Ladies’ Smoker Night, 1941

I think I need to step up my ladies’ night game– these gals I found filed away in the Life archives are putting us to shame! In June 1941, Life magazine’s photographer Nina Leen attended a women’s “smoker”, the term usually reserved for a men-only social gathering. The concept flabbergasted local menfolk in Milford, Connecticut, who were strictly uninvited. The…

The Lost Art and Delight of Mexican Calendar Art

Sex sells – and the message couldn’t have been any clearer when it came to advertising in post-revolutionary Mexico. Images of beautiful people served a multitude of purposes: a nationalistic one to quite blatantly plug the new regime, that of a new bountiful and fertile country, modern, productive and populated by good-looking folks from a…

The Last Japanese Mermaids

For nearly two thousand years, Japanese women living in coastal fishing villages made a remarkable livelihood hunting the ocean for oysters and abalone, a sea snail that produces pearls. They are known as Ama, and if you’ve dipped into Messy Nessy’s archives, you will have already met the few ladies still left in Japan that…

We Went to a Parisian Sex Club for Swingers So You Don’t Have To

It’s a phone-less world down there in the underground lair of Les Chandelles, the infamous “club échangiste” – and something to be appreciated in itself before we get into the stuff you really want to know about. Inhibitions (and Instagram) are to be left above ground, and your time spent down there is intended exclusively…

All Aboard the 1970s Sex Raft Experiment: the Best Reality TV Show That Never Was

Five men, six women and one 101-day, sex-starved ocean adventure. Has a catchy ring to it, no? “It was a fabulous adventure story,” said Marcus Lindeen, director of a 2018 documentary called The Raft that chronicles 1973’s “Acali Experiment,” in which an eclectic group set sail to find out if the best– or worst– of humankind rears its…

The Bittersweet Story of the World’s First Motel

It’s as American as Apple Pie in all its neon-lit glory, evoking our collective cultural memory of 1950s road-tripping, film noir fugitive hideouts and the golden age of kitsch. The motel is as much a part of the American open road as the gas station and the roadside diner, an indispensable amenity to the roving motorist; the…

When Will Queer Bravery Become Part of the World War II Narrative?

When Willem Arondeus said, “Let it be known, homosexuals aren’t cowards’’, on the eve of his execution in 1943, he was speaking for himself and countless others who gave and risked their lives to end the tyranny and oppression that the LGBTQ community faced under Nazi rule. It is only in recent years that their…

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Where to Shop for Souvenirs in Paris like a Collector

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13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 651)

1. Cardboard studies of shops & little businesses in L.A By Ana Serrano found via Present & Correct. 2. Food styling really has come a long, long way Found on Weird Old Food. 3. The Realist Paintings of a Forgotten 19th Century Artist John Frederick Peto (21 May 1854, Philadelphia – 23 November 1907, Island…

Maud & the Cult of the Clitoris

Maud Allan– beauty of the Belle Epoque, concert pianist-turned actress, dancer and choreographer and … sex-crazed lesbian spy for German wartime conspirators? Suddenly, my morning research into an Edwardian postcard just got a lot more interesting… She was born in Maud Durrant in Canada in 1873 and moved to Germany at the age of 25 to study…