In 1969, 75 cents bought you snaps of naturally gorgeous tits (really, truly, no sarcasm here), a few cartoons of rape jokes, workplace-focused erotica, and pages and pages of All American Ass. When my husband and I got married we merged our vintage porn collections. He’s got piles and piles of men’s magazines from the ‘60s and ‘70s passed down by his father, and I recently started flipping through an issue of Daring: Excitement For Men, a hippy-era rag published alongside the likes of Playboy and Oui.
Who doesn’t like flipping through old pornography and men’s magazines? Pre-1980 you could find an interview with Kim Fowley about adolescent sex, right next to ads selling men “modern scientific methods” on how to “build up a rugged body, command respect and admiration, FEAR NO MAN.” Life-sized inflatable sex dolls as pretty as Vivien Leigh cost $9.95.
But what really caught my attention was page 51 of Daring’s December 1969 issue: an extensive sex check-list, penned by John Bardin, meant to help you score again and again. (Right next to a spread of California’s Carla Conway, wearing nothing but a lace bonnet and a demented smile.)
Bardin’s check-list describes women as doll-like cut outs, and gives instruction on how to treat each one based on her demeanor and actions. I’ll translate what Bardin really meant:
Edith AKA The Maiden: “The first time you date Edith don’t make it seem like a date. Meet her outside the shop and walk along with her and then after you’ve listened to what she has to say about her day, buy her a cola. Ask her to the movies Saturday night. Hold hands. Kiss her on the doorstep, don’t go in even if she ask you. Be polite, kind, generous and bored. When you see her outside of the building at lunch-time Tuesday, she’ll be with another girl- say, “Hi!” and walk away.”
Translation: Treat Edith like a child you are babysitting so she questions if this outing is actually going to lead to something sexual and her confidence diminishes, so she questions if she is worthy enough for someone like you even though you are hardly special.
Ask her on a second date that’s slightly more romantic as to brighten her vulnerable and doubtful mind after you walked her like a Poodle and bought her cheap soda.
Anytime you do something caring and nice for her, be sure to follow it up with something withholding so her confidence stays low. Act like everything she says is boring so she feels like she has to impress you (because, after all, she doesn’t. But you have to fake this to create the illusion of appeal since you are pathetic enough to listen to my erotica masquerading as advice and not just be a human being.)
If you ever see her in front of her friends, treat her like she’s one of yours, so her friend thinks she could have a chance with you, too.
Shirley AKA The Fast Track: “You take her left hand (never the right – a girl thinks in terms of the third finger, left hand. You may never want to ring that finger, but you start a quiver down her spine if you take that hand, very gently, and hold it until the hot dryness of the fingers and palms subsides.”
Translation: Even the slutty ones see marriage as the end game, so watch the fuck out.
Delilah AKA Slow To Start: “She wants you to make up her mind. She needs you more than Fast Track will ever need any man. But where Fast Track wants to know who you are, Delilah isn’t very particular as long as you shave, bathe and earn a living. Delilah wants to be married. You drove to her apartment and she, hesitantly, lets you in. Three months later you are paying the rent.
Translation: Razors are cheap. You can do this. It’s not your job to be anything but clean and wealthy. You don’t even have to learn to eat pussy when you can pay for things.
Bardin closes up by reminding the readers that “a man acts-and a woman reacts-only to a man’s actions. The come-on is the woman’s: the decision is the man’s. The man who allows the woman to decide will have difficulty all along. Women need men. Any woman will try to make her man her own; she will only be your woman if you decide to make her your own.”
Now every woman go and thank any woman you know over the age of 60 for putting up with this shit so you can live the way you do.
