Virgins have sex organs which play angelic music when pressed! Non-virgins possess vaginas which when directly looked at, look like the eye of the devil himself! This all immediately goes away after the consummation of marriage, only to be replaced by a baby! But beware! Sometimes baby-making results in uncontrollable self-abortion! #modernsexmanual
Something tells me obtaining this would be like the time I drunkenly ordered 10,001 Kitchen Secrets off eBay. More like 10,001 random-ass "facts" like: drag a leaf of lettuce through gravy to remove all fat. #modernsexmanual
@aclikeslater: But wouldn't it be kind of amazing to see what passed as "modern sex" in the 50s? I mean, there are illustrations and everything! #modernsexmanual
I love that uncontrollable abortion is on there. I can't control my abortion happy self, either. I have to have someone drag me away from the PP every week. Just...one... mooore!#modernsexmanual
@TexasCrude: I'm assuming they're talking about miscarriages there. In the medical world they are referred to as spontaneous abortions. #modernsexmanual
If I had to envision a portrait of a blissful married sex life, the cutouts of those two uncomfortable, stern-looking couples would definitely be it. #modernsexmanual
My grandparents actually DO fit into the 50s stereotypes. Not that they are 2-dimensional, which a lot of people on here refute, but that they behaved in the way that they were conditioned to, acting out the roles that they were taught were normal and appropriate.
My grandfather suffered from PTSD, but of course because of his generation he went his whole life without being treated. He was a tough-love, gruff sort of man who clearly loved my mom and my sister and I (and my grandmother!), but just simply didn't express his feelings very openly. My grandmother, similarly, behaves very 'ladylike' and is shocked about how women act these days.
the problem is that the baby boomers remember the 50's as being stricter because they were kids then, and since everything in society seems to be aimed for the baby boomers (insert sigh here). the 60's was their coming of age, hence the comparison.
ask anyone who is in their early to mid 70's now about what the 50's were really like and you'll get a completely different story. folks in their 70's now came of age in the 50's in high school and college. teens could drink legally then. in bars. in public. all the early beatniks of the 50's? baby boomers didn't invent smoking weed or doing drugs...the jazz cats of the 50's did. most if not all of the ideals of the 60's had their roots in the 50's. but, y'know, it's easy to paint the entire decade it as strict and reserved when the kids at woodstock were running around with little red wagons watching howdy doody in the 50's.
I had something like this reaction when I finally actually sat down and saw all 234 episodes of Leave It To Beaver (it was shortly before I named myself JB, if that helps you). Ward Cleaver, cold? He was the planet's biggest softie, and Hugh Beaumont's influence as a minister on the character was evident. I never expected to find that much nuance and humor in it. It was right about then that I knew that in a way, movies like Pleasantville were doing us a disservice (even though I loved it). People were not, and never have been, two-dimensional. They certainly weren't just like us, which is the other mistake people make about history, but they weren't thin and wooden and drawn to order as some sort of methodology for thinking about ourselves in the future.
Moreover, my grandfathers both came of age in the fifties, and one of them was so affected by his war experiences and the tragic death of his first child that he drank himself to death--took longer than he planned, I'm sure--and the other, in his dotage, is prone to telling my husband only stories of the Pacific theater, still so fresh and disturbing that he thinks I should be shielded from them. It's possible that only now that we have large numbers of young people coming back from the Middle East with similar experiences will we really understand what it's like to go on with life in these United States after spending five, six, seven years at war. They deserve better from us than assumptions, and so do our forebears.
God, i love love letters (writing and receiving). And not just the mushy intimate ones also funny and sexy kind. Shame it's a dying mode of communication (no emails and texts don't count).
I mean think about it save for thank you letters and maybe cover letters, when in this day and age do you really need to handwrite a letter (no email, no microsoft word).
This is actually one of my major problems with Mad Men, and the reason I haven't been able to get in to it. I feel like they DO portray men as one dimensional. Don Draper has feelings, but they aren't about the fact that he's constantly cheating on his wife. Everyone is so "good old boy, women wine and cigars, etc." that you don't get the feeling that any of them have a problem with it. Everything is just such a caricature. Granted, I've only seen the first season, since I wasn't impressed I didn't move on. But my main problem with it is that it seems to be a show of stereotypes.
@laureltreedaphne: Hmm, I disagree. Even Roger, whom I LOATHE, was vulnerable when he had the heart attack. Momentarily, anyway. Harry felt real remorse for cheating on his wife. Pete's main "feeling" seems to be inadequacy (which he unsuccessfully he tries to cover up).
As to Don, there's the last ep of the first season where he fantasizes that his family is home waiting for him and he goes to Thanksgiving with them. Normally I find him fascinating but not particularly sympathetic, but that scene made me feel for him.
I don't know - I think about the shows I really love, like Homicide, or even How I Met Your Mother - and I see more nuance in those characters than I do in the Mad Men characters. But I see what you're saying.
That scene made me feel for him BUT (spoiler below)
All sympathy I had for him was ruined by the fact that he had been willing to abandon his children a few hours earlier. So at that point, I didn't care that he was alone in his big empty house. I guess you are supposed to feel that his family is what he really wants, deep down, but I don't see any real evidence of that.
They all have contradictions and feelings that are not expected. I hate to love Pete, he wants to be loved by his Dad, so he's insecure and an asshole to other people. He seems to have made a connection with Peggy yet he refused to commit to this relationship and focused on the "safe" marriage.
@Maritsa: The scene where he went to see his brother and finally cracked and hugged him was so great to me. And it felt very much like two grown men trying to hide the fact they were overcome by emotion.
@Penny: That's actually one reason I love Numbers. It's really fair to men, and un-smarmily explores masculinity in an all-male household, but never drifts into acceptance of misogyny or sitcom stereotypes. In fact. I find it very self-corrective that way. They don't pretend the issues aren't there, and they don't pretend they can solve them all, but they keep trying.
@laureltreedaphne: I wouldn't say Mad Men was a show of stereotypes. Sure, the characters are recognizable, but hardly flat. If anything, it's the characters themselves who are each trying to fit into what they deem the appropriate archetypes, to achieve perfection... and we, the viewers, get to watch them each fail a little more each week, and rebel against the parameters they set for themselves.
@laureltreedaphne: I feel like he wants to want the perfect family life. As it is I think he only wants the appearance of it, because of what it symbolizes, but he doesn't really want it. If that makes sense!
@laureltreedaphne: there's an aspect of that 'good old boy' thing that masks the fact that a lot of the men were veterans from the korean war and world war 2. plus, men didn't talk about their feelings with other men...that is what bartenders and sometimes wives are for.
One only needs to read Regan's letters to know that men could have feelings in the 50's. Say what you will about the man, he was a good letter writer.
I have a pile of letters from my first serious boyfriend. He even told me he loved me for the first time in a letter that I received the day after he left for school. We dated between the end of high school through our first year of college. He was in TN, I was in CA. I seriously cherish those letters, even though he turned out to be a douche. I've never written letters with a boy again....
My dad was a fifties male and he was so sensitive he actually won my hardass mom over - and to this day she still says no one else would have managed to get through her defenses. But he could also shut her out if she was angry and he didn't want to deal. Wish I could find the first without the latter.
10/26/09
Virgins have sex organs which play angelic music when pressed! Non-virgins possess vaginas which when directly looked at, look like the eye of the devil himself! This all immediately goes away after the consummation of marriage, only to be replaced by a baby! But beware! Sometimes baby-making results in uncontrollable self-abortion! #modernsexmanual
10/26/09
This stuff just sounds like an engrish porn site. #modernsexmanual
10/26/09
WHAT??!?! How a virgin differs for a man or how the virgin herself feels the first time? #modernsexmanual
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There's only ONE?! #modernsexmanual
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08/27/09
My grandfather suffered from PTSD, but of course because of his generation he went his whole life without being treated. He was a tough-love, gruff sort of man who clearly loved my mom and my sister and I (and my grandmother!), but just simply didn't express his feelings very openly. My grandmother, similarly, behaves very 'ladylike' and is shocked about how women act these days.
I don't know, maybe they are the anomalies...
08/26/09
ask anyone who is in their early to mid 70's now about what the 50's were really like and you'll get a completely different story. folks in their 70's now came of age in the 50's in high school and college. teens could drink legally then. in bars. in public. all the early beatniks of the 50's? baby boomers didn't invent smoking weed or doing drugs...the jazz cats of the 50's did. most if not all of the ideals of the 60's had their roots in the 50's. but, y'know, it's easy to paint the entire decade it as strict and reserved when the kids at woodstock were running around with little red wagons watching howdy doody in the 50's.
08/27/09
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08/26/09
Moreover, my grandfathers both came of age in the fifties, and one of them was so affected by his war experiences and the tragic death of his first child that he drank himself to death--took longer than he planned, I'm sure--and the other, in his dotage, is prone to telling my husband only stories of the Pacific theater, still so fresh and disturbing that he thinks I should be shielded from them. It's possible that only now that we have large numbers of young people coming back from the Middle East with similar experiences will we really understand what it's like to go on with life in these United States after spending five, six, seven years at war. They deserve better from us than assumptions, and so do our forebears.
08/26/09
I mean think about it save for thank you letters and maybe cover letters, when in this day and age do you really need to handwrite a letter (no email, no microsoft word).
08/26/09
08/26/09
08/26/09
As to Don, there's the last ep of the first season where he fantasizes that his family is home waiting for him and he goes to Thanksgiving with them. Normally I find him fascinating but not particularly sympathetic, but that scene made me feel for him.
08/26/09
I don't know - I think about the shows I really love, like Homicide, or even How I Met Your Mother - and I see more nuance in those characters than I do in the Mad Men characters. But I see what you're saying.
08/26/09
That scene made me feel for him BUT (spoiler below)
All sympathy I had for him was ruined by the fact that he had been willing to abandon his children a few hours earlier. So at that point, I didn't care that he was alone in his big empty house. I guess you are supposed to feel that his family is what he really wants, deep down, but I don't see any real evidence of that.
08/26/09
They all have contradictions and feelings that are not expected. I hate to love Pete, he wants to be loved by his Dad, so he's insecure and an asshole to other people. He seems to have made a connection with Peggy yet he refused to commit to this relationship and focused on the "safe" marriage.
08/26/09
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08/26/09
I love the show.
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08/26/09
I have a pile of letters from my first serious boyfriend. He even told me he loved me for the first time in a letter that I received the day after he left for school. We dated between the end of high school through our first year of college. He was in TN, I was in CA. I seriously cherish those letters, even though he turned out to be a douche. I've never written letters with a boy again....
08/26/09
08/26/09