So...

[tencrush]

Apparently, yesterday was International Fetish Day. Who knew? Seriously, who knew? I'm international, and I've got quite a few fetishes, but I was unaware of this event. Next time, people, when instigating International Days for things we should be aware of and support, Advertise Moar. Speaking of advertising, here's my belated contribution to International Fetish Day, which also goes to show that advertising just isn't as fun as it used to be. Or marriage, for that matter.




In other news, I am disappointed that no one in the US who loves me has even vaguely offered to send me tasteless Obama memorabilia yet. What does a girl have to do?



Honestly, you people.

Comments

[off_coloratura]

I'll keep an eye out for you. If only I were back in Chicago; they've undoubtedly got LOADS of crap.

That ad = HAWT. Did husbands really commonly spank their wives Back Then? Not in a sexy way, but for punishment, like kids? DAYUM.

ETA: By Back Then I meant in the time of that ad, and really I should have known better than to ask. One google search and several sites on Christian Domestic Discipline has me all shaky, and not in a good way. Women have demons in them! It's up to Perfect Man to correct her and stop that nasty bad habit of daring to believe that she's equal to him! BARF.

[tencrush]

Yeah, it's like as soon as you bring religion into it, spanking's a whole lot less fun.

I like to think that husbands commonly spanked their wives in the fifties, and that it was my mother and her bra-burning 1960's ways that, although achieving all that equality and women's lib stuff that's very important and appreciated, effectively ruined spanking for us and turned it into that big superiority issue that CDD types love and makes others decry it as anti-feminist. It's just spanking, for fuck's sake.

[off_coloratura]

Feminism is GOOD. Being treated as an equal by your partner and being able to CHOOSE what role you want to play in your relationship, as opposed to having it decided for you by society, is also GOOD.

Going hand in hand with the whole "spanking your wife" thing back then was the view of women as overgrown, capricious children, and that was why the blase attitude towards the husband keeping them in line by spanking them, and all the winky cartoons and ads and movie references. And sure, maybe some found it sexy. But all I can think of is how much that societal inequality made it tacitly ok for men to abuse women. I don't call that fun.

[tencrush]

I'm being facetious, sorry. Feminism's great, obviously. I've had one too many conversations about what it is I'm allowed to find a turn-on whilst still being allowed to call myself a feminist, it's bollocks and beside the point.

I'm joking about the fifties which is why I'm trying to work out how ironic this ad is, it's kind of fascinating me. I have a lot of magazines from that time and can't imagine this ad being in them. I don't think it's trying to show a normal domestic situation or attitude. Is it?

[off_coloratura]

Sorry for the overreaction; I'm a bit oversensitive on this, I think maybe because of that one "Kiss Me Kate" promo picture I was in that strangers were getting off on.

I think it's clearly meant to be comic exaggeration; stale coffee would not warrant a spanking even in the fifties (unless you were Ianto Jones, of course. Don't trifle with his coffee.)

I've seen it a lot, referred to jokingly, as a comic situation, in stuff from this time period. In "Kiss Me Kate," for instance, she's being a brat, he has had it, she's outraged and the situation is meant to be funny. Also, perhaps it was subtextual for naughty goings-on, a way to get around the Hayes act, "it can't hurt that much" sort of thing.