PURITANICAL VICTORIANS

From the chapter "The Gentlest Decade"

PURITANICAL VICTORIANS

Moral values and our community’s acceptance level for unusual or immoral behavior were much, much more rigid then than they are today.  Women wore one piece bathing suits that covered everything.  No self respecting male would have been caught dead wearing a Speedo or French cut bathing suit.  Movie actors never bled when they got shot.  Sex in the movies never went beyond the kissing stage, at least on the screen.  Bad language in any form, written or spoken, was not publicly tolerated. 

One of the first editions of a new men’s magazine named Playboy was published in 1953; it featured a picture of Marilyn Monroe posing au natural, dressed in her birthday suit.  This magazine was the subject of many whispered conversations, and caused the spreading of highly intoxicating rumors by a kid who claimed to have actually seen “the picture.”  It was said you could buy the magazine at a store on Forsyth Street with the word, “Sundries” in its name.  We all had different opinions as to exactly what a sundry was.  Want to see the historic picture?  Type in the name Marilyn Monroe and, voila, your internet browser will do the rest.  Of course, your six year old can do the same thing.

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