'I Belong to a Suburban Sin Club'

Man's Book, of which this is the cover to the May 1964 issue, boasted some of the most lurid story teasers during its twelve year run of all the men's pulps.  World War and sex were its twin obsessions right up until its end in the early seventies - it dabbled in stories about drugs, hippies, bikers and the like, but it always gravitated back to those two subjects.  If the two were combined and included sadism and the torture and rape of beautiful women, then all the better.  The cover here illustrates 'The Lust Plot of the Air Borne Harlots of Naples', which clearly involves the ladies turning the tables on the Nazis and parachuting out of planes in their underwear.  Although these Nazi-killing Italian girls are clearly the good guys (or girls) of the scenario, the their description as 'Harlots' in the title still carries an implication of moral disapproval.  But, like today's tabloids, the men's pulps liked nothing better than chronicling sex and depravity with lip-smacking relish, while at the same time decrying it all as being terribly sinful and immoral and pretending that they are presenting stories about it as cautionary tales.

The rest of the story teasers seem to be competing to see which can be most lurid and ridiculous.  'Shackled Nudes for the Emperor's Fire Monster' conjures up images of an X-rated thirties or forties cinema serial with Buster Crabbe fighting off men in bad ape suits in order to rescue chained up naked women from the bizarre sacrificial rituals of some evil emperor based in darkest Africa, probably played by Charles Middleton.  The actual story is doubtless far more mundane.  'I Belong to a Suburban Sin Club' almost makes me regret my decision, to quote Groucho Marx, to' never belong to any club that would have me as a member'.  Although I sincerely doubt that there's anything as exciting as a 'sin club' around here.  Unless the local bowls club is just some kind of cover.  Maybe I'm missing out.  I also shudder to think what 'The Sex Operation That All Young Men Fear' might be.  I mean, there surely are only a limited number of sex-related operations and I'm pretty sure that castration - most men's fear, I should imagine - isn't considered a regular surgical procedure that young men are likely to encounter.  (It certainly isn't available on the NHS - perhaps if you went private you might get it).  My favourite teaser though has to be; 'Special: The Shocking Report on the Homosexual's New World Capital', which seems to imply that homosexuality is some kind of international conspiracy.  I'm also intrigued as to where this gay capital of the world actually is: San Francisco, Bangkok, Brighton?  All quite ludicrous.  But wonderfully ludicrous.