'I Fought the Mau Maus'

Every white man's worst nightmare - being assaulted a bunch of murderous 'black savages'.  That's certainly the sub-text to this cover for the December 1957 issue of Real Men.   It is a theme which recurs over and again in men's magazine covers from this period: an invariably white, 'civilised', protagonist being put in mortal danger by 'primitives'. whether they be Native Americans, African Tribesmen, South Seas cannibals or even 'beastly Japs'.  The main variation has a  white woman under threat of violence, not to mention implied sexual assault, from these 'primitives', while the white hero rushes to her rescue.  The inherent racism in such covers is invariably 'justified' by putting it into some kind of historical context that posits the  events depicted as being 'factual' - the frontier of the Old West, World War Two or the European discovery of the Americas, for instance.  In this case, the context is more contemporary, with the cover illustrating 'I Fought the Mau Maus'.  The Mau Maus, of course, being an anti-Imperialist resistance movement or vicious terrorists, according to which side of the fence you sat.

The rest of the featured stories are par for the course for a late fifties men's pulp.  'Are You Ready to Die - Tomorrow?' would, most likely, have been another Cold War scare story about the 'Red Menace' and the existensial threat it posed to the American way of life.  'I Married a Prostitute' is undoubtedly another piece of misogynistic titillation, warning men that sexually active wives were doubtless insatiable sex vixens selling themselves on the street because their men couldn't satisfy them.  The solution, probably, was that you had to show them who was boss and give them a regular dose of rough sex - or something along those lines.  (I've read too much of this stuff, haven't I?).  'Secret Agent of the Frontier' could be about either the Old West or the Northwest Frontier, both popular setting for pulp adventure stories.  'Nudism - Does it Stand For Health or Vice?' is undoubtedly the best story title featured on this cover, summing up the way in which nudism was presented in this era, with all manner of magazines and films ostensibly promoting it as being natural and healthy, while simultaneously presenting their audience with lots of views of naked people (predominantly young women), engaging in all sorts of energetic outdoor activities.  Ah, the fifties, that era when you get racism, sexism and violence all on one magazine cover - no wonder right-wingers get all misty eyed about it.