Horsing Around With Lolita Smut

Because (nearly) every little girl loves horses (I sure did!), it shouldn’t be surprising that a shelf full of horse figurines would be among the decor shown in smut to designate the juvenile status of the woman. However, in this case, one would be pretty hard-pressed to suspend their disbelief that this “babe” disrobing to her stockings and suspenders is an innocent teen; she looks a lot more like a mom in her daughter’s room — perhaps there to dust the Breyer horses, nodding dogs, and 45 RPM records. For more thoughts on this: When Lollipops Make Us Suckers (NWS).

Boil, Toil & Trouble: What You Don’t Know About Women’s Changing Bodies (A Halloween Special)

It occurs to me, as I sit awake, unable to sleep because I am a sweaty mess of hormones and hot flashes, that we have done women a(nother) great disservice.

You know how we start in grade school to educate girls about that special “womanhood” thing? We separate them from the boys, and tell them all about their changing bodies — even before those bodies are changing. I’m not saying it’s all aces in terms of such education; but there are far fewer girls running home crying thinking the blood in their panties means they are dying. So why don’t we pull young women aside in say high school, and them them all about the other changes their bodies will go through — namely menopause or perimenopause.

And when we teach it, we should teach all of it.

First of all, menopause isn’t “the change.” As a woman, we experience lots of changes. Menstruation, for example, is not the mere existence of blood in the crotch of our panties. It’s not even the evidence of the miracle of life in terms of the biological machinations. Yeah, egg released, womb is lined, womb is shed — but no one tells you about what that means for you and your changing body.

No one tells you that the hormones requires to start this perfectly natural cycle will make you feel like 900 pissed-off and pointy cats live inside of you. Their sharp teeth and claws may not exactly puncture you internally; but are like sandpaper on every last nerve.

No one tells you that the process for shedding the uterine lining means more than “cramps”; how the body resists and reacts to these cramps with everything from hot constipation and burning diarrhea (yes, often both) to increased breast and genital sensitivity and increased sexual desires (yes, often with both again). You may not want to know the details of my lovely cycle, but let’s just say it’s the frustrating crush of a fist holding everything, including my breath, tight and still — followed by a rush of “everything must get out.” That includes skin eruptions and bowels along with my uterine lining.And while everything is sensitive, those utero-contractions make me feel like I’m on the edge of something… Like a great big orgasm, so let’s get on with that and get it out too. (Which reminds me, ladies, if we had proper sex education, we’d be telling young women about this reality — and how great vibrators and sex toys can be. Heaven knows, if I’d had known about the joys of a Hitachi Magic Wand in my 20’s, I’d have skipped many a bad romance, and better coped with my periods too.)

You’re right; this isn’t “ladylike.” But it’s what happens to ladies, to women; so let’s stop denying it.

Now, when it comes to menopause, there’s a lot more to the ending of this monthly cycle — which, while often hellish, is our damn monthly cycle. We can hate it, but we’ve just spend decades getting used to it, and now what the hell?!

Thanks to women’s magazines and shows like Oprah, there’s been some talk about menopause. Frankly, I didn’t tune into them all; like the little girl I once was, I figured that change was so far ahead in my life, I didn’t need to worry my pretty little head about it. Which is why it was great that sitting down to hear it was a forced mandatory school thing. Hence my belief that the same should be done regarding teaching the realities of menopause to young women in high school.  But anyway, like many of my sisters who are ushering in the age of chronedome, I am amazed to discover there is lots that I don’t know about this specific change. Knowing that this particular biological trip is the end of creating life, that this agonizingly slow, back and forth of you have a period then months without it, then BAM! have a period of some sort again, isn’t all there is to the story.

You’ve likely heard of those hot flashes. Well, they are real.

And they are a real bitch.

If you didn’t already have insomnia, the hot flashes are enough to give it to you. You lay awake, sweating. You kick off the covers. You turn a fan on, even when just hours before, you were begging your husband to turn the heat up. And when you do pass out for a bit, you wake up frigid. (Not just temperature wise, but sexually too. Because you are sleep deprived and you are aware just how much you freakin’ stink from sweating, so the last thing you can imagine is having sex. But wait a while… Your hormones will demand otherwise soon enough. Just pray you haven’t alienated your partner too much. Or hit that vib for medicinal reasons — because there will be times that orgams will be the only way to knock yourself out well enough to sleep a few hours.)

And then too, the fan is awesome white-noise to help alleviate insomnia in general. Your partner may not dig this. At best, this adds stress to an already stressful time — leading to more insomnia for you. At worst, you find yourself yelling sarcastically, “Yes, please do turn the fan off. I am completely faking all this wretched sweating just to make you cold at night! It’s all about you — always!”

Like I said, it’s not pretty. Especially when there’s little understanding. And how can there be understanding when the bulk of knowledge about menopause if a joke about the little old ladies with fans?

One other ugly thing I am experiencing is boils. Big nasty, angry-ass boils.

No one wants to talk about these hideous things. Just the other day, I was swapping horrible night-sweat stories with a friend. You know, in that bitter misery-loves-company way involving bitter laughter — until you cry. But I didn’t dare bring up the boils. They are just too ugly. Normal, it turns out; but still ugly.

But the whole drive home, I kept kicking myself in the ass for not saying something — for not speaking the truth. What if she had them, but didn’t know they were normal? What if she blamed herself for some imaginary hygiene problem? What if she was too embarrassed to talk to her doctor? What if she did mention to her doctor, but that doctor was an ass about it, like mine was? It took me going through some basic boil info to realize that boils are often a part of perimenopause because boils are caused by ingrown hairs (something affected by hormonal changes) and plugged sweat glands or oil ducts (thanks again, hot flashes). So a-duh you can have boils at this time. But thanks, Dr. Ass-Hat, for making me spell it out for you. (Thankfully, you can also have a new doctor at this time too.)

For these reasons, I remain silent to longer.

“Hey, world, I am a suffering yet another painful change in my body and life! This one comes with mood swings, the loss of ‘beauty’ (i.e. clues to health and fertility) and societal value, hot flashes, sleep deprivation, and big ol’ boils! Arg!”

And when people don’t get it, when they call you insane or mock you with even the slightest of eyeball rolls for your hormone-ridden life — be it menstruation, pregnancy, or menopause, you want to scream, “Hey, buddy, you can leave any time you friggin’ want — me, I’m f-ing stuck here with this situation!”

Now, maybe it’s sleep deprivation talking, but all of this reminds me of the depictions we have of witches…

Witches are usually old; with grey or white hair and long noses. Witches are typically depicted with what we call warts, often with a hair jetting out of them. Here I see boils. Boils, as mentioned, are often sprung from a hair follicle.

And witches are often shown sweating over a huge caldron of boiling something-or-other. Is that a reference to hot flashes?

Unlike the idea of wise crones, witches seem to be the ugliest, scariest, icons of menopause.

Perhaps the flying on brooms thing is about older women now being able to leave home and hearth; the scariest thing of all for a woman to do — other than be sexual, of course.

A Black Cats Mystery

When I posted this image to Facebook, I did so with a quickly typed quip of, “She ain’t no holler back girl, she’s a derby grrl!”.

Now my quip came, in part, from the title of the post at Retronaut: Black Cats Roller Derby Woman, c. 1800s. My sister in law, who knows a lot more about roller derby than I do, commented that she didn’t think the quip or title were correct:

hrm. i don’t think she’d technically be a derby girl, at least not someone who competed. as far as i’m aware, women didn’t compete in derby until the 30’s. *shrug* i still like the picture. :)

This is the sort of thing that happens when people post and share things without providing any context. If only Retronaut had stated where they found the image. Grrr.

I tried to do a little (quick) research myself (as time is limited this morning; I have to go perform some maintenance — dusting and filling — of our case at Antiques on Broadway). But found nothing definitive…

Perhaps the Black Cats had something to do with performances, not roller derby, and the name references La Chat Noir, widely deferred to as the first cabaret? Then again, the images on her hat or crown look a lot like the logo for the Sunderland Association Football Club, an English association football club dating to 1879, often called the Black Cats. Anyone else know more?

UPDATE: Thanks to Marianne of Ms Dow Antiques, we have more info on this photo:

Mystery solved — Black Cat was a popular cigarette brand. So popular that people dressed up in Black Cat costumes for parties.

The Black Cat cigarette was introduced in 1904 as one of the first machine-made cigarettes manufactured in Britain.

During the early 1920s enthusiasm for the Black Cat was at a peak, with many people wearing badges and stickers featuring the cat and even going to fancy dress parties in black cat costumes.

She also noted that posing in roller skates was also quite a fad.

Thanks much, Marianne!

Whatjamacallit Wednesday: How Do You Get Kitten Hips? And Why Would You Want Them?

Kitten hips. No, not the furry kind — the “lithe young American” kind, as described in this vintage girdle ad published in Harper’s Bazaar, 1946.

You feel and look as if you’d just stepped out of a success course when you step into Carter’s “Mouldette.” The entire beautifully molded back is made with new synthetic elastic. Carter’s own Sweetheart panel flattens the tummy. Every seam’s a scheme to give you that lithe young American look.

You can find these ads on eBay.

The Bachman Pretzel Bikini

Hey, edible underpants, you had competition… The Bachman Pretzel Bikini.

Just $2.50 for a “classy” and “sassy” two-piece bikini of “velvety non-woven material.” I can’t imagine you could swim in it. Nor can I imagine wanting a crunchy edible item of apparel — which the words “pretzel bikini” rather imply. Perhaps non-woven means edible? Plus the obvious “good enough to eat” cliche, which the pretzels then lend to the women, and kids, who wear it…

In any case, what’s the use of such a novelty item that “can be worn several times before you discard it”? Pure schtick promo, that’s definitely in bad taste no mater how you look at it.

Via this post at Found In Mom’s Basement.

Pinups Perverting With Pink Plush

This is Jayne Mansfield, surrounded by her pink plushies; but lots of babes of yesteryear posed with stuffed animals and little girl gear (yes, I now are a “tumbl tard”).

I have really mixed feelings about sex kittens taking their “adorable youth” and “cutesy girl” status past shy coy smiles while wearing babydoll lingerie and dresses and move right on into props which promote themselves as children or as having a somewhat diminished emotional &/or intellectual status; then it’s pushing pedophilia and issues of consent. And both creep me out.

Breaking Free Is A Drag (Or, Drag Queens Part 1)

Glowing Doll Danielle says she was “totally gob smacked” watching Freddie Mercury’s “sexy mustachioed housewife” in Queen’s I Want To Break Free.

In her post, Danielle also wrote:

I love drag queens because they can dress like women but without all of the pressure to look pretty or be sexy. I know there are plenty of women who dress like drag queens but they are few and far between and they tend to be Pop stars.

Umm, I could be wrong here, but I’m pretty sure the sole point of being a drag queen is to look pretty and be the (supposed) feminine ideal of sexy.

I think part of Danielle’s confusion here — and there’s plenty to be confused about traversing those fine, slinky, and slippery lines between drag queens, female impersonators, transgendered folk, cross dressers, fetishists, etc. (note: no mention of gay folk here) — is mistaking Mercury’s artistic gender-bender performance for Mercury being a drag queen.

Freddie Mercury in drag is not Freddie Mercury, Drag Queen.

The simple & pure existence of a mustache sort of illustrates that point — and my point about a boundary pushing performance.

Danielle gets close to those distinctions when she writes the following (exactly as typed at her blog):

To me anyway, Drag culture is as much about attitude as it is about aesthetic. It seems to exude a sort of ‘Don’t give a fuck’ attitude which I think everyone could benefit from. Ultimately there is a humour born from sadness underlying the aesthetic. The theatricality used as a kind of armour against a world that is so un accepting of others.

If I could be a part of either world I just feel that I would be freer some how. I find myself, inpsite of a vast collection of clothes and accessories, dressing drably from day to day. I guess I fear judegement by small minded people and on a deeper level just want to dissapear sometimes (hard to do with electric coloured clothes, spiked accesories and gigantic hats).

The mythical non-mustached Drag Queen Mercury, like other Drag Queens, probably would have had a female name and completely distinct female persona to go with it. And none would have seen drag as an armor but as flamboyant exhibitionist expression — that people would still sling arrows at.

Mercury in drag wasn’t exactly like Travolta in Hairspray; Mercury’s dress was a theatrical application, use of imagery to make a point. Or at least a slightly different point.   And the whole point of Freddie Mercury et al and their obvious appearance as men in women’s clothing (along with other things in this video and aspects of Mercury’s life) was to expose absurdity, especially the norms of “normal,” to break free of everything — everything except that vacuum, that is. *wink*

Aunt Lydia’s Baby Gender Prediction Method

I found the following gem in the 1977 J. Gruber’s Hagers-Town, Town and Country Almanack, along with the usually almanac-ery, household tips, and a few grand ads (that I’ll be showing off later). It’s a prediction method for pregnant women to discover the gender of their baby.

In case the name Aunt Lydia sounds familiar, this is not the Aunt Lydia from The Handmaid’s Tale who was responsible for teaching the enslaved women called “handmaids.” (The movie adaptation is where I first fell in love with Natasha Richardson, may she rest in peace.) This Aunt Lydia was Miss Lydia Cline, “a retired practical nurse who lived in and around Hagerstown,” whose method of prediction was heralded to have “an accuracy of over 80%!”

Even though Aunt Lydia had passed away in 1973, the almanac’s 1977 proclamation was to ensure readers that they could still accurately predict the gender of unborn children — under the following conditions:

Here’s an example of just how Aunt Lydia’s formula works. Say, for instance, your last child was born in 1973 on the first day of January; the birth sign under which the child was born would be Sagittarius, the Archer. As the sign did not change but remained the same for the following day, the 2nd, that year, there would be no change in the sex of your next child. If, however, the child had been born January second, it would still have been born under the sign of Sagittarius, but because the following day, the 3rd, the sign changed to Capricorn, the Goat, there would be a change in the sex of the next child.

(One assumes you’ll need the astrological information as provided in past issues of this almanc; for those of child bearing years, who want more recent issues, check the official Hagerstown Town and Country Almanack website. The article also notes that the simple formula does not work with a first child, nor for induced or Caesarian delivered births.)

If only author Margaret Atwood had known of this Aunt Lydia and her prophetic equation… With such knowledge, the gender of babies could have been more than divined, but planned.

It may not have prevented Gilead from increasing the number of gender-crimes (for that’s how, you’ll remember, women were forced into becoming handmaids) or otherwise improved the lot of women, but it would have raised other interesting avenues of thought.

However, Hagerstown’s Aunt Lydia and her formula were incorrect regarding my second child. Not sure if that signals failure on the part of Aunt Lydia, a missing part of the prediction formula retained to secrecy, or if, per the usual, I am just relegated to the position of minority.

Because My Husband Is Mr. WalMart…

OK, maybe so he’s not-so-much Mr. WalMart… But he is Derek — The Derek — of Derek’s Big Website of Wal-Mart Purchase Receipts. (Yeah, I married Internet Royalty — Old Guard Internet Royalty, not a dot.com bust-er, or a guy with some money to buy a presence.) Anyway, because of hubby’s history, I keep an eye out for amusing WalMart stories.

So who could resist an open letter to WalMart entitled, Hey, Wal-Mart, your new case-less milk jugs are retarded:

Dear Wal-Mart,

Congratulations on your latest successful accomplishment in the dairy retail industry. Assuming, that your goal when redesigning your plastic milk containers was to have me spill milk all over my kitchen counters.

You can let the letter’s author, Chase Roper, tell you all about the new product; all I know, is after reading what Roper wrote, there won’t be any new case-less jugs of milk on our WalMart receipts.

While I could just thank Roper for his consumer report, I really enjoy his classy retorts. Like his exit line: “Also, your stores all smell like maple syrup and old people.”

Taking Off Those Kid Gloves About The Collectors Convention

Hey, that conference I’m presenting at, the first annual Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention, has been written up in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Which reminded me that I had not mentioned the event here, pestering you to attend. So, here it is, “Will you please attend the convention?”

I think there’s still some free commemorative bookmarks available, so check that out before you register.

And, in case you missed it, here’s my story about incidentally collecting bookmarks: When I Was A Child, I Bookmarked As A Child (Or, Seeking The Perfect Bookmark).

Image Credits: This bookmark advertising Paul Foster & Co. kid gloves also features palmistry; it was submitted to the convention’s gallery by Laine Farley.