found with her a person, who although I was certain was a man, had great marks of effeminacy about him and created in me certain notions which I wished to find out...The effeminacy of this persons speech induced me to think he had suffered castration...Here the young man took his mantle off which he had about him to show me the connection. He had the appearance of a woman, his yard and testicles being so drawn in under him, having the art from custom of keeping them in this position...On examining his privacies I found them both very small and the testicles remarkable so, being not larger than a boy's five or six years old, and very soft as if in a state of decay or a total incapacity of being larger, so that in either case he appeared to me as effectually a Eunuch as if the stones were away." One can imagine old stiff and proper Captain Bligh in full dress uniform fingering the mahu's genitals with his starchy white gloved hands.
An unexplained phenomenon on Tahiti was that just one, and only one, mahu resided in each village at any one time. As one Tahitian pointed out: "When one dies then another substitutes...God arranges it like that.. It isn't allowed...two mahusin one place. I've traveled around Huahine (the Society or Tahitian Islands) and I haven't seen two mahus in one place. I never saw it." How this phenomenon worked is still a mystery, but obviously some sociological mechanism must have been at work in each village to ensure that not more than one mahu lived there at a time. Since, as we know the desire to change gender is spontaneous and not an orderly event, how then did such precision occur on cue? Perhaps a young mahu growing up in a village which already had an established older mahu may have been forced to seek a village where none existed. Another suggestion is that a mahu was made by the community, who selected a boy to be raised as a girl to replace the established mahu when she passed on. The question remains, though, what criteria was used for this selection? However it was achieved, mahus were accorded great respect and dignity.
Bligh observed: "The women treat him (mahu) as one of their sex, and he observed every restriction that they do, and is equally respected and esteemed." Anthropologist Robert Suggs reported a similar attitude towards mahus on the Marquesas Islands, while another ethnographer, Donald Marshall, said much the same for Cook Islanders, and by all accounts it was similar on Hawaii. On Mangaia, the mahus were not only well regarded by the rest of the population, but they excelled at women's tasks, sang in an excellent high pitch falsetto and were better dancers than all other women. Anthropologist Robert Levy claimed that the mahus on Tahiti served as an object lesson for demarcating the sexes. Since the sex roles were similar in many respects and some tasks were performed equally by men and women, the mahu was pointed to as neither wholly man nor wholly woman. However, this does not explain the presence of mahus in more warlike societies ouch as the Marquesans, the Hawaiians or the Maoris, where the sexes were clearly defined by the warrior status of men.
According to Captain Bligh: "These people (mahus), says Tynah, are particularly selected when boys and kept with the women solely for the caresses of the men...Those who he connected with him have their beastly pleasures satisfied between his thighs, but they are no farther sodomites as they all positively deny the crime." Indeed, it seems that anal sex, even in heterosexual relations was not practiced in Tahiti. The mahu then was a diversion for oral sex, since many Tahitian men claimed that it’s just like doing it with a woman, but his (mahu) way of doing it is better than with a woman...When you go to a woman it is not always satisfactory. When you go to the mahu it's more satisfactory. The sexual pleasure is very great." However, fellatio was not reciprocal, as one Tahitian explained: "I was 'done' by a mahu...He 'ate' my penis. He asked me to suck his. I did not suck it...He offered me money. I said I would hit him. I did not want that sort of thing, it is disgusting." Despite this, there was a Tahitian belief that semen is like a vitamin supplement. "(Mahus) really believe that (semen) is first class food for them," said one Tahitian man. "Because of that mahu are strong and powerful. The seminal fluid goes throughout his body...I’ve seen many mahu and I've seen that they are very strong." Sodomy was also denied by other islanders. The mangaians, for example, thought anal sex ridiculous, yet were quick to point out that it took place on the other Cook Islands. It is possible, of course, that the Polynesians were quick to realise the disgust with which white men regarded sodomy, and in their eagerness to accommodate them as trading partners flatly denied any such behaviour in their community. So, Europeans began to view mahus not as substitute women, nor as sodomites, but as an alternative sexual arrangement for the sole gratification of men.
As for the incidence of female-to-male transgenders across Polynesia, it seems to have been unknown, or, at least, rare, for anthropologist Donald Marshall was told of the existence of women who insisted on doing men's work (though not cross-dressed), on Mangaia, though he had never seen one.
Like many old world traditions and societal sects, the Mahu tradition has changed. Not with 'the times' so much as in response to foreigners, including more than the usual ministry of white missionaries which stripped them of the respect of their communities.
But the Mahu tradition is struggling. When thousands of French soldiers arrived for the nuclear testing program there weren’t enough local women to entertain them – so many Mahu turned to prostitution.
As Bormann reports, it’s given a traditional phenomenon a very bad name.
It's simplistic to say "so many turned to prostitution", as if this had no cultural, economic or other motivational issues. Attitudes aside, what currently exists of Mahu culture is a rather watered-down version of the old legacy of the islands. Even the word Mahu is, in many places, now just derogatory slang to dismiss any non-hetero males, ignorant to the word's origin and history.
For more on Mahu you can visit The Island Goddess Pages, "embracing the online Mahu Communities of Hawaii, Mainland US & Worldwide".
Gay Monopoly (found at a garage sale for $1), copyright 1983, before AIDS became an inescapable issue for gay men (hence the bathhouses). Found (via Fabulon) at Flickr where you can move your mouse over the photo to see detailed notes.
The Homo Erotic Quest post has worked well for Thom. He emailed a bit of a show and tell:
Just thought I would let you know that one of my good blog friends (we comment back and forth every night) was directed to your post about my "Homoerotic Quest", and then proceeded to share a number of fun images with me, including the one I mentioned in your post!!! It was like an answered prayer, and so I have attached it for you to enjoy. It has been close to 20 years since I saw it, so I did get a few details wrong, but it is definitely the same pic! It has been cropped from the version I remember, and on closer inspection appears to be a very clever cut-and-paste job. None the less, I find it fascinating, and no less erotic. So, there you have it!
While Thom is happy with what's been shown to him, I'm sure he'd be even happier with more -- so if you have anything to, err, show Thom, well, email him. *wink*
When I asked Thom if I could share the news/image with you, he wrote:
I don't see why not! I think the more people know that this sort of thing was going on way back when, the better. I mean, really! People often unconsciously cling to societal beliefs, no matter how invalid they actually are. I think it's important for people to know that men were getting each other off in all eras, regardless of whatever was considered "taboo" at the time.
Those words are so worthy of noting all on their own.
"My" Fabulon Thom (which is really strange in print, ey?) has a request... Here's our conversation:
Thom: For over a decade I have been on a relatively unfruitful quest for gay erotica from the Edwardian and even Victorian eras. I know it exists, having seen some long ago, and it truly intrigues me (for reasons not soley pornographic, but also sociological). A major interest for me is gay history, how things were at different times and how they helped create the present.
Me: Your interests are similar to mine -- it's not all about the 'porn arousal' (I won't lie and say nude bods hold no interest for me, but it's more than that -- like a sexy partner, there ought to be something to last past the roll in the hay lol)
The Internet offers much, but at the same time, so many dealers list in ways which do not make it findable (don't label images, don't use tags or text descriptions which make it findable in google etc). I mostly stumble into things rather than rely on searches (which can be most frustrating). And heck, how many times do you even know the name of the photographer etc until after you see the item, learn of its existence, to know that information? ;)
Thom: I remember once seeing a very old photo done in some sort of studio set-up, with what appeared to be adult men, a dozen or so, engaged in various acts with younger guys, apparently teens. The men all had handlebar mustaches and garters to keep their socks up. What clothing there was seemed to be some sort of sports uniform. It was quite a turn-on, but mostly it made me curious. What exactly was going on here? How did this happen? Why was this photographed, and how? What's the story? Especially in that day and age, before things were labelled "gay" and "straight". It really sort of blew my mind!
SO---I was wondering if, on your Internet journeys, you have chanced upon any sites along those lines. Usually when I look for photos of the vintage variety, what turns up is old midcentury physique pictorials, which are fine and quite fun but not what I'm really seeking.
Eighty years before Bruce Weber rocketed to fame with a shot of pole vaulter Tom Hintnaus in a pair of Calvin Klein briefs leaning against a wall with his head back and his eyes closed, F. Holland Day made a similar photograph of a teen athlete as St. Sebastian.
Gloria's found some gay antiquities. I wonder if she, like I, watched last night's History of Sex: The Eastern World on the History Channel? There was quite a nice segment on the Japanese's acceptance of gay sex and prostitution.
Also, did you know that the Kama Sutra was written by a celibate scholar? Too bad I had to pee during that part... But it further explains why some of the positions seem completely unnatural. A man with time on his hands and finds it hard will imagine most anything. *wink*
In art news, Brett Whiteley's The Olgas for Ernest Giles became the most expensive Australian painting sold at auction for $3.48 million.
FYI, if you're not an artsy-type and don't see what's so erotic about the landscape, it is said "The 2.1m x 2.4m work depicts large outcrops of ochre rock that suggestively evoke the curves of thighs, buttocks, breasts and male genitalia."
The cover features a clearly recognizable Candy Barr, which is important because while the contents page has a pink-colorized photo of the same model with a rose, I didn't recognize her, nor was she credited.
This is why it's so hard for a collector to see magazines cut up like this -- you can't verify models. Even if the publication didn't credit the models, a good collector can research to find verification of what models were in what issues, but when pages are found loose, you can't even tell what publication they were from. (The contents page only lists Candy Barr on page 15 -- but if I have that page, so far I have not discovered it.)
Back to what I do have and what I discovered...
In November of 1956, Body Beautiful Publications birthed a new baby, Jem magazine. I say "birthed" because publisher Danny Ross compared the starting of the new magazine to having a baby in this, the first issue, under the heading "Diamond Dust" which seems to be the publisher notes section. Here's an excerpt:
Like a baby, a new magazine must be named. And friends and relatives of the Mother-Publisher will come forth with beauts. Among those suggested for this publication were Suave, Debonair, Jewel, Gala, Fiesta, Carnival, Circus and a number of equally eye- and ear-catching titles. The Publisher, however, liked Gem and since it is a time-honored custom to defer to the wishes of those who have just presented the world with a new offsrping it was decided Mother Knows Best, and Gem it was. Until the matter came to the attention of a female member of the staff. She came up with that little touch that would occur only to a woman.
"Why not spell it JEM?" she suggested.
And so JEM it is. Which proves you should never underestimate the power of a woman, or the devastating effect of her touch.
***
At first it was planned to JEM a slogan by which it could readily be identified. Something like "LS/MFT," "It Floats," "Even Your Best Friends Won't Tell You," or "They Satsify." But the best thing we could think of was "All The Nudes That's Fit To Print," so that phase of the project was dropped.
***
Anyway, the new baby is home from the hospital and safely in the hands of you -- its foster parents. We hope you like it. As for the staff, their attitude toward the new baby can best be summed up by what the hen told the square egg: "You were an awful pain, but I finally laid you."
Things to note are:
Of the seven suggested titles, nearly all of them went on to become actual magazine titles with one publisher or another.
By the time this issue hit the stands, Jem had a slogan: Jem, A Treaser Chest Of Rare Spice.
One of the suggested slogans was "LS/MFT," which I had to look up, but didn't explain completely why this would be a good slogan. Perhaps another euphimism lost to time... It's sure been played with, even today.
Also in the "Diamond Dust" section was a "Daffy Dictionary" entry, which I mentioned to Gracie and she quickly made a post about -- beating me to this article myself.
In my excerpt there's clearly a condescending attitute toward women, but it is also delicately clothed in words of worship. However it's important to note Gracie's post because Jem, while a vintage men's mag, definitely pushed the boundaries of condesention into blatent sexist behavior.
In fact, Jem was rather well known for such a sexist editorial policy. This cover of the 1958 March issue is an example of that. Here a topless French maid scrubs the floor while a dapper gent lords above her.
(Image from a private collector who allowed me to share the scan -- thanks DB!)
This editorial slant remained with the magazine (some claiming it even increased over time). Most collectors do agree, however, that the very best issues of Jem were the first few years. During these years Jem had high production standards with wonderful photography and an imaginative, playful design.
One of the reasons Jem was/is a favorite is that it has lots of photos -- and color photos.
Lovely photos of Jayne Mansfield and Anita Ekberg, each "A Jewel From The Jem Box."
In the first issue, the poster babe (two pages, but not in the center like a true 'centerfold') Betty Brosmer is featured as the official welcome to Jem.
Posing in a lovely sheet peignoir, Betty profers a come-hither gaze and champaign for two. The text reads, "WELCOME to JEM with a toast To Gaiety, Beauty, Entertainment from Betty Brosmer."
Note how Betty's face has transformed. The photo used in the magazine seems to have been airbrushed as the copy I have shows less lines on her face and more defined cheekbones. (I'm not saying Brosmer needed such things -- on the contrary, I find it interesting how even the slightest things in such a beautiful woman are 'imperfections' to be corrected.)
In keeping with the birthing metaphore, let's look at bit at the Jem family.
Jem was one of the Body Beautiful Publications, part of the Joe Weider family of magazines and the body building empire.
Betty Brosmer herself married Joe and became Betty Weider in the 60's.
From that point on, Betty, who had been the highest paid pin-up model in the 50's, became a real Weider and virtually stopped modeling and became an active participant in Joe's health and fitness empire.
When most folks think of Joe Weider they think of all his male muscle magazines.
These vintage muscle mags were controversial and even were tested by US censorship laws. From the New York Times dated April 29, 1957:
Magazines Indicted for Indeceny
The Union County grand jury today returned indictments against the publishers and distributors of seven national magazines on charges of conspiracy to sell indecent literature. The true bills are the first of their kind in New Jersey, according to Prosecutor H. Russell Morss, Jr.
Consiracy is a misdemeanor punishable by up to three years in state prison and a $1,000 fine. Among the publishers indicted was Body Beautiful Publications, Inc. (Wonderful Weedy)
(I wonder what Betty thought of this? She herself had refused to pose for Playboy because she of her self-imposed rule to only do chaste cheesecake shots.)
Wonderful Weedy, a not-so-affectionate nick name for Joe Weider, and his publications upset the suposed 'real keepers of the sport of body building,' including Harry B. Paschall, managing editor of Stength and Health. Here's how Harry responded to the news of Body Beautiful Publications indictments:
We are not in favor of censorship as a rule, and we believe in the fundamental freedom of the press, but there are certain cheap publishers who will stoop to anything to make money, even the perversion of children. It is about time some action is taken to stop this sort of indecency.
It is an odd twist of fate that at practically the same time the York Chamber of Commerce was honoring the York Barbell Club and Bob Hoffman with a testimonial plaque, the Union County Grand Jury (where the Weedy enterprises are located) was indicting Mr. Wonderful for consiracy to sell indecent literature. Perhaps the Mills of the Gods grind slowly but they grind exceeding small.
Weedy and his group of unscrupulous hirelings have been spouting for a long time about their idealism and how they were martyrs to the cause of pure, unsullied bodybuilding. They write letters to credulous columnists like Dan Parker (who should know better), of the N.Y. Mirror, telling how Bob Hoffman is the big, bad wolf who runs A.A.U. weightlifting to suit himself. They fail to bring into the open the fact that they themselves are mainly engaged in the business of selling dirty pictures and dirty magazines.
Anyone who takes one look at their current publications, such as Jem, and their small, dirty homo books Body Beautiful, and Adonis, cannot fail to see the category into which such literature falls. Indecency is a mild word for it. Pornography is better.
The Weedy books cannot be sold in their own home city. They have been banned by the League of Decency. Yet thousands of credulous lads, not yet dry behind the ears, take for truth the wild mouthings of these imitation experts, when they read the sensational articles in their trashy magazines.
Perhaps their long career of fooling some of the people some of the time is drawing to a close. Perhaps the Great Imitator (he has recently copied the labels of Hoffman's Hi-Proteen products so closely they can almost be sold as the real McCoy) may be forced by public opinion and the law to go back to his original slum hideway, where he and his pals can still make a living peddling French postcards. Apparently you can take a kike out of the slums, but you can never take the slums out of the kike.
Well, well, wel... If Weider's muscle men mags were dirty and obscene, what should we make of the racism of Paschall?
Homosexuality Closeted In Historical Museum Exhibit
John Addington Symonds opened his landmark 1883 book A Problem in Greek Ethics by warning his fellow Victorians, "To ignore paiderastia is to neglect one of the features by which Greek civilisation was most sharply distinguished."
Now, 124 years later, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is still guilty of that neglect. Their astonishing new Greek and Roman Galleries reopened last Friday, and after four visits we’re left astonished that no where do they mention homosexuality. Although the cases are full of drawings depicting males together, often nude or half-clad, drinking wine side by side in bed, oiling each other up at the gym, the display cards never acknowledge the widespread same-sex relationships that other museums tell their visitors were considered "honorable." Whenever Carlos Picon and his fellow curators have an opportunity with this topic to illuminate and educate, they look away and abandon their visitors to silence. In their descriptions of thousands of images on ancient pottery, they have whitewashed homosexuality out of history.
From Erasing History at the Met at Band of Thebes (which is authored by Stephen Bottum and is most worthy of a nod all on its own -- and so has been added to the sidebar).
Amazing that Zeus cannot be shown with Ganymede, but Zeus as a swan can be in bestial (sexual) repose with Leda. And how can Sappho be 'de-sexed' as Bottum states? Sure, she had many human interactions which were not sexual, but to remove the aspect of sexuality for which we have the term Sapphic Love is rather insane.
As one of the top proponents of the golden age of Physique photography, he captured in his work the All-American macho virility that represented every mans fantasy of the Wild West. Even during an atmosphere of extreme sexual repression in 1950's America, his studio flourished, due in large part due to the unique skill and taste he employed in creating his work's "look".
If you want to contact me, post a note. If you wish to talk in private, Naughty dot Words at gmail dot com is the current solution -- however, if it's about link swaps, affiliate programs etc., read the FAQfirst!
If you insist on knowing more about me...
I've been interviewed on Radio Blowfish (direct link to the specific podcast download here).
Peter of
Jane's Guide says, "This blog site is perfectly charming. What an enjoyable time I had here. Your hostess, and the site, is named Silent Porn Star - with no doubt interesting and untold stories behind the name. The focus here is in curating - and celebrating - sexual iconography. I browsed the site's last couple of years of archives, hip hopping over such delights as old pulp fiction cover art, black & white vintage photography, occasional contemporary censorship issues, and even - to my delight - a link to a YouTube clip of Cher and Raquel Welch, all glitter-glamoured up in their prime and glory, singing Peggy Lee's "I'm A Woman". If that isn't as iconic as you could ask for, you're not looking. The commentary is smart, positive, and insightful. This is just the sort of unique site we love to encourage." (Silent Porn Star even made Peter's list of favorite sites!)
Cinema Retro says, "[A] gem of a site that will appeal to any libertines among our readers. Silent Porn Star is an addictive, often hilarious look at how sex and pornography has presented in pop culture over the last century. There are vintage postcards of topless Polynesian dancers, tasteful nude starlets of yesteryear and some delightfully distasteful photos and stories of more recent vintage. We don't expect too many contributors to Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign to patronize the site, but those of us who are proud to be less pure can have a field day looking through those old ads for movies about promiscuous teenagers as well as reveling in other forbidden delights. There's plenty to gawk at whether you're straight, gay or in between - fun for the entire family!"
"Required reading," and "When it comes to sex and collecting, there is no better blog to read because it is always about the sex and the collecting," says Shon Richards.
Blowfish Blog says, "Although the writing is warm and friendly, an aura Sphinx-like and cool surrounds Silent Porn Star. Written by a female collector of historical erotica and risque objects, in it we find out a great deal about a great many things, although not much about the author. But that is part of its charm; like an expert strip-tease, you think you see everything, and then realize that you only saw what you were permitted to. If you are a lover of historical smut, this site is simply mana from heaven, of course. But for everyone, the commentary is learned and witty, intellectual without being snobbish. And we learned so much about the mafia, too."
Starla of The Naughty Guide says: "The writing is elegant and flows off the screen with ease and the site is packed full of information. Some humorous, and some thought provoking. I am sure you will find something to tease your taste buds on this site."
Engaging in "rampant presentism," says anonymous. (Ha!)
Erotic Mandy of Sexy Blog Reviews says, "This is a sex blog of a more 'cerebral nature'," and gives Silent Porn Star 3/5 Orgasms because I'm, "interested in vintage sexuality and is probably quite smart."
Terra at The Naughty Guide gushes, "Silent Porn Star was a joy of a find for me, due to my fetish for vintage erotica. LOVE IT!! This is a blog that is a collection Vintage Erotica bringing it to us in one spot. It is a must visit for those of us that are curious or enthralled with the history of erotica. ...Content is slick, almost as if it was a commercially produced site. I usually read personal blogs, but this interest blog is one that I am adding to my daily read list."
