You know what I love about Oui Magazine? It's so much more than a skin mag--it's a user's guide to Swinging Seventies Eurotrash Sex Culture compiled by people who seem to have a vague and very American concept of Swinging Seventies Eurotrash Sex Culture. Its efforts to portray groovy, ultra-modern-at-the-time, and quite possibly drug-addled sexual mores come across as naive and sometimes more than a bit creepy. I like to think of a member of the target audience for Oui sitting at home, a potent haze of cologne lingering in the air, teasing out a fierce perm and pouting in such a manner as to make "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" into a rallying cry and perhaps a soul-deep personal mantra.
In addition to its rich anthropological value, Oui is also a window into the future, or at least its Februrary 1974 issue functioned as such. 35 years ago, this magazine was singing the praises of robot sex and metallic jumpsuits. How else to get the Oui reader to peruse a rather straightforward piece that includes interviews with scientists at MIT and NASA than by titling it "The Robots Are Coming" and bookending it with THIS IMAGE:
SPOILER ALERT: That doesn't happen anywhere in the article.
Bastards.
Fortunately, the fashion pictorial "Astral Flash" featuring models Stardust and Phillipe gives us just what it promises, and likely brings a tear of envy to the eye of some vicious clothing designer with sadistic notions of how human beings should attire themselves. WITNESS:
It's... probably incredibly wrong of me to think that last outfit Stardust is wearing to be Not Entirely Uncute...
I've got to take a moment to wave across the internet to The Time Machine, an AMAZING comics and magazines shop located on the second floor of 207 West 14th Street (just west of 7th Avenue) in New York City, where I purchased this magazine recently. Add the Time Machine to your itinerary when you find yourself in Manhattan. They've got LOTS of great vintage horror magazines and adult Eurostuff to enjoy in addition to the mens-magazine-related loot. In point o' fact, I picked up the "Vampire Circus" issue of Hammer House of Horror featured here at the astounding Phantom of Pulp blog that you should all visit on a regular basis.
12 comments:
I love you for posting this. With the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.
(And I am also in agreement about the last outfit. You could pull that off!)
How come shopping trolley designs don't change in the future then?
I think they could totally sell those futuristic overalls in my stomping grounds. They'd just have to size them up the XXXL and put them onsale at Wal-Mart, and they Would Be Worn by someone.
Also, I kind of want some of Phillippe's Mercury-based Hair-Gel.
And I, for one, look forward to a future in which we all dress like Patrick Nagel Samurais. FUTURE NOW!
Comment verification: "intake." Not only the first time I've had an actual English word, but one entirely appropriate to that robosex illustration. "She likes to use it for both intake *and* exhaust, IYKWIM..."
(Too far?)
Joan, I love you for loving this. It's almost like you're one of my best-favorite human beings for a reason! I'll let you touch my "Oui" when you visit next. Oo Er.
Igloo Keeper, not only are shopping carts the same, but in the future they bring back TAB soda!
Vicar, you know it's NEVER too far! My fave thing about Phillipe is his absolutely deadpan expression. He knows he's fabulous, and he's just waiting for YOU to catch wise to this fact ;)
Wow, this rules. I only wish there was more home decor as well, because 70's fake swinger home decor is the very definition of awesome in my world. You could totally pull off that outfit.
I must be getting old because I remember, um, "reading" (oh yeah, that's it...r-e-a-d-i-n-g) it when it first came (oops, bad choice of word) out. Actually, my dad brought home that issue, and the almost ten-year-old me (or maybe it was one of my brothers) snuck it out of my dad's night table. The weird thing is that I remember the robot sex article and the fashion spread you featured, although for some reason I'm surprised it was from 1974 because I thought I was older at the time. I guess our long term memories are some of our strongest, but not always most accurate. And in retrospect, my folks might have had that bottle of J&B lying around for more than just the sake of appearances (but I don't remember dad ever lounging around in any gold lame kimonos).
Great post, Kate. I have always loved OUI.
I once had a massive collection, and I was all up for swinger sex when I was eleven. I was just lugging a willing female.
Swinger furniture has no peer.
I purchased my first issue of OUI at the ripe age of 9 when I happened on the name KEN RUSSELL across the cover -- thank god my mom liked SAVAGE MESSIAH -- no explanations necessary when she picked this up for me -- huge interview inside! I really believed that those cool interviews were only there so that other 9 year old film freaks like me could easily persuade their equally cool moms to buy issues for us no questions asked. Beating off came later (marginal pun intended).
Lady M, I'm going to have to see what I can't dig up to satisfy your swinger-pad-decor curiosity! I know I have a few snippets in my possession that will likely fill you with glee.
Fred, Phantom and Maciste Bros., know that I am envious almost beyond the capacity of words of the fact that you encountered "Oui" in its natural habitat!!! My first men's magazine encounter was with the issue of Playboy that had Cyndi Lauper or some analagous colorfully-coiffed femme on the cover. Nobody expects girls to look at that stuff, so my family's friend thought nothing of leaving it in the magazine rack in the bathroom. Sometimes, being a girl *rules*.
And now, of course, I NEED THAT KEN RUSSELL COVER ISSUE. Aaaaaaack!
Kate, if you haven't done so already, you might want to check out a few issues of Penthouse's sister magazine from the 70s, Viva. It was meant as a Penthouse for women, but considering the quotient of moustachioed men, I am now convinced it was meant for men, but ones with a more open mind about their sexuality. The other thing that makes it so 70s is the high number of flaccid cocks (I guess hard-ons were considered obscene at the time). My folks used to have a few issues of this as well.
Magazines like this are one aspect of groovy culture I've yet to explore, though I've been meaning to since I found the Bad Mags site. The times I've checked on ebay, the pickings seemed slim (at least as far as horror-related fare) and correspondingly expensive, and with the unfortunate changes to ebay, I'm afraid it's only gotten worse.
Fred, Baron XIII audibly sighed when he read your comment. Whereas *I* thank you heartily for turning me onto something NEW and AWESOME! I'm definitely going to get my paws on a few issues of "Viva." Thanks for the tip!
Curt, that Bad Mags site is one I could fall into and never get out of! Thanks for sharing that. As to collecting the more obscure men's mags, I just haven't had the focus (and bankroll!) to really get into that. And you're right about eBay--while there's still some good stuff to be found, I've gotten luckiest at digging up stashes of hidden marvelousness at brick & mortar stores. Let me NOT go into my teary-eyed rant about how *those* are disappearing now...!
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