Inside Gloria's Mind

Toplessness Sells Soap in 1895

 

A delightful example of Victorian capitolism:   five boxes of Velvet Skin in exchange for 12 pix of topless ladies, disguised as works of "art."   Who could resist?

Women Deliberately Lie About Rape to Get Abortions

That's what a senator from Idaho said yesterday.

 

The sponsor of an Idaho mandatory ultrasound bill, state Sen. Chuck Winder, made some highly controversial comments Monday during his closing arguments, suggesting women might falsely use rape as an excuse to obtain an abortion. 

Chuck Winder, Idaho Lawmaker, Suggests Women Use Rape As Excuse For Abortions

I gather  Chuck Winder knows this from personal experience, because I am certain he was not relying on information, education or  any facts.  

Or perhaps he craved the media spotlight, bolstered by the news that, only weeks after  Rush Limbaugh spat out a pound of misogynistic bile, he is being honored as one of Missouri's favorite sons.   Ignoring protests from women who don't think someone who hates women should be installed as a state hero (I know! women are so picky!), the Missouri House Speaker, "argued that the Hall is 'not called the Hall of Universally Loved Missourians.'"

With that kind of logic, I'm just grateful Saddam Hussein wasn't born in Missouri.  

I'm 56: at no time in my life do I remember politicians actually going after women's health issues like this, or verbally insulting ordinary women.  It was one thing to go after the feminists because, well, we were going after the politicians: but this war, here and now, is not against feminists.  It's against all the women of America.  I don't even WANT to imagine a country run by people like Winder and Limbaugh and the dozens of other ignorant, morally bankrupt vipers who have declared an open war on American women.  The implications are just too fucking frightening.

If you haven't yet seen it, I highly recommend an article that appeared in last week's Daily Kos, Sex, Witchcraft and the War on Women for a short political history of woman-hating and misogyny.

The right wing war on women is certainly no new development. Like many, if not most of the primitivist planks in the right wing cultural platform, their fear and loathing of anything sexual (outside of the act of procreation) is tied to their bond with the church. The right wing war on women has been gaining steam and media attention in recent months largely as a result of zealot majorities in many statehouses around the country who have been using their political muscle to put through an historic number of new laws that are repressive to women's sexual freedom rights. But that is simply the current incarnation of a long and glorious history of the church's (read that, men's) repression of women's (but not men's) sexual rights and practices.

 

The Showiglrs at Happy Ray's

Happy Ray's, Kansas City MO, 1953

Behind the Burly Q: Trailer

If you love this period of Burlesque, you don't want to miss the exceptional documentary, Behind the Burly Q- The Story of Burlesque in America

Sparkling interviews yield surprising, hilarious, gutsy, wise, and plain-spoken commentaries from some of the tough and glorious gals who once took it all off on stages across the U.S.A.  Includes Alan Alda -- whose dad was a Vaudeville performer -- sharing his wild backstage memories.  Imagine having burlesque queens as babysitters?  The interviewees don't always get their facts right but who cares?  The filmmakers have created a superb tribute to this era in American sex history.

 

via www.youtube.com

Burlesque in a Spangled Bikini

unknown, ca. 1960s

An EYEFUL of Burlesque: "girly" magazines

 

 

Marilyn Maxwell Does Burlesque: tv nostalgia

NBC promotional still for Ms. Maxwell's performance, 1969.

 

 

 

The Burlesque Crowd: Detroit, 1932

Customers clamoring to get into a production of "Bare Facts," at the Empire Burlesque theatre in Detroit (see ref.), 1932.

Ladies and Germs! Today's Opening Act: BURLY-Q 4 U!

 

It's going to be ALL BURLESQUE all day today, with an epicurian collection of historic images and burlesque memorabilia, including tv show, movie posters, girly magazine covers, and steamy stills of the stunners who made life so much sexier for America in the  1940s- 1960s

The Nude Lady and the Maid (#erotica)

The #Whores of Otto #Dix

"Three Prostitutes" (One of Dix's many sexually political satires:  note that the woman at far left is a rich lady, shocked by the streetwalkers)

 

 

Pagan Sex a la Francaise

Je suis belle, ô mortels!

 

1940s sex/spanking gag gift -- with a misogynistic punch!

Hilarious BUT...I hope some earnest young feminist writes a paper about everything that's wrong with this.

 

via www.ebay.com

Luscious Ladies of the Night

 

 

Really Naked Archaeologists (nude calendar)

Oh baby.  Check out those mounds!   Selling on eBay UK

via Boing-Boing

Nights in a Victorian Brothel: displaying the merchandise (explicit)

Hearts and Seoul

A new theme restaurant in Korea is a hit with locals, with an all-male staff of hunks dressed like construction workers who openly flirt with female customers.  

restaurant Mies Container, via www.cnngo.com

 

135 established whorehouses: San Francisco, 1937

List of San Francisco long-term brothels, 1937 via boingboing.net

American Gothic: attack on sex-workers1860

From an 1860 edition of the Louisville Courier, the account of a brutal assault on sex-workers in St. Louis. The article goes on to describe the beatings that victims endured.

 

 

 

Duty-Free Sex Dolls Coming to Colombia (economic news)

seen on the ever-snarkful Gawker, where news that a new trade agreement between the US and Colombia will include the duty-free import of U.S. sex toys didn't get as much of a reaction as the revelation that the article's accompanying image (below) is a stock photo. 

 

 

check out More American Sex Dolls to Travel to Colombia in 2012 I Gawker

Chastity Sells Well from Salt Lake (profile of Doris and Frank Miller)

Awesome profile of the cool couple behind the most popular chastity device in the kink scene.  (And doesn't Frank look like a very contented man.....hmmm....)

 

Carbon County natives Doris and Frank Miller run a booming business manufacturing the CB-6000 line of male-chastity devices. These high-tech, clear-plastic penis padlocks assure the keyholder that the wearer’s genitalia remain safely under wraps during unsupervised periods. A.L. Enterprises, Inc. recently moved from Price to Las Vegas’ freer business climate, but its patent notices still liven up the business pages of Utah dailies. City Weekly asked Doris about the male-chastity biz.

via Doris Miller: Penis Padlocks

 

The Chorus Listens as Behind Closed Doors.... (explicit)

Shhh....can you hear the sound?

 

Of people having fun?

(ca. 1900)

Art. Mirror. Life. And, of course, sex.

Lady of the night and friend,  Verona, Italy, ca. 1910.

 

 

Lady of the night and friend,  Paris, France, ca. 1910.

Paris After Midnight (vintage brothel cards and ads)

 

 

 

 

For the well-appointed French sex tourist, a 1935 ad selling an illustrated guide to brothels and secret sex clubs in France and abroad.

 

The Geisha and the Harlot

 

 

All-American Whores and Madams

Poor copies (sorry) from a vintage guide detailing the famous -- and infamous -- 19th century pleasure parlors and their lovely workers.

 

 

 

Arabian and African Nights 2 (nudes)

 

 

 

 

Of course, not all the sex tourists were looking for girls...

Arabian and African Nights (nudes)

Sex tourism was popular throughout northern Africa and the Middle East throughout the last 19th and early 20th century, where temptations abounded at rates that were very affordable.  Here and coming up, postcards advertising the charms of dancers and prostitutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sex Trade in Salonica

 

 

 

Oops, must tend to some private business.  Be back in a few hours.

See you in Africa.

Cave Brothel in Ephesus