Please tell me about American culture

[+ Tarte Gogo]

So when I was a teenager, before I was allowed to buy porn, pictures of semi-naked men to jerk of were hard to come by.

 

The internet hadn’t taken over the world yet.

 

The only thing that was reliably turning me on, were the men’s underwear pages of a good’s ‘catalogue’. This was basically a heavy book that was delivered to every home every 6 months, full of pictures of goods that you could order and receive a week later at home. Like amazon.com but on paper, and focused on clothes primarily. I remember the women’s clothing pages were particularly numerous. There were pages for furniture, toys, car accessories etc.

 

Did you guys have a couple of such ‘catalogues’ in every home in America? What were they called?

Did you use the underwear pages to jerk off?

[dixietony]

The Sears catalog. Or JC Penny's.

[+ Just Sayin]

@Tarte Gogo yes; the arrival of the Sears catalogs every season were major events; Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney's also had them; and it enabled us to take a look at guys in underwear; quite nice; then in the 80s arrived International Male catalogs; they were very provocative!!! [inserted Internat'l Male for Undergear]

[Trick]

I do remember those underwear pages on Sears Catalogs. I think I liked the International Male pages more.

 

Like the OP, I did not have access to pictures of nude men so what I did was trace pictures of the models and drew dicks on them. That was WAAAAAAAAYYYY before the days of Photoshop. The software then was still WordStar. lol

 

Believe me, I got off on those hand drawn pictures.

[Good Grief]

Good Grief! How about UnderGear or International Male?

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DexCiNiP0TQ/T1j13zO0bjI/AAAAAAAADnQ/V7Sy2wbFIiU/s1600/undergear5.jpg

[+ Avalon]

I remember the International Male catalog. I was getting my mail at my parents' home. I remember when an issue had arrived my mother once asking me if I had ordered it. I said "no". It was true; I don't know how I got on their mailing list. My mother never spoke about it again.

 

I was on the Falcon mailing list. I called home asking if I had gotten any mail. She said something from "Talcon". They made their "F"s funny.

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Cool.

 

Now I know I should refer to “the sears catalog underwear pages” in this country if I want to make an inappropriate allusion to “jerking off before the internet” without being explicit.

 

Thanks guys!

[+ sniper]

JCPenney was usually better than Sears. What I found interesting were the weekly circulars in Sunday newspapers for those stores and also Kmart, Bradlees(a now-defunct discount department store, sort of halfway between Walmaret and target) which, being more regional/local in nature, tended to have somewhat more "person next door"-looking models and also sometimes lax editing standards that let you catch a bit more flesh or outline of penis than you would see in the big catalogs. I remember one summer in the early 80s they were advertisinc swimwear and showing a family in a swimming pool where the water was slightly less than waist-deep where the dad seemed semi-erect in his Speedo and you pretty clearly saw the top of his pubes.

[+ Travis69]

When Gentleman's Quarterly came out, early 1970's, it had nice swimsuit pics. Always got that every quarter. Playgirl started around the same time.

[+ bashful]

I remember the Sunday paper always had a magazine insert. It usually had an ad or 2 for the local Hudson's with guys modeling underwear.

 

Edit: Forgot. My older brother's high school yearbook with the pictures of the swim team in speedo type bathing suits. (although, when in swim class, we all swam nude).

[Wunder82]

I remember one of the 1975 Sears catalogs where it appeared "the goods" of one of the male underwear models were dangling below the hemline of his underwear for all the page turners to see. The rumors about it went to the point there was a Country Western song that was entitled, "I wish I was the man on page 602". It was a hoax: http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/the_man_on_page_602

 

But that didn't stop me from getting a magnifying glass and enlarging the picture... I couldn't say one way or the other. Who would have thought a Sears catalog would be my first foray into the viewing of the male anatomy in public print... ...that is until International Male came along.

[Rudynate]

@Tarte Gogo yes; the arrival of the Sears catalogs every season were major events; Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney's also had them; and it enabled us to take a look at guys in underwear; quite nice; then in the 80s arrived International Male catalogs; they were very provocative!!! [inserted Internat'l Male for Undergear]

 

 

Before International Male, there was the Ah Men catalog.

[nate_sf]

My dad used to subscribe to Sports Illustrated, and at the time it featured Jim Palmer in those Jockey ads. I coveted those!

 

[Trick]

My dad used to subscribe to Sports Illustrated, and at the time it featured Jim Palmer in those Jockey ads. I coveted those!

 

 

 

In addition to catalogs, underwear packaging provided those much needed semi-nude pics of dudes.

[instudiocity]

JCPenney was usually better than Sears.

Mr. James Cash Penny was a Mormon as well. Coincidence?

[LADoug1]

I remember the International Male catalog. I was getting my mail at my parents' home. I remember when an issue had arrived my mother once asking me if I had ordered it. I said "no". It was true; I don't know how I got on their mailing list. My mother never spoke about it again.

 

I was on the Falcon mailing list. I called home asking if I had gotten any mail. She said something from "Talcon". They made their "F"s funny.

 

You had Falcons products mailed to your home?!

[jjkrkwood]

So when I was a teenager, before I was allowed to buy porn, pictures of semi-naked men to jerk of were hard to come by.

 

The internet hadn’t taken over the world yet.

 

The only thing that was reliably turning me on, were the men’s underwear pages of a good’s ‘catalogue’. This was basically a heavy book that was delivered to every home every 6 months, full of pictures of goods that you could order and receive a week later at home. Like amazon.com but on paper, and focused on clothes primarily. I remember the women’s clothing pages were particularly numerous. There were pages for furniture, toys, car accessories etc.

 

Did you guys have a couple of such ‘catalogues’ in every home in America? What were they called?

Did you use the underwear pages to jerk off?

 

 

Tarte, are you trying to "compete" with Avalon ??? :p:p My first was International male catalogue, the underwear pages, and Muscle mags... then I graduated to more porn related stuff when I found it.

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Tarte, are you trying to "compete" with Avalon ??? :p:p

Well at least I give a reason for asking.

Also I am looking for factual information, not just “this is not like for straight people, please discuss”.

[jjkrkwood]

Well at least I give a reason for asking.

Also I am looking for factual information, not just “this is not like for straight people, please discuss”.

 

I just figure Avalon's parents didnt give him the "boys & bees" talk , so he's trying to catch up !

[gallahadesquire]

Those catalogs were carefully airbrushed so there wouldn't be any VPL on them.

 

My source for imagery was the woods across from my house. I would find pages of the Ah Men catalog strewn hither and yon. Once I got older, I'd take the "L" into downtown Chicago. There was a magazine kiosk at the top of the entrance to the Illinois Electric (a commuter railway that went south of the city). There I'd get Male Pictorial or Male Physique or some such, DEFINITELY in a paper bag, and run off. If I couldn't stand the wait, I'd dash into the downtown Marshall Field's, where I'd found a particularly bathroom, possibly the employee one, and jerk off.

 

It would have perfect for a sexual encounter, but who'd do that with a thirteen year old kid?

[gallahadesquire]

So when I was a teenager, before I was allowed to buy porn, pictures of semi-naked men to jerk of were hard to come by.

 

The internet hadn’t taken over the world yet.

 

The only thing that was reliably turning me on, were the men’s underwear pages of a good’s ‘catalogue’. This was basically a heavy book that was delivered to every home every 6 months, full of pictures of goods that you could order and receive a week later at home. Like amazon.com but on paper, and focused on clothes primarily. I remember the women’s clothing pages were particularly numerous. There were pages for furniture, toys, car accessories etc.

 

Did you guys have a couple of such ‘catalogues’ in every home in America? What were they called?

Did you use the underwear pages to jerk off?

 

There's a line in the musical Lil' Abner where they're trying to find a reason to keep the town intact. Someone comes up with a 1937 Sears catalog.

"But all the pages are blank!" the government man says.

"'Course the are!" came the reply. "Nobody in Dogpatch had any money!"

"Then why did they send you catalogs?"

"To keep up morale!"

[Epigonos]

I first started teaching in a public high school, in a conservative suburb of Los Angeles, in the mid 1960’s. I was so paranoid about receiving gay sexually oriented material at my home that I rented a mailbox at a private mail service all the way across town. I subscribed to several gay magazines and had 8mm porn films from Falcon delivered there.

 

I also visited with some frequency the International Male brick and mortar store in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd. They actually had some very nice clothing. I bought a jacket and a number of shirts there during my bodybuilding days.

 

Further east on Santa Monica Blvd. was a shop called Circus of Books (I wonder if it is still there) which carried a large selection of gay printed magazines. In a separate room they carried all sorts of gay 8mm and eventually DVD porn.

 

At least once a month I would stop by my mailbox, head on to International Male and then end up at Circus of Books. Damn things are certainly different today.

[Rudynate]

There was a magazine kiosk at the top of the entrance to the Illinois Electric (a commuter railway that went south of the city). There I'd get Male Pictorial or Male Physique or some such, DEFINITELY in a paper bag, and run off.

 

 

Yes!! In downtown Rochester, there was a huge periodical store called Worldwide News. They had everything - any magazine you could think of, foreign-language newspapers, racing sheets. They had an enormous section of straight porn and a little section of gay porn, with titles like that. Most of it was wrapped in cellophane, but some wasn't. They sold that weird gay porn fiction from the fifties and sixties, like "Song of the Loon." I always tried to look nonchalant when I browsed, imagining that I was being very discreet. I never bought anything because my mother had a sixth sense for that sort of thing - she surely would have found it.

[+ Avalon]

You had Falcons products mailed to your home?!

 

Just their fliers; j/o material.

 

When I was a teen I had a metal box with a padlock in the closet that I kept my porn in.

[+ Avalon]

I just figure Avalon's parents didnt give him the "boys & bees" talk , so he's trying to catch up !

 

I've said before that all my parents told me was to sleep with my hands outside the bed covers. But not why.