I Learned What I Could About the Facts of Life From the Sears Catalog

I suspect that most school-aged children today (sadly) learn about the differing body parts of adult men and women, not to speak of varied adult sex acts, from repeated exposure to Internet pornography. When I was growing up in the 1950s, we learned what we could by looking at the Sears catalog.

At about age six, I was introduced to the undergarments section of the Sears catalog by a six-year-old girl whose family my parents were visiting. She also introduced me to some explicit doctor games for which we were punished.

Dr. Spock, in his 1950s edition of Baby and Child Care, had devoted seven pages to teaching children about “the facts of life.” He takes a very liberal and reasonable position that curiosity about sex is normal and also advises on how to provide various age groups with information about why boys and girls are different, where babies come from, and how and why our bodies change during adolescence. I think my parents must have missed that chapter.

They did not restrict our access to the catalog, however, and many hours were spent studying not only the women’s undergarments section but all the models of all ages, various curious health appliances, shoes, record players, sporting goods, musical instruments, toys of all types and many other objects that made up fifties consumer culture.

Of course, the Sears catalog undergarment section was primarily aimed at the fifties women who purchased them. Psychoanalyst and fifties motivational researcher Ernest Dichter, under contract by the undergarment and cosmetics industries, as always did his best to translate American consumer mentality for the folks who had something to sell .

Brassieres. Contrary to the dreams of the male copywriter, bras to most women are a rather sober tool of support. Such support is on the one hand a necessity for well-fitting clothes and at the same time a very important aspect of a youthful appearance. Furthermore, it provides the wearer with a definite feeling of security comparable to a corset or girdle. Motivation studies showed that women expected three major services from well-fitting bras:

--To be made sexually more attractive
--To be eligible for compliments
--To be able to translate and manifest personality through them.

Women felt that the bra should be both noticeable and unnoticeable, that it should accentuate flirtation qualities but not the deeper meanings of the female breast such as passion or motherhood, that it should communicate with the man be remain strictly in the feminine domain.

Girdles. If you ask a woman why she wears a girdle, she will tell you that it is to improve her figure. . . . Only gradually over the last few hundred years has the girdle become a female garment. A tight-laced person is an insecure and inhibited person who at the same time is trying to simulate strength. Modern advertising of girdles stressed the fact that they give firmness and at the same time permit great activity and flexibility. Comparable to bras, girdles represent a female tool that does not have erotic attraction in itself.

Lipstick. Over 67 percent of women regard lips primarily as indices of individual character and individual personality. Shape is esthetically only of a secondary importance to them. Most women clearly link lip shape and desired lip shape for desired personality to attributes of warmth, generosity, friendliness, and humor.

Each day the modern woman is confronted with the gap which exists between her mental image of herself and what she sees in reality in the mirror before her. Her desires and frustrations about herself, her personality and physical attractiveness, and her use of cosmetics to fulfill the desires and limit the frustrations determine in the last analysis the importance of specific cosmetics. Lipstick represents one of the most important allies in achieving this desired goal. Some women indicate that they only use lipstick and no other cosmetic, while others feel that, of all cosmetics, lipstick is the most vital.

Perhaps the most frequent image used to describe feelings about lipstick is indicated in the following quote: "I must use lipstick because if I don’t have it on I feel as if I’m not dressed. I feel drab and lifeless and lipstick just hits the spot. It really is something what lipstick will do for you."

The explanation for such an attitude seems to be twofold. People feel that their lips are the most intricate part of their personality and, at the same time, that they have to be covered up to hide inner hopes and fears. There is a desire to protect one’s real self, a desire to prevent self-exposure. Lipstick has a deep, psychological role in creating an emotional tone and mood. It has many facets, from the morning uplift when cheerfulness is induced by seeing a bright face in the mirror rather than a drab one, to the more complicated emotional role of providing self-confidence and helping to create a façade to greet the public; it renews one’s self confidence and refreshes one’s self-image.

Sleep actually shatters defenses and barriers against a hostile world. Dressing and the application of lipstick serve to mend the walls, re-erect the barriers, and assemble the scattered units of personality into one whole piece to meet the oncoming day.

Handbook of Consumer Motivations.

Everything you always wanted to know about mid-twentieth century catalog undergarment advertisements can be found at:

http://www.corsetiere.net/Spirella/George/Gontents.htm