Trashy Magazines, 50s Style

I was more than a little titillated when I stumbled upon a box of dusty 1950s s*mut magazines for women at Tobacco Barn in Asheville–but titillated for different reasons.

These are a treasure trove of cultural gems–a time capsule, a look at taboo sexuality in a suppressed decade of womanhood, a thick slice of retro graphic design, a study in the evolution of language and marketing ploys, and the underbelly of the 1950s good girl.  I had no idea these existed in the decade when my grandmother was diapering babies.  But after purchasing this stack of naughty zines, I eagerly spread them out in front of an elderly lady (who will remain nameless in case she is still embarrassed by the risque admission), asking her if she knew about these in the 50s.  She did, indeed, and smuggled one in her room, which resulted in a slap in the face when found by the man in her life.

Before you even flip through the pages, the titles tempt deliciously on the cover.  And the stories inside, trust me, you read a few lines and, forget it, before you know it a half hour has passed while you fell deep into the misfortunes of some good girl gone bad.

But just when you smile with smugness to yourself that you would never make the same mistakes as the girl in the story, you find out you are really just a good girl loser in features such as “Too Fat to Date–Soda dates are dreamy, but they can give you a hangover–teen fat!“

The article reads, “What boy dates a fat girl?  Looking around you’ll see that the popular girl isn’t always a raving beauty, but almost always is slim enough to look attractive in her clothes…If girls like Sally are slighted, hurt or insulted, they take their insults deep to their hearts.  Instead of fighting back or returning insult for insult, they go home and raid the icebox or go to the corner drug store for a fudge sundae (with whipped cream and nuts, please).”

Even the ads do their part to cut the sweet 1950s girl down to size.  Who needs self esteem anyway?

“FRECKLES…Mar Your Appearance”

“Even your prettiest dress doesn’t do anything for you if you haven’t the right bustline.”

And this one is my favorite:

“DEVELOP your CHESTLINE measurements without changing your contour.  WHY BE self conscious about your small, undersized, unattractive, underdeveloped chestline?  Now at last you can have a larger chestline, enjoy everything that goes with a well developed larger chestline.  Be more attractive, youthful–enjoy the new attention that accompanies a larger chestline.  You will never know how attractive you can be until you have tried the Model Beauty DEVELOPER to increase your chestline measurements!”  I’m SO GLAD you threw in “undersized, unattractive, underdeveloped” because I  didn’t understand just how hideous and disgusting a “small” chestline was.  And if I don’t go throw myself off the nearest bridge because of the utter grotesqueness of me and my small, undersized, unattractive, underdeveloped yoohoos, you better believe I am sending in my $3.98 and eagerly awaiting my Model Beauty Developer to arrive in plain wrapper via mail.

But not all the ads were image destroyers–nope, some were just downright sweet and adorable like this one from Armour:

“She says ‘M-m-m’…she means ‘meat’.”

Is that what she means?  I was so off.

Are these magazines not just a hoot?!  They are like fuel to my creative fire.  More rich snippets to come…