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| Stories Bingo’s Home Bingo’s Lair |
A
1940s photograph.
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| Individuals
wanting pictures of naked or semi-naked women had two sources in the
1950s. There was a large market for men’s magazines with names
like Wink, Frolic, Follies, Gay Blade,
Playboy, Swank, and Rogue (listing just magazines
I have, my favorite is the last). The first three magazines provided,
to our eyes, tame photos of women, mostly strippers but also individuals
like Bettie Page. Gay Blade had photo spreads but was predominately
a story magazine without any advertisements. Playboy, Swank,
and Rogue had a similar format, each slanted toward a different
market. None of the magazines show an exposed nipple unless, like
Playboy, the pictures are journalistic. The October 1958 Playboy
has an article on prostitutes of Paris (described on Bride
Page) with photos less tame than the magazine’s pictorials.
The
fetish publication Exotique was advertised in Follies.
In Switch: a novel, Alex’s (and Sue’s — she appears in the fourth part) photographs range from the titillating leg shot, woman undressing, naked or nearly naked women in a suggestive pose, fetish shots like Bettie Page’s bondage photos by Irving Klaw, to actual, rather than simulated sex. It was easier to distribute tamer photographs through the mails. The 1950s and 1960s saw a number of court cases which led to a gradual loosening of laws against pornography. This loosening was very gradual. In the Roth decision in 1957 Supreme Court Justice Brennan wrote, “We hold that obscenity is not within the areas of constitutionally protected speech or press.” (Roth was appealing his conviction for sending “indecent” advertising circulars through the mails. He had a business “in the publication and sale of books, photographs and magazines” as stated in Justice Brennan’s writing of the decision.)
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Another
source of photographs of women were actual prints, slides and short
movies. These were available through the mail from a variety of
sources. Wink, Frolic, and Follies all carry
numerous advertisements for photographs. The photographs vary widely,
most are black and white and printed on 4x5 paper, though larger
sizes were available. Often the photos were shot in a variety of
poses using the same model or group of models making a set. Bettie
Page’s photos show some of the variety that were available.
Some of her photographs can be seen at: Bonnie Burton’s