More sex from the mox nix box

I’m still digging around in my metaphorical mox nix box (see the posting that precedes this one). I spent some time this past week going through the ads in a 1950 detective magazine, Best True Detective. Ads in the backs of sleazy mags are often more entertaining than the editorial contents.

Irving Klaw — and with a name like Irving Klaw you know it’s got to be good — ran a shop in Times Square, New York, where he sold pictures of movie stars, but also pin-ups. Klaw and his sister, Paula, marketed them to a specialty audience of men interested in things like seeing girls tied up, with whips, fighting, wearing nylons and garters, high heels and high heel lace-up boots.

I don't have to tell you to click on the pictures to make them full-size, do I?

He was also responsible for distributing John Willie’s infamous comic strip serials of “Sweet Gwendoline,” whose adventures were clearly indicated in the ad. She spent a lot of time tied up whilst wearing the aforementioned nylons and garters, high heels and lace-up boots. I haven't mentioned yet that Klaw was targeted by the Senate committee on pornography. It probably didn’t help Klaw that his header says “Mel-O-Drama with a capital O.” Even in the long-ago dark age of 1950 people knew what “O” means.

If Klaw’s ads weren't enough to pique a guy’s interest, there were also paperback books with titles like Shamelss Virgin, Confessions of a Party-Wife, Confessions of a Good-Time Girl, or Shakedown Dame. Peggy Gaddis (real name, Erolie Pearl Gaddis Dern b. 1895 d. 1966) who wrote Shameless Virgin, is a name I recognize; the others are probably pseudonyms of fat, sweaty guys who sat in a dingy room, smoking cigarettes, tossing back cheap whiskey, banging out these novels on their ancient 1920s typewriters.

If fiction wasn’t to a man’s liking, there were “true” sex manuals like Sexual Conduct of Men & Women, which promised to be “THE SEXUAL HOLY-OF-HOLIES so completely explored that even the doctors are impressed.” Then three doctors are quoted. I’d be interested in chapters like “IN THE BOY’S LIFE” with subjects like “Neighbors' little girls. Attractive school-teachers. Instructive housemaids.” Sounds kinky to me. How about “ADOLESCENCE”: “Girl next-door. Married women. Co-eds. Attractive Aunts. Street-walkers.” All of those sound reasonably normal interests for an adolescent with the exception of “Attractive Aunts,” which might have more to do with the writer than the reader.

Finally, do you get those pop-up ads on the Internet promising “FUCK BUDDIES” or “MEET WOMEN IN YOUR AREA YOU CAN FUCK TONIGHT”? Well, the lonely hearts clubs weren't  so overt, but the idea might have been the same, at least in the mind of the schnook who answered one of these ads. After reading these other hot ads he was probably primed and ready for some action.

Notice down in the lower right, “Colored Club.” It means the other clubs were whites-only, or even if they weren’t, the Alma Club let everyone know who their ad was aimed at.