Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend
by Karen Essex and James L. Swanson
(General Publishing Group, 288 pp., $40)

Poor glutted smirking us. We live in an age when pop culture is our
history and history is our flea market. Kitsch never dies; it lacks the
gravity to die; it just circles back, with a new price tag and a hopeful
air. It turns out that no junk is junky enough to be consigned to the
obsolescence for which it was intended--not fake fur or Formica, not
Russ Meyer or Ed Wood, not Esquivel or Abba. We do not lament the
passing of things that were meant to last; we lament the passing of
things that were meant not to last. We refuse to be robbed of a past by
a culture of transience. It is our lot, therefore, to be overrun, or to
overrun ourselves, with the schlock not only of today, but of two,
three, four decades past. Oblivion, it seems, is worse than vulgarity.
And so we claim ephemera for posterity. There are technological
explanations for this phenomenon, and economic ones, too. The Internet,
with its capacity for linking up thousands of otherwise furtive fans and
collectors, for bringing everybody and everything in from the periphery
to the center, for infinitely replicating shards and shards of trivia,
has accelerated the redemption of kitsch. So has the CD, for which it
seems that there never was a minor composer or a justly neglected
performance or a girl group too obscure or a lounge act too goofy.
Consider only the Capitol CD series with such self-consciously retro
titles as "Bongo Land," "Ultra- Lounge" and "Bossanovaville," risibly
awful music brought proudly and brilliantly back. The shorter the
history, the more relentless the recycling. (It was American popular
music that invented the concept of "instant gold.") Or consider
Nick-at-Nite-type cable TV, with its endless appetite for content as
familiar and as soothing as the wallpaper in our childhood bedrooms. But
behind these material facts is a sensibility, an attitude toward the
past, and toward collecting, that might be described as ironic
preservationism. Ironic preservationism differs from its straight
counterpart--the world of genealogy and heritage movements and lovingly
restored country houses--in that it resurrects     objects not for their
beauty or their craftsmanship or the lasting superiority of their forms
or  materials, but for the very inverse of these qualities: their
cheesiness, their triviality, their banality, their disposability. It
differs, too, from earlier preservationist movements in that the appeal
of an object does not lie in the way that time has made it recondite.
For the ironic preservationist, mystery holds no attraction. The more
crudely legible an artifact, the better. An original poster for Reefer
Madness, or Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill, is a great find partly because
it is so undemanding of the mind or the sensibility, so unashamedly
garish, so naked of pretension.

     The ironic preservationist is ironic because he is preserving what
was made to be forgotten. The
     danger for such a collector is that he begins to see the past as a
congeries of gags, a grab bag of
     "novelty items" (a term of art, in the world of American kitsch,
like the term "collectibles"), a freak
     show. He believes in regress, but he is not what you would call
conservative; he is trying instead
     to recapture the impermanence of yesteryear. Of course, this is
impossible, and so the precious
     artifacts are merely fetishized. In the tackiness of the B-movies
and the third-rate torch songs of
     the '50s and '60s, he finds innocence. (Nobody in the '50s and '60s
did.)

     The ironic preservationist is not indifferent to history so much as
addled by it. In part his attitude
     is a rejection of the discontinuities of consumer culture, the
swift passing of the latest thing. By
     honoring all this negligible stuff, he asserts his mastery over the
acceleration of the past. The "new
     and improved" are a joke to him. (He will enjoy them later.) The
more fads and entertainments
     the culture produces, the more stubbornly he clings to those of
earlier decades for stability. The
     usual explanation for historic preservation movements is that, in a
throwaway society, people will
     hunger for something that lasts, for an object made with some care
and to some kind of serious
     accepted aesthetic standard, and intended for some kind of
posterity. But what if you determine
     to make the throwaway itself endure? To make it outlive the use-by
date that capitalism stamps in
     ghostly ink on every pop cultural creation? Now that is a victory!
As the British historian Raphael
     Samuel writes, describing the more mainstream phenomenon of
retro-chic, the idea is not to
     "deceive anyone into a hallucinatory sense of oneness with the
past, but on the contrary [to
     cultivate] an air of ironic detachment and distance. Retrochic ...
involves not an obsession with
     past but an indifference to it: only when history has ceased to
matter can it be treated as a sport."
     There is some truth to this argument, but it is a little unfair.
The motives of the ironic
     preservationist are complicated. There is tenderness in his
inanity. He wants access to a kind of
     purity: the purity of pure schlock. Like Frank O'Hara, he longs to
be "at least as alive as the
     vulgar." He is often more sentimental than cool. Sometimes the
ironic preservationist exalts the
     kitsch of the past--his Yma Sumac records, his velvet paintings,
his pulp novels--because it is
     bizarre or amusing, sometimes because it reminds him, humbly, of
something that's missing from
     the time in which he must live now. And so it is with the
lubricious dreamworld of Bettie Page.
     =46rom 1950 to 1957, Bettie Page was America' s underground pin-up
queen, the secret crush
     of thousands of men who married young and wondered what they had
missed. Her career as an
     erotic icon took her from moderately saucy beach blanket shots (the
stuff of calendars hung
     discreetly in the garage) to mail-order stag films with
sadomasochistic themes and titles such as
     Captive Jungle Girl (the stuff of congressional investigations). It
took her from a time in porn
     history when nearly nude pictures of nearly pretty girls in static
cheesecake poses were still
     scandalous enough to pack an erotic charge to a time in which
psychosexual motifs such as
     fetishism and domination were increasingly mass-marketed and porn
was supposed to tell a story
     (with a beginning, a middle and a climax). She started out posing
nude or in homemade bikinis,
     frolicking in the Long Island surf for the benefit of amateur
"camera clubs"--hobbyists,
     shutterbugs and geeks who took pictures for their personal use and
so were not bound by the
     obscenity laws that limited nudity in men's publications of the
day. From there, she did cheerful
     photo spreads for magazines such as Wink and Tattler and Eyeful;
Dare and Bold and Peek; Art
     Photography and Modern Sunbathing. And finally, in what Bettie
Page's fans call her "Dark
     Angel" period, she did a noirish series of photos and silent film
loops shot in New York by a
     genially sleazy stag photographer named Irving Klaw and his devoted
sister Paula. Bettie and the
     other Klaw models, all women, usually wore the distinctive, thickly
armatured underwear of the
     '50s--appropriately called foundation garments--and high, high
heels as black and glistening as
     wet asphalt. Sometimes they performed burlesque shimmies, sometimes
they donned leather
     corsets and gloves and brandished whips and hairbrushes, sometimes
they trussed one another
     up. As in all s&m, props played a vital role and were lavished with
beady-eyed attention. The
     settings were always delightfully low-rent; the action slow,
deliberate, exaggerated. Since no men
     appear in the films--to include men would have been to guarantee an
obscenity conviction--these
     short films sometimes suggest a sort of lesbian theme park, an
underground network of tacky
     motels where you could always find tough babes playing cards in
their underwear, smoking
     cigarettes in their underwear, menacing one another with
hairbrushes in their underwear, rolling
     around on shag rugs in their underwear. In each of these guises,
Bettie Page looked much the
     same. She always wore her dark hair long and loose, with pageboy
bangs, which gave her a
     modern, intelligent look. In almost any decade, this particular
hairstyle--straight hair and bangs,
     the bob or a variation on it-- seems to grant its wearers a
purchase on modernity. (Think of how
     contemporary Louise Brooks appears next to other stars of the
1920s.) Partly by virtue of its
     association with the flapper, the straight- hair-and-bangs style
has long signified free-thinking,
     self-possession and a crisp, unromantic Bohemianism. Bettie Page
was nearly always well-toned
     and smooth-skinned, with a flattering all-over tan. But she had a
body that was unusual among
     sex goddesses then and now in that it was lovely in a plausible
way--neither as impossibly sinewy
     as a contemporary fashion model's nor as busty as Mansfield's or
Monroe' s. It was, above all, a
     body in which she always managed to look supremely at ease. She
seemed as comfortable as a
     pre-adolescent girl, though with her full breasts, and the womanly
pooch of her slightly convex
     tummy, she hardly looked the gamine.

     We know all this about Bettie Page not only, or even primarily,
because she was so fervently
     admired in her brief heyday. Those first admirers tended to keep
their obsession to themselves.
     We know it because she is so fervently admired today, the object of
a cult that has done nothing
     to keep its secret to itself. Page is the subject of a two- hour
documentary that aired on the cable
     network E! Entertainment Television last spring, and of a
forthcoming HBO movie. On the web,
     you can find more than 100 sites dedicated to her. Her photographs
from the '50s fetch good
     money at trade shows and at groovy little downtown shops and at
Bettie Page theme nights
     hosted by clubs in Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta. Hip models
have been photographed to
     look like her (they don't); hip designers claim to have been
influenced by her. There is a fan club,
     The Bettie Scouts of America, based in Kansas City, Kansas, and a
magazine, The Bettie Pages,
     published in New York by an unusually devoted Bettie buff named
Greg Theakston. And now
     there is a handsome, besotted tribute book, Bettie Page: The Life
of a Pin-Up Legend by Karen
     Essex and James L. Swanson, a biography of a sort, which has an
anecdote-laden text based on
     interviews with the 74-year-old Page.

     So, you might reasonably ask, what is it about Bettie Page? Why
does her image still capture the
     imagination, while legions of her cohorts in the nudie modeling
trade could barely sell a publicity
     still to save their pasties? Bettie's fans tend to answer that
question with the naughty-but-nice
     paradox. For Karen Essex and James L. Swanson, Bettie Page
"embodied the stereotypical
     wholesomeness of the Fifties and the hidden sexuality straining
beneath the surface.... Her fresh-
     faced beauty was the perfect camouflage for what lurked beneath her
veneer--the exotic,
     whip-snapping dark angel. In Bettie Page, forbidden longings were
made safe by an ideal
     American girl." For Steve Sullivan, the author of a methodically
researched history of the pin-up
     called Va Va Voom!, there's a "fascinating duality" in Bettie's
photographs, "which run the gamut
     from sunny innocence to sinister darkness." Truth is, though,
that's a gamut run rather often in
     pornography. The appeal of the sweet-faced girl with the bod for
sin is as old as the oldest dirty
     postcard, and as common as guilt. It is true that Bettie Page may
have been especially gifted at
     conveying the naughty- but-nice fantasy. Hers was an era in which
the expectation of female
     frigidity was still a widely accepted axiom of sexual lore. When it
came to sex, explained an
     article in Life magazine in 1953, the female is "simply by virtue
of her own physiology and through
     no coyness or stubbornness of her own, disinterested, unresponsive,
and in fact sometimes
     downright frigid.... The average woman ... can certainly take sex
or leave it alone." She
     "considers the human body, if anything, rather repulsive." In such
a context, the look of sweet
     sexual eagerness- -neither too aloof nor too ravenous--that was
Bettie Page's specialty must have
     gone a long way.

     Still, it can't entirely explain her popularity, particularly
today. To account for it, we have to go
     further afield--into the realm of nostalgia and the yearning for a
vanished sense of the illicit, a
     sense of the illicit that was the other side of a sense of the
innocent. We could do worse, though,
     than to start with her smile. Bettie Page' s smile--it looks more
and more bemused, especially in
     some of the Klaw photographs--is crucial not only to the
naughty-but-nice effect, but also to
     something more complex and lasting about her appeal. Above all
else, perhaps, her pictures, and
     the expressions that she adopts in them, convey a sensation of joy
in her work--her joy, not the
     viewer's. It is the joy of a talent finding an outlet, and it
hardly matters that the talent is not for
     painting or policy analysis, but for exhibitionism. These are
images of a woman who will not be
     ruined by sex, but made by it. In her nude photos, she holds her
head up high. She wears her
     insouciance like a halo. If eroticism is the promise of pleasure,
then these pictures are not, strictly
     speaking, erotic. For they promise nothing. They are not images of
desire, they are images of
     happiness. And so what they demonstrate, in a way, is the unerotic
character of happiness. If one
     tingles at the sight of them, it is almost with envy. In fact, when
it comes to certain cliches of nude
     modeling, Bettie Page is clearly inept. She never stares vacantly
into the middle distance, dreamy
     and compliant. She can't really smolder, and she doesn't do sultry.
When she acts the part of the
     dominatrix in the Klaw photographs, she narrows her eyes and knits
her brow fiercely and mostly
     looks silly. When she plays the passive role, tied up by another
Klaw model, her moue of distress
     is goggle-eyed, comically exaggerated; she might as well be a
silent movie heroine lashed to a
     train track. She's game, she's diligent, but she never seems to
inhabit a role or to let it consume
     her. She won't take it seriously. And no woman ever inflamed a man
by giggling.

     In Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend, Paula Klaw praises
Bettie as a woman of many
     expressions who "could have been an actress." But the truth is that
she always looks the same;
     and that is her particular grace. What lifts her photos above the
blankness and the deadness of so
     much porn and pseudo-porn is the stubborn, exuberant persistence of
a self, the irreducible core
     of a personality shining through. Bettie is never inert; she is
always Bettie; the girl can't help it.
     Often her pictures are curiously unarousing, as though the
undeniable presence of a particular
     person in all these erotic set-ups (Bettie in pom-poms, Bettie in
heels, Bettie in chains) could only
     undermine their purpose. The effect is of objectification without
anonymity; objectification without
     abstraction. In this way, the aim of pornography- -to let the
viewer generalize from this body to
     other bodies, including his own--is unwittingly thwarted. There is
a wonderful photo in Essex and
     Swanson's book, a candid shot taken in Irving Klaw's "studio." Klaw
is in the background,
     rumpled and overweight and grinning because he's just put his foot
through a shabby prop
     staircase. Bettie is standing in front of him, wearing
black-and-white lace lingerie and vivid
     coral-red lipstick. She has her head thrown back and she's cracking
up--laughing, one imagines,
     at the whole enterprise of dirty pictures. And what's wonderful
about the photo is that it's not
     really so different, in its mood of gentle mockery, from some of
the posed photos taken in the
     same setting. It reminds you that in interviews Bettie Page always
described her modeling as a
     kick. "I was happy cavorting around stark naked on the beach," she
said. Or, of the Klaw
     photos, "The other models and I enjoyed doing these crazy things.
The craziest thing I was asked
     to do was pose as a pony, wearing a leather outfit with a lead and
everything. We just died
     laughing." Bettie Page represents something unusual: she's the sex
joke who's in on the joke.
     Unlike the Judy Holliday type, the sexy ditz who isn't supposed to
know that she is sexy, Bettie
     Page is fully aware of the comedy of desire. It was altogether
appropriate that in October 1955
     she adorned the cover of a magazine called Chicks and Chuckles.

     Of course, remarks such as the ones I've just quoted might suggest
that Bettie Page achieved her
     equanimity about her work at the price of a certain lack of
imagination. To this day, she can't
     seem to fathom why anyone would have considered Klaw's work
pornographic. By today' s
     standards, it wasn't--it contained no nudity, no simulated sex
acts. Still, her disingenuousness can
     make her sound a bit thick. About the Kefauver Commission, the
congressional investigation that
     targeted Klaw in 1955, Page professes bafflement. "They thought
Irving was doing pornography.
     I don't know where they got that idea," she told Essex and Swanson.
"Irving was a very nice
     fellow, his models were never naked and there were never any men in
the photographs." And her
     own role in the fetish photographs? "It was part of posing and
posing was very natural to me."
     Besides, she says, "I was young and open to new experiences."
Anti-porn feminists, among
     others, might dismiss such attitudes as evidence of false
consciousness, a numb refusal to
     acknowledge a career built on her own abjection. But Page' s
comments remind me of something
     else: the attitude of a whole generation of entertainers who came
to Hollywood or New York
     from small towns in middle America, propelled by their good looks,
prepared to work hard and
     generally modest in their expectations of success. There were
hundreds, maybe thousands, of
     such B-movie actors in the '40s and '50s. They never studied the
Method, never thought of what
     they did as art, never figured on living like Hollywood royalty.
They called their work show biz,
     and felt forever grateful that it was a biz at all, that they could
actually be paid for playacting.
     (They tended to be rather dim when it came to managing money.)
There was about performers
     like that--and about Bettie Page and some of her peers in the
middlebrow cheesecake line--a
     common but sublime sincerity, an ability to laugh at themselves but
not ironically, a disposition
     workmanlike and quietly exultant. Call it the dignity of silly
work. It is this sincerity, incidentally,
     that makes Bettie Page an unfit subject for an academic field such
as cultural studies, which has
     produced so many admiring tomes on the likes of Madonna, Mae West
and Larry Flynt. Some
     of the discipline's leading practitioners are certainly drawn to
porn and its above-ground
     analogues (Calvin Klein ads, Victoria's Secret catalogs, Spice
Girls videos). There is Laura
     Kipnis, an associate professor in the Department of
Radio-Television- Film at Northwestern
     University, who lionizes Flynt as a symbol of "Rabelaisian
transgression" in her book Bound and
     Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America; and
there is Constance Penley,
     who teaches a class on dirty movies at U.C. Santa Barbara and has
written an essay called
     "Crackers and Whackers: The White Trashing of Porn." For Kipnis and
Penley and their ilk,
     self-described feminists who argue earnestly for the
"transgressive" and "subversive" qualities of,
     say, Hustler magazine, an interest in salacious pictures must
always be justified in (leftish) political
     terms. As Kipnis writes, in the introduction to Bound and Gagged,
pornography poses "a number
     of philosophical questions ... questions concerning the social
compact and the price of repression
     ... questions about how sexuality and gender roles are performed,
about class, aesthetics, utopia,
     rebellion, power, desire, and commodification.... [Porn] speaks to
its audience because it's
     thoroughly astute about who we are underneath the social veneer,
astute about the costs of
     cultural conformity and the discontent at the core of routinized
lives and normative sexuality." For
     all their assurances that they are really wild women, capable of
slinging obscenities and laughing at
     gross-out jokes, there is something priggish about the work of
these professors, and its insistence
     that there is far, far more to porn than getting off. They're like
middle-class radicals swilling Pabst
     Blue Ribbon not because they like it, but because it's what the
proles drink. Anyway, Bettie Page
     is a little too sunny, a little too close to the philistine ideal
of sex, for the cultural studies types.
     Unlike Mae West, she's not offering a vision of femininity so
exaggerated that it verges on parody
     or transvestism. She's a more regular fantasy. Strictly speaking,
she's not even a fantasy. Who in
     his right mind would try to seduce her? And what women tend to like
about her--many of her
     fans are women--is her ease in her body, the sense that she conveys
of having made sex her ally.
     One reason that Bettie Page may have managed to look as blithe as
she does in so many of her
     photographs is that when she posed she was often surrounded by
women. And they weren't just
     models, but photographers, too. Indeed, one of the surprising
aspects of the pin-up world in
     those days--surprising given what we think we know about sex roles
in the 1950s and what we
     think we know about the "male" gaze--is the extent to which it was
populated, even dominated,
     by women. Hardworking Paula Klaw not only trussed and tied the
models on bondage shoots,
     she also took many of the photographs. There were female
photographers in the camera clubs,
     who helped create what Bettie called "the homey atmosphere" on the
shoots. And Bettie worked
     frequently with the pin- up photographer Bunny Yeager, who had
herself been a model, and who
     considered her empathy with her subjects one of her greatest
assets. (Yeager produced one of
     the few genuinely witty pictures of Bettie, and it's kind of a girl
joke: Bettie posing stark naked,
     but with the accoutrements of lady-like femininity--elegant
pocketbook, tearoom hat, pursed lips,
     finishing school posture.) Ironically, if Bettie Page had seemed
more estranged from her body,
     able to speak of it (or at least treat it) as though it were a
commodity, she might be of greater
     interest to the cultural studies crowd. Jayne Mansfield, the
creamhorn with the grand tetons,
     always knew exactly how much her endowment was worth. And in
talking about it, she
     sometimes sounded a note of sophisticated alienation that cultural
studies scholars might find
     sufficiently subversive. "I have a ridiculous body. My waist is
practically invisible, and my bust is
     floundering around somewhere in the 40s," Mansfield once said. "And
there's no point in
     discussing the rest. It's a wild body, and I'm just sick of it for
being so unusual.... The only good
     thing about it is that it's a commercial body.... It got me where I
am." But Bettie Page never had
     the pontoon-like breasts that, in the age before plastic surgery
created bazongas for the masses,
     seemed to grant their owners the status of freakish
high-priestesses in a mammary cult. Pin-up
     stars such as June Wilkinson ("The Bosom") or Meg Myles ("Miss
Chest 1957" ) or Jayne
     Mansfield (whose studio chair on the Warner Brothers' lot bore the
figures 40-21-351/2 in lieu of
     her name) could not escape their breasts. They were their breasts.
The more moderately
     endowed Bettie had the possibility--the luxury, you might say--of
seeing her own body whole.
     The Bettie Page photographs, like all pin-ups, are incitements, but
not only to sex. They are
     incitements also to nostalgia. I look at her pictures and I wonder
what it was like to be a young
     woman on one's own in the city, one of those single girls who came
to New York in the 1950s
     and early '60s hoping to escape their allotted destinies as young
wives, young mothers and young
     suburbanites. In Essex and Swanson's book, there is a scrapbook
photo of Bettie and her sister
     Goldie as teenagers that is like a prehistory, in miniature, of
that migration. The year is 1941, and
     Bettie and Goldie are in their backyard in Nashville, pretending to
be Ziegfeld girls. Everything in
     the background of the picture--the smudgy clouds, the drooping
telephone wires, the clapboard
     house, the overgrown garden--seems to suggest Home. And everything
in the girls' stance--the
     way they' ve twitched up their floral wrappers to show off their
pretty legs, the expressions
     they've adopted, self-consciously sexy and wistful at the same
time--suggests the yearning to
     leave Home. In a way, all the pictures that came later, all the
pin-ups of Bettie in torpedo bras,
     fishnet stockings, harem-girl outfits, polka-dot bikinis or nothing
at all, are the record of what
     happened to that yearning, that electric hankering to be someone
new somewhere else. Bettie
     Page' s particular cohort of city girls was mostly working class.
They headed for New York or
     Chicago after the war, hoping for a job in the expanding
pink-collar sector--in some glamorous
     office tower with wedding cake trim, maybe. Scared girls, sexy
girls, average girls; but a little bit
     braver. Girls with names like Gladys and Rita and Thelma. Girls who
listened to Julie London and
     Peggy Lee records. Girls who lived in Brooklyn. Girls who went out
with married men and took
     themselves to the Automat for Boston cream pie and black coffee.
Girls with hennaed hair and
     pallid skin and bitten fingernails. Girls who wore tight skirts and
cinch belts made of patent
     leather. Girls who might be played, in the movies, by Gloria
Grahame or Jane Greer or Shelley
     Winters. Girls who left small towns where they could hardly breathe
without causing a scandal.
     Girls with families that never knew just what to make of them.
Girls who weren't really trying to
     carve out a new path to autonomy, just banking on a new rotation of
guys to get loaded with on
     Saturday night, or a new view out the window. Girls who never gave
a thought to their rights,
     except perhaps their right to fun.

     A young woman's decision to transplant herself, alone, to the big
city was a bold one in those
     days. She was defying generations of cautionary tales that told her
the metropolis was a girl's
     undoing. The last great wave of female migration to the cities--the
factory girls, the telegraph
     operators and the "typewriters" of the 1880s and '90s--had produced
a vast storehouse of
     anxious reportage by muckraking journalists, urban reformers and
social hygienists. In their
     critical account of it, the city was above all a place of
display--of glittering shopwindows, cheap
     finery, racy theatrical entertainments. And to this kind of
seduction, the thinking went, young
     women were particularly vulnerable. Department stores alone, warned
Zola in Au Bonheur des
     Dames, "awakened in [their] flesh new desires," excited "the
madness of fashion" to which
     eventually, fatally, they must succumb. "When a girl leaves her
home at eighteen, she does one of
     two things," Dreiser wrote in Sister Carrie, which is, among other
things, the apotheosis of these
     worries. "Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or
she rapidly assumes the
     cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.... The city has
its cunning wiles, no less than
     the infinitely smaller and more human tempter." Bettie disappeared
from the city in 1957. She
     missed the pay-off. By the mid-1960s, the single girl in the city
had herself become fashionable.
     This new cohort had a manifesto (Sex and the Single Girl), an
anthem ("Downtown"), a tony fairy
     tale (Breakfast at Tiffany's), and a television show ("That Girl").
It included plenty of college
     graduates, shiny-haired Suzy Co-eds. And it had numbers on its
side: thousands of young, single
     women were moving to the cities, expecting to meet a husband, yes,
but also to live on their own
     for a few years, to support themselves (as secretaries, editorial
assistants, models, stewardesses)
     and most scandalously of all, to have sex. After 1960, these
democratic adventuresses even had
     the Pill. Magazines and newspapers took notice of single women, and
no longer seemed so
     worried about them. In 1961, an article in Look magazine--"Women
without Men"--still
     described them as an oddity, but not necessarily a source of social
disruption. There were "signs
     everywhere that the unattached woman feels she has the same right
to a sexual life as a married
     woman," the author reported, in tones of wonder. Held up for
befuddled scrutiny was a
     19-year-old aspiring model from Cincinnati who, even though she was
"extremely pretty," blithely
     asserted that "she wasn't ready for a husband yet and maybe never
would be." She worked as an
     usher at a theater and, in her spare time, "walked around New York
staring up at the beautiful
     buildings and marveling that I'm here." And just five years later
Look was reporting on the single
     life--"Young, Single, and a Stranger in New York"-- as a
certifiably groovy phenomenon with
     any number of commercial possibilities (singles newspapers, bars,
dating services). "The habitat
     of the sophisticated single is the East Side, 50s through 80s, a
vast honeycomb of new
     apartments, many of them with just one bedroom." The Village was no
longer chic; buildings with
     a lot of stewardesses--"the single female"--were. Singles parties
had a "casual boy-meets-girl
     atmosphere ... an extension of informal campus attitudes." Nobody
in this crowd was frenzied, or
     frantic--just fun, fun, fun. They were now part of a thriving
singles "scene," which even a
     mainstream publication such as Look could portray as an acceptable
antechamber to marriage,
     rather than a fundamental threat to the institution. Bettie Page
ran away to New York before the
     singles scene was chic. By Dreiserian standards, hers is a story of
dissolution: the innocent girl
     with the heart-shaped face loses her soul to the fleshpots of
Manhattan. Her own account of her
     life reads rather differently. For one thing, her youth in
Nashville, where she was born in 1923,
     was not particularly innocent. Her father, Roy Page, was an
itinerant mechanic and a lout, who
     molested Bettie when she was an adolescent, and bullied her mother.
Bettie and her four brothers
     and sisters ended up in an orphanage for a year, after her mother
left Roy and couldn't support
     the kids. (Bettie used to entertain the other girls by mimicking
the poses of movie stars and
     models in the fan magazines.) When she was 19, Bettie married a boy
named Billy Neal, who
     had just been drafted into the army. He turned out to be a
possessive type who accused her of
     acting "high and mighty" because she had graduated from teacher's
college in Nashville. Yet she
     was bright and venturesome, and seemed to thrive as long as she was
on her own. When Billy
     was shipped out to the Pacific, she waited for him in San
Francisco, where she modeled fur
     coats, won second prize (a $50 war bond) in a beauty contest judged
by sailors, and got
     arrested for slugging a landlord who was mean to her sister. She
worked in Nashville for the
     Office of Price Administration and in Port-au-Prince for an
American couple who were selling off
     their mahogany business. And in 1947, now divorced, she decided to
move to New York and
     try her hand at acting. The first job she snagged was as a
secretary at the American Bread
     Company, but at least she was making her own way. Besides, it
wasn't long before she had taken
     up with a handsome Peruvian student who taught her how to rhumba.
Her pin-up career was
     born one afternoon on the beach at Coney Island, where she was
discovered by an amateur
     photographer and New York City policeman named Jerry Tibbs. Tibbs
put her in touch with
     some of the camera clubs, which were always on the lookout for
young women willing to shed
     their clothes and their conventions. Tibbs was black, and many of
the clubs were racially
     integrated, which made posing for them--especially if you were a
white Southern woman in
     1950--doubly risky. But Bettie Page seems to have been one of those
holy idiots who don't so
     much transcend racial boundaries as never quite notice them. =46rom
the beginning, she liked the
     work and was good at it. Once, when she was arrested for indecent
exposure during a topless
     photo shoot near a highway, she pleaded not guilty, insisting, with
some pride, that she "was not
     indecent and that the group was a legitimate camera club from New
York City." She never dated
     the photographers, but she did pal around with them, teasing them
about their predilections--"Oh,
     you and your lingerie"--that sort of thing. "From the first time I
posed nude I wasn't embarrassed
     or anything, " she told Essex and Swanson. And it certainly beat
the clerical grind. "I never had
     any trouble getting a job back in those days," she says now. "But I
didn't like sitting at a
     typewriter all day." Even the story of her post pin-up life--she
left New York and stopped
     modeling in 1957, when she was 34--is not exactly a story of
renunciation, or creeping shame. In
     the '80s, as Page's cult status grew, so did the curiosity about
what had ever become of her. Was
     she alive? Was she lonely? Was she married? Was she fat? Was she
living in a trailer park or
     working at an Arby's? After all, plenty of other performers, some
more gifted than she, had
     ended up poor, remorseful, dwelling furtively in the half-light of
a vanished, minor fame, like so
     many low-rent Norma Desmonds. (There was, for example, the haute
couture fashion model
     Dovima, of the elegant bones and the Givenchy gowns and the Avedon
elephant photograph,
     who ended her days a few years ago as a hostess at a Two Guys Pizza
in Florida.) Here and
     there, fans would claim that they had seen Bettie at a gun show, or
slinging hash in a Texas diner.
     The mystery became her. Like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, she was
a '50s icon who had
     disappeared in her prime. But she hadn't died, as far as anyone
knew. She had simply vanished.
     When a reporter finally tracked Bettie Page down a few years ago,
it turned out that she had not
     fallen into ruin. She had worked as a teacher, married a few times
for love, gotten a Master's
     degree in English, traveled around. She had also gone to bible
college and served as a counselor
     for the Billy Graham Crusades, but her newfound Christian beliefs
had never convinced her that
     she had done anything wrong in her cheesecake years. She does
interviews now, but, to her
     credit in these days of epidemic exhibitionism, she won't appear on
camera. She wants to be
     remembered as she was. There's nothing especially pathetic about
her. She didn't end up as a
     parody of herself. Some of Bettie Page's fans will tell you that
the reason her photographs appeal
     to so many people today is that she was a woman more of our time
than of hers, a sexual
     liberationist trapped in Ozzie-and-Harriet land. But in truth her
pictures attract us precisely
     because they are so much of their time (erotically daring, but only
within the context of the
     1950s). Despite ourselves, we are nostalgic for a period that still
retained a notion, and a realm,
     of the genuinely illicit- -when sexually revealing photos were
produced in dark corners and traded
     shyly, when porn skulked on the fringes, in a shadowland of desire.
Now we have bondage
     motifs in our fashion advertising, and sex advice books that chirp
about the dire effects of
     repression (and even reticence), and skin magazines that long ago
won the battle to show pubic
     hair and are bored with it, and pop stars who do pseudo- serious
picture books about their
     sexual fantasies, and chic writers who get big advances for books
about their erotic humiliations,
     and regular people who go on talk shows to tell the world that they
are foot fetishists or chronic
     masturbators or infantilists, and a computer network that can
summon a pneumatic cyber-babe to
     your screen anytime you want her. In such a world, who could deny
the power of a secret? To
     look at these pictures, and others like them from the '50s and
earlier, is to remember that there
     was a time when taking off your clothes was a potent gesture, when
the mere fact of a naked
     woman, no matter how imperfect her body or coy her stance, could be
thrilling. This is why
     almost all the old pin-ups have a kind of poignance. Most of them
no longer arouse; the frontiers
     of the sexually explicit-- the amount of flesh and of actual or
simulated sex required to turn the
     viewer on--are always being pushed further. What was once erotic
may now seem quaint or
     dumb. The Orientalist vamps of the 1910s and 1920s--Little Egypt
("See her dance the
     Hootchy-Kootchy. Anywhere else but in the ocean breezes of Coney
Island she would be
     consumed by her own fire!") or the silent screen star Theda Bara
(advertised as the woman who
     "Ruined 50 men, made 150 families suffer!")--look ridiculous now.
Their faces are like masks,
     their bodies girded, gilded, unapproachable. Not only are they
gone; so, too is the world in which
     they would have been found seductive. And the cycle moves ever more
quickly. In her Gaultier
     bra, Madonna seems foolish and passe now. The anatomy never
changes, but the body has a
     history. Bettie Page still looks beautiful, and sexy too, but by
today's standards even her bondage
     photographs are rather tame. Nobody is naked; nobody is pretending
to have sex (or having it);
     there are no crotch shots. If we look closely at these pictures, we
can still, barely, recover the
     feeling that they were scandalous. After all, when Irving Klaw was
investigated by the Kefauver
     Commission, he was labeled "one of the largest distributors of
obscene, lewd, and fetish
     photographs throughout the country by mail," a trafficker in "base
emotions" and a contributor to
     juvenile delinquency. In Hardboiled America, his elegant rumination
on the fate of the pulp novel,
     Geoffrey O'Brien invokes the contemporary regard for '50s pulp
writers such as Jim Thompson,
     who in their own day were commonly dismissed as cheap nihilists.

     What would once have been inconceivable was that Jim Thompson
should seem, if not exactly a
     voice of reason, then at least a reassuring voice from down home, a
both-feet-on-the-ground
     messenger from a time and place where things looked just as cheap
as they were.... If Thompson
     was supremely alienated, there had at least been a world for him to
be alienated from. His
     industrial wastelands and hellish hotel rooms, his bus stations
steeped in boredom and simmering
     disgust, represented some kind of geography, some minimal sense of
location. He may have
     evoked it only to destroy it, but it had after all been there for
him to destroy. His books spoke of
     a time when it was still unusual to feel the way his heroes felt,
or at least to acknowledge the fact.
     It had become in retrospect a heroic period: gratuitous evil and
affectless violence meant
     something back then. The same could be said of the Bettie Page
photographs. Finally they are
     tinged with pathos, since they are survivals of a time when
fetishism and exhibitionism and
     ordinary sexual adventure really meant something, when their
setting was the cheesy chiaroscuro
     world of roadside motels with linoleum floors and vinyl furniture,
not the fake expensive world of
     fashion magazines and rock videos, a time before pseudo-porn seeped
into advertising and was
     made pleasant and normal. These images remind us what it was like
when erotica was mostly
     hidden. There are many reasons to oppose repression, but in the
universe of repression, one
     learned the twin arts of fantasy and mystery. Bettie Page always
seemed so good when she was
     being so bad. It is a paradox made of distinctions that we have
almost completely destroyed.
     Poor glutted smirking us. If we cannot be bad, how will we be good?