Built Like a Frigerator with a Head?

So lately I've been thinking a lot about roller derby girls. Yes, Jim Croce has something to do with it, with his strangely apt representation of an inexplicable attractiveness of a really rough-and-tumble woman. (Lately a couple that got away have been drifting through my mind--women I was just not tough enough to handle. I regret not having tried a little harder.)

But part of it is also their advertising. I mean, you see something like this on a lamppost

and it's hard not to think, hey, that looks cool.

There's a lot of roller derby clubs around, and they all seem to have a distinct graphic style.

And the ladies are not as scary as you might think (okay, so some of them are):

Mostly, it seems like a fun curiosity.

What I Actually Do for a Living

Essentially, I'm a writer for the web. I work for a search engine optimization (SEO) company. We get paid by plastic surgeons, lawyers, ophthalmologists, and cosmetic dentists to make sure that when a young woman types "breast enlargement denver" into Google, the first page of natural results (as opposed to sponsored links) should include our clients. This is tricky, because Google doesn't really tell anyone what makes a website show up. Every once in a while, they make vague pronouncements. What we do know is that Google likes older, established websites, and it likes informative sites.

Since we can't make our clients' websites older, we try to make them more informative by having more and more substantive pages on a topic than anyone else. So, for breast augmentation we start with a general page, a page on implant options, a page on incision options, a page on placement options, a page on complications, and a page on achieving natural results or something, depending on what the client wants. If they're still not doing well, we might add a page on medical complications vs. aesthetic complications, or we might add a page on how to decide how big your implants should be, cleavage determinants, correction of breast asymmetry, or what have you. Breaking in a client in a competitive market can take months and lots of wracking my brain to come up with new substantive pages.

Google also likes websites that are updated frequently, which the pages help, but can also be helped w/ a blog, so I write blogs for clients, sometimes every day, sometimes twice a week, sometimes once a month. These are ideally topical and current, but relate to the practice, like this one on Fall Fashion:

http://www.drrai.net/2008/08/return-of-classic-style-puts-emphasis.html

Google also likes inbound links, so we write up magazine articles that are designed to be informative, then get posted on e-zines and link back to our clients. For example, I wrote an article today on what Scarlett Johansson, Megan Fox, Tyra Banks, and Jennifer Aniston tell us about what size breasts a woman should aspire to in getting breast enlargement. I stop just short of telling women they really don't need them, since this is an article and not on a client's website, so I can take whatever angle I want. Most women who get attention with their breasts are really only B/C cups. It's usually a question of proportion, presentation, and attitude.

Anyway, that's most of what I do.

My Odd Job

So, this is what I've been assigned to watch for the past week. Some day this job will go away, and I will miss it. But for now, a good time is had by all.

Tribute to Pulps II: Spicy

Okay, so now it's time for a look at the seamier side of the pulps. Still I guess pretty wholesome, but fun and titillating nonetheless.

Looking at my captions from last time, they seemed confusing, so I'm putting descriptions after the images from now on.

I like this image from Spicy Adventure Stories. Exotic, dangerous, enticing. The translucent drapery that reveals/conceals, the luscious red lips, the narrow, deadly eyes of the woman waiting in ambush with her unmanning knife. I love the way it is so dramatically foreshortened to create the impression of extreme closeness. You are there, so close you can smell the musk and perfume of her body, hear her calm, deliberate breaths. Awesome.

Something of a generic image from Spicy Detective Stories. Woman in danger, about to be rescued, her clothes torn but somehow miraculously clinging. The main thing I like about this cover is it made me wonder: Was "snatch" used in its sexual sense already? The answer: yes, for several decades by this point, making the cover definitely risque.

Sally the Sleuth was a feature of Spicy Detective Stories. Although a fiesty dame, she always managed to get herself in some sort of sexual peril, often involving her clothes being removed. In many cases, the illustrators were not above drawing some sexual detail (this was, after all, inside the mag), but I like this artist's playful work with the lei and the grass skirt.

And then of course there's Wink, a full-fledged men's magazine, I guess, with its subtitle: "A Whirl of Girls," and its cover devoid of anything but the sexual content. I like the ambiguity of the cover stories. "Should babes be spanked?": beginning S&M or parenting guide? "Love below the knees" was either a popular story or there were several variant covers of this issue. At any rate, what does that mean? Footsies? Fetishism? Stocking buying guide? I sure don't know.

Tribute to Pulps 1

Having spent a couple days last week at the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, I thought I'd look at the wonderfully evocative women that graced the covers of pulp magazines, the kind of women that made 10-year-old boys aspire to acts of heteronormative heroism.

This is a great cover, coming in the latter part of the 20's and showing how scandalous these early covers could be. I'm not so big a fan of the aesthetic of the 20's covers. Although I like the clarity and simplicity of line they use, I don't like the tendency toward waify heroines. Nonetheless, this cover reminds me of some magazine covers where they airbrush out a woman's nipples to be able to expose more of the breast in an attempt to be evocative. Here, though, the candle cuts both ways, since it fools the eye for a moment into believing it actually sees the woman's nipple. Not to mention the odd, convenient tree.

This cover is good because its obviously S&M context seems really contemporary. The woman's outfit is practically the stereotypical bondage costume. And then to juxtapose her against the clothed or armored men completes the sense of perversity the magazine wants to use to entice its readership.

This cover, of course, pushes the nudity barrier just a little too far. At the same time, though, the revealing anatomical absence is interesting. It reminds us that what we are dealing with is fantasy. The images do not reflect real women or real men. All this is merely play. Simultaneously, it exposes the fantasy of control that is censorship. Censors may be able to remove the nipples from magazine covers, but they cannot remove them from real women, any more than they can stop real men and women from engaging in real sexual acts. Image suppression cannot effect mind control.

You gotta love Planet Stories, or, rather, I can't help but love Planet Stories. Classic woman harrassed by green BEM, late enough that this trope was standard fare. It's so formulaic, it's tempting to dismiss the art of it, but there are a number of cool things about this image. First, it's full of tension. Not just the suspense at the woman's peril, but tension in a real physics sense. As a static image, all the elements are balanced in terms of force pressing against each other. Second, it's so obviously a penis with tentacles attacking the woman. Third, the image powerfully controls the viewers' eyes. No matter where you look on the page, you are brought to the central image, which is a figure 8 or, more potently, an infinity symbol turned on its side.

A couple more Planet Stories covers. Not quite so well-done as the first, but good examples of the type of titillation the covers used. Shredded or revealing clothing and convenient angles that almost let you see what you want. Perhaps the story will tell you.

These covers may be a little sleazy, but I don't believe they're really degenerate. Although their dominant subject is woman, I don't think they are trying to or claim to say anything about women at all. Instead, their purpose is to celebrate virility. Action is the core element of their narratives, and sexuality is merely a side-effect.

The argument may not hold for the covers I'm looking at next time: "spicy" stories and men's mags.

Lesbian Aesthetic

In researching my last post, I came across something interesting. As some of you may know, Tina Fey was number one on AfterEllen.com's Hot 100 "The Sexiest Women, According to Women." Apparently, they receive over 100,000 votes from lesbian and bisexual women and assemble the results. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that the list is really different from the lists put together by Maxim or FHM, as you can see:

Maxim

1. Marisa Miller

2. Scarlett Johansson

3. Jessica Biel

4. Eva Longoria Parker

5. Sarah Michelle Geller

6. Elisha Cuthbert

7. Eva Mendes

8. Christina Aguilera

9. Lindsay Lohan

10. Ashley Tisdale

FHM

1. Megan Fox

2. Jessica Biel

3. Jessica Alba

4. Elisha Cuthbert

5. Scarlett Johansson

6. Emmanuelle Chriqui

7. Hilary Duff

8. Tricia Helfer

9. Blake Lively

10. Kate beckinsale

AfterEllen

1. Tina Fey

2. Jennifer Beals

3. Jill Bennett

4. Briget McManus

5. Leisha Hailey

6. Ellen Page

7. Sarah Shahi

8. Sara Ramierez

9. Kate Moennig

10. Lena Headey

No big surprise that they'd be different, right? I do think it's interesting that if you look back at the Larryville Chronicles "Babes" segment, you'll notice women from all three lists. Another interesting thing is the image selection. AfterEllen is much more likely to use just face shots than the men's magazines. In addition, while Maxim & FHM are more likely to put their hotties in swimsuits & lingerie, AfterEllen selects pictures featuring a slightly different attire:

And I'm not sure which is hotter. Love the hats!