Presenting the Preservationist Journal of Hick Erotic Folklore
By Mike Kelley. Excerpt from the book ‚Sex to Sexty'
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By current standards, Sex to Sexty is decidedly politically incorrect. The cartoons within its pages are, in most cases, very similar to those found in post-war men's magazines - before jokes about African cannibals, swishy homosexuals, child abuse, bestiality, and sexual harassment on the job became no-nos. The bulk of the cartoons concern cheating wives and husbands - a subject that is barely on today's humor map. Of course, it is such taboo material that makes the magazine interesting today - especially when compared with the antiseptic sexual humor found in such contemporaneous "sophisticated" men's magazines as Playboy. The publishers of Sex to Sexty understood that they were appealing to an audience ignored by Playboy and other mainstream men's magazines. Sex to Sexty was closer in spirit to a fetish magazine or a zine than it was to a standard mass-media men's publication. It responded to the wishes of its audience rather than dictate to them and, in fact, it was largely reader-contributed. It represented an untapped audience - one that consisted of proudly uneducated men who could give a shit about sophisticated fiction and men's fashion - who liked their women spread-legged and their cartoons brutal. Given this trend, when compared to publications like Hustler that reflected the normalization of hard-core pornography as an entertainment form, Sex to Sexty was too soft for the men's market.
It failed because the morals of its publishers ceased to reflect that of their own audience. That's when it was usurped in the '70s by sleazier reader-contributed zines like the Los Angeles-based Finger magazine. In the pages of Finger were to be found the same fetishes illustrated via cartoons in Sex to Sexty, except they were often presented photographically, and without the distanciation device of humor.
It is the fact that Sex to Sexty was primarily a reader-contributed magazine that interests me today. Sending a joke or cartoon idea to Sex to Sexty immediately qualified the contributor for membership in the magazine's own Jokes Americans Love Society. The editors of Sex to Sexty saw themselves as folklorists preserving traditional American humor. On the inside cover of every issue was printed this statement: "Who makes the books great? YOU DO! The reason Sex to Sexty books are so exscrewciatingly funny is because they are the TRUE JOKE LORE of America, sent in to us by all our readers." It is obvious that the folklore that especially appealed to the editors, contributors, and readers of Sex to Sexty was of the type found scrawled upon the walls of gas station toilet stalls. But such lore is particularly worth preserving. It represents the mind of a nation more truthfully than any kind of official proclamation.
Page [1] [2] [3]
Page [1] [2] [3]
By current standards, Sex to Sexty is decidedly politically incorrect. The cartoons within its pages are, in most cases, very similar to those found in post-war men's magazines - before jokes about African cannibals, swishy homosexuals, child abuse, bestiality, and sexual harassment on the job became no-nos. The bulk of the cartoons concern cheating wives and husbands - a subject that is barely on today's humor map. Of course, it is such taboo material that makes the magazine interesting today - especially when compared with the antiseptic sexual humor found in such contemporaneous "sophisticated" men's magazines as Playboy. The publishers of Sex to Sexty understood that they were appealing to an audience ignored by Playboy and other mainstream men's magazines. Sex to Sexty was closer in spirit to a fetish magazine or a zine than it was to a standard mass-media men's publication. It responded to the wishes of its audience rather than dictate to them and, in fact, it was largely reader-contributed. It represented an untapped audience - one that consisted of proudly uneducated men who could give a shit about sophisticated fiction and men's fashion - who liked their women spread-legged and their cartoons brutal. Given this trend, when compared to publications like Hustler that reflected the normalization of hard-core pornography as an entertainment form, Sex to Sexty was too soft for the men's market.
It failed because the morals of its publishers ceased to reflect that of their own audience. That's when it was usurped in the '70s by sleazier reader-contributed zines like the Los Angeles-based Finger magazine. In the pages of Finger were to be found the same fetishes illustrated via cartoons in Sex to Sexty, except they were often presented photographically, and without the distanciation device of humor.
It is the fact that Sex to Sexty was primarily a reader-contributed magazine that interests me today. Sending a joke or cartoon idea to Sex to Sexty immediately qualified the contributor for membership in the magazine's own Jokes Americans Love Society. The editors of Sex to Sexty saw themselves as folklorists preserving traditional American humor. On the inside cover of every issue was printed this statement: "Who makes the books great? YOU DO! The reason Sex to Sexty books are so exscrewciatingly funny is because they are the TRUE JOKE LORE of America, sent in to us by all our readers." It is obvious that the folklore that especially appealed to the editors, contributors, and readers of Sex to Sexty was of the type found scrawled upon the walls of gas station toilet stalls. But such lore is particularly worth preserving. It represents the mind of a nation more truthfully than any kind of official proclamation.
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Sex to Sexty
Hardcover, 20.5 x 27.8 cm (8.1 x 10.9 in.), 420 pages
$ 39.99
$ 39.99
The ultimate collection of America's most salacious humor launched by the former cult magazine Sex to Sexty
