Every Inch a Lady — The Newest Addition in the Heather Beck Library (Patreon)

(Note: It gives me a warning if I try to use the word p*rn? Which I can understand. This post is in no way p*rnographic, nor does it link to anything like that, but Patreon is cool, so why bug the Trust and Safety Team? So I'll just stick with an asterisk in the text. -H)

There are times when I find myself completely baffled by the kindness and generosity of the friends I've made on this crazy internet journey. Those instances where one of you says, "Hey... Listen... I've got this thing somewhere in my attic, and I think you might dig it. If so, I can see if I can root it out, and send it along if that's ok?" And it's like, "Hell, yes! That would be the bees' knees!" (Singular bees? The knees of several bees?)

Anyway. Such was a conversation I had a little while ago with one of you lovelies (you know who you are). In this case it revolved around an arcane relic from the not-so-distant past of what I affectionately refer to a "fluffy-p*rn." 

I think fluffy-p*rn reached its zenith in Great Britain back in the '80s, though it certainly had its presence on the other side of the pond. Those of you who are older than, say, able to remember first-hand what that dial-up log-in scream-from-hell noise sounded like probably had a second-hand stash of pre-internet printed erotica. 

I'm 37, and while I never had a pubescent male's appreciation for such content, I was a denizen of the zeitgeist, and I recall the tropes: hitting up the mailbox before dad got home to see if you could grab a peek at his new Playboy that usually arrived around that day; buying a candybar at the convenience store, and getting an idea of what sorts of magazines were hidden behind the panels of cardboard on racks behind the counter; that section of the comic book shop/video store that had a forbidden fruit factor, that you could quickly spy before the manager yelled at you to get the hell out of that room. Some of the content was pretty hard core, I'm sure. But a lot of it was fluffy p*rn — that soft-core, lightweight, elevated pinup stuff that you could describe, if caught, as more of an artistic pursuit, rather than a spiral down the rabbit hole of deviation. Which is, to be fair, what it was. 

I love magazines. I made my living in them for a while, during those first days when print was starting to really, really go downhill. So, it was a short ride, but a fun one. And truth be told? I was about in my mid-teens when I really fell in love with Playboy. I think I got a couple of copies from one of my cousins as a joke — let's give the girl a p*rno mag and watch her go, "Ewwww, gross!!!!" 

On the contrary. I didn't particularly mind the images of naked women (budding bisexuality?), but what really got me was the music of the magazine: the way the wit of the cover flowed through to the high-ended interviews; snarky, off-color cartoons; pieces of fiction; long-form articles; the ads... damn, the ads, with their loooong copy and the insistence that Winston does taste good like a (honk-honk) cigarette should. Especially in the '70s. That was some PRIMO magazine making. Everything so intentional. I can see why this mag was a cornerstone of the sexual revolution, and why, by the time it matured a little, it wasn't some dirty little piece of smut you had to hide under you mattress; it was a sign that you were sophisticated, could talk about watch brands, and knew how to mix a Moscow Mule while reciting some quip by Kurt Vonnegut. 

No shade to the women who learned to love magazines because of Vanity Fair and Cosmo. But for me, it was National Geographic, TIME, and motherfucking Playboy. You can't beat quality construction. 

Segue into this. 

What I was referring to at the top of this essay, the magazine my buddy dug out of his attic. What. A. Treasure. I've already talked about my cursory knowledge/appreciation of American fluffy p*rn, but from the best of my understanding, the Brits were at a whole other level. I think it has something to do with the overall conservatism of the society at the time, but the general availability and distribution of erotic material, and the form it was permitted to take without overstepping the line, was different. A lot more strict; stuff you couldn't quiiiite get away with. But, creativity rests within the limitations, and one manifestation of this was a woman named Tina Small. 

I've written about her before, and if you are reading this now, there's a somewhat decent chance you know who she is, but in short, she was an erotic model who made a brief splash in Britain back in the '80s. A few pieces of print, a few fly-by-night magazines she appeared in, a couple of loooow-budget movies she showed up in, some 3"x5" photos that were exchanged like baseball cards, and... that's pretty much it. Tina has been a hobby of mine, in a strange way, for a couple of years now, and in that time, I think I've managed to gather most every image of her that's ever been converted to digital (the age of film, and there weren't that many to begin with). But, as a person who has a near Amy Sedaris-level of love for the peculiar, novel, and downright strange, this little magazine has always been one of those rarities I've kept my eyes peeled for.

I think it's because I find myself feeling (at least) like I have a bit in common with Tina — even aside from the obvious. She's pretty reclusive, but isn't really afraid to spread her wings a little and have a bit of harmless fun; she took her time getting to figure out what she was all about before finally getting comfortable with her place in the world; she wasn't out to impress anybody; and I am almost fairly certain she had to overcome that odd realization that nearly everybody viewed her as a sex object or something to shield kids' eyes from (or both). She did what she did because she enjoyed it, and when it stopped being fun, she said, "OK. That was cool. I'm done now. What's next?" I once spoke with a person who considered himself to be among the world's foremost experts on Tina Small, a Tina-ologist if you will, and the closest he could determine is that she's still around, still has the boobs, is somewhere in her 60's, and lives a quiet life in the south of England. Which sounds pretty cool to me. 

Photographically, too, which is another part of the reason this magazine is such a delightful treat. There are fun little blurbs that give insight into Tina, and into the lives of those who knew her, but then there are these fun pictures. She apparently only ever had one photographer, a fella by the name of John Xavier (though who knows, as for Tina herself, if that was just a nom de plume), and his style was that perfect brand of etherial, Vaseline-on-the-lens, angelic. It gave a sense of rarity to the shots — like I said before, there weren't many of them, but when you saw one, I can't help but think that it carried that feeling of "Ooohhh... I'm getting a glimpse into her crazy, kooky world..." I won't say that my images have the same qualities, aesthetically. But I can attest, personally, that there's something so-fucking-liberating about being picky with the pictures I share with the Big Bad Internet... especially in a day-and-age when the norm involves sets of 150 images in 3,000x4,000 pixels. For me, it would take about 6.8 seconds for that kind of output to become double-plus-not-fun. For me, it's like eating a $6 Belgian bon-bon versus wolfing down a king-size Snickers. They each have their place, and to each their own, right? (For the record, I only like to think that I can lay claim to the bon-bon — truth be told, most days, I'm a fun-size 3 Musketeers bar that was stepped on during trick-or-treat and left in the gutter 'til morning). 

By the way, just look at that! A hand-written black-and-white letter on tabloid paper, opposite the full-color pic on glossy. A classic money-saving technique in old-school pulp magazine production, but it just works so well! I'm drooling! (Plus, I've always wanted to recreate that pose — I blame it on being at the wrong latitude... and not necessarily having access to a professional photographer for the last year, which, oddly enough, is something I've kind of really wanted to have during the past year. Away with you, 'rona! Heather's gotten to the point where she thinks it would be fun to do a formal photography session — keep your fingers crossed?) But yeah, just read that letter. Isn't that fun?! How can you just not love her?

"I'm not a freak, because I do not feel like a freak." Preach it, sister. Easy to say; you have no idea how long it takes to live it. 

Reading through this thing has been an absolute joy. There are more pages, of course; these just kinda stuck out at me. Try as I may, I've never seen this magazine in any sort of digital form on the internet, so if anyone wants to see a few more pages, or has any greater interest in this kickin' little piece of memorabilia, drop a note in the comments, and maybe I'll flutter some more in another post?

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep reading, and enjoying. Thanks again, you-know-who-you-are. :-)

Oh, and since no good piece of fluff-p*rn is complete without a centerfold...