Miss Florida 1928

Back of picture reads: Madeline Genkin taken at Jacksonville Florida in 1928 when she was Miss Jacksonville & Miss Florida.

Spanking Ann-Margret

Grey Villet's 1961 photo of "Starlet Ann-Margret Olson receiving a playful spanking from her uncle" combined with happy memories of Elvis spanking only make me dream a little dream of seeing Elvis spank Ann-Margret.

Weston Nude Photograph Auction

This Weston nude photograph titled Nude (Charis, Santa Monica) will be up for auction March 30 at Sotheby's and is expected to fetch $6,000 - 9,000.



The details of the work are as follows:

9 3/8 by 7 1/2 in. (23.8 by 19.1 cm.)

DESCRIPTION

mounted, signed, annotated, and stamped by Cole Weston on the reverse, 1930, printed later by Cole Weston from his father's negative

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Conger 968; Edward Weston Nudes, p. 83; Photography and Modernism, pl. 75; Through Another Lens, pl. 29; Edward Weston's Book of Nudes, pl. 39

CATALOGUE NOTE

The full catalogue information for this lot is as follows:

mounted, signed, titled, dated, and numbered '227N' by Cole Weston in pencil and with the 'Negative by Edward Weston/Print by Cole Weston' stamp, on the reverse, matted, 1930, printed later by COLE WESTON from EDWARD WESTON'S negative

If you wonder what impact year of creation, edition, signature etc. have on art auction prices, check out the history of pricing (collected by ArtNet)

Title Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.5 x 7.5 in. / 24.1 x 19.1 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting 1951
Edition ed.100
Cat. Rais. Conger, 968
Found./Pub. Brett Weston, prntr
Misc. Signed, Stamped
Sale Of Sotheby's New York: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 [Lot 194]
Photographs
Estimate 25,000 - 35,000 US$
Sold For 91,000 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude - Charis, Santa Monica (from Fiftieth Anniversary Portfolio)
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.4 x 7.5 in. / 24 x 19 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting 1951
Edition ed.100
Found./Pub. Brett Weston, prntr
Misc. Signed, Stamped
Sale Of Sotheby's New York: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 [Lot 139]
Photographs
Estimate 20,000 - 30,000 US$
Sold For 52,800 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.4 x 7.5 in. / 24 x 19 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Description EDWARD WESTON Nude, 1936 gelatin silver print, printed later by Cole more ...
Edition no. 227N
Found./Pub. Cole Weston, pub.
Misc. Signed, Inscribed, Stamped
Sale Of Christie's New York: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 [Lot 335]
Photographs
Estimate 8,000 - 12,000 US$
Sold For 20,000 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.5 x 7.5 in. / 24.2 x 19.1 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Misc. Signed, Inscribed, Stamped
Sale Of Christie's New York: Thursday, February 15, 2007 [Lot 95]
Photographs
Estimate 4,000 - 6,000 US$
Sold For 18,000 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.3 x 7.5 in. / 23.7 x 19 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Description EDWARD WESTON (1886-1958) Nude, 1936 gelatin silver print, printed more ...
Misc. Signed, Stamped
Sale Of Christie's New York: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 [Lot 190]
Photographs
Estimate 7,000 - 9,000 US$
Sold For 13,750 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.5 x 7.5 in. / 24.2 x 19.1 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Found./Pub. Cole Weston, prntr
Misc. Stamped
Sale Of Christie's New York: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 [Lot 313]
Photographs
Estimate 5,000 - 7,000 US$
Sold For 12,000 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.1 x 7.5 in. / 23.2 x 19.1 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Misc. Signed, Inscribed, Stamped
Sale Of Christie's New York: Thursday, October 18, 2007 [Lot 285]
Photographs
Estimate 5,000 - 7,000 US$
Sold For 10,625 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.4 x 7.4 in. / 23.8 x 18.7 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Description Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Nude (Charis, more ...
Misc. Signed, Inscribed, Stamped
Sale Of Bonhams & Butterfields: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 [Lot 185]
Photographs
Estimate 5,000 - 7,000 US$
Sold For 8,400 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude in the doorway, Charis, Santa Monica
Medium gelatin silver print
Size 9.4 x 7.4 in. / 23.8 x 18.7 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Description EDWARD WESTON Nude in the Doorway (Charis, more ...
Misc. Signed, Inscribed, Stamped
Sale Of Phillips de Pury & Company London: Saturday, May 17, 2008 [Lot 205]
Photographs
Estimate 3,000 - 5,000 BP (5,915 - 9,859 US$)
Sold For 4,000 BP (7,887 US$) PREMIUM Currency Converter


Title Nude
Medium gelatin silver print, mntd
Size 9.4 x 7.5 in. / 23.8 x 19.1 cm.
Year 1936 -
Printing/
Casting Later Imp
Found./Pub. Cole Weston, prntr
Misc. Stamped
Sale Of Phillips, de Pury & Company New York: Thursday, June 7, 2007 [Lot 121]
Photographs
Estimate 5,000 - 7,000 US$
Sold For 7,350 US$ PREMIUM Currency Converter

Photography Assignment In Studio 61

Slip of a Girl has been sharing photos from the Fall 1951 issue of Photography Workshop (#3). The photos are from, and most of the issue devoted to, "Assignment in Studio 61", an artistic experiment in which 12 photographers photograph the same items. Here's a more precise description from the publication itself:

Each photographer was shown into a studio room that contained an assortment of interesting props. Each was also given a dozen sheets of test pictures for selecting one to three models. Working within the confines of this one studio room and with these particular props and subjects, the photographer was then to let his imagination loose and make any sort of photographs that came into his mind -- portraits, still lifes, figure studies, abstractions or fashion pictures.

The most recent photo she's shared comes from photo-journalist W. Eugene Smith, who was at the time a staff photographer for Life magazine. There are 20 more photos, little 2 & 1/2 inch squares, which I'm showing here -- not just because of their nudity, but because of the text published along with the photos.






We begin with the first paragraph (of four), written as an introduction by the publication:

W. Eugene Smith, an intense, congenial, 33-year-old photographer whose work we have admired for the past decade, approached the Studio 61 project with some reluctance. To Gene, a photograph is no simple matter of tripping a shutter. It is a profound personal experience. He insists on becoming, through his camera, intimately involved in his subject. He approaches the scene of picture making with a "desperate terror" that he will fail to record the perfect picture. The perfect picture, he explains with passionate vagueness, is a "three-dimensional, or mental essay" on the subject, and anything less than this is a humiliation just short of death.

The text continues to say that the photographer spent from dusk to dawn at the studio and still, "as usual, he was not satisfied with the results."






He only allowed the prints to be seen and published "after getting our promise to run his testimony that the pictures were to be considered only as 'finger exercises' for limbering up a subject."





And then Gene's own words were printed -- I find them fascinating:

I had just returned from Spain and a story that had involved my emotions to the exhaustion point, when it was suggested that I do this trick for the Workshop. All right, I thought, for once I would do pictures in which there was no need to be emotionally involved.

In that night of work, the nearer I got to shooting, the more upset I got. I soon realized that I couldn't compromise my integrity. I had no definite statement to make with a subject brought illogically into an assortment of props. I was trying to compose nothing into nothing. What I am interested in, as a photo-journalist, is truth. You would not ask Arthur Miller to write an Olsen and Johnsen musical. Nor would you ask William Faulkner to write an advertisement for Maidenform brassieres.

I objected to the layout treatment given my pictures. There were arbitrarily cut into twenty small squares by the editors. I never compose in squares, and when I do compose with the camera that I used that night -- a Contax -- I compose to the edge. Most of the time that night, I was searching and operating the camera for the sole purpose of relaxing my subject. I started taking pictures to build to something in the same way that a play is rehearsed; you allow the the thing to grow. (How many times have I taken a three rolls of of pictures as fast as I could! Just to get the subject to bored and unaware of of the camera.) Sometimes I wouldn't even have bothered to focus.

I feel that these odd scraps of pictures should not be published. No one would think of playing all the disconnected musical fragments Beethoven wrote in the construction of a symphony.

I aim to devote my camera to sincere presentation of character. I want to express this character accurately. Recently, I withdrew a print from an exhibition of mine -- a print that several critics had called one of my best photographs. I withdrew it because, since taking the the picture, I had come to know the subject better. My understanding of that person had changed; I had lost respect for this person and did not believe that he deserved the dignity that the portrait conveyed. To me, then, the picture was a fraud.

I would like to take my Studio 61 subject, study her for weeks, and then photograph her again. Perhaps, then, I could show in pictures what she truly is, who she is, why she is.

At the risk of sounding like your Art 101 instructor, here's what fascinates me about Smith's words and work...






I can't help but wonder what the photos looked like before the editor cropped them to those small squares... For example, #15 is the cropped version of the latest one at Slip's blog; there's certainly a huge difference in the appeal to me.

And after reading Smith's words, I cringe at the obviously non-linear order the photos are presented in (yes, they are shown in the order presented on the page); it seems more insult to injury to have destroyed any attempt to show the growing story.

I also cringed every single time Smith used the word "pictures" rather than photographs (and then again when I typed it). This due to former my art instructors who insisted we use the word "photograph"; like "painting", it separated art from doodles, graphics & other visual things, and also distinguished one form of art from another. Perhaps this is not necessary to the conversation today; but, hey, it's my blog.

Speaking of art...

I would have enjoyed the photographs more (or at least most of them -- certainly some are 'better' than others to me) had I not read Smith's words. But knowing what I know now, I must say it begs the question that I once threw at my art instructor when she showed us images of a Venus statue buried deep in a garbage pit, found by archaeologists, then proffered as "art": Is it really art if the artist himself is dissatisfied? If art is expression & communication, and the artist is unhappy with his result, then can it really be called art?





If not, then Smith's displeasure at the photographs renders them what... pornography? Maybe not, because while I like many of the photos, I don't find them arousing. (Hmm, well, maybe #6; but that's because I have breasts and I can feel the coldness emanating off of the metal headboard finger my bare -- not touching the headboard, but merely near it -- breast.) Then again, I don't get aroused by much of what is called "pornography." But as the photos were cropped, adjusted by an editor, would that make the editor the pornographer? Similarly, if I like them in any way, does that make the editor the artist?

And if the photos had both pleased Smith and aroused me, could they really be porn at all -- because Smith himself defines his work as pictures that show "what she truly is, who she is, why she is" and, since no one is "all arousing all the time" (no matter what your lover says!), doesn't that remove all possibility of his nude photographs being porn at all?

Maybe then the photos are indeed just 'pictures' or snaps like anyone with a camera would take. But they were not taken by just anyone; they are photos by W. Eugene Smith.

Does Smith's standing as a photojournalist affect your viewing of the images?

Does his credibility change, do his words change in meaning -- or your interpretation thereof -- when you learn that Smith was institutionalized at Bellevue a year or so prior to his taking the photos?

Some Thoughts (And Images) On Smoking

Smoking hot Sophia Loren; Bert Stern photo published November 1, 1962, Vogue.


Smoking is my choice, or at least it's my legal addiction; so Fuck off.



Should you be trying to quit (and we all do try), how about this cigarette case (or wallet) that I have dubbed "Nevermore?" sold at sweetheartsinner at Etsy; found via Relationship Underarm Stick.



And now you know what I've been up to... What I've been trying to do which has sucked the soul out of me. How 'bout you?

Marilyn, Marilyn On The Wall, Who's The Best Officer Of Them All?

A photo of Marilyn Monroe's famous nude on wall the wall of the Officer's club bar at Thule Air Force base.



From LIFE:
Location: Greenland
Date taken: October 1953
Photographer: George Silk

Merry Christmas!

From a retro Mamie Van Doren -- and me!

Bare. Skin. Rug,

But who cares about the rugs? It's Yvonne Romain.

I Wonder What They Talked About...

What did they talk about, this white man who stole black music and this black man who crooned white man's music... It wasn't chicks.

Vintage Stuffed Santa Porn

No, It Wasn't Halloween

Photo taken at a 1951 opposite sex masquerade party, found via JoCoHistory, An Historical Database For Collectors.

I Bet Richard Simmons Would Sweat To This Oldie

These images from The Charles Atlas Strength Training Course remind me of the Naked Yoga books -- only Atlas was years ahead of such things as eroticizing a workout.

Dead Cock Erotica?

Holly Hell Hannah, is she holding a fake rooster? I'm pretty sure it's a bird of some sort, and not alive...



The seller says nothing of what she holds, just offers this info:

THIS PHOTO IS FROM A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPER AND REPORTER FROM ROME (ITALY)

HE PHOTOGRAPHED MANY BEUATIFUL ITALIAN WOMEN IN THE PERIOD 1950 - 1960.

THIS PHOTO IS 7.2 X 5.1 INCH. (18 X 13 CM) THIS PHOTO IS IN GOOD TO EXCELLENT CONDITION.!!

PRINTED YEARS AND YEARS AGO WITH PAPER AND CHEMICALS IN DARKROOMS.!!

If you get it, let me know what the heck that is -- and send a decent scan too so we can all see.

Huddled Mass Yearning

The image of Statue of Liberty is projected onto a nude woman's body so cleverly that Lady Liberty's torch seems to toy with her nipple.



Via Heather_Koslov at Flickr.

The Case For Grannie Panties

Yes, your panties can be too small.



Via eBay.

She Came Up To See His Etchings

And stayed to model.

On Yer Mark, Get Set...

Lower yer panties.

High-Five Fridays On A Friday Evening

This week's High-Five Fridays...

1) Slip of a Girl is looking for more information about this photo -- help her if you can!

2) The Educational Alliance at 197 E. Broadway, New York, has a History of Jews, Sex and Politics on the Lower East Side Walking Tour on Sunday, September, 28, 2008, from 2:00-3:30 PM:

Discover the lurid secrets of sex and sexuality as you wind through the streets of the Jewish Lower East Side. Spanning from the 1880's to the 21st century, from synagogues to sex shops, the former shtetl will come alive with tales of Jewish prostitution, pornographers, birth control pioneers, undergarment peddlers, bath houses, burlesque performers, erotica, fetish and fashion.

3) CR/LF alerts us to the legal rukus over the photos from Marilyn's last sitting -- reminding us of intellectual property rights issues as he does so.

4) I may not technically be a museum, but I follow this stuff: MW2009 Call for Participation.

5) Feministing has a call for submissions: What Made You a Feminist? Might actually submit something... You?

Proof Of The Pussy's Popularity

This 1933 photo of Carole Lombard & cat sold for $759.99.



No tit, just cat; no pink, just black & white.

Via A Tad Too Much Tan For Taupe.

Sea Spray = See N Spray?

Another page -- a vintage nude on the beach -- found in that Paramount Folder.

Oops! Her Skirt Fell Off!

Such unlikely scenarios are classic pinup humor bits.

As a general rule, I think such comedic scenes -- and expressions -- play better when they are paintings, drawings, etc.. I'm not sure if this is due to poor acting/modeling ability, poor photography, or if such cheeky things just manage to avoid being cheesy in forms sans real human forms, where we expect reality to take a holiday. Or maybe it's just easier to laugh when the pretty little maid we've made a sexual joke is illustrated -- after all, she's been drawn to it.

No, Thanks

It was so nice of you to offer, but she already has a pearl necklace.


Another vintage nude from the Parmount Folder.

Whoopie! I'm A Lesbian!

From the long line of lesbian erotica for men, this one I call "I Groped A Girl & She Liked It."

Vintage Nude In Shadows

Another vintage art nude, a page torn from a publication and found in that Paramount Folder.

Most Of Us Remember Veronica Lake For Her Hair

When you mention the name Veronica Lake, everyone remembers the hair. (There was one movie, which for the life of me I cannot remember the name of, in which a male character refers to a group of girls -- each sitting there with the trademark Veronica Lake peekaboo hair wave -- as being in their Veronica Lake phase. If you remember the scene, please tell me; it's killing me not to remember!)

But, as evidenced by this vintage photo, Veronica was also sold on another physical attribute: her dirty smirk.

DIRTY LOOK--DIRTY FACE
HOLLYWOOD--Constance Keane--Vernoica Lake to-you-- can give the dirtiest of dirty-looks and have the dirtiest of dirty faces and still be charming. She proves this in her second stellar role of her meteor-like film career in :Sullivan's Travels," Paramount Picture to be released in February. Here she turns on that dirty look for Sullivan, played by Joel McCrea, when she finds out that the "bum" she has befriended with her last 35 cents is really a movie director rolling in the lap of luxury.

The seller adds the following info about the photograph: "Vintage 1942, 6" x 8" Publicity Portrait of Veronica Lake as featured in SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS – (although this portrait was first used to promote THIS GUN FOR HIRE in 1941)."

PS Remember when Veronica Lake's ashes were purportedly found?

Which Will You Choose -- And Why?

It's not true that "once you've seen one, you've seen them all" -- nor is all porn the same.


Currently we all have the right to choose our porn (or 'erotica', if you prefer), so we can take what we want and leave the rest; but have you ever really thought about why you select the porn you do?

Gracie has opened up an Aesthetic Response Porn School, where we all state our like &/or dislike of specific erotic images -- including articulating why we feel the way we do.

We began with this image and the next assignment has been posted here; I look forward to you joining us in the discussion. Don't worry, the tuition is free -- as is the porn -- but you'll have some work to do explaining how and why you choose what you choose.

Image show here is from VintageBang.com.

The Age Of Love For Billie Dove

An 8 x 10 publicity photo of Billie Dove in the pre-code film by Howard Hughes, The Age For Love, dating to 1931.


Many thanks to A Slip of a Girl for sending me the link to all these fabulous pre-code portraits -- too bad she didn't send me money too *wink*

Pitcher Picture

At eBay, a 4 x 6 reprint vintage photo.

Use Beer To Meet Girls

Vintage proof of every man's fantasy.



Via eBay seller Darrins Photoclique.

Just Another Reason Why Warhol Was Weird

It occurs to me, as I look at this photo of Dolly Parton by Andy Warhol (up for auction at Sothebys), that Warhol didn't use the iconic breasts of women in his works.

Bath, By Andre de Dienes

From that Paramount folder.

Caught In A Net Of Irony

Spotting the above photo by BartG had me searching through that folder again for similar images I had seen.


It's not just the seemingly strangeness of the fishnet being such a common prop throughout the years (I can only surmise such themes in nude art photography are the continuing exploration of the "catch a mermaid" fantasy), but the text itself which made these images memorable enough to warrant me lugging that box & folder out to the couch again for another sorting.

These few pages were torn from Figurette, Figure File For Artists, No.3; so along with the photos there is helpful text for the wanna-be artist -- text which legitimized and protected publications with nude women too. So the text, while you may wish to dismiss it in your quest to see more vintage naked boobies, is key here.

Figurette presents a handy, inexpensive guide to the anatomy and constructions of the female figure. The photographs are designed to aid and encourage the reader in the study of art and photography, being of special advantage to the amateur artist in enabling him to further his study of art through the medium of photography. Because it is impossible to draw, accurately, from memory, the artist is encouraged to work from the photographs. Both artist and photographer, in achieving success, must develop dexterity in depicting the human form. Figurette supplies invaluable, authentic copy on proportions, lighting, posing, composition and other facets of figure art as an aid in this comprehensive study.

On the flip side:

Twisting, turning, ever wending curves are the artistic result of the pose achieved in the study above. The netting used in both of these pictures illustrates the point that such props lose validity unless they serve to highlight contours or mood. In these cases they do neither. Photographs by Glamourarts.

In case you weren't reading for comprehension -- and I suspect that's quite a few here as well as the majority of original owners of Figurette magazine -- let me point out that the (at least) three photos, including the full page one inside the front cover, are published as examples of what not to do.

I would think such exploitative use of nudes as the "bad examples" would, if done often enough, have been enough to undermine the very "artistic guide status" Figurette boasted of and likely used to beat the censors.

However, censors themselves were likely to be distracted by the "twisting, turning, ever wending curves" in the photographs & so mistake the wording of the second line as a "to do". The last line (if read at all), the: "In these cases they do neither," became an irony lost.

To everyone but me.

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright; Puts Me In The Mood -- For A Fight

There she is, all undressed and wearing the proverbial stripper shoes, and he can't stop staring at the tiger.



That would piss me off to the point where he would be safer turning his back on an unchained and untrained tiger. Maybe that's the arousal here.

From Vintage Cuties; a gallery with several tiger shoots, oddly enough.

Paging Inspector Clouseau For Greenbaum Case

This "guy" recently discovered that Great Uncle Mutz was The Mutz Greenbaum (aka Max Greene & Max Green) -- and then starts digging through the old photos. Below, Mutz on right, with who is thought to be Peter Sellers.



I don't know whether to smack this "guy" with a rolled-up newspaper for not knowing, or to hug him/her for posting his goodies online. (Then again, maybe they like the smacking thing, in which case we can all win.) Now they need help with identifying the people, films, &/or locations etc. in the photographs.



In his research he discovered that Mutz's father (so "the guy's" Great Grandfather) was Jules Greenbaum. Jules Greenbaum was not only the founder of Greenbaum films, but he produced and patented a number of motion picture equipment, including the Bioscope, the Vitascope, and the Synchroscope, one of the better early synchronized picture/sound systems.


Anyway, if you have any information on the photos, please post/share it.

More Munson

Another Audrey Munson photo, found via Russian Wiki.


And speaking of Munson, thanks to carsonb for posting a link to Silent Porn Star at MetaFilter. (The comments are interesting too.)

Choose your Bouvier

Jacqueline or Caroline?


Cecil Beaton photograph via LJ.

No, It's Not Me With My Collection

Via Aliciante.

Her Back Makes Her Front More Interesting

Sometimes the front becomes more interesting due to the backside -- men everywhere & collectors of photographs know this to be true.

Mary Jane Fellows pulled her sweater tight in back for the effect.

From On Beauty (And Its Discontents) at Square America.

Tilda

Tilda Swinton photo taken by Peter Lindbergh; published in Vogue IT, September, 2007. Via LJ.

All That Glitters Isn't Goldstein

Or Ron Jeremy either. *wink*


Al Goldstein himself posted this photo.

Parasols, Bows, And Bouffants

Whatever Happened To Virginia Bell?

My guess is gravity.



I don't just say that as a jealous bitch either; I have my own rack of ample (read: always considering breast reduction) proportions, thank-you-very-much, and while mine doesn't sit a-top a petite 5'2" frame gravity doesn't seem to care. Gravity, like any breast lover, is willing to reach higher to pluck each by the nipple and pull them down. Repeatedly.

Some have asked how Virginia "Ding Dong" Bell's bra managed to hold those breasts up. But the answer is the bra did not; like pasties it just sat where it was placed.

Even as a younger model, you can see Bell arching, with raised arms, to keep her breasts "up". I know it's a rather standard pose, but Bell seems to use it far more often to get lift (and separation of breast from ribcage) than just to proffer boobies to men.


My guess is gravity.

Such a position -- with such a load -- must have been more to bear than any decision to bare.


Here's a (very) short clip of her burlesque routine.



You can find (a bit more) out about Virginia Bell, including photos, at Image Makers and Java's Bachelor Pad -- and see her nude in Tit Queens 7 and Classic Striptease And Glamour Films 4, both are compilations of her loops and film work.

And we finish with my favorite Virginia Bell photo. Perhaps I just too readily identify with the relief of the water carrying the load for awhile; but I do find it sexy as hell.

Those Of Us Old Enough To Remember Ronnie's Presidency

Always knew that he loved the sort of strong women who wore the pants in the family.



(This joke only works if you know that Jane Wyman, seated between Edward G. Robinson & Groucho Marx, was Ronald Reagan's first wife.)

Photo of the three stars in drag at a Hollywood party in 1947; yes, Ronnie and Jane were still married then. Wonder if we can find a photo of him in drag?

Image in via Happy Doodie's Flickr set.

Little Girl Garbo

Southbey's offersa collection of early Greta Garbo postcards and photographs owned by Garbo's childhood friend, Lisa Fager. The lot to be auctioned in London on July 17th includes:

i) a collection of fifteen photographs of Greta Garbo (Gustaffson), her classmates and 'Aunt Gustafsson', chiefly original prints, one of the portraits the only print to survive from the six copies which Garbo herself ordered from a professional photographer but then tore up, ranging in size from a small passport-size portrait of her in 1918 to large school class photographs of c.165 x 230mm. (plus mounts), chiefly c.1915-1930, traces of mounting

ii) an early autograph postcard signed "G.G." by Garbo (Greta Gustafsson), sending greetings in Swedish, written in pencil, with a mock-postage stamp also drawn in pencil

[literal translation:] "May the sun of joy [shine] its rays in such a way upon you on your celebration day, may happiness not stray from you I wish that out of my heart"

Garbo delivered this card herself after school through Lisa Fager's letterbox.

iii) an autograph four-line note signed by Garbo ("G.G."), in Swedish, written in ink on a magazine illustration

[literal translation:] "...Hanne how sweet I think you are. I have seen you so many times and all equally enchanting..."

iv) two autograph postcards written to Lisa Fager by Greta Garbo's brother Sven Gustafsson, in Swedish, sending greetings from a festive Paris and from London, 1928-1930

Some of this material is illustrated in John Wallin's book Garbo: En stjärnas väg (Stockholm, 1955), a copy of which is included in the lot.

That's "Folsom", Not "Wholesome"

Omega it's jameth posted this photo, saying:

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.

If you've got info, post it!

No, That Dashing Man's Not Gay

With such good looks and publicity which boasted of shopping for antiques in the shop of fellow actor and friend,Eddie Nugent it's easy to think this man was gay.


But Robert Montgomery wasn't gay; he fathered the adorable Elizabeth Montgomery too.

For more on Robert Montgomery, visit the online shrines of Classic Montgomery and Earl Of Hollywood.

At The Auto Show

Can you guess the make and the model? The model on the make? *wink* How about a year for this photo which was obviously not taken at a commercial auto show...

Every Man Thinks He Can Handle Two Pussies, But...

This man's face says that more than one pussy is rather perplexing.

Found in a 1957 (January, Nr 1) issue of Tidlösa, a vintage Swedish nudist publication. (Remember, that's "nudist publication" not "sexy men's magazine".)

Would You Call This Vulgar?

The seller calls this photo "vulgar" -- literally, as in "VULGAR NUDE BRUNETTE Vintage 50s Photo LINGERIE FETISH".

Do you see anything vulgar about this?

Is the seller prudish?

Maybe I just look at too much smut.

Then again, being practical, "vulgar" can be a way to communicate -- in the collector's world -- that genitals are visible. But that's not the case here.

So I'd have to say this seller really doesn't have a clue. Not aesthetically, not as a seller of vintage smut.

Well, At Least The Breasts Are Natural

Are you old enough to remember those weird flowers you made at camp and stuff -- the ones where you dipped wire shaped into petals into that liquid (Vitriflore)? If so, you might want to know that your mom used them to pose in those nude photos for dad. It made the shots more natural if she was doing something... And she couldn't do him, he was taking the photos. This time.



PS I never made those flowers; I always opted for the natural projects. But damn if seeing them doesn't take me back... And yes, the flowers creep me out more than finding photographic evidence of my parents' private photo sessions.

Vintage Style Pinup

Except for the tiny tat, this photo of Marianne Cheesecake could fool you into thinking it's vintage.

Display Array

Cristian Crisbasan calls this display of postcard nudes Delicatessen.



I guess you need to bring your own salami.

Via Roue Ataraxia.

Book Of Boobs

One inch square, an inconspicuous way to collect and view naked boobies -- up until you're spotted with it that is.

Via Tias.

Vintage Nude With Rose

Swingin' With Sammy Davis Jr.

Sammy Davis Jr, swings, baby, swings, with a dancer on stage; but I love the white chick in the background wearing the "salt & pepper" tee -- she's just dying to swing with Sammy (on stage, or off).


Photo by Eve Arnold, because I'm still not over her or her works.

Eve Arnold: Master Photographer & Living Legend

Eve Arnold is most famous for her intimate photos of Marilyn Monroe...



But there's so much more to the master photographer's portfolio & talent.

Deanna on Eve Arnold's photographs:

If the mark of a really good novel is that you think of the characters long after the book ends, then photographs of people ought to do the same. Eve Arnold’s photos do that. Even if you think you know the people in the portraits.

And when you don’t know the people in the photographs? You long to…

I agree that the photos of "unknows" are even more amazing -- or is it that I am, like Deanna, intrigued by what I do not know...

In fact, if I have one complaint about Arnold’s works, it’s that I can’t find out enough. I know that photographers believe that a photo is worth a thousand words, but often they do not seem to document the details which I long to know… A perpetual problem for me, I know; but still, why can’t I find out more about Charlotte Stribling aka ‘Fabulous’? Or Girl Holding Head, Insane Asylum, Haiti 1954?

I'd love to find out more about Lesbian Wedding celebration, England 1965.


Then again, Angelica Huston is showing off her panties to her dad seems worthy of an explanation...



Arnold currently has an exhibit at the David Gallery.

From The "If Sex Is Natural..." Files

If sex is natural, why is porn & erotica so unnatural?



Photo via Secondhand Rose.

Another Vote For More Girl Next Door Models

Tina Fey, the woman both men & women agree is hot, agrees with me about today's Playboy models. "But it's all fake now," Fey sighs in this interview.

Photo below, a lovely exhibit for our position, via an eBay auction for a retro nude photo.

Vintage Nudes With Papier-Mache Costume Heads

As captured in ING (International Nudistour Guide), Vol 1 No 1 (copyrighted 1962), nudes wearing papier-mache heads (and, occasionally, feet, hands, and tails too). This was part of the Mardi Gras celebration for the 10 year anniversary of the Olive Dell Ranch (near Colton, California).

Size Matters

Well, at least height does when you are bound with a partner.

More Knob Issues

Slip of a Girl sent me this photo she received from David.


He said:

When I first saw it, was entitled, "For God's sake Ed, why don't we just buy an antenna?"

Related: Can You Tune In Tokyo?

Photos By Philippe Halsman

Ever wonder how Philippe Halsman created this iconic image of Marilyn Monroe?

In the spring of 1952, Halsman put his signature technique to work when Life sent him to Hollywood to photograph Marilyn Monroe. Halsman asked Monroe to stand in a corner, and placed his camera directly in front of her. Later, he recalled that she looked "as if she had been pushed into the corner cornered with no way to escape." Then Halsman, his assistant, and Life's reporter staged a "fiery" competition for Monroe's attention. "Surrounded by three admiring men she smiled, flirted, giggled and wriggled with delight. During the hour I kept her cornered she enjoyed herself royally, and I . . . took between 40 and 50 pictures."

In this widely familiar portrait, Monroe wears a white evening gown and stands with her back against two walls, one dark, the other light, her eyes half closed and her dark, lipsticked mouth partly open. Yet Halsman deftly avoided any explicit representation of the true subject of the picture. Using the euphemistic language of the time, Halsman's assistant admired the photographer's ability to make "suggestive" pictures of beautiful women which still showed "good taste," emphasizing "expression" rather than "physical assets." And then the assistant added, "Halsman is very adept at provoking the expression he wants."

Also in that article on Halsman is a section on "Jumpology". While this photo of Halsman jumping with Monroe is not specifically addressed, Halsman claimed the act of jumping allows the photographer to capture a more real side of celebrities. He is quoted as saying, "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears."



As for the work it took for Halsman to get those famous Salvador Dali photos, you'll need to see Salvador Dali Bloopers at Infomercantile.

Cross Dressing Men In Prison

You've hear of Big Mamma's House, well here's more men in drag -- in the big house.


A promotional still for Monogram Pictures' Mutiny In The Big House (1939), starring Charles Bickford, Barton MacLane, & Dennis Moore. The seller says:

One of the movie's taglines was:

'YOUR PRAYERS WON'T HELP NOW, FATHER!" Hell breaks loose as terror rules the big house...and desperate men are bossed by a half-human killer! Don't dare take your eyes off the screen for a second---or you'll miss a shocking, sensational thrill!

We imagine this photo captures that 'shocking, sensational thrill.'

Of Sex Pots & Beautiful Girls, Beauty & Art, & Carole Landis

In case you hadn't noticed, I am as much 'anthropologist' as 'historian' and 'smut fan' -- modestly educated in each, but mostly of the well-read self-taught variety.

As all three, I welcome a more contextual approach to biographies than the usual gushing over the pretty cheesecake of yesterday. So I was really excited to discover that Eric Lawrence Gans, Professor of French & Francophone Studies at UCLA, founder of Generative Anthropology and author of several books (in anthropology and other areas), has been working on a book about Carole Landis.

Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl (Hollywood Legends Series), is due this June from University Press of Mississippi. You can pre-order it at Amazon now -- but while you eagerly await the work, why not enjoy his notes in progress?



Of particular note, in the broader question of 'broad appeal', his article Carole Landis and the Concept of Public Beauty, from which the following is excerpted:

The experience of beauty--true beauty, not the mimetic sign of a fictive other’s desire--is the worldly correlate of what we call immortality, the timelessness of the realm of signs. It is an individual, not a collective experience, one that finds its guarantee on the individual’s internal scene of representation rather than on the public scene of ritual from which it derives.

The beauty of art is a beauty of representation, of signs rather than things. Because artworks are composed of human signs, the postmodern spirit that sees natural difference as the product of cultural victimage tempts us to construe them entirely within the "socially constructed" orbit of mimetic desire and its deferral. But mimetic desire, even as a specifically human phenomenon, is founded on appetite, with which it loses contact only at the point of madness.

The prototype of Kant’s idea of natural beauty is landscape, a source of esthetic pleasure less in itself than by analogy with landscape painting. But by far the most intense experience of natural beauty, indeed, of beauty tout court, is that of human beauty. In classical civilization, this beauty was more likely to be masculine than feminine, but beginning with the troubadours and medieval courtly love, the terms "beauty" and "beautiful" have been applied more and more exclusively to women. Since the demise of the Old Regime eliminated the sacred/aristocratic notion of self-display, the norm of masculine dress has become sober and conventional, whereas women’s clothing and adornment remains attuned to displaying the body to advantage.

Some feminists have complained of the "objectification" of women in such things as beauty contests. Yet historically, the increasing insistence on feminine beauty parallels the growing equality of women. Today, when women are arguably closer to equal public status with men than ever in history, young women’s dress seems geared more than ever to the flattering display of the body. The obvious difference in the respective degrees to which sexual selection has reshaped male and female bodies obliges us to conclude that, lacking special cultural circumstances, female beauty will always be more humanly significant than masculine. Nor is this beauty appreciated exclusively or even predominantly by men. Not only do women actively seek out examples of female beauty to imitate; they are touched by it, perhaps more authentically than men. Of the many people to whom I have shown Carole’s pictures, a far greater proportion of men than women feel the need to deny her exceptionality. To my mind, this difference is attributable to the interference of the shame of masculine desire with esthetic judgment. In particular, interest in the bosom is so vulnerable to ridicule that efforts to avoid it dominate whole historical eras, for example, the 1920s, during which time men’s real tastes in women’s bodies could hardly have undergone some mysterious mutation. Women, unencumbered by male embarrassment, are much more ready to acknowledge female beauty when they see it.

While earlier on, Gans' adoration of Landis is quite apparent with poetic praise -- which he will again and again return too -- it's his context and tone of unapologetic anthropological study which makes me believe Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl will be more than just the usual biography of a babe.



Gans continues:

I would not be writing about Carole if I saw her as one among many beautiful and talented actress whose lives were shortened by exploitation and calumny and/or unjustly neglected by history. My experience of Carole is of someone unique, and it would be unfaithful to that experience for me not to begin from the premise of her uniqueness. This leads to an anomaly that must be faced head on. How can it be that during the era when Hollywood wholly dominated the generation of images of public beauty, only one person has left us a truly beautiful public image, and, if this is so, how is it possible that this person and her images are so nearly forgotten today?

Although many are reluctant to admit it, a woman’s beauty begins with her body, which the glamour photograph can only suggest; with a few possible exceptions, such as the infamous Marilyn Monroe calendar, nude photography before the 1970s was either art photography or pornography, neither of which are modes of what I call public beauty. The subject of the picture says to us, "take this image as a substitute for what I cannot show you, but which I promise you is there." Yet the typical glamour shot (classically, an 8x10 black and white glossy), even of the presumably most beautiful stars, promises something it cannot deliver. The disparity between the physical beauty that the subject’s dress and comportment promise us and what our objective judgment concludes is really there is a measure of the mimetic element in our cultural perception; one is expected to sacrifice one’s judgment on the altar of cultural mimesis to the (implicitly collective) suggestion emanating from the picture itself. The spectator must supplement the image’s failure to fulfill its promise (a relative failure, to be sure, but the promise is of "absolute" satisfaction) with images of the star’s film roles, perhaps of her off-screen life. The success of the Hollywood publicity machine in determining our sense of public beauty is a tribute to the effectiveness of this sacrificial operation.

Do yourself a favor and peruse the Carole Landis pages of Gans.

Frankly Fiona

Girlfriend & creation of the late Paul Raymond, Fiona Richmond became a columnist & a porn star (model and film), recorded an album, worked 'in the fashion industry' (how vague) &, eventually, became the owner of hotels -- with a former pig farmer.

All this gleaned from the postmortem Mirror interview with her (post Raymond's death; not hers).

One of her books, Tell Tale Tits, received a favorable review at Trash Fiction (and apparently Fiona is a huge draw at the site).

Paul Raymond Presents Frankly Fiona, the LP, is a scarce recording -- which Richmond, in her autobiography, says she didn't even sing on. (Adding to the mystery, some places refer to the LP as a 'spoken word' record.)

The small photo at left is from the record's cover, via Trunk Records (scroll) who adores it. However, whatever, the record makes the #11 spot on the 20 Most Bizarre Albums Ever in Q Magazine's 150 Greatest Rock Lists Ever (2004).

The photo below is believed to be of Fiona and Big Mal (aka Malcolm Allison, the UK football coach), part of the photo spread feature celebrating Big Mal inviting "the sex queen Fiona Richmond into the communal shower" -- making the list of top 10 football scandals (in a world where sex has always been high on the priority list).



According to the Crystal Palace Football Club forum, pictures of Fiona Richmond and the players appeared in an article in Men Only magazine in either the May or June 1976 issue.

If that's true, then it looks like they'll be found in May issue (vol 41, issue 5, 1976), which proclaims "Fiona's Illustrated Big Mal".

Along with columns in Men Only, Richmond also wrote columns and was featured in other magazines, like Club, aka Club International, published -- surprise! -- by Paul Raymond Publications.

Ivor Novello

The producer of The Man Without Desire sure produces desires...


Actor, composer/songwriter, director and night club owner Ivor Novello, namesake of the Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, awarded each year by the record industry.

Monica Lewis: Blonde Bombshell... Banana?

Monica Lewis was born in 1925 in Chicago, Il, and went from hosting, at 17, her own radio show in New York to become an accomplished pop singer and jazz stylist, television personality, and film star.

The blonde beauty who graced many a magazine and advertisement naturally rubbed elbows with giants and would-be giants. From her official bio:

she paused for (and sometimes steered clear of) romantic entanglements with Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Herman Wouk, Sidney Sheldon, Kirk Douglas, Richard Rodgers and Milton Berle.

(Shown at right with a young Ronald Reagan.)

My disc-overy of Lewis began with her cheeky backside of her 1945-1949 Song Book Collection, Monica Lewis Sings.




She was discovered by Benny Goodman and quickly was recording at Signature, Decca and Capitol where she worked with such musical greats as Billy Butterfield, Yank Lawson, Bob Haggart and Teddy Wilson. Her early recordings ranged from Gershwin, Kern and Coward, to more risque songs such as I'm Gonna Be a Bad Girl (which she co wrote) and was the first to record Put The Blame on Mame.



A quick search and I discovered Lewis was the singing voice of the animated Chiquita Banana for 14 years (1953 and 1967). This fascinated me, as you'll see, because Chiquita was one hot fruit -- and I don't just mean the banana's exotic tropical local either. Lots of folks find the Chiquita Banana a-peeling.



Seldom does a fruit inspire such lusty thoughts. Wile no doubt part of the sexual confusion is due to the whorish glamorous garb and makeup, I suspect it's really the arched back which sends the libido a message.

When Chiquita became a woman rather than a banana, I lost interest too. A woman's a woman, and as far as illustrated babes go, she's not as exciting as the pre '87 forbidden fruit was.

Back to Monica Lewis.

Her musical success brought MGM a-courtin' and the studio signed her in 1950 as their response to to Lana Turner. She was in a number of films, including, as this still shows, in The Strip.




In 1956, at what many would call the height of her popularity, Lewis would marry Jennings Lang and busy herself with running an 'executive household' and mothering their children. She made the occasional television appearance, but it's for her supporting roles in Lang's blockbuster disaster movies, such as playing the heroic stunt secretary Barbara in Earthquake, that she is often most remembered.

My favorite was when she played a retired jazz singer in The Concorde: Airport '79 (1979), the third sequel to Airport (1970), that she was really 'noticed' again.

Cool Cinema Trash notes that in the film Lewis is joined by her "jive-talkin', pot smokin', saxophone playin' friend Jimmie Walker."

After an impromptu jam session, she worries, "Maybe I don't have it anymore."

"You're like fine wine, you get better with age." He assures her, "And you're gonna get those Russians drunk."

For more, read about the recently (September, 2007) announced rights for her biography, Be Bop, Borscht and Banana Pie, here. (I hope it's published soon; I've got room in my 'to be read' pile.)

Meanwhile, you can content yourself with reissued CDs and films, as well as collectibles. While her official website teases that memorabilia is available, I've yet to find any there. Until that changes, check eBay.

Because things like this amuse me...

The cover of Monica Lewis But Beautiful:



The cover of a 1953 issue of Novela Film, a Yugoslavian movie magazine:



Guess they couldn't afford the better prints for publication.

Dorothy Dandridge

This glam photo was found at klbndc's photos at Flickr -- a worthy stop for those interested in African-American history, loaded with not just grand old (and rare) daguerreotypes, but a wealth of information from news clippings etc. A must see link. (Hence the 'racism' tag.)

All That Flickrs

I'm not much of a fan of Flickr -- far too many folks uploading stuff without information, credits, or even keywords/tags/labels which make much sense (whatever sense folksonomy can make). And I see far too many 'sexy self-portraits' which are anything but. I keep searching for every now and then I find something interesting, such as a collection of risque magazines, pulp book covers, photos of burlesque dancers, or something vintage & smutty with enough information to be either useful or intriguing.

Then a light shines.

I found Joey Harrison's set titled Mom's World. It's absolutely stunning.

Currently 232 photos are in this set. They are excellent photographs, mostly black and white, capturing a time and its sentimentality. While the old axiom that a picture is worth a thousand words is likely true, I find one of the most charming aspects of Harrison's Flickr set is the text commentary by Harrison's mom.

Clearly his mother is an intelligent, articulate women, with a warm sense of humor; this is easy to see in the photos she has taken as well as the photographs taken of her. But along with the commentary I find a thoughtful emotional component which endears. It's not the usual "remember when" that you'll find with many who page through their photo albums; it's not a mere analytical comparison of 'then and now' either. There is something more fierce yet elusive to define in her narrative... These are not simply quaint photos with typical anecdotes.

I first stumbled upon the photo set seeing this photo of 'mom' in her darkroom in 1949.

Something about the polished white jacket spoke of a determination & a professionalism that added complexity to an old photo of a pretty woman developing photos. (Her attire is explained as being her uniform for work at a doctor's office, of which you can see/read about circumcision, and other tales of medicine of the day.)

Clicking to see a larger view, I was naturally curious about the photo in the photo -- of what seemed to be a scantily clad beauty. So I read the comments:

I painted the room a dark rosy red and made traverse draperies of black to cover the one window. It was a warm womb for long Saturday afternoons with the Met playing softly on the radio. I totally lost track of time with the birthing of amazing black-and-white photos. Each was a miracle, over and over again. I'm as fascinated with them today as I was 56 years ago.

There was a small downside. As relatives and friends learned of my hobby they would press exposed rolls upon me to develop. I did a few. Oh, it was agony! Drudgery! Dreary, repetitive, unartful, bland photos. (Long before automatic cameras made even dumb photos at least in focus and properly exposed!)

Not all of the requests were refused. Jerry, smirking a little, produced a roll given him by his young brother Tony, who worked in a neighborhood beer store. Tony asked that I pul-eeze develop a roll for him. He'd been my booster since I met him as the 14-year-old son of my landlady, and he carefully kept track of telephone calls for me. His roll had been shot in the back room of the beer store of ladies of questionable reputation and groping young men, who were not exactly Ivy League! There wasn't any nudity, but a lot of hormones flowed! The props and background were strictly cases of beer. It would be pretty tame stuff by today's standards. But the photos were quite funny actually. If I can locate a negative later, I will share.

On another occasion Jerry produced a roll given him in strictest confidence by a handsome and successful young businessman in Grand Rapids, his customer. He implored Jerry to be absolutely discreet with the photos and negatives. I took it seriously and developed and printed the roll, all full of admiration for the beautiful photos and didn't keep a single one. Jerry then yielded the tasteful prints to his customer.

They were of a gorgeous young woman totally in the buff, posed 16 different ways. For many years, when seeing the handsome man on billboards touting his business, I would get a secret tickle. He married the girl and they raised a large Catholic family.

The 4x5 I am pulling out of the fixer in the photo above showing a gal in her black bra, was Rose Bottegal, the wife of Jerry's Army buddy Aldo. He and Rose visited us in 1949, and while on the water in a rowboat on a steaming day, Rose shed her blouse. Wearing just her bra, she said "Just make believe this is a swimming suit top."

If the photo drew me, the commentary mesmerized me.

I continued to visit all 232 posts, finding each as interesting as the next for one reason or another. Here we see in photographs & ephemera covering life in the late 40's and early 50's -- in that post WWII world where America was headed for suburbia and the nuclear family, where women were to return to a domesticity which has moved generations of women such as myself to moaning and retching.

Yet what emerges is far less threatening -- if far more emotional.




Seeing proof of women chasing men in this time and place:


The marriage and transformation to wife, including the wedding night:

This could just as well have been captioned "Our Wedding Night or How a Bad Photo Resulted in a Lifetime Hobby!"

Jerry's German camera turned out maddeningly random good or bad photos. Of course it was because we didn't know about setting it for distance, let alone shutter speed and f-stop. We posed this morning after our wedding in front of the hotel where we spent the first night of our married life. The picture turned out so badly I was motivated later to take the camera to a store to learn how to operate it and was sold a light meter. The rest is history: the beginning of better photos and a lifetime hobby.

In the hotel room on our wedding night Jerry suggested I bathe first. Avoiding his eyes, I took a few things from a small suitcase into the bathroom: nightgown, toothbrush, and little round plastic box from Dotty's doctor.

What a long day; it felt like it had been two or three. The shower was refreshing and good. I donned the nightgown Dotty gave me at a wedding shower. The delicate tea-rose rayon fell to the floor, skimming the body lightly, bias cut following all of the curves and hollows, wide lace panels defining upper areas. It was chaste but alluring I decided, viewing a mirrored image. Then panic struck.

How would I get from bathroom to bed?

I fidgeted there in the bathroom, trying to figure this out. I wasn't used to parading around in front of men in a nightgown. Suddenly in great relief I noticed my blue satin raincoat hung on the inside of the bathroom door, and put it on over my nightgown. I crept out to the bed shyly and quickly slipped under the sheets, raincoat and all. Jerry smiled slightly and went into the bathroom himself.

The first big hurdle in married life had been met and resolved. I shed the raincoat while Jerry showered; soon he joined me under the sheets. Appropriate events ensued.

Falling in and out of favor with his relatives:

In this 1950 photo we were at a bar owned by Jerry's cousin Al Cimarelli and his wife, Jenny. See the "modern" shape of the bar and the chrome barstools. The seats were surely upholstered in dark red vinyl!

Attending a PSA (Photographic Society of America) convention in Detroit the following year with photographer friends from Grand Rapids, we heard a lecture by Olga Irish, a Brooklyn portrait photographer. She chose me from the audience to come on stage and be used to demonstrate her lighting techniques – fully dressed of course. The next day the Detroit Free Press carried an article about the convention with a large photo of me posing, and all hell broke loose. One of the cousins was appointed to phone Jerry to enquire about my being in Detroit without him, staying in a hotel, not phoning them, etc., etc., all a bad thing in the eyes of these very decent, family-oriented relatives. Jerry wasn't exercising control. I lost favor fast.

The worry and wonder (now) of what happened to Anne:

That’s Jerry’s Uncle Jim holding his son, another Jerry, on his lap. His wife, Anne, sits in the middle. They spent that evening at our apartment, but we didn't see a lot of them. Anne was a little special, and she had spunk. She was quite pretty, dressed nicely, was animated, imaginative, and intelligent. She had talked Uncle Jim into changing the vowel at the end of their name to make it seem less Italian.

Their life changed drastically when Uncle Jim discovered she was having a romance. Jerry told me, "Uncle Jim got rid of her right away. That day." Indeed, she disappeared from sight and conversation. There's so much left wanting here that I want to scream. A child raised without his mother. A woman probably impoverished overnight. Was she so guilt-ridden she didn't seek legal help? Was she so fear-filled and accustomed to that kind of "justice" she simply accepted it? Hers is the saddest story I know. I should say "theirs."

From brunette to blonde...



A baby, our 'Flickr guy,' Joey.

All made more bittersweet with the knowledge that this pretty amateur photographer wife and her handsome younger husband would divorce... No matter how much fun it looked like they had together.


And that one day, the cute baby boy in these photos would upload the story and the images here, to this fantasy digital world unimagined then, to be shared by us all.

The Bordello That Was Al Capone's Prison Cell

I'm pretty sure he had sex in here. With a cell like this, I'm just sayin'...

Alice Marie's Eastern State Penitentiary photo group.

Star Strip Totally Nude Girls

The retro sign -- and club -- still survive. Via LA Seediness.

This would never float where I live -- or any of the places I've lived in for at least the past decade. City ordinances are tightening so fast on such 'loose morality' and 'public displays' that you can actually hear their ass cheeks squeak.

Nice Set

What? I was talking about the old television set. Jeeze.

More vintage male eye candy here.

Allan Grynnerup

Via Libida's gallery:

Allan Grynnerup lives in Denmark where he has been an actor since 1981. It wasn’t until 1990 that he seriously began his interest in photography, largely to learn something about himself and his own sexuality.

“I am still fascinated about how many ways you can define motive in a photo,” he says. “When doing a sexy photo shoot, I always try to find the borderline between the erotic and the pornographic. It might be something as subtle as a slight difference in light, camera angle or choice of lens.

“Erotic expression is of course always difficult to capture. It depends not only on the person perceiving the photo but also on the model who is sending the message to the viewer. It’s interesting to me, the varied feedback I get on the same photos -- a range from joy to indignation. It really does come down to what each person brings to a photo in terms of attitude, experience and history. Naturally, the biggest challenge is to communicate and share the experience with as many people as possible.”

More of Grynnerup's erotic works here.

Mail Service

No wonder the postman always comes rings twice.



From a nifty French collection of Sexy Follies.

Public Viewing Of Vintage Nude

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


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

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

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

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

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

And then it hit me.

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

The slide show was that guy's blog.

Vintage Polynesian Beauties

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

Joanne Arnold, Extra Nipples & A Request

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



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

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

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

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

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






Related:

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

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

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

You Can Leave Your... Socks On?

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



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

Playboy Factoids: March, 1956

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



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


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

Cover via.

More photos of Marian Stafford here.

See More Of Debra Paget

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

"A Chorus Line Of Mocking Queens"

"We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair...
We wear our dungarees
Avove our nelly knees!"

Chant sung "Rockette style" by a "chorus line of mocking queens." Duberman, Stonewall, p. 200.

Via Columbia University Library's online exhibition, Stonewall and Beyond: Lesbian and Gay Culture.

Marlene Dietrich

It was Marlene Dietrich's birthday on the 27th, so a belated birthday post it is...






Below are some of her poems, found in an old suitcase by her only child, Maria Riva. The poems, some scribbled, others typed on playwright Noël Coward’s typewriter, were written after Dietrich retired from the public eye. Riva claims to have edited them in hopes of publishing them to illustrate that her mother did not retreat from the public gaze because of vanity, as some biographers have claimed. Riva said, "My mother withdrew because she was simply tired of being Marlene Dietrich. She was tired of the endless effort to present an ideal of perfection even though she was not perfect."

However, the poems as of yet have not been published -- and believe-you-me, I've been watching and waiting!

Here are a few of the poems, which strike melancholy, if not romantic, notes. And, interestingly, none of them -- or at least none of the released poems -- are to women... I would have expected something to or for Mercedes de Acosta, at least.

To Ronald Reagan:

A tense silence
Grips me Surrounds me
Grounds me to the
Messy floor Around me

No voice No wind No rain Just silence will remain
Around me What a fate
‘Too late cried the Raven, Too late'

To Orson Welles:

Even when you are dead
You are not safe,
Not out of reach.

To Noël Coward:

No more Body
To hold on to
While you Sleep
Just the Sheet. What a cheat!

To Ernest Hemingway:

Losing you
Feels like A fisherman feels
Who loses his catch He thought he had
So securely
Hooked
While piercing
The gills of his prey.

Poems & info on them via The London Times.

Related: Medal of Freedom Recipient Marlene Dietrich

Preparing Actresses for Wetlook Scenes in the 50's & 60's

Images of Claudia Cardinale via Wetfan's Movie Magazine Scrapbook.

Vintage Hula Girls & Retro Wanna-Bes

Putting The Whore Before The Cart

Via Fabulon.

Kellerman, The Nude Mermaid

These photos are of swimming sensation and film star Annette Kellerman in the waterfalls of Kingston, Jamaica, for the filming of A Daughter of the Gods -- the photoplay was released October 16, 1916 (reissued by Fox Film Corporation in December 1917, in August 1918, and in February 1920).




Kellerman, The Australian Mermaid, was billed as "the Diving Venus" and called "the world's most perfectly-formed woman" -- and she had her share of scandal, including being arrested in 1907 for indecent exposure when appearing in her bathing suit:

In 1907, Annette and her father left London to seek greater fame and fortune in America. New York theater operators, however, were not impressed and found her swimming costumes offensive to American moral sensibilities. In spite of the General Slocum disaster little progress had been made in teaching women to swim and Annette was appalled by the cumbersome dress and pantaloon combinations that prevented American women from swimming. "I can't swim wearing more stuff than you hang on a clothesline," she reportedly said before walking on to Revere Beach near Boston wearing a one piece bathing suit that exposed her shapely form and bare legs. It was an act of defiance that resulted in her arrest and imprisonment for “indecent exposure.”

When her case came to trial she admitted violating the law but asked the judge how many more women would have to die because they didn’t learn to swim? “What difference is there from these legal costumes than wearing led chains around our legs?” She brought to court a man’s suit onto which she had sown leggings, making a one piece suit that technically conformed to the law, which required women to be covered from neck to toe. The sympathetic judge agreed to drop the charges against her, in return for her promise to only wear this swimsuit. The resulting newspaper headlines and outpourings of public support tolled a death-knell for Victorian attitudes towards women's swimwear and fashion and gave young women and girls a role model and encouraged them to swim. It also made Annette Kellerman a star.

If this swimmer-turned-movie-star-with-scandals sounds at all familiar to you, you're probably thinking of Esther Williams and her role as Kellerman in the 1952 film Million Dollar Mermaid. Williams had such great respect for Kellerman that Williams titled her autobiography, The Million Dollar Mermaid, after the movie she made about Kellerman's life. Which includes the years of athletics, stage performance and vaudeville (see the Keith-albee New York Hippodrome program) prior to her movie career.


But Kellerman would make a splash in Hollywood. According to Bikini Science:

In vector momentum terms Kellerman begins in the movies fully clad in 1909, bares her legs in 1914 (AK1410) and is fully nude in 1916. Covered to not-covered in seven years--and that's not just the story of Kellerman, it is the story of the era.

Kellerman's nudity is not Hollywood's first, but she is the first big-name star to appear à natural on the big screen. And the first to display an active role as opposed to a static poser, a relative modesty difference.

In the 1911 film The Mermaid, Kellerman became the first actress to wear a swimmable mermaid costume on film -- and in 2006, MermaidFX is said to have created a line of costumes based on the designs worn by Annette Kellerman (and claims to have the rights to her name & copies of Kellerman films -- which I find no proof of, nor reasoning for).



In 1914, Kellerman wrote a script for a film called Neptune's Daughter, which cost a modest $35,000 to make but which was the first film to gross $1 million in ticket sales.

Then in 1916, she was nude in A Daughter of the Gods.

A Daughter of the Gods was the first Hollywood production to cost over $1 million, with it's lush 1/2 mile long sets and a cast of over 20,000 extras. And it was well received. Sort of.

In it, Kellerman plays a girl who, disconsolate after the death of her bird, hurls herself into the ocean only to be reborn as "Anita, a daughter of the Gods," also described as "a mysterious beauty." A convoluted plot involving characters with names like "Chief Eunuch," "Fairy of Goodness," "The Sultan," and "The Arab Sheik" results in Anita vanquishing the "Witch of Evil." Though the film, like Neptune's Daughter, had a complex narrative and bewitching visual effects, it was Kellerman's unclad figure that formed its centerpiece. "Beauty is the keynote of the film. Beauty and symmetry of the female form," noted Moving Picture World. Male spectators sought out this very quality. A West Virginia woman made "four deep gashes in her husband's head" with a potato masher following the release of A Daughter of the Gods. "That scoundrel went to see that Annette Kellerman movie three times in three days, and he'd tell me every night what a pretty form she had," complained the angry, masher-wielding wife. The lifting of Victorian sexual mores clearly presented new difficulties for many an American housewife, not to mention her vulnerable spouse.

(Page 98, Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895-1915 by Andrew L. Erdman.)

While A Daughter of the Gods was a great success, the film lead to a formal banning of nude scenes in the US motion picture industry in 1917. (The rumor is, some enterprising Chicago guy took the nude scenes and inserted them into underground trade films called called Charles Chaplin comedies -- I'm searching, but so far no luck on finding any actual leads on either the films or the gentlemen who produced/distributed them.)

However the film & scandal thrust Kellerman into international stardom. And as a result she was the highest paid working woman in the world, earning as much as $5,000 a week, for almost ten years.



A Daughter of the Gods is considered a lost film; but we still have hope. In 2004, Mary Ann Cade found many Kellerman films presumed lost. (Keep your fingers crossed!)

It is said that Kellerman wrote and published several books -- including How To Swim (1918), Physical Beauty: How to Keep It (1919), and a book of children's stories titled Fairy Tales of the South Seas (1926) -- and wrote her unpublished autobiography, My Story.

She also wrote numerous mail order booklets on health, beauty and fitness; and in 1924, according to this program, she had a fitness club in LA:

Annette Kellerman has formed a club for women who are interested in gaining health and physical beauty in addition to enjoying all the advantages by a high-class country club. All members of your family enjoy privileges under your membership. Her club-located near Los Angeles-is the only one of its kind in the world where physical education-diet-swimming-tennis-golf-indoor and outdoor sports and pastimes may be enjoyed year round.
Write Miss Kellerman today! Her booklet tells the full story of this interesting development-Miss Kellerman's life work.
Dear Miss Kellerman: Please send me the booklet about your club for women. Annette Kellerman Country Club 500 Metropolitan Theater Bldg., Los Angeles.

Related:

The Original Million Dollar Mermaid: The Annette Kellerman Story

The Powerhouse Museum has a large collection of Kellerman items, including personal items.

Bigger Marshmallows, Please

Sure, a giant box of mayo might be what some want, and others need their coffee; but me, I love giant marshmallows. Her's just leave me wanting s'mores.

And you thought, because I'm a broad, I'd make a wienie joke.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Today's obligatory vintage nude features a gal with penguin pals. (Insert "Happy Feet" joke here.)

Vintage Erotica Myth #1

Myth: Back then, everything was natural.

Fact: Sometimes they airbrushed & modified photos -- as in completely blurring removing genitals.

And sometimes, the pussy was completely fake.

Of Mahu, Men & Islands

The seller of this vintage Tahitian photo writes:

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.

(Yes, that Bounty and Captain Bligh.)

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.

Just as the Devadasi suffered from colonization, so the Mahu have become sexually sullied with the arrival of outsiders:

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".

Sunday School Girls Learn To Handle Wieners

Via Infomercantile:

A photo from my collection of loose pictures acquired at auctions and estate sales. The back of the photo reads:

Taken at Bluffside Park, just across the Lake.

My Sunday School Class. just before they recieve promotion to the junior class.

P.S. Notice the "Wiener's - they were a happy bunch."

I now have the "Advanced Primary" age 9 yrs - 15 enrolled.

Part of the Victorian Ladies Gone Wild - Helene's Girlfriends photo series.

Janis Joplin, Topless

This is purported to be a photo of Janis Joplin -- I had it saved on my hard drive, and have no further information on it.

Happy Halloween

Nothing says 'Halloween' like a vintage female nude in a Frankenstein mask.

Via Gracie's Art Exhibit.

Honest, Ma

I only collect the vintage photos for the objects in the background.


Like the teddy bear, and the knick-knacks. I don't even see that scantily clad woman!

I Love Norma

I Love Norma Shearer, and I will post a bio about her (she's completely fascinating and extremely under-appreciated), but here's a link to an auction with her photo. I already have two of these, but someone out there needs this, so I post it.

Must find other photos of Norma (and affordable ones too).

Who Knew Vintage Barbie Did Porn?

She Wondered...

Does this hat make my breasts look small?

Preserving Your Paper Prints And Other Artistic Smut

An abso-freakin-lutely excellent pair of posts on how to properly frame your artworks, papers and prints is at CQ.

Read Is Framing Preserving or Harming Your Collection? Part One and Part Two.