Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era, the ladies who frequented Army camps were known as "Victory Girls" or "Victory Belles," and they described their work as Essential To National Defense.

 

[3fingers]

In the Era, the ladies who frequented Army camps were known as "Victory Girls" or "Victory Belles," and they described their work as Essential To National Defense.

 

[3fingers]

And in the interest of fairness.

 

[tonyb]

In the Era, the ladies who frequented Army camps were known as "Victory Girls" or "Victory Belles," and they described their work as Essential To National Defense.

We proceed at our own peril by downplaying the degree to which young men are driven by their libidos. Far better that we acknowledge that plain fact of nature and find ways to better accommodate it in a society striving for greater gender equality.

On one of his later birthdays the since-deceased Gore Vidal observed that among the few advantages of advancing years is what he called "freedom from the tyranny of the male libido."

If you've never read his essay "The Birds and the Bees," which he banged out in the early 1990s, do yourself a favor and seek it out. What I would give for a younger Vidal's take on our current moment.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I always thought that the notion of several million twenty-year-old boys being pulled out of their circumstances, herded into military camps, and then expected to remain clean-cut paragons of Virtue and Old Time Morality to be one of the most ridiculous fictions ever perpetrated. No one in the Era -- with the possible exception of the dessicated harpies of the DAR -- ever even pretended to believe it. And then Dr. Kinsey came along after the war and vividly proved their skepticism to be correct.

 

[3fingers]

with the possible exception of the dessicated harpies of the DAR

My maternal grandmother was one of said harpies. A better description of the lot of them would be hard to imagine, unless you added hypocritical in front of harpies.

 

[tonyb]

My dewy-eyed bride researched her ancestry and can now document that she is descended from veterans of our revolutionary war, and as such is eligible for membership in the DAR. So she made her inquiries and was contacted by the local chapter and soon thereafter determined that she would rather not be a part of that organIzation.

 

[scottyrocks]

If you've never read his essay "The Birds and the Bees," which he banged out in the early 1990s, do yourself a favor and seek it out. What I would give for a younger Vidal's take on our current moment.

Excerpt from above:

<< The Birds and the Bees

Extracts from "Gore Vidal United States Essays 1952-1992" by Gore Vidal (1992 ISBN 0-679-41489-4), Page 612

Recently, while assembling forty years of bookchat, I noted with some alarm - even guilt - that I had never really explained sex. True, I have demonstrated that sex is politics and I have noted that the dumb neologisms, homo-sexual and hetero-sexual, are adjectives that describe acts but never people. Even so, I haven't spelled the whole thing out. So now, before reading skills further atrophy, let me set the record straint, as it were.

First the bad news: Men and women are not alike. They have different sexual roles to perform. Despite the best efforts of theologians and philosophers to disguise our condition, there is not point to us, or to any species, except proliferation and survival. This is hardly glamorous, and so to give Meaning to Life, we have invented some of the most bizarre religions that . . . alas, we have nothing to compare ourselves to. We are biped mammals filled with red sea water (reminder of our oceanic origin), and we exist to reproduce until we are eventually done in by the planet's changing weather or a stray meteor.

Men and women are dispensible carriers, respectively, of seeds and eggs; programmed to mate and die, mate and die, mate and die. One can see why "love" was invented by some artist who found depressing the dull mechanics of our mindless mission to be fruitful and multiply.

The Nation, October 28, 1991>>

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
And it goes on from there. It's really quite amusing.

 

[scottyrocks]

I'll have to try try my library for the volume it is contained in. It is not available to read online.

 

[tonyb]

I'll have to try try my library for the volume it is contained in. It is not available to read online.

It was reprinted in "United States, Essays 1952-1992."

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

In the Era, the ladies who frequented Army camps were known as "Victory Girls" or "Victory Belles," and they described their work as Essential To National Defense.

Someone in the Era coined the term "Patriotutes" for these ladies.

 

[tonyb]

Someone in the Era coined the term "Patriotutes" for these ladies.

Doing their part.

 

[Zombie_61]

And in the interest of fairness.
View attachment 111732

I bet that was a real morale booster. "What do they mean we all have syphilis??? I don't have it, Bob doesn't have it, Joe doesn't have it, Max...well, okay Max has it, but..."

 

[tonyb]

I always thought that the notion of several million twenty-year-old boys being pulled out of their circumstances, herded into military camps, and then expected to remain clean-cut paragons of Virtue and Old Time Morality to be one of the most ridiculous fictions ever perpetrated. No one in the Era -- with the possible exception of the dessicated harpies of the DAR -- ever even pretended to believe it. And then Dr. Kinsey came along after the war and vividly proved their skepticism to be correct.

What little looking into the matter I've done suggests that the American soldiers during WWII, especially those who fought in Europe, were a wise-cracking, hard-fighting and hard-partying bunch, looking to make the best of the miserable situation they found themselves in and looking forward to heading back home, to apple pies and corn-fed thighs. They smoked, they drank, they swore. Certainly not choirboys, in any event.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And of course, plenty of sitting under apple trees with everyone else but she. (And vice versa.) There was a reason why the divorce rate from 1945-47 hit what was then an all time high.

 

[HudsonHawk]

"What the hell" was ubiquitous in my family, but I never heard "WTF" until I went to work in a factory in 1986.

My grandmother, delicate 1911-vintage lady that she was, would dismiss someone she didn't want to hear any more from with "Yahhh, go s**t in your hat and eat it!" That's certainly more piquant than any variation of the sort of "F. off/F. you" stuff you get nowadays.

Scatology, blasphemy, and blasphemous scatology ran rampant at every level of our neighborhood, but with the exception of frequent suggestions that one's mother was a prostitute, for the most part sexual references just weren't used.

One of my ex fiancé's grandmother, 1908 vintage, once told me that the word s**t was THE swear word of the 20s. She didn't remember exactly why, just that it was the hip obscenity of the day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, between Warren G. Harding, Harry F. Sinclair, and Gaston B. Means, there were certainly plenty of it in the air. With an honorable mention to Will H. Hays, Bruce F. Barton, and Edward L. Bernays.

 

[skydog757]

Doing their part.

There were standard jokes about women "waiting for the fleet to come in" even on early sitcoms like the Dick Van Dyke Show.

 

[Fading Fast]

There were standard jokes about women "waiting for the fleet to come in" even on early sitcoms like the Dick Van Dyke Show.

NYC has hosted many Fleet Weeks in my time which, overall, is a neat event as several amazingly large ships dock in NYC for a week for different promotional events. The officers and crews fan out throughout the city for scheduled events and to have fun as part of a good-will effort.

In the '90s, a friend of mine and I met a few of the crew in a bar - we offered to buy them a round ("thank you for providing us with freedom") - and we were invited the next day for a tour, by one of the sailors, of their ship - an aircraft carrier. We weren't sure he was serious, but showed up with his card (yup, he had one) the next morning at the allotted time and place - the officer on duty called for him and, sure enough, we got a personally guided tour of the ship.

It was amazing - one of the best experiences I've ever had. As he showed us the amazing ship for several hours, he told us the crew was encouraged to do what he was do as it was all part of building good will - it worked.

Now back to the main theme here. Away from whatever grey market sex business is engaged in - I'm sure it's a lot - there is plenty of casual hooking up if my read of bar language is any good. Some part of the "civilian" female population wants to meet and have one-night stands with navy personnel. Hence, in addition to the for-profit trade, there's plenty of consensual hanky panky going on when the Navy is in port.