23 SEPTEMBER 1960, Page 12

The Unprosecuted

. . Something Blue By PHILIP OAKES IXTY minutes from New York, Sunset Knoll a is a commuter's haven where satyriasis rages like the common cold. As half the community wives are nymphomaniacs the social balance is preserved: but there are other problems. For example: to keep the affections of her husband —lusting simultaneously for his sister-in-law and a pneumatic neighbour—blonde, too-tight sweatered Toby Finch is forced to perform a nightly sexual charade in which she dresses up in costumes ranging from a garter belt to a leather loin-cloth. The husband responds according to plan ('He picked her up and threw her on the living-room divan and dropped on her'), but Gwen Poindexter,' married to a plastics baron, fails to strike the connubial spark, even with the aid of 'long garter straps which make black ladders along her thighs to her stocking tops.' Inevitably she turns to corporation lawyer Dave Walters, whose wife suffers from intermittent frigidity, and after several changes of costume, the lovers sink to the carpet, while a snow-storm shrouds the house.

These, and other pastimes to occupy long win- ter evenings, are set out in Beyond Our Pleasure ('A Novel of Suburbia') by James Kendricks. It can be bought at most bookstalls in London, and points north.

So can Secret Confessions (a monthly), a col- lection of stories—'One Man Wasn't Enough For Me'; 'They Wouldn't Let Me Be Good'—and heavy-breathing features—`The Despoilers of Women'; 'What Most Girls Don't Know About Petting'—sandwiched between advertisements for shapelier buttocks (the secret is foam-rubber padding), and sacred medals, guaranteed to bring luck if worn close to the heart for ten days.

In 'Remember My Name, Suckers,' Betty, the teenage moll of a gang boss, carves up her rival with a switchblade, and then goes to claim her reward: ' "Get rid of these cats, lover," I whispered huslcily. "It's our turn now. Let me show you what a lovin' woman is really like." My breath came in short gasps. I couldn't wait much longer. I was ready to explode with passion. Fighting does that. When you've drawn blood, a girl's gotta have a man, or die.' Several short gasps on, Betty is staked out as the bait for rival gang. In the ensuing rumble she stabs / would-be rapist and is arrested. A simple report°, asks if she is at all sorry: ' "Sorry? Hell, n°' Why should I be sorry? They'll remember Ine' Buster. That's important. And that's more than they can say about you. I got a name, mister; They've heard about mc. But you, you're still nobody. So go on—get lost. I got more imports0i things to do."' In style and format, Secret Confessions ('T° der Secrets from the Soul of America,' says tbe . masthead) resembles a dozen other magazines,0 aimed at the teenage trade, and in a High811te bookshop it shares an exhibition rack wig Popeye and Superman comics. Pin-up magazine/ —imported from America, Holland, and Gel' many—get an equally wide distribution and die play. So does the home product. All of then! suffer from a certain monotony of subject. 11/1' some publishers work hard to get out of the rut Sir features a blonde in a black corset, ardent]) straddling a bamboo pole. Scantys features wide-eyed brunette giving suck to a toy monkey' But despite native enterprise, American mat zines arc the best sellers, especially in the mak model division. Physique Pictorial labours 1 touch a cordial note and even prints biograPhicni notes on its jock-strapped heroes. Bill Poulson' nineteen: 5 ft. 8 in.: 160 lb., is 'the quiet soirt who makes friends slowly, but is a very joy friend, once made.' Keith Stephan, twenty-'' 6 ft. 3 in.: 221 lb., is 'so strong that he hardly roar ises his own strength, and in playing around. friends are likely to end up badly bruised, 011 he watches himself carefully. Yet he can be lust as gentle as a big collie dog.' The magazine also specialises in dramatis tableaux : bare-chested teenagers, squaring up Of a rumble; bare-chested sneak thief, lashed to n motor-cycle, and menaced by a man with a ollacirli A footnote comments: 'Though occasionallY publishes a shot of a bunch of ruffian' "rumbling" or having a scuffle, you will notice that we have always avoided pictures depicting undue cruelty or suffering. To be sure, we 8/1 well aware of the tremendous opportunities for physique display in such shots, as the variotOr Crucifixions, being stretched on the wheel ° rack, being burned at the stake, vivisection with , a hatchet, being sliced in two with a buzzs; police beating up a helpless victim, and countlo. other forms of outrages which human bell' have forced upon one another. We arc personal ); so repulsed by the depiction of such scenes 111a . we would not want to show them in our boot. This probably makes us sissies, doesn't it?' Male—on sale in London and Manchester"; dispenses with text except for a foreword white states that its aim is 'to portray the male as „Ile is seen in every-day life . . . doing the things b` does naturally.' Natural activities for Mate models include nude wrestling, lighting a cigarette while sporting a black leather jacket and an on zipped fly, and lounging in lederhosen on a rumpled bed. The magazine costs 5s. and no pub- lisher is credited.

Gamier tastes are catered for by Man to Man ka monthly), which finds room for .a piece of special pleading on behalf of a Miss June Wilkin- son, whose statistics are such that other women are alleged to have tweaked the appropriate parts of her anatomy to find out if they were genuine. A full-page picture of Miss Wilkinson, wearing an unbuttoned shirt and clutching a magazine, deserves close study. The title of the feature is 'Don't Pinch Me.' The discernible text on the magazine held by Miss Wilkinson is 'Pussy.' In his book on horror comics, Seduction of the Innocent, Dr. Frederic Wertham draws attention to the gimmick of drawing a picture within a picture. The idea, it seems, is adaptable.

Man to Man also specialises in 'real-life' adventure stories such as 'Kidnapped by the Belles of Ongtong,' a yeasty account of how two salvage men are captured by a gang of native beauties, all doped with kava, and eager to avail themselves of any stray males in their annual fertility rites. The salvage men are willing studs, but their potential is soon exhausted. 'I was scared. These aborigine dolls, even when they're sober, are oversexed by a white man's standards. But when they've been drinking kava they're animals. It didn't help to think about the two guys we'd heard of who'd found themselves in a similar plight. . . . A little French sailor had staggered back to his ship with blood flowing down his legs. A few days later an Australian trader was suspended by his manly parts from a camphor tree.'

To escape a fate worse than death, the salvage men open fire on the leader of the Ongtong Bacchw. 'She staggered for a moment. Then she stared down at the little blood-oozing hole in her belly.' Safe, but jobless, the heroes head for home 'wondering how many men have clobbered them- selves because of that old urge.'

The illustration to this moral tale—white men surrounded by machete-wielders, grouped with their navels to the fore—is reproduced in Dominate and available in Manchester, Birming- ham and London. Dominate is offered on a sale- or-return basis: £3 if you keep it, 30s. if you bring it back. It comprises fifty-six pages of text and illustrations, all dedicated to 'devotees of discipline via the whip.'

In the lead story, 'The Chain and the Lash,' Sheila Brand, a.winsome blonde, whose lily-white flesh still bears the scars collected in her last job. is sent by an agency to call on a mysterious Mrs. Allers. Directed to wait in a hall, festooned with chains, she is dumped through a trap-door, pad- locked to the floor, and stripped of her clothes. ('The dress came off in one pull, leaving Sheila only in her bra and panties. Of course, she still had on her long black stockings and her high- heeled shoes.') Mrs. Allers arrives, clad in form- fitting leather, and wielding a chain-whip which she applies to Sheila's spread-eagled thighs for the next two pages.- Still chained and fettered, Sheila is asked how she feels towards her tor- mentor. "I can't understand it," she said. "but I want to serve you . . . to wait on you to do everything you say" . . . And the grateful. sobbing Sheila fell into the arms of the under- standing and sympathetic woman who was to be her employer from that day on.'

Dominate (its shelf-mates include Bound in, Rubber, and Arduous Figure Training at Bond''' haven) also contains a true confession piece--• 'My First Spanking'—and a correspondence see' tion. 'Dear Editor,' goes one letter, 'How about devoting some space in your delightful magazine to bare feet? You have satisfied your readers with spiked heels, high heels, black stockings, tightly-laced boots, etc., but you have not given much satisfaction to your readers who HO i.

devotees to the bare feminine foot: Answer: 'Happy to oblige, of course. So we have assigned a noteworthy writer to apply himself to a stor! featuring bare feet and their application to bond" age and discipline. And Rex, of course, will lel his imagination run wild when he illustrate' them.'

There is no restriction on the sale of any these magazines. They may be sold to minor'' and the shopkeeper is committing no offence. fact, there is a general anxiety to stay within thc law. In Manchester, the manageress of one shoP regretted that she could not supply a copy '11 Lady Chatterley's Lover, but was happy to sag gest a safe alternative. 'The books where the ladies are tied up and .flogged are over there love.' she said.