Tit's and Arts! French Postcards and Playboy Magazine Don't Lie
Mike Marino

Tits and Arts! The Pornographic Evolution of the Pin-up Girl Revolution (French Postcards Don't Lie!) by Mike Marino (Part Two of the History of Pornography) From pin-up Betty Grable to the vaste wastelands Playboy Cable. It's an ongoing techno-revolution of engaging eroticism that got it's first erection in the age of Jurassic Eros where the walls of cavemen condo's were decorated by a team of Cro-magnon Bravo Channel project runway runaways.

Hell, take the Garden of Eden...please!. Yeah I know, old Henny Youngman material, but I wanted to make a porno point. Biblical depictions have Adam bobbing for Eves apples while she does a fandango with a rather large serpent who wants to snake her! These rudimentary lewd nudes were precursors of things to come on the hymen horizon when sex was depicted on Greek and Roman pottery displaying nude large breasted women engraved on wine serving vessels...which is probably where the combination of pictures and pitchers created the term "Jugs" These soon evolved as "works of art and ass on canvas" hanging in the finest galleries of Europe...usually overly voluptuous mounds of flesh.

. Asia it seems was very liberal in it's depictions of sex that left nothing to the imagination, and let's face it..."The Kama Sutra" is the 100 positions new testament of testicles and complete instruction manual for the proper operation of your aerodynamic penis as it pushes the vaginal envelope to put the pedal to her metal to get maximum orgasmic mileage...fill 'er up with Leaded! Unleaded is fine for a car...but you need lead in your pencil to please the Labia Legions. Cave drawings, works of gallery art for the privileged few and then, finally Gaugin put Polynesian breasts up front and center so to speak with a trip to the region of thighs Taihitian.

As technology progressed, the mediums for the addiction of portraying sexuality raced to keep up with the rapid changes. By the mid 1800's Louis Daguerre's development of the photographic process caught the attention of those campy artsy types in Paris who couldn't wait to make the medium the new message and soon in the academic guise of "art and study" the porno painters put their brushes aside and cocked their shutters instead as their F-stops and aperatures absorbed all the flesh it could. As the flesh burgeoned it created a mass market erotic explosion for the "Eros Erection Connection"

The main difference between canvas and photo print was that not only could nudes be seen lifelike and three dimensional unlike the paintings of the past, but they could also capture that Kodak moment of when sex acts attack! Most of these early erotic images showed two or more people involved in various acts and positions from ponygirl training to whips and ropes, that would make a game of Twister in the Brady Bunch house look like a game of gin rummy. (unless of course it was Marcia loosing at strip poker because the deck was stacked..well so was she I have to admit and would have stacked the deck in my favor and goddammit any red blooded mae or female would too..girl crushes allowed..and encouraged I might add!) The race for racy was on as pornographic photographic profits skyrocketed with French francs leading the foray. These photos could cost up to a weeks salary and it was actually cheaper to hire a prostitute and get laid in person!

Soon, the production costs came tumbling down and proliferation of these photos crossed European borders in what can be described as a pornographic tsunami...thence... across the big pond and into the former colonies in the United States as well as her north of the border condom, Canada.By 1860 the photographic process costs had been further reduced and the middle class could now afford the same hardon as the wealthy! The photos were so popular and proletariat friendly that they were sold by souvenirs vendors at train stations and ship lines. Traveling salesmen picked up whole lines and catalogues and the photos spread far and wide...wider then the legs of a 6 foot 7 inch female college basketball player could ever hope to match..or we could ever dream she could!

The dawning of the age of Aquarius was still decades away but by the late 19th Century and early 20th Century the French Postcard Game was afoot as Sherlock Holmes would say...or Johnny Holmes for that matter! Postcard sized cardstock was used with images of a nude woman and her trianglular forest hides her soft and fertile delta..yeah, stole that line from Leon Russell and now you know what he was singing about..at least according to Marino's Book of Genital Genesis. These sold faster than penicillin shots in a whore house and featured the exotic bodies of Moroccan and Algerian women as well. Fine bronze toned flesh..the perfect exotic canvas to practice three dimensional finger painting on. Try and find that at Hobby Lobby! I hear they do have them at Hobby Labia stores nationwide and I already laid in a large supply for myself.

The early part of the 20th century gave birth to the Roaring Twenties...flappers and flasks...the Charleston...the Lost Generation...Art Deco and delightful decadence were in abundant profusion and gave birth to a whole generation ready for anything...and everything. It was a new age, an age of mass production and lower costs to produce those products...including print and subsequently pornography. It would result in an explosion of nude comics that would eventually lead to a Nude World Order! What? It just looked good with an exclamation point to make the point...Pin-ups and Betty Page led the riding crop parade while Marilyn Monroe skyrocketed Playboy magazine to fame and launched an empire of tits and ass and we've been riding the rocket ever since...

Tits and Arts! The Clothing Optional Opium of the Masses by Mike Marino

The Porn Revolution exploded in the erectile backalley's of a hymen hungry proletariat who wanted more pubic hair in their pornographic diet early in the 20th Century as porn was ejected from it's chastity belt, and ejaculated as a powerful geyser from the industrial womb into the modern post-Victorian world. The photographic printing processes were so technologically advanced now, that low cost mass production of porn product was possible in records unconcieved of before. It was time to leave the world of the simple French Postcard in the dustbin of the horse and carriage. Just as Henry Ford was mass producing machines for man, Henry Fornication and pornographers were introducing an assemblyline for male masturbation where it was more important to empty your tank then to fill it!

Porn mags proliferated with the proficiency of a promiscuous Lolita and the titles were meant to "mislead" to a certain degree or at least "mask" it's true intent under the dubious guise as "naturist publications" that featured burlesque actresses of the day as models in a variety of softcore poses that eventally termed as "art" or in the lexicon of Marino, Tits and Arts! These crude yet tamely lewd publications soon got an erection of pop culture in the 1920's and featured drawings of popular cartoon characters engaged in un-cartoon like behaviour. Felix and his bag of magic tricks, was probably turning tricks with Woody Woodpecker ...Woody? Pecker? Do the math..the first gay comic book animal kingdom characters..Broke Back Mountain with a cat getting stuffed by a bird!

Then there is Betty Boop...she is by far the cartoon porn queen of all time and gave rise and birth to the cult of Betty Page in the 50s and the Feline pussy of Fritz the Cats street hookers in the 60's. She wore exceptionally short skirts and admit it...cartoon or not...we always hoped she would sit down and not cross her legs so we could get a great beaver shot of her Boop Boop De Boop! Historically, pornography crossed the ocean from Europe to the colonies, much as venereal disease did during the Spanish Conquest. It makes you wonder what the true motivation of was of Charles Lindberg flying across the ocean to France..was it to actually set a trans-Atlantic record or merely to pick up a private supply of French Postcards..he must have scored a ton of them as he was nicknamed Lucky Lindy!

Hitler as the liberator of the male libido? The Rise of the Third Reich was also the rise another pornographic innovation inadvertently albeit, but while Nazi storm troopers were bliztkrieging across Europe, Americans entered the fray with the full backing of the Arsenal of Democracy behind it, along with a large collection of Betty Grable photos ripped from the pages of magazines that they would then "pin-up" on the walls of the barracks at home and overseas, hence the term "pin-up" ..during the war years the focus was primarily on "legs" however after victory in Europe and Japan, it shifted north to the breasts and in the 50's Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe were the queens of male masturbation. Pin-up artist Alberto Vargas became the pinup Picasso for Esquire Magazine and pop culture in general in the 50's and raised the art of the pin-up to a pedestal she still occupies today. Pin-up art has exploded and pin-up models are as numerous as hand jobs in a Okinawan bar the night before payday.

Due to the popularity of the pin-up and post-war prosperity, prolific pornography took another giant step for mankind in the form of the girlie magazine..or mens mags of which Playboy and Modern Man were the first mass produced purveyors of these offerings. The legend of the Johnny Appleseed of girle mags first sprouted in 1953 when a young man named Hugh Hefner purchased a photograph of Marilyn Monroe to use as his first centerfold of his brainchild...Playboy Magazine. This first step ushered in a cornucopia of centerfold center spreads with mountains of pubic hair piled higher than Mount Everest hiding the secret cave openings for years until the pubic glaciers started to recede in the 70's leaving in it's wake a landscape of bikini waxed entry points to Vaginal Valhalla!

The orchard grew from there and the orgasm orgy sprouted a bumper crop of specialty magazines showing perfect forms and shapes on it's pages, in addition to mags geared to foot and underwear fetishes and underground magazines specialing in sado-masochist sock hops that would make the Marquis De Sade as happy as Pee Wee Herman in an adult movie house.

As the dawning of the age of aquarius opened, the furry female pubic hair floodgates were on further overdrive as Bob Gucciones "Penthouse" magazine depicted more erotic poses and plenty of pubic hair, along with full frontal and erotic female nudity...for the first time, in a legal sense...the medium had passed from erotic to pornography according to some communities and community standards. Soon the female bottom became the prime target of photography, and many afficianados were pretty anal about it! By the 1970's group sex and masturbation joined the photographic parade along with lesbianism and homosexuality as subject matter as magazines like Hustler took over center stage...it was time to take off the gloves and get lewd and nude on the silver screen and cable tv.

Pin Ups Win the War!! Tit's and Ass Kick Nazi Ass! by Mike Marino Never mind the whole myth of the Normandy Invasion and how "grandpa won the war" Forget about the whole atomic bomb ka-boom bullshit of Hiroshima where the toe-hold of Tojo was rudely crushed in on Enola Gay instant. Fision and fusion cause confusion. Neither event ended the war single handedly. The only single handed activity in life is masturbation. All we did was make the Axis take it in the asses.

But...we had an ace in the hole...in fact America had a secret weapon...many secret weapons that were ready to be unleash on the unsuspecting enemy. It wasn't a new Sherman tank...or an 88 millimeter canon that shoot shells faster than ejaculation in a prison cell. NO! This weapon was a true weapon of "ASS DESTRUCTION!" It was the rise of the pin-up girl whose image not only excited and fuel injected the GI imagination as it adorned military barracks walls from Ft. Knox to London. The pin-up goddess was torn from the pages of mens magazines and calendars you know the kind usually found in mechanics garages and gas stations near the condom dispensers.

These lovely labia laden ladies charged into battle with the fury of a fully loaded PMS bazooka giving the battlefield GI a small taste of the All American girl and her ample American attributes. The pin-up had legs as tall as the Eiffel Tower...an ass as firm as a Sherman tank and her breasts were unbeatable and as shapely and powerful as a B-29 bomber. In fact she was also painted on the nosecone of Air Force bombers and fighters, and roared into Berlin painted on Patton's 3rd Armored Division tanks.It was the end of the Nazi regime as hymens defeated Hitler...Heil Hymen!!!

All though there were many pin-up girls at the time...the grab ass queen of pin-ups was Betty Grable born in 1916 at the end of WWI...she was born too late to win that war but by the time of the Second World War it was Labia Liberation at it's peak. Betty was an actress, singer and of course with those legs...a dancer. It was said of her at the time that she was in possession of the most beautiful legs in Hollywood...later those legs would spread world wide...no pun intended but a great visual don't you think? They were so valuable a commodity the studio had them insured as they were of ideal proportions and Lloyds of London issued a millon dollar policy on them. She starred in many musicals and yes, in a film called "Pin Up Girl" that although a critical bomb...was box office boffo! Lets face it...her legs were one hell of a supporting cast!

Once victory was declared in 1945 it was the mushroom cloud dawn of the Atomic Age. An age born of war and it's brutality. Destruction brought more destruction, and now a bomb with enough devastating power to reduce the Earth into a charcoal briquet. The Cold War heated up and we were ducking and covering and building bombshelters in record numbers. Amidst all this fear and terror it was also the golden age of the Pin-up Girl who was no longer passing along a fighting spirit and a taste of home..now she was spokesperson for the growing hot rod car culture that was revving up on America's streets and dirt tracks. She went from zero to sixty from Berlin to the world of Rock and Roll. She was now horsepowered...and goddamn if she couldn't put our pedal to the metal. We owe it all to Betty Grable as the pioneering spirit and inspiration..and believe me...she deserves the Pin-up Purple Heart for duty above and beyond the barracks walls of Montezuma and the shores of Tripoli. Her legs alone helped topple evil incarnate...and lets face it..she was built like a brick whorehouse!!!