Read Online Thy Neighbor's Wife by Gay Talese - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gay Talese
Tags: Health & Fitness, Sexuality
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promotion manager for a Chicago magazine magnate named George von Rosen, a shrewd and prescient man who, having failed to gain employment on The Christian Science Monitor , and having worked as a circulation manager for several music magazines and one that catered to Protestant ministers, decided after World War II to become his own publisher and hopefully prosper in the increasingly popular market of the girlie magazine.
A fortune had already been made during the war by such New York publishers as Robert Harrison, whose many magazines—with titles like Flirt, Titter, Wink , and Eyeful —had greatly appealed to lonely servicemen at home and overseas. But Harrison, who was personally offended by nudity and would in 1952 devote himself to exposing scandal in his new publication Confidential , limited his sex magazines to black-and-white photographs of young women wearing bathing suits, negligees, and undergarments only slightly more immodest than might be found in the ladies’ lingerie ads of the New York Times Sunday magazine, which was one of the nation’s principal stroke books sub silentio .
Among other magazines offering masturbatory possibilities before George von Rosen entered the market were movie magazines that displayed starlets in bikinis, adventure magazines that occasionally depicted scantily clad beauties in distress, the nudist-family magazine Sunshine & Health , and such large circulation magazines as Life and Look , which, in beguiling ways, sometimes surpassed all other publications in presenting sexually arousing photographs.
Life and Look in the late 1930s justified as photojournalism the controversial pictures they printed of actress Hedy Kiesler swimming in the nude with a nipple exposed, from a scene in a Czechoslovakian movie called Ecstasy . So sensational was the reaction to the film, and to the publicity surrounding it, that Ecstasy was later banned or cut by censors everywhere; and when Hedy Kiesler moved to Hollywood to work on other films, she sought a-new identity by changing her name to Hedy Lamarr.
In 1941 Life published perhaps the most famous pinup picture of the war years, that of Rita Hayworth in a lacy satin slip kneeling on a bed; her stilted but oddly sensual pose—unrivaled in popularity except for a studio publicity photo of the rear view of Betty Grable in a tight-fitting bathing suit—was later reported tohave been attached to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Life ’s photograph in 1943 of a smiling blond model, Chili Williams, whose polka-dot swimsuit seemed to be tucked inward at the crotch, received 100,000 “feverish” letters, according to the magazine, as well as a screen test for Chili Williams that led to small parts in Hollywood.
While some publishers thought that the pinup craze would subside after the troops had returned home, George von Rosen believed that these filaments of fantasy had permanently infiltrated the erotic consciousness of the returning veteran; and during the postwar years he circulated assorted magazines that emphasized what he considered three essential elements—guns, guts, and girls. The laws at this time regarding girlie photographs were not clearly defined, pending the final outcome of such lengthy litigation as that fomented by church groups and postal authorities against Sunshine & Health magazine, which persisted in selling on newsstands and sending through the mail its monthly editions containing unretouched nude photographs. Total nudity was lewdity, the Post Office claimed, but members of nudist associations which supported Sunshine & Health , and saw themselves as cultists and not pornographers, believed that the First Amendment guaranteed their right to accurately portray the nudist movement, including its pubic hair, in their official magazine.
Similar rights were claimed by unofficial nudist magazines, one of which— Modern Sunbathing & Hygiene —was published by George von Rosen. While he obeyed the postal policies
A fortune had already been made during the war by such New York publishers as Robert Harrison, whose many magazines—with titles like Flirt, Titter, Wink , and Eyeful —had greatly appealed to lonely servicemen at home and overseas. But Harrison, who was personally offended by nudity and would in 1952 devote himself to exposing scandal in his new publication Confidential , limited his sex magazines to black-and-white photographs of young women wearing bathing suits, negligees, and undergarments only slightly more immodest than might be found in the ladies’ lingerie ads of the New York Times Sunday magazine, which was one of the nation’s principal stroke books sub silentio .
Among other magazines offering masturbatory possibilities before George von Rosen entered the market were movie magazines that displayed starlets in bikinis, adventure magazines that occasionally depicted scantily clad beauties in distress, the nudist-family magazine Sunshine & Health , and such large circulation magazines as Life and Look , which, in beguiling ways, sometimes surpassed all other publications in presenting sexually arousing photographs.
Life and Look in the late 1930s justified as photojournalism the controversial pictures they printed of actress Hedy Kiesler swimming in the nude with a nipple exposed, from a scene in a Czechoslovakian movie called Ecstasy . So sensational was the reaction to the film, and to the publicity surrounding it, that Ecstasy was later banned or cut by censors everywhere; and when Hedy Kiesler moved to Hollywood to work on other films, she sought a-new identity by changing her name to Hedy Lamarr.
In 1941 Life published perhaps the most famous pinup picture of the war years, that of Rita Hayworth in a lacy satin slip kneeling on a bed; her stilted but oddly sensual pose—unrivaled in popularity except for a studio publicity photo of the rear view of Betty Grable in a tight-fitting bathing suit—was later reported tohave been attached to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Life ’s photograph in 1943 of a smiling blond model, Chili Williams, whose polka-dot swimsuit seemed to be tucked inward at the crotch, received 100,000 “feverish” letters, according to the magazine, as well as a screen test for Chili Williams that led to small parts in Hollywood.
While some publishers thought that the pinup craze would subside after the troops had returned home, George von Rosen believed that these filaments of fantasy had permanently infiltrated the erotic consciousness of the returning veteran; and during the postwar years he circulated assorted magazines that emphasized what he considered three essential elements—guns, guts, and girls. The laws at this time regarding girlie photographs were not clearly defined, pending the final outcome of such lengthy litigation as that fomented by church groups and postal authorities against Sunshine & Health magazine, which persisted in selling on newsstands and sending through the mail its monthly editions containing unretouched nude photographs. Total nudity was lewdity, the Post Office claimed, but members of nudist associations which supported Sunshine & Health , and saw themselves as cultists and not pornographers, believed that the First Amendment guaranteed their right to accurately portray the nudist movement, including its pubic hair, in their official magazine.
Similar rights were claimed by unofficial nudist magazines, one of which— Modern Sunbathing & Hygiene —was published by George von Rosen. While he obeyed the postal policies
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