Inside Gloria's Mind

Semiotic Ambiguity in the Jeans

Found this somewhere as an example of vintage sexism, but I can't parse this vintage ad's symbolism. Is it implying that a man who wears wear pin-striped bell-bottoms will get so many girls, it'll be like they are dropping out of his ass? Or that girls will admire your ass in Levi's, even if the rest of you looks like a dork? Frankly, it looks like that girl was posing for her boyfriend to take her picture when these two clowns stepped in the way. She looks a little pissed off to me.

Whatever. Once upon a time, Levi's thought this ad would blind you to the fact that those are uuugly pants. _{Psssst...where are their penises?}

He gets charged with statuatory rape and is banned from teaching?

Superbly sleazy 60s softcore

Set from a vintage adult magazine, ca. 1960s. It probably accompanied a stimulating story. Now you'll have to make up your own. My story would probably begin with thrashing the geek for his bolo tie and framed picture of Dean Martin.

I still can't look at cigars without thinking of Bill Clinton.

Now I really want to hurt him.

Femininity in Motion

Women are strong. Women are fly.

Women can leap

Right up to the sky

Still Life with Derriere

Those wacky Victorians....

Cleaverian "codpiece"

More of a penis sheath than a codpiece, this was, nonetheless, a genuine fashion idea marketed by infamous Black Power icon and author of Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver. Cleaver was bold and controversial in his youth. But the brother done lost his mind when he started trying to sell these.

Shout-out to Bryan Thomas for this cringe-worthy relic.

For the kajira who has everything

A gorgeous, diamond-encrusted slave bracelet, selling on eBay

Munsterously beautiful: Yvonne DeCarlo

A little tribute to an original pin-up girl and actress. This is how modern audiences know her best...

But long before she was Lily Munster, Yvonne DeCarlo was a true screen siren, appearing in a range of spicy roles.

Her natural beauty lit up the screen. Men found her irresistible.

And no wonder, judging by these stills.

Before BDSM was BDSM

....sadomasochists and fetishists still had fun. You don't need a label to know what turns you on. I doubt most of these models even knew what to call their interests and probably didn't care. Is that the more organic way to be? You know, just liking what you like, before Victorian "scientists" began separating out sexual behaviors according to a Judeo-Christian moral code rather than science.

Ca. 1920s

Ageplay, anyone?

Oooh, a little edge-play--I hope that's a rubber snake!

Boy + Boy, and some ropes too: Vintage gay mag

Intensely romantic, erotic photography from Japan, ca. 1978.

Vintage Gender-Bending

A selection of images, from the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s, depicting adults playing with gender boundaries. Begging the question: was the world ever really "straight" and "gender appropriate"? Answering the question, yours truly: NAH! Never! It's a bunch of bullshit that you've been fed about true human sexuality. Open your eyes and your minds, beloved readers. As we are today so we have always been: Diverse! Free to forge our own sexual identities! Take that risk and step into your real life. Sing the body electric!

Stage performer, pre-Marlene.

Male impersonators of the Vaudeville stage, mid-to-late 19th century.

Vintage gay Halloween.

Some boys were always girls.

And some girls liked to play as boys (early 20th century and 1960s, respectively).

Vintage Oddity: Nookey Rations

From the World War II era, when laughter helped people cope with the sad reality of rationing.

A small tribute to a big artist: Peter Driben

I'd seen his work literally hundreds of times but never knew his name. Maybe you have too. Now I know: Peter Driben, perhaps the most prolific -- and ubiquitous! -- pin-up artist in American history. Here's a small selection of some of my favorite magazine covers (just love those campy titles!).

Joe Shuster's bondage life coming to the screen

If you read this blog regularly, you know I've talked some in the past about how the cartoonist who created Superman privately did bondage art. A production company just acquired the rights to make a film about Shuster, based on Craig Yoe's book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster

It'll be awfully interesting to see how this project works out and what the final results will be.

Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure, an original cover. (Note the title is "Nights of Horror" not "Nights of Terror" as reported in the article.)

And a short youtube video (via Technorati), featuring some of Shuster's work.

Why Craigslist's should run erotic ads without apology

The main reason I think adult services should be allowed to advertise on Craigslist and everywhere else is because sex does not lead to crime. Not on the Internet, not in print, and not in real life. It is a puritan mentality that believes sex -- whether free or transactional -- is the slippery slope to criminal activity. That is a socio-religious belief. It isn't a scientific fact.

Censoring escort and contact ads has zip to do with saving lives and everything to do with a deep-seated hostility towards sexual freedom. It's all about people wanting to control the kind of sex that other people have, and wanting to strong-arm them into doing only the kind of sex they deem appropriate. Again, these attitudes have no relation to the facts about sex, such as the fact that studies show transactional sex is a natural behavior in primates; or that bisexuality, homosexuality, multiple relationships, kinky stuff, and more are normal (i.e., always known, always acted on) human behaviors.

If anything, repressive attitudes MAKE sex sleazier and potentially more criminal by scaring off healthy, normal people looking for fun, and leaving the field wide open to bottom-feeders you can't pry off with a floor-scraper.

So my temper flared when I read about the sheriff who announced he's suing Craigslist.

Dart has sued Craigslist ... saying that the site's Adult Services category reflects little change from its previous Erotic Services label. In fact, it may have made the advertisers more brazen. Although the photos still feature "scantily clad women" who wear far more than the average July sunbather, the ads themselves have become more direct.

Big whoop. Craigslist caved to pressure but they're not to blame for murderous idiots using their service. Does anyone sane actually think the ads were the problem? Would they prefer that this psychotic fellow break into girls' homes or pick them up at local bars to rob and rape them?   Sex ads don't enable homicidal maniacs: they don't even make it more convenient for them. They are simply one of a thousand different methods that criminals and predators exploit.

If the sheriff really cared about protecting people from criminals, he'd open a dialog with Craigslist about improving safety guidelines and making the ads a friendlier environment for all. But he doesn't want dialog. He wants to shut down the sex industry and get some photo ops.

World's stinkiest rapist

Pepe was one of my favorite cartoon characters when I was kid but I was kind of weirded out by his romantic escapades.

The girls never enjoyed it, but that never slowed him down.

When I see some of the cartoons from my childhood now....well, let the world's most brilliant comedian explain it all to you.

NSFP

NSFP = not safe for poodles.

A dog demonstrates the use of the DoggieLoverDoll, a new sex doll for dogs presented for the first time in Brazil at the Pet South America fair, in Sao Paulo July 24, 2009. The doll's body, which comes in three sizes, includes a tube of K-9 lubricant. link

(Thanks to Jane for this!)

Newsweek does Poly

Must-read article.

Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city.

Polyamory: The Next Sexual Revolution?

Max Fleischer's spanking machine

Arguably the most surrealistically sadomasochistic cartoon ever made.

Some call it sexist

But I call it the beginning of a beautiful scene. If done right, of course.

Wonder if their crabcakes are good

Action fetishes and hands on hips

Most sexual fetishes focus on objects or body parts but there's also a somewhat rarer (or at least less documented) class of fetishes, known to players as "action fetishes." An action fetish is when you're turned on by something that someone DOES. For most, that includes seeing it, but it isn't just a branch of voyeurism: the fundamental thrill attaches to the action itself, and not just its visual or auditory pleasures.

One very broad example would be spankers who get off on the action (of spanking) itself, and not -- as is more common among SMers -- the pain or humiliation or its place in a power dynamic bla bla bla. Some of us know SM players too who are turned on by the actions but not the psychological space. Which makes it all pretty confusing,right? It's a bit easier to sort out when the action fetish is highly particularized. For example, a fetish for watching a woman in stockings and high heels step on a car's brakes, or a fetish for seeing a coed in her underwear bouncing on a big balloon.

There are scores of barely documented action fetishes, so I'm always happy when I see an enthusiast build a blog to his/her own fetish, like this one: Hands on Her Hips. No words, just a load of fairly tame G-rated images. This is one of the naughtier ones:

My kind of worship

Thanks to Mike for pointing me to this on Criggo, which archives hilariously unfortunate print ads.

Alt culture art by Suzanne Forbes

A delightful profile of East Bay artist Suzanne Rachel Forbes in the SF Examiner includes some very familiar names.

"I'm a portrait painter specializing in alternative culture- I paint traditional portraits for alternative lifestyles," said Forbes.

"My work focuses on goth, fetish, BDSM, burlesque, steampunk and circus culture, and I've painted a number of people in the Bay Area scene, as well as internationally known sex educators like Midori, Violet Blue and Nina Hartley," she continues.

I promptly googled Forbes' website, and snagged a few of her paintings and drawings (click the images to see them full size). You may buy work from her or, even better, commission her to create a private work for you.

 

Visit Suzanne Rachel Forbes' website and feast your eyes on her free galleries.

Fetishist didn't see the writing on the wall

I love reading about unusual fetishes, but I hate to read about them because someone was busted when his obsessive/compulsive/guilt-ridden personality drove him to commit crimes. In itself, an eyeglass fetish is sweet and harmless. Though somewhat rare, it's hardly unknown. I've known dominas (waving at Stephanie Locke) who have made eyeglasses a part of their identity, knowing well that some subs find a stern woman in eyeglasses to be incredibly hot.

But combine a fetish, any fetish, with the level of repression and desperation this guy must've felt about his fetish, and the results are never pretty. In this case, a humiliating arrest and possible jail sentence. Naturally, the fetish itself won't be on trial: it'll be his series of idiotic choices, beginning with the thefts and ending with his flight from the arresting officers. He would've been better off just letting himself be cuffed and hiring a good lawyer. Now he could be totally screwed, particularly if the court is not in a mood to show leniency.

A part of me would like to take all the strung-out, shame-oppressed fetishists in the world and put a maternal arm around them, letting them know there is NOTHING wrong with having a fetish: the trick is always and forever to make moral choices about how you act on your fetish needs.

Man with fetish charged with stealing eyeglasses

An Illinois man was accused of stealing more than $45,000 worth of eyeglasses from suburban Milwaukee stores because he enjoys being around eyewear. Jerry Lowery, 38, was charged with three counts of armed robbery and one count of fleeing an officer. The charges carry a maximum penalty of more than 120 years in prison and a $310,000 fine.

Zivity goes blivity

From Gawker, a brief analysis of why a (once) hot new porn site grew cold quickly. Bottom line: not enough extreme sex. It's an affliction that's hurting the professional porn industry as well. The Internet's nutty salad of hardcore, far-fetched, XXX-treme delights has dulled porn buyers' appetite for more mainstream sex, and created a thirst for stuff that's stranger and wilder than anything they've seen before. Sites that aim at tasteful may draw an audience of classier people but anyone who's spent an hour on the Internet knows classy people are, how shall I tastefully phrase it...a vanishingly small market niche. Loud, crude, and shocking goes viral; classy can't compete, at least not in terms of audience size. Charging people for stuff they can find in abundance elsewhere was not the smartest business model either.

How Crowdsourced Porn Failed

Zivity clung to artistic pretensions, screening pictures for "tastefulness," "respect," and "promoting female beauty." Which is morally commendable, but proved disastrous from a business perspective; free tasteful nude pictures are chock a block on the internet; as even Arianna Huffington knows, people only pay for the fetish stuff.

Pretty vintage playmates

I love this photo's simplicity and sweetness. Two charming young ladies of the 1920s doing what comes naturally with love.

Tweak tweak!

Beautiful contemporary image attributed to photographer Gunter Knop (unknown to me). Anyone familiar with his work? I must say he has excellent taste in nipples.

Bodacious Doda

This cover to a 1972 SF alternative paper brings back all kinds of depraved hippie memories. There was a time when EVERYONE knew beautiful, audacious stripper Carol Doda, if only for her now-historic plastic "twin peaks." According to Wiki, she operates a lingerie boutique these days and is occasionally singing at supper clubs in and around San Francisco.

Hot zoftig babes from 100 years ago

A commenter recently asked "where do you find these vintage pics?" and the answer is "anywhere I can." Sometimes readers submit links or research ideas.  Yahoo's and Google's image archives and eBay are all goldmines, if one has the patience to sift through thousands of results--which, obviously I do. And sometimes it's just serendipity and following links that lead to sites which lead to other sites. For themed shows, I hit google and Wiki commons. It's not difficult to find gems on the Internet. It's just time-consuming. But to someone like me, with a penchant for researching everything anyway, it's a pleasant alternative to gaming.

Here are two antique curiosities, featuring women whose zoftig physiques were super-hot in the day. That day was 1902 in this rare erotic heliogravure.

This Russian lady in tights was photographed in 1910, when flesh-colored body suits were more scandalous than today's bikini.