5 Things Old Magazines Apparently Believed About Women
We could learn a lot by simply listening to the Greatest Generation. We could hear tales of bravery, and honor, and sacrifice. But they're old, and that's boring. If we listen to their badass old-timey magazines instead, we could learn a hell of a lot more interesting shit. Like how to properly wield a weasel as a makeshift flail, how best to stab a gorilla in order to maintain an erection and now, thanks to the manliest magazines this side of Whiskey Fights Weekly, we can learn the answer to that age-old question: Where do women come from?
(Spoiler alert: It's hell.)
If you're just going by their depiction in men's magazines of the '40s and '50s, then women were, at best, a dangerous obstacle, and at worst, some sort of savage cannibalistic race of Breast Nazis.
Women Were Cluttering Up Wartime
At first glance, this seems like another typical male-power fantasy: An elite group of warriors cracks open a Nazi cargo train and, instead of finding something boring, like Nazi gold or starving Jewish people, a stream of impeccably made-up, scantily dressed tramps comes flooding out. Just a whole carful o' lusty bitches, eager to show their gratitude. It's like a mashup of Letters to Penthouse and Classic Toy Trains magazine.
But look at the men's faces: They're not elated that they just hacked open the Nazi poon-train like a pornographic Cadbury Egg. If anything, they seem kind of pissed off about it. The guy in the beret won't throw so much as a sympathetic glance at the open-legged, mini-skirted blonde; he's just dragging her away impatiently, like you'd drag a disobedient dog away from table scraps. The only one who looks the slightest bit excited in this picture is the Nazi being choked to death in the foreground, and that's only because he gets off on autoerotic asphyxiation and always wanted to die doing what he loved.
You know why they're so jaded with the Skank Express? Because according to old-timey men's magazines, World War II was lousy with dames. Useless, dumb, practically inanimate dames just cluttering up the place. Crack a Nazi cargo train? No ammo reserves for you, Frenchy; you're honor-bound to rescue that lusty blonde temptress, but nobody says you have to like it. Bust open that much-needed crate of stolen rations? Not a Twinkie in sight; just a cascade of dames spillin' out like packing peanuts.
Trying to simultaneously fly a plane while shooting disproportionately large Chinese boat-giants? Good luck swiveling that machine gun around -- somebody left a window open and some friggin' dames built a nest in the cockpit.
The Breast Nazis
According to old-timey men's magazines, not only were the Nazis substantially sexier than all but the most Harrison-Ford-laden of period films would have you believe, but times were so tough during WWII -- what with the rationing of metals and all -- that even the most elite Gestapo officers were only permitted a single button.
Sure, World War II was a terrible time in humanity's history -- a lot of senseless death, genocide, hatred and fear -- but good golly goddamn if those Nazis didn't know how to design a uniform. We all know Hugo Boss did the men, but apparently Victoria S. Secrette did the women.
You get the feeling that these strangely high-waisted, shirtless, be-khakied fellows were getting caught on purpose. But then, that's just your skewed, sex-starved modern sensibilities talking. Badass old-timey men weren't desperate for female attention at all, because women were everywhere back in the day. Why, at times, it was practically ...
Raining Women
Despite how it appears, this isn't just another routine game of coed parastabbing, and our yellow-clad Aryan protagonist doesn't look to be rescuing anyone. In fact, he seems somewhat put out: Here he was, just enjoying a leisurely Tuesday aerial knife fight, when some half-naked broad came flipping out of a plane and landed in his arms. He sure doesn't look happy to have caught her, either. I mean, sure, he'll ravage her if he absolutely has to -- they don't call him Barry "The Begrudging Boner" Bohner because his last name sounds like "Boner" -- but it looks like Ted is catching a lucky breeze and has started swooping in for one of his trademark lunging headwind stabs. So good ol' Barry has a decision to make: Rescue the girl, or feel another man's life spurt hot and steamy onto his own chest.
Ha! Like that's a decision ...
Women Weren't Always Domestic
Sure, by the time the '60s rolled around, we had mostly domesticated the Wild Woman and trained her for basic kitchen work and man maintenance, but it wasn't always that way: Once the woman was a proud and savage creature -- a noble race of warriors whose only trades were butchery and artisanal bikini-weaving.
If women weren't flapping out of planes, jamming up your Willys because they liked to build their dame-nests in warm places like engine bays, or gleefully tormenting Joe America with their unchained, fascist boob parades, they were storming out of the brush on some primal island, tits a-floppin' (damn that button shortage) and tearing apart knife-jawed men with their bare hands.
Sure, mankind tamed them eventually -- but it's not like that was a painless process.
It was only through careful, selective breeding that badass old-timey men's magazine men were able to tame the wild beast that was the feral woman and turn her into the perfectly safe, harmless animal we know tod-
Bitches Loved Snakes
But it's not like our slab-chested forefathers were able to subdue the terrible woman-beasts unassisted: They had help from man's best friend. Yes, they relied on the assistance of that most majestic and shaftlike of creatures -- the serpent. According to badass old-timey men's magazines, 'twas not music that soothed the savage beast; 'twas the prehensile fanged penis of the animal kingdom. It was as true yesterday as it is today: Bitches be loving them some snakes. The Christians had Eve in the garden, the Greeks had Lamia and Medusa in their mythology, modern man had Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn ...
Something about it just feels right, doesn't it? Ah, but who could possibly say what that "something" is? What mysterious force could possibly surround an open-shirted, open-mouthed woman double-fisting a wriggling meat shaft and oh -- oh God, no, dude in the background!
No. Gross. Listen: What you do in private is your business, but this here is God's decade, Gary. You put that snake down and go fight a giant clam or something.
Special Bonus Snake Theater!
"Hey Ming, I captured one of those wild bikini models. Little thing wriggled up into the crawlspace somehow -- had to lure her out with some gossip and a scone."
"Oh yeah, what are ya gonna do with her?"
"I don't know, man, I want to take care of her and all, but it seems cruel to keep a wild animal caged ..."
"Hey, you know I have a snake box out back, right?"
"Oh, word? When'd you get that put in?"
"I was doing the horseshoe pit anyway, so I figured, hey, what the hell: snake box. Anyway, let's toss her in there for now, let her wrestle around with those things until they give up and spit venom all over her heaving bosoms -- you know, like snakes do -- and we'll get started with housebreaking in the morning."
"Sounds like a plan, home fries. So what do you wanna do in the meantime? Measure our dicks?"
"Fuck no! I'm overcompensating like crazy over here!"
"Yeah ... yeah, me too. It's just, well, I saw Gary fighting that boa earlier and I got some ideas ..."
Get the first episode of Robert's sci-fi serial novel, Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity, right here, or buy Robert's other book, Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead. Follow him on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.
For more from Brockway, check out If Old School Comics Were Written for (and by) Drunk People and Revisiting Old-School Text Adventures as a Jaded Modern Gamer.
