This is Vitalogy, a recurring segment where I share insights from a 1904 encyclopedia of health and home. More context here. Today we’re combining two topics: Female Degenerates and Man Haters Sexually.
Last week, my mother-in-law dropped off another box of treasures she’d saved from my husband’s youth. She does this every few years. In our attic we have several boxes filled with old photos, school assignments, and campaign flyers from his days as Fire Chief: Grade 2. In these moments, I wonder what it would be like to have had parents that loved me so much they saved my book reports summarizing Amelia Bedelia Helps Out. While I want to have the same forethought for my own child, most of the stuff he brings home is complete garbage. Finger paintings? Poorly spelled and boring writings on what he did last weekend? Hard pass.
We peek into these boxes and become immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of papers from 1993. “These will sit in this house for the next 50 years and then you’ll get to parse through it when we die,” I explain to my son while hauling it all up to the attic.
This time the box contained Alex’s high school yearbooks. Intrigued, I began reading the notes that his friends had signed on the inside covers. I eventually found a note I had penned, about a year before we began dating.
“Dearest Alex! Hey there. I’m glad we became friends this year. You are such a dashing young fellow. This summer we need to bone. So call me baby and we will.”
Subtle.
It will surprise no one that I had literally zero boning experience from which to make such a bold proposition. However, most of my interpersonal goals were based on research I’d done watching American Pie, the hit classic 1999 teen sex movie1. My motive was clear: Ditch the Band Geek persona for a Hot Tara Reid vibe and shoot my shot with the boy in cargo shorts. I won’t bury the lead here. I’ve never not crushed a goal.
Sigh. If only I’d had proper guidance on how to be a noble and honorable woman of the world. Lucky for all of you, I’ve got just the ticket. Advice from my 1904 edition of Vitalogy, the Encyclopedia for Health and Home…
Female Degenerates:
“Anybody looking at the young ladies in any of our large cities cannot help noting how the very slim, narrow-hipped, and narrow-shouldered girls and young women predominate. This is attributed by the scientists to the very general habit of wearing tight clothing and of tight lacing that prevailed among mothers a generation ago. These pretty, trim, vivacious, nervous, sexually undeveloped young women make the poorest kind of wives and still worse mothers. They are degenerates suffering for the sins of their ancestors. Young men would do better and be happier to remain bachelors than to marry such girls.”2
Discussion:
Poor Alex had no chance. I am, by definition, a degenerate. Slim. Narrow-hipped. Sexually undeveloped. Nervous. (Yikes.) Drs. Wood and Rudduck would have a literal heyday if they read my newsletter detailing all of my quirks that are most likely derived from my being constantly nervous. A poor wife, and still worse mother. It’s no wonder I don’t save all of my kid’s school crap projects. I’m suffering the sins of my ancestors who wore tight clothing!
Mental Traits. “A Man Hater” Sexually.
“It is in the nature of things that man should desire to “multiply and replenish the earth.” With some women and with many men the chief object and aim in marriage is to bring into the world healthy, intelligent and robust children to illumine their early and cheer their declining days.
With all who seek the married state the expectation is that it shall result in a prolonged intimacy with the chosen one and in securing a home — a peaceful, happy home. Is it not then of the utmost importance that steps should be taken, intelligently, to so choose as to gain the ends desired? And is it not the height of folly to go blindly into this, by far the most important relation of his lifetime?”3
(I love the use of question statements here. Really leads the reader to the obvious answer.)
“If a man is full-blooded, sexually vigorous and strong,—”
(Sexually vigorous!! Fave new set of words.)
“—do you suppose that he could reasonably expect satisfaction if he married a girl like the one illustrated as “A Man Hater Sexually”?”
“A woman whose sexual development was arrested in early youth — who has not enough sexual passion to last her through two years of wedlock? Assuredly not. (See page 802.)”
(Assuredly not. Also, page 802 is an article on diseases produced by tight clothing.)
“Such women usually have flat chests, narrow hips, bloodless and thin or peaked features, indicative of arrested sexual development and a lack of that warmth and softness that attracts and holds the affections of men. Some women marry because they want a man to support them. They will have a horror of bearing children or rearing a family. Sexually they are man haters. Let them alone, young man, unless you likewise are indifferent to such things.”
Discussion:
First of all, I’m just as big an opponent of tight clothing as the next guy. I’m changing out of my hard pants after a hard day’s work the second I get home! Mr. Wood and Mr. Rudduck were ahead of their time on this front, and we must all thank them for their pioneering movement against tight clothing.
Second, I think these broads are the same gal? The first one is a bit more homely maybe? But she’s not flat-chested, and that’s a telltale sign of A Man Hater Sexually. I’ll show you flat-chested, lol. These two are total school marms, end of story. Did that first lady knowingly pose as a ‘woman men should shun’? Did she get paid for this? They put her in that tight-ass belt which is scientifically proven to cause diseases - she better have had a massive pay day. The second lady though, it does appear she’s got that softness and warmth that holds the affections of men. I mean, that rack alone, amirite ladies?4 And don’t even get me started on the angles on her upper lip. We haven’t seen an upper lip like that since Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus, and that is 100 percent a comment rooted in awe.
I don’t know. Am I a degenerate? Absolutely. A Man Hater Sexually? Who isn’t sometimes! But I was doomed from the beginning. I’m a narrow-hipped, peak-featured, flat-chested, nervous lady navigating today’s societal pressures! Any loving mother or sister could have spotted me and my troublesome mental traits a mile away and it was on them to do the whispering in the ear thing. This is not on me. I am merely paying the price for the sins of my ancestors.
How about you all? Did you ever get the “whisper in your ear” on your partner’s possible degeneracy and/or being A Man Hater Sexually? What is the tightest article of clothing you’ve ever worn? Who was a person in pop culture that you tried to emulate or transform yourself into during your formative years? Are any of us marriage-quality, really?
American Pie does not age well, it’s very cringe, but I still highly recommend for nostalgia-related purposes.
Wood, G.P., Rudduck, E.H. (1904). Mental Traits: Degenerates. Vitalogy. Page 857.
Wood, G.P., Rudduck, E.H. (1904). Mental Traits: “A Man Hater” Sexually. Vitalogy. Pages 859-861.
I normally try to shy away from objectifying women, but our literal assignment here is to study the physical traits of women safe to marry, and well, that rack is primo.
Jesus Christ. I would think "This summer we need to bone. So call me baby and we will" would effectively preclude you from being labeled, in letter or in kind, as a man hater sexually. A degenerate? OK.
Did you ever get the “whisper in your ear” on your partner’s possible degeneracy and/or being A Man Hater Sexually? *No but pretty sure my husband got the whisper. "He's obviously gay," says the sister in law the first time she met me - pretty much the same thing.*
What is the tightest article of clothing you’ve ever worn? *A pair of denim pants that laced up the side, and promptly split up the back on the dance floor - I kept dancing.*
Who was a person in pop culture that you tried to emulate or transform yourself into during your formative years? *Farrah Fawcett*
Are any of us marriage-quality, really? *It's a tough business, but someone's gotta do it.*
The yearbook comment and photo really had me rolling this morning. Thanks, Lindsey!