Old Corny Aggie Jokes

December 13, 2010 / Deanna / 2 Comments

I’ll admit I knew nothing about this retro joke book when I snagged it at an antique shop; all I needed to pick it up was a stork on the front, and the $1 price penciled inside allowed me to bring it home.

The front cover birth control gag goes like this:

Do you know what Aggies do with birth control pills?

They feed them to storks.

And that should be enough to satisfy a dollar purchase — but I’m obsessive, remember?

First I had to learn what an “Aggie” was or is: students (current and former) at Texas A&M University are called Aggies after the school’s agricultural roots. Then Barry Popik had to educate me on what turns out to be a rather fascinating bit of history about these very books:

Aggie jokes became legendary because of two events in 1963 and 1965. In 1963, Texas A&M started to admit women. The University of Texas (already co-ed) and others saw humor in this situation. In 1965, the book 101 Aggie Jokes was published. The book would go through several reprintings and new editions.

And so it seems this little joke book was destined to find its way into my feminism collection. Even if the book isn’t all about gender or the sexes, it fits the bill; here’s Exhibit B:

Did you hear about the Aggie who thought a sanitary belt was the first drink out of the bottle?

Ba-dum-dum!

I’ll couch my estimation of this kitschy book’s value with the publishers sentiments on the title page:

This collection of jokes has been assembled from general public sources. It is not the intention of the publishers to ridicule or degrade any institution or individual. The purpose is to chronicle an important chapter in American humor.

To cover my own ass, I’ll also include “gender” along with institutions and individuals. *wink*

FYI, the publishers name is based on another Aggie reference, the Gig ’em greeting.

Pinups Perverting With Pink Plush

October 4, 2010 / Deanna / 3 Comments

This is Jayne Mansfield, surrounded by her pink plushies; but lots of babes of yesteryear posed with stuffed animals and little girl gear (yes, I now are a “tumbl tard”).

I have really mixed feelings about sex kittens taking their “adorable youth” and “cutesy girl” status past shy coy smiles while wearing babydoll lingerie and dresses and move right on into props which promote themselves as children or as having a somewhat diminished emotional &/or intellectual status; then it’s pushing pedophilia and issues of consent. And both creep me out.

Breaking Free Is A Drag (Or, Drag Queens Part 1)

March 17, 2010 / Deanna / 8 Comments

Glowing Doll Danielle says she was “totally gob smacked” watching Freddie Mercury’s “sexy mustachioed housewife” in Queen’s I Want To Break Free.

In her post, Danielle also wrote:

I love drag queens because they can dress like women but without all of the pressure to look pretty or be sexy. I know there are plenty of women who dress like drag queens but they are few and far between and they tend to be Pop stars.

Umm, I could be wrong here, but I’m pretty sure the sole point of being a drag queen is to look pretty and be the (supposed) feminine ideal of sexy.

I think part of Danielle’s confusion here — and there’s plenty to be confused about traversing those fine, slinky, and slippery lines between drag queens, female impersonators, transgendered folk, cross dressers, fetishists, etc. (note: no mention of gay folk here) — is mistaking Mercury’s artistic gender-bender performance for Mercury being a drag queen.

Freddie Mercury in drag is not Freddie Mercury, Drag Queen.

The simple & pure existence of a mustache sort of illustrates that point — and my point about a boundary pushing performance.

Danielle gets close to those distinctions when she writes the following (exactly as typed at her blog):

To me anyway, Drag culture is as much about attitude as it is about aesthetic. It seems to exude a sort of ‘Don’t give a fuck’ attitude which I think everyone could benefit from. Ultimately there is a humour born from sadness underlying the aesthetic. The theatricality used as a kind of armour against a world that is so un accepting of others.

If I could be a part of either world I just feel that I would be freer some how. I find myself, inpsite of a vast collection of clothes and accessories, dressing drably from day to day. I guess I fear judegement by small minded people and on a deeper level just want to dissapear sometimes (hard to do with electric coloured clothes, spiked accesories and gigantic hats).

The mythical non-mustached Drag Queen Mercury, like other Drag Queens, probably would have had a female name and completely distinct female persona to go with it. And none would have seen drag as an armor but as flamboyant exhibitionist expression — that people would still sling arrows at.

Mercury in drag wasn’t exactly like Travolta in Hairspray; Mercury’s dress was a theatrical application, use of imagery to make a point. Or at least a slightly different point. And the whole point of Freddie Mercury et al and their obvious appearance as men in women’s clothing (along with other things in this video and aspects of Mercury’s life) was to expose absurdity, especially the norms of “normal,” to break free of everything — everything except that vacuum, that is. *wink*

Corsets Are Too Sexy?

November 23, 2009 / Deanna / 8 Comments

While I do not suggest that women should whittle away our waists as we while away our days in the constriction of too-tightly-laced corsets, I do believe there is good reason to at least examine the claims and assertions made about corsets by the 19th century medical community and the suffrage movement.

But if the medial claims weren’t true, if they were as exaggerated as the corseted female form, why?

While many state that Victorian fashions for women were used as a means of control (and admiration through objectification) of women in a male dominated society, there is evidence to the contrary. In fact, many in 19th century, responding to fears of poverty and moral decay brought about by the Industrial Revolution’s over-crowding of cities, cried in outrage over the corset — but they saw the corset as impure and promoting impure behaviors among women (ever responsible for all of societies ills).

Victorian phrenologist Orson S. Fowler, an American, warned that wearing a corset excited dangerous “amative desires” by pressing blood to bowels. In Intemperance and Tightlacing, he argues that this made blood become “impure and corrupt,” caused “disease to the brain,” and inevitably led to “impure feelings” as “weak-minded” ladies were, obviously, easily prey to temptation. Illustrations mocking the too-trusting, if not cuckolded, husband conveyed such possibilities.

Perceived as (and raised to be) innocent, Victorian women on pedestals were void of any “animal feelings” such as sexual love, but this “special nature” made her a trusting, giving and warm person which, combined with her lack of intellect, made her not only prey to sexual seduction, but once introduced to such ‘sins’ she would be insatiable.

Such views of women convinced Victorian professionals that corset wearing led to such sins as hyper-sexuality and masturbation. In A Textbook on Sex Education (London, 1918), Walter Gallichen wrote:

The early wearing of stays is said to cause precocious sexuality. When it is known that a degenerate cult of tight corset wearers exists in England with a journal devoted to their craze between tightlacing and sex hyperaesthesia [heightened feeling] seems to be well established.

Ahh, so now the corset wasn’t just about seducing men, but ourselves. We were deemed dangerous dames because, poor things that we are, we’re too weak to resist sexual desires. We’d easily fall for any man, any time, any where. Worse yet, what if we opted to masturbate?! Men, as always, feared our ability to make choices. (In truth, what need do multiple-orgasmic creatures have for inconsiderate three-huffs-and-puffs-to-climax lovers who seek to control us?)

So, just how would you stop a corset-wearing woman from screwing around and diddling herself? Well, you get her out of that corset by any means possible — including scaring the crap out of her with exaggerated (or completely falsified) science.

According to this article on the brothers Lucien C. and I. DeVer Warner, founders of Warner Brothers (now Warnaco) knew the power of medical alignment selling foundation garments:

It took a couple of doctors to sell women on the idea that “rearranging” the human body via the old-fashioned corset was not practical. Doctors Lucien C. and I. DeVer Warner put their heads together and came up with a corset to fit a woman’s body, unlike other Victorian undergarments which “tied” her in.

They weren’t the first to sell corsets with doctor names, but they were among the first in the U.S. to push the “new” corsets; I’m sure it was made all that much easier (and profitable) with medical science telling those frightening anecdotal stories of death by too-restrictive corset.

Just where did the feminists fit into all of this? Well, that’s for part three.

There Are Flowers In The Attic

November 20, 2009 / Deanna / 1 Comment

When V.C. Andrews’ Flowers In The Attic was published in 1979, it became all the rage for a teenage girl to read it — and by ‘the rage’ you can presume not only the inclusion of the outrage of those who prefer to censor for all rather than interact with their children as well as the rebellion of teens who wanted to flaunt their right to inflame. And I was one of them.

I can’t imagine there’s anyone who doesn’t, 30 years later, know the story of the four Dollanganger children locked in an attic. But if you don’t…

A) you can find reviews via the comments and ‘links to this post’ at The V.C. Andrews Movement / Reading Challenge

and 2) you might want to stop reading this post now — because while I’m not going give a classic book review, I will be discussing the reading of this book and my reactions to it, which certainly will contain spoilers.

I don’t recall buying the book (I believe my younger sister, ever much-hipper and popular than I, got it and I feasted on her literary leftovers), but in any case, I definitely recall reading Flowers In The Attic as a teen. (It was the paperback version, so that would have been when I was about 16.) In fact, it was an incredibly vivid book, which left its marks (marks — not scars) on me. It haunted me so that I had planned to name my son Cory, after that ill-fated twin, in some sort of sentimental attempt to wipe away the sins or offer retribution via resurrection. But before I would come to that decision I would have to find redemption for myself and my reading habits.

I was horrified reading Flowers In The Attic. I’d read Gothic novels before; I’d read so-called smut before. But nothing disturbed me like this V.C. Andrews novel had — and the rumors that it was based in truth did not help my ambiguity at all.

I was repelled by what I was reading — yet compelled to continue reading it. I couldn’t put it down and walk away from it… Why was I reading this creepy story about a cruelty and performed on children by family members? Especially as I’d elected to neither watch Sybil nor read the book just a few years before simply because it was too horrifying. How was I now reading this book — and sympathizing with incest and rape?! And, heaven help me, I was itching to get the next book in the series. It was scary and confusing and it made me question my own morality.

I could have gone to my parents with my feelings; they were open and easy to talk with, as I’ve described before. But I figured whatever I was going to have to articulate to them, I ought to be able to articulate to myself — and so figure it out for myself from there. And let’s be honest, there was a significant about of shame which kept me from admitting what I was thinking and feeling to anyone else.

So I endeavored to struggle through it on my own.

Eventually I learned that my fascination was simply that of a reader drawn to a compelling story, into the lives and emotions of characters. The creepy and horrifying things were supposed to be creepy and horrifying — I was supposed to cringe and feel crazed for those characters (and despise others). And if I allowed (or was willing to have) the author manipulate and suspend my disbelief into feeling for these characters to the extent that I sympathized (or even romanticized in the Gothic sense) the matters of sibling sex and rape (if not classic violent rape, that scene certainly raises questions of ability to consent), I was not some lewd damaged being caught up in some literary Stockholm syndrome-esque relationship with the author — the very fact that I was bothered enough to be forced to sort through so many shades of grey (and pure evil) proved that. If I was engrossed enough in the characters to want to cheer them on through darkness to some sort of victory and happiness, I was simply human.

By the time the sequel, Petals on the Wind, was released in paperback, I had no qualms about reading it. I would go on, with a clear conscious, to read the entire series (save for the prequel), but I never did name anyone Cory. I got over it.

Being reminded of this book recently, I wondered if it would still have such a powerful effect on me; so I decided to get a copy and read it again.

I titled this post There Are Flowers In The Attic for two reasons. The first one is that in rereading the book, I was again moved. Yes, it’s lighter fiction than I am used to reading (perhaps not young adult reading per se, but light in literary terms), but the dark subject matter still moves. I did spot continuity errors (in two places, Andrews confuses the two twins with one another, which made for bumpy & annoying rereading), but it’s still a solidly creepy, horrific novel.

The second reason the flowers remain in the attic refers to a parenting opportunity.

When the 13 year old spotted the ‘scary cover’ of the book, she hinted (she’s forever hinting, not asking) that she’d like to read it. Being that there is a strong sibling effect, I knew the oldest daughter would then want to read what ‘we’ were reading.

Both are pretty strong readers, but the eldest, 20, is an Auspie, so she might have additional confusion reading this book, and the 13 year old has abandonment and other issues resulting from her mentally ill, neglectful biological mother. Suffice it to say, I had concerns how either of them would process the book’s subject matter. So I sat them both down to talk about the book and its content.

I told them that I had no problems with either of them reading the book, but that I wanted them to know that the book was scary — and at was at this point that they interrupted me, laughing about how they watch and enjoy scarier movies than I do. Which is true, but, as I explained to them, Flowers In The Attic was far scarier because it wasn’t about vampires, zombies or other fictional monsters; people did the horrible things.

Mothers and grandmothers abused their own children (the girls’ faces fell) — and as a result, the children themselves did things which would, I supposed based on my own reaction to the book, make the girls uncomfortable.

“What things?” they asked.

“There’s some inappropriate sex,” I replied, not wanting to completely spoil the book for them.

There was a pause; no laughing now.

I told them that the book had made me feel creepy and I was ashamed I continued to read it — so much so, that I was too embarrassed to talk to my parents (their benevolent grandparents) about it. So if they wanted to read it, and they felt uncomfortable, they should feel free to quit reading it, talk to someone about how they felt, or both. (This is a general ‘rule’ we teach the kids; but I felt the need to be specific about it with this book.)

The girls looked at each other and then at me, sitting there with my eyebrows arched into question marks. The 13 year old passed on reading it (I suspect it was the ‘sex’ part; she’s quite the prude). The eldest took a look at the book, read the back of it, and said she’d look for more books by the author at the library the next time she was there.

On one hand, I fear I may have not only ruined a potential good read for them but removed their individual opportunity to struggle with their own morality… My intent was not to censor or turn them off of the book.

But on the other hand, I was honest about the book, the subject matter and issues which might arise, and left it to them to decide for themselves what they could handle and/or were interested in reading; and that, in my opinion, is what parents should do.

Even if I denied them the chance to bloom as readers with this specific book, there will be others — there are always others. I hope our continuing discussions about books, and my respect for them as readers, is simply more seed sowing.

FYI, The Complete V.C. Andrews has a contest to win a copy of the newly released Flowers in the Attic/Petals on the Wind bind-up (two books in one) edition to give away.

Grandma Was A Swinger: Estate Sales & The Ephemera Of Women’s Lives

October 15, 2009 / Deanna / 3 Comments

I have a habit of making stories from nearly anything. I see a person on the street, I give him or her a name, an occupation, a mood, a spouse or other family member, and a mission. In line at the grocery story, I love to watch what people are buying. A lovely, or hysterical, little vignette emerges. (One time, it was a man at 12:30 at night purchasing a huge bottle of vodka, kitty litter, and a Cornish game hen. The vodka bottle was nearly the size of the kitty litter canister. I had to keep myself from advising him not to sit down with the bottle until after he fed the cat — even if the hen was for the cat, sooner or later, a hungry cat will eat a passed out human.) Anywhoooo…

Visiting estate sales allows me to see more than things to buy; I see a life. A few objects create a sketch, a few more inks it in, and then my mind paints in all the rest. I can’t help myself. And I believe it’s not just more exercises for my imagination; I learn a lot this way.

At a recent estate sale, I discovered the recently deceased woman had been a bookkeeper, extremely active at the nearby church, and an excellent bowler. But there was more. I was lucky enough to find (and purchase) a few raunchy old pulps and a paperback on open marriages — extra bonus material included a bookmark at the chapter on renewing the contract, and a few Polaroids of the woman in her 1950’s wearing office attire in pinup poses. In order to not let her sons (who were running this estate sale) learn things they may have lived this long without knowing, I bought a whole bunch of stuff so that they’d be too busy tallying my bill to really see my items and do the math on their mom’s life.

Working at another estate, where ‘Grannie’ was moving to an assisted care facility, there was a lot of clutter. For practical reasons, it seems. Hidden in plastic waste cans, desk drawers, floor cubby-holes, were half-full (or half-empty, for you pessimists) bottles of booze. Mostly cheap sherry & brandy. So cheap was this hooch, I’d imagine you couldn’t tell one ‘flavor’ from the other — or from rubbing alcohol for that matter. Now we knew more about where ‘Grannie’ was moving and why. We just disposed of the bottles as we found them, without a comment, so as not to embarrass the family. We also found an overwhelming number of unfinished sewing and needlework projects; idol hands really might be the devil’s workshop.

I have been to more estate sales than I can count where the now-deceased elderly woman had been to art class in her younger years. Yes, she studied figure drawing — nude figure drawing. If I am lucky, I get to buy the portfolio. Often, I am not so lucky; but I do get to at least leaf through them. I do think ladies today ought to be educated thus. It’s something we, as a culture, should not have stepped away from.

This all gets me to thinking… Upon my death, at my estate sale, people will draw conclusions about me. Folks may think I took a nude figure drawing class — at least until they read the various names and dates on the drawings. They might think I had an open marriage. Lots of folks will think, due to my huge collection of pinups and vintage erotica, that I was a lesbian; people do it now. Perhaps I should leave notes.

But women do leave notes. In fact, they document their whole lives. Especially those women who were wives and mothers. There’s a certain pattern to a mom’s life, and in these homes of women who have passed on, you see the evidence of it.

There are the piles of scrapbooks, letters, photos, and correspondence of intimate connections. The trail begins with cards, notes, and photos with written clues to romance. Perhaps there are diaries. Soon there are stacks of ‘baby books’, family photo albums, depositories of greeting cards, postcards, letters and other clues of a new family and social attachments. (As the family grows, whatever personal diaries there were may now cease; she is too busy caring for her family to document and journal her own life in a diary.)

As the children get older, these scrapbooks turn into group things. Work newsletters, bowling league gazettes, church group & luncheon publications… She continues her habits of saving and, if lucky, pasting. As the children age, she becomes an empty-nester, and the social group activities are intermittently interrupted with family wedding invitations, announcements of new born babies, thank-you-for-the-gift cards, and a few obituaries here and there. Some of the wealthier women traveled, and you’ll find volumes full of travel itineraries, plane & boat tickets, postcards, photographs and other travel souvenirs. But just as the books became less and less about family, so the books eventually become less and less about the living.

Too soon the scrapbooks become filled with page after page of obituaries, memorial service bulletins, the occasional thank you card from the younger generation for the flowers… Even if the obits are punctuated with the occasional wedding and birth announcement clippings, there are no cards, or handwritten notes, just newspaper clippings. Proof that human interaction is limited, the only handwriting now is the feathery-script of the woman making the book; a single script places the dates below the clippings. The scrapbook is a one-woman — one-way — endeavor. She continues to chronicle the past rather than the now. To fill her day as well as the books, she includes newspaper articles on ‘Remember When’ and ’50 Years Ago Today’ stories. These clippings dot the obits with more socially-sterile tanned documents of death and loss…

There you stand, holding these books, this evidence of life which was cut, pasted and collected by this woman who has passed on. In some cases, all you find are the drawers and boxes of intentions — loose papers that had patiently out-lasted their acidic attacks to survive the great “some day” when they would be placed into books to tell their stories; their brittleness a testimony to the bitterness of time that ran out.

Yet, when you bring the stacks of lovingly made books &/or old saved ephemera to the living, they say “Go ahead and sell it. Or pitch it if it’s not worth anything; I don’t want it.”

I cringe when they say that.

But I do as I am told, praying that someone will come along and adopt these books and boxes of ephemera, in some fashion adopting these women & their families — if they are willing to see the dead-paper forest for the trees of individual auction-priced items.

But sometimes, it’s what you don’t find which illuminates the most about lives.

Once I was working with my mom at an estate sale. We were clearing out the master bedroom when she opened the nightstand drawer and squealed so loud that I quickly turned from the closet to look. My mother stood clutching an item in her hand, her face was flushed and her eyes begged for help. “I shouldn’t have picked it up,” she said. I came over, removed the item from her hand, and discovering one of those small clothing shavers (the kind that you use to remove pills on your sweaters etc) I said “What’s the matter with a sweater shaver?” My mother sighed, her shoulders relaxed and she said “Oh, I thought it was a… well, you know…” My mother had thought it was a vibrator.

This, of all the finds over the years, has me thinking the most: Why haven’t I ever found vibrators at estate sales?

You might be quick to say that the families had already cleared the home of such things, out of a sense of propriety perhaps. But I’ve cleaned too many nightstands, bathrooms, closets, and under too many beds. I’ve found too many family skeletons, dark secrets, and old people diapers to believe this is the reason.

I’ve found all the ephemera documenting the most intimate parts of their lives, including their love lives. What’s more, I’ve found evidence of their sex lives — be it the old letters, pulp novels, erotic works, or ‘just’ their offspring. But never a sex toy.

I find it hard to believe that loneliness, drinking, sewing, bowling, church activities, and cut & pasting from the newspaper replaces the need for sexual gratification. It doesn’t work now, at the age of 45, so why would it be enough at 92?

Do families worry more about ridding mom or grandma’s home of her pocket rocket more than they do adult publications or evidence of other bodily functions? Could it be these women really have no sex drives? Or, even though vibes and sex toys have been around for ages, were these women unaware they existed — or without means to get themselves one? Or is there some other reason I do not find vibrators when preparing for estate sales?

Romancing The Van: Ephemera Proves There’s Someone For Everyone

October 12, 2009 / Deanna / Leave a comment

Two years ago, hubby and went to the junk yard to get replacement doors for our van, Ookla. I was utterly fascinated with the junk yard itself and was almost disappointed when we found the right doors — but the adventure wasn’t quite over yet…

I sat down inside the van, to get out of the hot sun, while Derek went about the business of removing the doors from the junked van; I looked about. Clearly the last owner’s belongings had not been cleared out of the vehicle. Paper and trash were strewn about, but then there it was — a Playboy magazine. Water-damaged and smelling of mildew, but there it was, right next to a bottle of Axe body spray. Does it get any more kitsch than that?!

(Now, before I go any further, you should know a bit more about when we went to purchase Ookla, our old conversion van. When the salesman unlocked the vehicle and showed us the spiffy airline lights which ran along the floor and the ceiling, the first thing I said was, “Hey, was porn made in this van?” Both the salesman and Derek blushed. So I’m neither a prude nor surprised that the previous owner of this van was also marked with smut — it just seemed to be a sign that along with make, model and year, these doors were the right match for dear old Ookla.)

But before I could reach for that Playboy, my eye spotted something else…

Yup, that there is a used tampon, folks.

I carefully reached for the Playboy. It was only the cover and badly damaged — but where there’s a cover… So I kept looking about, being very careful where I put any part of myself, least I find another tampon. Or worse.

Next, I spotted a notebook with a fancy silver foil cover. Only the first page was written on — a cheap attempt at fantasy fiction, with the main character discovering a magical notebook with a silver cover. (Yeah, I took that home for giggles later.)

I then found a bill for the van’s last oil change, paid for in 2005; been sitting here awhile, I guess.

I eventually found the insides of the Playboy and I put them with the magazine cover pages and the silver notebook just as Derek called for my help to hold the doors while he took out the last bolts.

I got out of the van, headed to the back. Standing there, just holding the doors, I scanned the insides of the van from this new angle. Immediately I note Star Wars light saber boxes — not one, but two of them. If the amateur sci-fi-slash-fantasy-fiction and Axe wasn’t proof enough of an under-sexed goober, the Star Wars weaponry was. This van was owned by a nerd. A nerd who, according to the oil change bill, had the first name of Jim.

Then I spy something else…

“Hey, Derek, what’s that by your foot?”

“Huh?”

“What’s that black thing by your foot?”

“I dunno. Let’s get this door off…”

We set the door down and I go to get a closer look at the black thing which was by his foot. It’s a bit of fabric… After the tampon, you’d think I’d be leery, but I had to know what it was, so I cautiously picked it up.

In my hand I then held one very small pair of black nylon panties, bikini style — with lots of lace. I should’ve dropped them like they were on fire, but they were very, very clean looking. I started laughing.

Oh my God, it looks like Jimmy had himself a woman. At least once. A light-saber-playing, small-black-panty-wearing, menstruating, Playboy-accepting woman who could tolerate the smell of Axe.

There’s someone for everyone.

Cheap Thrills Thursday: Of Storks In My Collection & Contraception

October 1, 2009 / Deanna / 1 Comment

A few months ago, a gentleman contacted me about one of the items in my “vintage stork” collection. The antique postcard, postmarked 1908, depicts a couple shoo-ing away a baby-delivering stork; the gentleman was James M. Edmonson, Ph.D., Chief Curator of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum at the Case Western Reserve University; and he was asking if I could get him a larger high resolution scan of the postcard for inclusion in a new gallery the museum was working on.

Could I? Would I? Um, this is exactly the sort of stuff that floats my boat! Not only is my object connecting me with others, with history, but the gallery is for Virtue, Vice, and Contraband: A History of Contraception in America — a new exhibit at the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum that examines 200 years of the history of contraception in the United States.

So, naturally I did whatever I could to get the chief curator the graphic. And here it is, on the left-hand side of the display designed by guest curator Jimmy Wilkinson Meyer from The College of Wooster:

The exhibit (launched September 17, with Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, author of Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in the 19th Century America, at the Zverina Lecture), depicts the social and cultural climate that influenced birth control decisions in this country, says James Edmonson, chief curator at the Dittrick:

The exhibit reveals a longstanding ignorance of essential facts of human conception. For example, that a woman’s ovulation time was not discovered until the 1930s by two doctors, Kyusaku Ogino in Japan and Hermann Knaus in Austria. Before and after this finding, desperate women went to great length to prevent pregnancies. The exhibit explores less well known (and dangerous) methods such as douching with Lysol or eating poisonous herbs like pennyroyal, as well as conventional means such as the IUD or the Pill.

“A remarkable body of literature was available to assist newly married couples and others,” says Edmonson. “These books were not displayed publicly, on the coffee table, but hidden in a private place.”

He cites examples such as Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People (1832) and the popular 18th century book on anatomy, reproduction, and childbirth, Aristotle’s Masterpiece.

In addition to literature, the exhibit draws upon and incorporates the vast collection of contraception devices donated to the university in 2005 by Percy Skuy. The Canadian collector had amassed the world’s largest collections of such devices over the course of four decades.

The exhibit starts in the early 1800s, before Anthony Comstock, lobbied Congress to pass the Comstock Act of 1873, responding to what he viewed as a moral decline after the Civil War.

“It was a watershed year. The Comstock Act made it illegal to sell contraceptives or literature about contraception through the mail,” says Edmonson.

While Congress legally barred contraception, a black market for such products and literature flourished. Comstock went undercover to search out and turn in violators of his law in his crusade to stamp out what he defined as smut and obscenity.

In the early 20th century, women’s advocate Margaret Sanger opened a birth control clinic and research institute, flaunting the Comstock Law. Eventually her efforts evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The exhibition highlights some ancient methods of birth control and presents information about the influence of religion on contraception.

“We wanted to have a multi-faceted look at the topic of contraception,” Edmonson says.

Future plans are to expand this exhibit with a companion book, a kiosk where additional information can be accessed on the birth control collection, and an extensive online site available worldwide.

I love that my old postcard is hanging out with Margaret Sanger — well, it does that here at home, but now it’s part of the larger public story. And that’s cool.

Now I must get myself to Cleveland, Ohio to see it!

My Summer of ’79

September 26, 2009 / Deanna / 4 Comments

At 15, I was straddling the simple romantic fantasies of girlhood by day — and the hormonal induced sweaty-pink-bit-manipulations by night.

By day, I still played with Barbie & her friends. Still playing with Barbies was not something I advertised; I didn’t invite my girlfriends over to play with me. Like my nocturnal activities, this was the solo-play of self-discovery.

Playing with Barbie was like warm comfort food; I understood the rules and romance in playland, even if I didn’t understand the ways of the boys around me who had suddenly started reacting to my well-beyond-just-budding breasts.

But at night, I got hot and sweaty for Andy Gibb — via his posters on my walls.

Especially that poster of Andy with his dark blue satin baseball jacket worn open to expose what I could only then (and now) best describe as a tree of hair — with a trunk that went down past the navel to what I could only then bear to imagine as another system of hair at the root… Leading to that something that beefed-up his tight satin pants. And that magnificent mane of hair on his head, ahhh... it still works.

But before I begin to get lost in teenage masturbation fantasies, let’s just say that solo-play was far more productive in terms of my nighttime studies; learning the ins-and-outs of myself, physically & emotionally, was easier than figuring out interpersonal play by myself. But I did learn much about me.

At 15, I knew the score — or at least what scoring was — even if I wasn’t ready for it. At least not with a boy. If I was going to give in — and I wasn’t sure I was — it would be with a man who knew what he was doing.

Since I was an avid reader, Barbie wasn’t my only form of entertainment. (Nor was masturbation — quit trying to get me off the subject!) As an avid reader with a voracious appetite for books, my parents let me read freely from anything on the bookshelves at home and at the library. I hadn’t needed my parents’ permission for any reading material since what, I was 6, 7? I read what I wanted, and asked questions when I needed to.

For example, when I was about 10 I read a mystery book which presented a mystery it hadn’t intended. I forget the title and author, but the passage went like this: “and then he threw the flaming faggot into the fire.” Since the only definition for ‘faggot’ I knew was the same for ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ (hey folks, it was 1974, and folks were ‘out’ in theory even if I didn’t know anyone personally); I was at a loss. How could a man who was alone throw another man into a fire? And if there was someone around, why hadn’t he been mentioned earlier? Shouldn’t there have been some sort of exchange or motive? Was it just bad writing?

Book in hand, I approached my mother, showed her the passage and asked for help. How she kept a straight face (no pun intended) while explaining that ‘faggot’ was an English word for cigarette, I’ll never know… But I do know that not only had she helped me with my vocabulary but I helped her by letting her know what I knew. That’s what parenting is all about, yes?

So, flash forward five years to me at 15 again. I dragged myself away from Andy Gibb’s gaze, left Babs alone (that’s not a euphemism; I refer again to the classic fashion doll), and look for a book on my parents’ book shelf.

A title caught my eye, The Summer of ’42 — something about it was familiar. I remembered vaguely the book making news… Something about sex & banning the book… Hmm, I thought, I hope it’s not as dumb as Catcher in the Rye. (That book did nothing for me, sorry.) But curiosity won, and I took Summer of ’42 to my room and read it.

The book was well-written, but it was from the point of view of a boy, which I found faintly disinteresting. A group of boys who want to get laid, gee, that was news to a 15 year old girl with big boobs. But I hung with it (to date, I’ve only quit reading 3 books — I’m a girl who believes in commitment), and I learned a few things.

Like Hermie’s date with Aggie. Hermie thinks he’s getting lucky by touching her breast — a deformed breast lacking any nipple — only to discover later that he’d been fondling and groping her shoulder. (Hey, Andy Gibb would never, ever, have made that mistake!) This only confirmed my belief that boys were stupid. They were in such a rush, they missed pretty basic stuff. Idiots.

But at the end of the book, the cumulative lessons learned left me once again surprised: I’d read another banned book that left me wondering why it would need to be banned. Frankly, I still am.

Sure, Hermie (an under-age boy) has sex with an older (adult) woman; but it’s depressing. It’s not erotic. Nor is it abusive or crude. In fact, it scared me about my fantasies about Mr. Gibb. I mean Hermie was in love, head over heels in love — ga-ga — and after what he thinks is such a beautiful moment, this woman cries and leaves him. Sure, she was vulnerable with her husband’s death and all, but clearly, she didn’t want some kid. Ouch. And hey, Hermie’s got feelings! Who knew boys had feelings?

This was not some sex-filled-romp of adolescence. This was not some titillating erotic entertainment piece. This was heartbreaking. Even at 15, a never-been-kissed-by-a-boy girl, I recognized the agony of misplaced virginity. I knew that a first time, a first love, a first f***, was sacred. This wasn’t some fodder for a solo-f***-fest, some sensationalized erotic entertainment — far from it. It was a warning. Not only were young boys not practiced enough to find a boob, but they were immature enough to not know they should protect their hearts. While I felt that I would fare better in the groping department, I knew I was likely as lame in matters of the heart.

Not long after, Barbie was put away and didn’t see sunlight until we had a garage sale. I had mastered what I needed to know: romance was a fickle bitch, boys could indeed be hurt too, and romance could be as plastic — as one-sided — as a fashion doll.

I still masturbated to images of Andy, but I no longer romanticized meeting him after a concert and that he’d fall in love with me. It was just sex — just sex in my mind. And it was safer for me at that time to leave it at that. Too bad Hermie hadn’t been that self aware, hadn’t protected himself… And no wonder the older woman who should have known better, but was so affected by her own broken heart she couldn’t think straight, left town asap.

I grew up quite a bit reading Summer of ’42, and I likely saved myself some pain. I’m not saying I mad no mistakes; my life is a character-building exercise. But I made less mistakes, less painful ones. I have Herman Raucher to thank for that. And my parents — for they let me read.

Just last week I asked my mom if she knew that I had read Summer of ’42; yes, she had. I asked her if she was, well, creeped out by it. Her reply? “No. You always came to us if you had questions. …It was a sad story, wasn’t it?”

Yeah mom, it was sad. Sadder still to know that some kids weren’t allowed to read it. Thank you, mom and dad, for being good parents.

Epilogue: Some kids and adults are still not allowed to read or view Summer of ’42 because it has been banned from their libraries. Or they’ve been told to avoid such ‘horrible’ works. I can’t speak for the film, but if you get a chance, read Summer of ’42. It might be too late to save yourself from past mistakes, but it’s never too late to learn something.

Read it this week, Banned Books Week, buy Banned Books Week merch, blog about it and read what others have to say — and celebrate your freedom to read.

About Those Notches On Your Bedposts…

September 18, 2009 / Alessia / 2 Comments

That September/October issue of Psychology Today is chock-full of incredible information on relationships. On page 45, an article by Jay Dixit examines how men & women remember and count their sexual partners.

Conventional wisdom tells us that men inflate their numbers, while women demur their digits — and according to this article, that’s true. But why? Are we both lying to look better, with men trying to project their stud status and women trying to protect their reputations — or their lovers’ feelings?

Norman Brown, a psychologist at the University of Alberta (who finds that American men report an an average of 18 while women report an average of just 5), says it’s not simply a matter of lying. “It has to do with self-presentation, estimation, and memory.”

Women are more likely to “just know,” or to have a tally somewhere, a method psychologists call “notches on the bedpost.” Women are also more likely to use enumeration (“Let’s see, Dave, Tarik, that guy from the gym…”), which produces underestimates, since people forget instances.

Men are more likely to use rough approximation (“Jeeze, I don’t know, like maybe 50?”) or rate-based estimates (“Let’s see, one a month for the past five years…”) — a method that produces overestimates.

But the gender discrepancy isn’t just a matter of poor counting either; the survey method itself matters.

Extremely sexually active women downgrade phone estimates compared to onine. (Men don’t.)

While the article doesn’t expound, I’m guessing vulnerability and anonymity are key here.

Another factor is undersampling prostitutes, who don’t get included in surveys due to “lifestyle issues” — they’re not in the phone book and they aren’t often home during dinner hours.

This is especially important, in my mind, because male clients are included in the surveys — and surely such professional interactions inflate their numbers. (Enlarge scan below to see evidence of this in male celebrities’ self-proclaimed numbers — which, by the way, does not include female celebrities. Arg!)

Surprisingly, men base their sexual partner count on the overheard comments of others — lowering their count to match conservative opinions, raising their count to match permissive sentiments. Women who overhear such conversations are unaffected.

I cannot but help to wonder if it this sheep mentality on the behalf of males which dictates a knee-jerk response to the “moral majority” — men clearly are more insecure and willing to submit to conservative cultural conformity (in word, in preaching; not in deed), and this must drive much of our current politics and societal conversation (including the control of women who aren’t affected by such espoused norms).

The article ends with more familiar territory; in which men are more likely to inflate their numbers when the researcher is female, even though the research shows that the more sex partners a man has had, the less attractive he seems.

Wouldn’t it just be simpler if men just resisted the urge to do or say anything to get laid? It doesn’t work anyway.

The Facts About Children, Sex, Predators & The Internet

September 2, 2009 / Alessia / 1 Comment

Last year the Internet Safety Technical Task Force released the Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies, the Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States, but I wouldn’t have heard of it if it weren’t for the recent article by Michael Castleman at Psychology Today:

Last year, the attorneys general of 49 states created the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to investigate sexual solicitation of children by molesters who troll for targets using sites popular with kids, among them, MySpace and Facebook. The 278-page report concluded that there’s no real problem.

The task force, led by Harvard researchers, looked at reams of scientific data dealing with online sexual predation and found that children and teens were rarely propositioned for sex by adults who made contact via the Internet. In the handful of cases that have been documented-and highly publicized-the researchers found that the victims, almost always older teenagers, were usually willing participants already at risk for exploitation because of family problems, substance abuse, or mental health issues.

The report concluded that MySpace and Facebook “do not appear to have increased minors’ overall risk of sexual solicitation.” The report said the biggest risk to kids using social networks was bullying by other kids.

“This study shows that online social networks are not bad neighborhoods on the Internet,” said John Cardillo, whose company tracks sex offenders. “Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are inhabited mostly by good people who are there for the right reasons.”

The bottom line is, the actual threat to children from sexual predators online is negligible.

So I’m guessing the reason I hadn’t heard of this before was that the findings, though incredibly clear, aren’t willing to be heard & accepted by the population at large. Instead of shouting from the rooftops that the internet is as safe a place as any for children, or even breathing a sign of relief, people would prefer far more salacious, fear-mongering headlines.

In truth, the actual Internet Safety Technical Task Force report says that, “Bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline.” Which means parents should be paying a lot more attention to what their children are experiences (and dispensing) at school, with their friends, etc., than they should be about the invisible “they” known as internet boogie men.

From the report:

Much of the research based on law-enforcement cases involving Internet-related child exploitation predated the rise of social networks. This research found that cases typically involved post-pubescent youth who were aware that they were meeting an adult male for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.

And if you think that’s only gotten worse because kids today are bombarded by internet porn, well, that’s just plain wrong too; from the report:

The Internet increases the availability of harmful, problematic and illegal content, but does not always increase minors’ exposure. Unwanted exposure to pornography does occur online, but those most likely to be exposed are those seeking it out, such as older male minors.

In other words, most kids ignore it, but those (mostly male) youths who want it go for it — just like those meeting with adults or others for sex. Because teens have sex drives, so you’d better be prepared to deal with the issue.

However, the report does not ignore the few times where child molesters have connected with youth online. It says that in the small number of cases, the internet was the first of several steps — the rest of which are no different than how “real world” hook-ups are made. So, if the sexual predator finds prey on the internet & the prey responds, the next step is telephone contact (right under their parents’ noses), followed by eventual meetings in person.

Here’s what the report suggests in terms of advice (I’ve bullet-pointed them, so they are easier to read):

Careful consideration should be given to what the data show about the actual risks to minors’ safety online and how best to address them, to constitutional rights, and to privacy and security concerns.

Parents and caregivers should:

educate themselves about the Internet and the ways in which their children use it, as well as about technology in general

explore and evaluate the effectiveness of available technological tools for their particular child and their family context, and adopt those tools as may be appropriate

be engaged and involved in their children’s Internet use

be conscious of the common risks youth face to help their children understand and navigate the technologies

be attentive to at-risk minors in their community and in their children’s peer group

and recognize when they need to seek help from others.

All of this, though, ignores the basic facts regarding child molestation: Most rapes, sexual assaults, and abuse is perpetuated by someone that the victim knows and trusts.

And I guess that’s the real reason I hadn’t heard of this report & its findings before; people still prefer to pretend they are safe at home, that the unknown danger is “other” and locked outside — or on the internet.

Romantic Pillow Talk – Of A Different Sort

August 24, 2009 / Alessia / Leave a comment

Remember practicing kissing and caressing your pillow when you were a teen? Well, there’s a whole movement dedicated to romancing the pillow and other two-dimensional objects in Japan.

According to Lisa Katayama in the New York Times Magazine, there’s a fraction of men in Japan who adopt body-pillow girlfriends and other “2-D” lovers as a substitute for real relationships. These men take their pillow girlfriends out on dates to restaurants, to sing karaoke, to take photo-booth pictures — positioning their stuffed girlfriends gently, “making sure to keep her upright and not to touch her private parts.”

The guru of the 2-D love movement, Toru Honda, a 40-year-old man with a boyishly round face and puppy-dog eyes, has written half a dozen books advocating the 2-D lifestyle. A few years ago, Honda, a college dropout who worked a succession of jobs at video-game companies, began to use the Internet to urge otaku to stand with pride against good-looking men and women. His site generated enough buzz to earn him a publishing contract, and in 2005 he released a book condemning what he calls “romantic capitalism.” Honda argues that romance was marketed so excessively through B-movies, soap operas and novels during Japan’s economic bubble of the ’80s that it has become a commodity and its true value has been lost; romance is so tainted with social constructs that it can be bought by only good looks and money. According to Honda, somewhere along the way, decent men like himself lost interest in the notion entirely and turned to 2-D. “Pure love is completely gone in the real world,” Honda wrote. “As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one.” Honda insists that he’s advocating not prurience but a whole new kind of romance. If, as some researchers suggest, romantic love can be broken down into electrical impulses in the brain, then why not train the mind to simulate those signals while looking at an inanimate character?

Many single people here in the US might find some of this quite reflective of the culture here; only the display of physical substitutes for romance are less accepted here.

In Japan the fetishistic love for two-dimensional characters is enough of a phenomenon to have earned its own slang word, moe, homonymous with the Japanese words for “burning” or “budding.” In an ideal moe relationship, a man frees himself from the expectations of an ordinary human relationship and expresses his passion for a chosen character, without fear of being judged or rejected.

“It’s enlightenment training,” Takuro Morinaga, one of Japan’s leading behavioral economists, told me. “It’s like becoming a Buddha.” According to Morinaga, every male otaku can be classified on a moe scale. “On one end, you have the normal guy, who has no interest in anime characters and only likes human women,” he explained. “The opposite end, of course, is the hard-core 2-D lover.” Morinaga, a self-described otaku, didn’t have much luck with women until he became a well-regarded economist. Now he has a wife and a private office in a fancy apartment building near ritzy Tokyo Bay. “I’m a 2 — I still like human women better,” he said, a wide grin forming. “But there are many men who are on the opposite side of the scale. I understand their feelings completely. These guys don’t want to push ahead in society; they just want to create their own little flower-bed world and live there peacefully.”

Aside from the large scale physical display & touching, is this any different than the romantic fantasy of soap operas, romance novels, films like Twilight, etc.? I don’t think so. Retreating to a fantasy, love doll, pillow, erotic story ,or dreaming of your own vampire lover is just as sane — or insane, I guess.

Can any be replacements for real human relationships? Can Twilght fandom, eating chocolate, or profuse shopping be as emotionally satisfying as dating? Can rapid page turning of bodice rippers, caressing of printed pillows, or vibrators be as satisfying as real human contact?

Maybe not; but as long as you can tell the difference, know reality from fantasy, they can’t hurt you as badly as divorces, break-ups and rejections either.

That said…

I am creeped-out by the Japanese penchant for underage girls. Most of the Anime characters & other pillow girls seem to be pre-teen & teenage school girls. While that’s disturbing & debatable on it’s own, I don’t find anything wrong with the idea of pillows or 2-D romance per se.

…It’s a bit sad, but no sadder than the girl who buries her nose in a succession of Harlequin romances, downs her emotions in vats of chocolate, etc.

Remembering Retro Risque T-Shirt Iron-Ons

August 4, 2009 / Deanna / 11 Comments

Back in the day, you couldn’t go to a mall and avoid a visit to (or the smell of) the t-shirt shop.

There you could select your t-shirt style (ringers were de rigueur, but then the baseball shirts with contrasting sleeves came in — oooh!), get your size, choose a color, pick out the funkiest iron-on, and even have it all personalized with letters (including glittery & puffy versions) spelling out your name.

Ah, those were the days, my friend…

Sure, now you can use your computer to design your own graphic and print it out at home on some iron-on paper and iron it on yourself (if you even own or can find your iron), but it’s not the same.

Don’t argue with me; it’s not the same, I tell you!

The 70’s were the Golden Age of Iron-Ons.

There were rock iron-ons, iron-ons with drug references and slang (that you had to be cool to ‘get’) — all sorts of stuff.

But the best, the most memorable, were the risque & down-right lewd t-shirts which had designs running the polarized gambit of responses to women’s liberation. You had sexist men, trying to exert their dominance through sexual bravado, sometimes cloaked as jokes, one one end; and on the other end, women trying to make their point that they were equal & could be dirty too.

I’m not sure that Typists Do It Sitting Down was exactly liberating or showing support of the ERA (more likey to feed the naughty secretary mythology), but, hell, they were worn by the libbers at PTA meetings — I mean literally worn at PTA meetings.

Sometimes a chauvinist pig & a demonstrating libber had on the same shirts. Was “Sex is Like a Bank Account, as soon as you make a Withdrawl, you lose Interest” supposed to be sex positive? Or was it ironic? You didn’t always know…

I’m pretty sure a lot of the adults wearing them didn’t know either.

It was confusing.

I’m sure part of the reason so many of these iron-ons and finished tees were seared into my brain as if the press-iron had melted the plastic goo-graphics into my brain had a lot to with my age.

Being a teen-aged girl standing behind a guy who’d just made/bought a “mustache rides” tee — who smiled at you just a little too long — makes you understand the classless menace even if you don’t know what that sort of ride is… And then, when a friend’s older sibling tells you what it means, you die another special little death.

Ah, good times.

But what’s really surprising is to look at what’s left of these original retro iron-ons and realize just how many you don’t understand. It’s not just that I don’t recall seeing them before; I honestly don’t understand them.

Like “LAB Large American Breasts” — was that for men or for women? The nipples on the ‘B’ indicate, a large American no. And was “LAB” supposed to be a parody of another LAB? The League of American Bicyclists? The Liberation Army… Uh. I don’t know.

Maybe it’s just as simple as men boasting they wanted big breasted women & I’m over thinking it.

But what about this? If “The more I know MEN… The better I like my DOG” was an iron-on for woman to wear, does that mean “The More I Know Women… The Better I Like My PUSSY!” was for men? Um, that iron-on doesn’t really transfer — the concept, I mean (I’m sure the image went/goes on a shirt fine). …There aren’t any rainbows or triangles to signify any LGBT significance.

Maybe I’m just too obtuse. Or too cerebral… This was the 70’s. I probably shouldn’t expect a lot.

But I want to add these iron-ons to my collection. That way, as usual, I’ll have some time to ponder the individual messages and their part in the collective message — and maybe that will help me make more sense of it all. Maybe.

Kitsch-Slapped

Tag: sexuality