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Friday, November 2, 2007

The Birth of the Proto-Bubble Hottie

filed under: Retrosexual, Bubble Hotties by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Name that year, kiddos:

The area has sprouted computer-themed art galleries, a billiard hall and a Gold’s Gym, where former geeks can acquire new muscles to match their beefed-up social status. There is even “Gulch Gossip,” a column in a local computer magazine. Its author, who writes under the name Jonathan E., says, “My attitude is, if there’s going to be a media industry, it’s going to run by media morals — people will get drunk and swap each other’s wives.”

That would be The New York Times, on San Francisco’s newly sexed-up web culture, c. 1994.

(photo by & link via Scott Beale/Laughing Squid, gloriously reminiscing)

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Group Sex, for Science

filed under: Do It for Science, Retrosexual by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

Via Jezebel, the New York Times bookblog has unearthed a precious volume, Group Sex: A Scientist’s Eyewitness Report on the American Way of Swinging, bearing insight into the bygone days group sex in the last century.

Offers its author, Dr. Gilbert D. Bartell, Ph.D.:

Although my wife is not an anthropologist, obviously my investigations would have been far more difficult without her assistance.

No slouch, Time magazine covered Dr. Bartell’s study when it was first published, in 1971, with this caution:

The trouble is that swingers often find themselves too busy; the rule is to swing only once with the same couple (so that no intimate, marriage-destroying relationships develop). Thus the search for “beautiful” or “great” (contrasted with “moldy”) partners is never ending. Eventually hours of the swingers’ waking day are spent on the phone or writing letters to make new contacts—or driving hundreds of miles to meet them. Sheer exhaustion causes many to drop out of swinging after two years or so of frantic activity. More important is disillusionment. Finally able to act out adolescent fantasies, many swingers find that the fantasies were better than reality.

You could paw around the basement at the Times for your own, but a quick search shows that a copy can still be had still today.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

“Philosophy in the Boudoir” Redux

filed under: Retrosexual, We Make Art Not Sex by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Artist Tomer Hanuka has been commissioned to create the cover art for a new Penguin Classics edition of the Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir, Or, The Immoral Mentors.

On his process:

Since the cover included a back cover and two flaps there was lots of space to build a rounded atmosphere. the back cover is essentially the ‘later’ of the front, the front flap showcases an evil looking chandelier and the back flap has an excited horse. hoping i could get away with something slightly outrages I had the back flap and back cover create a suggestive bestiality situation that was quickly cleaned up when the horse got circumcised to the client’s request…

A gorgeously huge version here.

(via the inimitable sexblo.gs)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Retrosexual: Mystery Date, Now! With Bears!

filed under: Retrosexual by Melissa Gira | 5 Comments

The classic Mystery Date girls’ game gets remade as a bear matchmaking service in this retrosexed video:

Bears so rarely are celebrated in such a charming way, let alone available on the internet teevee. Plus, isn’t there just something so safe & sweet about mashing up outsider sexuality with nostalgia?

(via a shockingly, increasingly hotter Yahoo)