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

The Consolation of Philosophy, Psychology and Magic

The new biological research into genes and brain chemistry offers amazing insights into ourselves. Often, however, there is a disconnect between describing something scientifically and explaining its function.

New findings from biology can be a consolation to parents and young people suffering from psychological illness. For instance, a family with a daughter who has life-threatening anorexia can be soothed somewhat with explanations that the disorder is caused by genes inherited from grandma or brain chemistry gone awry which can be fixed by medications, not by bad mothering or cultural madness.

From another point of view, these new sciences have yet to provide many cures or life-changing understandings of sickness and health. When merged with formerly popular schools of psychology such as psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanistic psychology, cognitive-developmental theory, etc., recent scientific investigation only adds new overlays of variables. When scientists are pressed to explain how a gene came to be or what impact brain activity in a particular area has, they often lapse into the latest explanatory fashion, evolutionary psychology mumbo jumbo, and make wild speculations likely to be no more accurate than Freudians made seventy years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolation_of_Philosophy

Mignon Lied to Her Mother because of Synaptogenesis in Her Prefrontal Cortex

Age 15 ½ brought new social status to kids like me who now had a driver’s license and parents who would let me use their car. Adolescence is a time to pull away from parents and home, to drive cars, with brains drenched in dopamine, to establish an independent self, to explore the world and to take risks.

In early teens, many of us prevaricated somewhat with our parents in describing our evening itineraries. A group of twelve or so formed a plan to meet at the Big Town Bowling Alley [http://mallsofamerica.blogspot.com/2006/08/big-town-mall.html] for some mixed team games—a relatively risky venture for this group of late blooming 15- and 16-year-olds.

And I can’t think of a more wholesome activity for young people than bowling. As Ernest Dichter, fifties marketing consultant, explained to the bowling alley industry:

The efforts and achievements of the bowling industry in modernizing their establishments and upgrading their equipment is a tribute to their foresight and
perception in understanding the growing leisure needs of people today. . . . Bowling . . . represents a rare combination of a sport, a game, and a highly desirable and enjoyable social activity. Furthermore, the fact that people of varying degrees of skill and proficiency can easily participate in bowling without being subjected to outside pressure or criticism from teammates has made this sport one which enjoys the maximum amount of universality. . . . [Bowling] is among the few athletic social activities which are not only acceptable to but particularly enjoyable for both men and women. Handbook of Consumer Motivations

But Mignon’s mother did not want her to go—I’m not sure if she disliked bowling (that beery, blue collar activity) or boys more—and Mignon had to tell a fib. Her mother suspected monkey business, found her out at the bowling alley, and escorted her home.

Here’s what modern neurobiologists tell us was happening in Mignon’s brain:

The remodeling of the adolescent brain—a brain that science had considered largely finished—spreads over such a wide range of systems that we need to rethink how we think of teenagers altogether. Over a span of ten to twelve years, the adolescent brain, through a series of sometimes subtle and something breathtakingly dramatic shifts, is transformed from child to adult. The grey matter of an adolescent’s frontal lobes grows denser [synaptogenesis] and then scales back [pruning], molding a leaner thinking machine. The teenage brain fine-tunes its most human part, the prefrontal cortex, the place that helps us cast a wary eye, link cause to effect, decide “maybe not”—the part, in fact, that acts grown up. The brain of the teenager undergoes a proliferation of connections for dopamine, a neurotransmitter important for movement, alertness, pleasure—high levels that may have evolved to help adolescents of many species take the necessary risks for survival, from exploring new fields for food to asking that saucy girl to dance. . . .The long, thin arms that connect brain cells are coated with insulation [myelination] that speeds signals in brain regions devoted to such fundamental capacities as emotions and language.

The Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch

More specifically, Mignon recently had experienced a flourishing or exuberance of her prefrontal cortex, its volume increasing by 5-10 percent from middle childhood; then her brain began a rapid pruning back, losing one percent of synapses per year until age 18 and beginning a gradual myelination and rigidifying of those neural pathways that had worked well in her adaptation. One of her experimentations was likely a simple synaptic lie to mom, which from the long evolutionary view, was an effective way to solve a problem and get what she wanted—it’s future oriented thinking. But mom likely corrected that neural pathway before it was set in myelin.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/work/adolescent.html

More about Big Town:
http://davenportandwiggins.com/_wsn/page10.html
http://deadmalls.com/malls/big_town_mall.html
http://big-town-mall.blogspot.com/2006/09/where-was-big-town-mall.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Town_Mall

Adrenarche and Puppy Love at Reinhardt

When did I have my first crush?

Dang if I can remember, but according to a hormone researcher at Univ. of Chicago, Martha McClintock, nearly everyone, male or female, when interviewed at a young age, reports having a first crush at age 10, in the fourth grade, well before testosterone or estrogen have reached adolescent levels for nearly all children. At around ten, children do have an early rush of androgens produced by the pituitary gland and enter the stage of adrenarche.

At 15, why did I fall in love so quickly while jumping on the trampoline with a girl I had previously been unattracted to?

From The Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch:

[Arthur Aron's] research has repeatedly shown that people fall in love more readily if they're already in a physically aroused state. That doesn't mean only a sexually aroused state, but any activity that gets the blood running high. For instance, two people who meet in a scary place, like on a high suspension bridge, or who think they're going to get an electric shock in a lab experiment, or who've been running on a treadmill . . ., are more likely to become attracted to one another.

Monkey Business at Reinhardt

I learned some of my first lessons about upcoming adolescence in youth activities at the now defunct Lakeview Christian Church. As a tag-along to the Art Williams family, I participated in Sunday School, Scouts, baseball, basketball, Wednesday night church and summer church camp. In the fifties high-growth suburbs, the principal activity in the neighborhoods was raising children. Most parents had moved to the suburbs away from their own parents and extended family influences, so parents could shop around for new churches, often shifting denominations. For example, my parents half heartedly explored a status move to the Presbyterian church from the church of their mothers--Methodist. Art Williams chose a nondenomational church that attracted arch conservative businessmen. Down the street on Old Gate Lane were White Rock United Methodist, St. Bernard's Catholic and Lakeside Baptist Church.

Lakeview Christian Church had a small library for its youth group, and I was able at age 11 or so to check out a facts-of-life paperback. In more recent years, the church pastor (a 1966 BA grad, by the way) has taken a more personal interest in sex education for his flock:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/110107dnmetminister.2dac26c.html

White Rock United Methodist had the largest and most active youth group. By age 12 or so, we at Lakeview were hearing rumors that the Wednesday night Methodist Church service had rampant petting taking place in the parking lot.

Just as I learned about Christian love and animal sex competition at church, in my secular school system, I also could see the diverse physical changes going on in the bodies of my classmates. Suburban public schools in the Dallas fifties might have 100-150 students per age group in elementary school, feeding into junior highs with 500-700 per class, then feeding into the mother of all high schools with 4,000 students. Bryan Adams High School through the sixties was one of the largest in the state (and history of the human race) with senior classes holding more than 1,000. Today, that high school only has 2,300 students.

Adolescence for many of us began in the sixth and seventh grades. In previous grades, our peer status was to some extent controlled by teachers, who doled out rewards and withdrew status on the basis of things like cooperation, academic performance, sports, and other adult-controlled activities. Beginning with adolescence, much turmoil occurred within peer status networks. The early bloomers, who according to this research had the pick of the "dating litter," began to assign status on the basis of masculine and feminine physical characteristics, especially facial features.

Actually, precocious puberty did not always lead to picking from the litter. Being taller, broader or hairier than your classmates could lead to awkwardness and self consciousness. There is little

evidence that precociousness, per se, leads to promiscuity. Some studies do show that girls in high-stress homes, including homes with an absent father or a stepfather, have accelerated puberty. What does a biological father in the family have to do with it? Perhaps his pheromones have an effect. Precocious puberty can lead to shortened stature, a limitation especially to the male. Teenage girls on the average mature earlier than boys and often prefer boys a year or two older, more equal to them in physical maturity.

Evolutionary psychologists tell us that our adolescent hormones were leading us to pair bonding preferences based on factors such as body symmetry, averageness and sex hormone markers. Let’s look at a few:

We can detect some marked asymmetries in facial features of this subject. Note the left eye is narrower than the right. Eyebrows do not match. One side of the mouth and lips is broader than the other. The left side of the chin and jaw are much more pronounced than on the right side.

Why would we prefer symmetry? Perhaps we instinctively recognize it as an indicator of developmental stability--someone whose genes are to be preferred in a baby we make.

Here's two chimerical symmetric composites of the male face:

A related factor is facial smoothness.

In the male figure we can detect active acne and acne scars. In the female figure a paleness, lack of uniformity in skin coloration, and lack of oil glow may indicate disease histories or genetic disabilities opposed to our preference for gene health.

Here we see two subjects with strong markers of symmetry, averageness and sex hormones. Note the male's strong, low brow; broad chin; narrow depth between brow and bottom of nose; and relative thinness of mouth. Features appear symmetrical, and no particular feature seems out of average. In the female, we note estrogen markers such as large eyes; high, up-sloping brows; full lips with modest teeth prominence; high cheekbones; and more pointed jaw. In person, both subjects likely displayed genetic and health markers such as clear, consistent complexion glow, framed within a hairset exhibiting luster and averageness.

Let's look at one more set:

Recent research confirms that females when horny (at a certain point in menstrual cycle) are attracted to strong testosterone markers such as seen in the second subject. Females control most pair bond choices and also prefer at other times in their mental life men with more feminine facial characteristics such as seen in the first subject. Will he invest in my progeny?

http://www.livescience.com/health/070102_facial_features.html

More about averageness and hormone markers, synaptogenesis, and the importance of hip-waist and chest -waist ratios in future blogs.

Advertising Made Me Do It

My 31-year-old daughter said to me recently that she could not fathom what was going on in her mind when she was 13 years old. I took this as the obligatory apology for adolescent bad behavior that children give their parents once they reach their late twenties and the myelin in their brains has tightened up.

Psychoanalysis posits a fairly uncontroversial theory that children experience a period of latency during middle childhood—a relatively stable progression between the psychosexual conflicts of early childhood and adolescence. Of course, children in the middle ages of childhood do have curiosity and some experience of sexual feelings. In many fifties families, even those who followed Dr. Spock’s permissive doctrines, an exception was made when children showed curiosity about the sexual organs of the opposite sex, witness the belt scars on my ass at age six after being caught playing doctor with a family friend.

Puberty came at Reinhardt to many, and we likely were influenced by media sources, such as advertising:

James B. Twitchell in Adcult USA describes two types of magic central to our culture which we find in advertising—contagious and imitative.

The contagious is the basis of all testimonial advertising—the explanation of celebrity endorsement—and has its religious counterparts in such matters as the relics of Christ. If you use this product, if you touch this stone, if you go to this holy place, if you repeat this word, you will be empowered because the product, stone, place, word . . . has been used by one more powerful than you. Imitative magic, on the other hand, is a variation of circular thinking. Because the product is made of something, you will be likewise if you consume it. So Africans use the powder of rhino horns, the Japanese crave certain mollusks, and we deodorize our bodies and then apply musk (from the Sanskrit for testicle) perfume. Then all over the world we get into a car with an animal name (yet more imitative magic) and go on the prowl for mates. Magic is such second nature that even when advertising sticks it in front of our noses, we are not stupefied.


. . . Naturally enough, the advertising directed at the adolescent is invariably the most drenched in libidinous magic oil. Look at any magazine from Details to Rolling Stone, and you will see more adolescent hands in other people’s pockets and down their trouser fronts, more faux intercourse with motorcycles, automobiles, and cigarettes, and more simply lewd positioning of the human form than in any R-rated movie. What do we expect? In adolescence we lather our bodies in unguents, slither into the most uncomfortable clothing, perform ritualistic dances that often include slamming into immovable objects, drive hunks of pig iron at breakneck speeds, and ingest poisons, until finally we exchange amulets, repeat mystical vows, and at last get on with it. All the time we are quite unaware of the authority of such behavior, and later when our children start to consume the same magical mumbo-jumbo, we say, “My, my, isn’t this advertising dreadful. It’s making Missy and Buck behave so badly.”

Adolescence is a time of life that we do not forget as we get older. As our little child bodies changed week by week and new peer social hierarchies provided revolution to our self image, we knew what was going on—that our bodies, our skins, was who we were, for better or worse. At some level, we knew about the subject of my next blog:

Synaptogenesis, Estrogen and Testosterone at Reinhardt

I Wanted To Watch Ted Koppel, But All I Could Find Was Nancy Grace and Entertainment Tonight

We’re in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. They [the sponsors] come to us asking for women 18 – 49 and adults 25 – 54 and we try to deliver.
Robert Niles, NBC VP of Marketing

In an earlier blog, I reviewed some of the social class theory developed in the 1950-60s to help better understand my parents, neighbors, and the families we grew up in within what were extremely homogenous, lily white suburbs of East Dallas. In the new millennium, social class is much harder to define. Whereas Herbert J. Gans in The Levittowners could provide some fairly salient generalizations about marriage, family life, parenting attitudes, and civic participation of blue collar, lower middle class, upper middle class, etc., today categories of age, income, ethnic background and educational level can explain less.

Here’s a quick assessment of how one might be classified today for the purposes of consumer marketing demographics. This online assessment only takes a minute and provides immediate results.

http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtml

I come in as an Innovator (Actualizer), Thinker (Fulfilled).
http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/types.shtml

The following is a description of the VALS categories by James B. Twitchell in Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture, 1996. He is more entertaining than the SRIC website in his descriptions, though his book is a bit dated.

The psychographic system of SRI is called acronymically VALS, short for Values and Lifestyle System. Essentially this schematic is based on the commonsense view that consumers are motivated "to acquire products, services, and experiences that provide satisfaction and give shape, substance, and character to their identities" in bundles. The more "resources" (namely, money, but health, self-confidence, and energy also figure) each group of consumers has, the more likely they are to buy the "products, services, and experiences" of the group with which they associate. But resources are not the only determinant. We are also motivated by such ineffables as principles, status, and action. When SRI describes these various audiences, they peel apart like this (I have provided them with an appropriate car to show their differences):

Actualizers [Changed to Innovators in the current VALS terminology]. These people at the top of the pyramid are the ideal of everyone except advertisers. They have "it" already or will soon. They are sophisticated take-charge people interested in independence and character. They don't need new things; in fact, they already have their things. If not, they already know what the finer things are and refuse to be told. They don't need a new car, but if they do, they'll read Consumer Reports. They do not need a hood ornament on their car.

Fulfilled [Changed to Thinkers in the current VALS terminology]. Here are mature, satisfied, comfortable souls who support the status quo. Often they are literally or figuratively retired. They value functionality, durability, and practicality. They drive something called a town car, which is made by all the big auto makers.

Believers. As the word expresses, these people support traditional codes of family, church, and community, wearing good Republican cloth coats. As consumers they are predictable, favoring American products and recognizable brands. They regularly attend church and Wal-Mart [buying Chinese goods if they are a value], and they are transported there in a mid-range automobile like an Oldsmobile. Whether Oldsmobile likes it or not, they do indeed drive "your father's Oldsmobile." [Can't find Olds anymore; better buy a Buick.]

Achievers. If consumerism has an ideal, it is achievers. Cha-ching, goes the cash register. Wedded to job as a source of duty, reward, and prestige, these are the people who not only favor the establishment, they are the establishment. They like the concept of prestige. They demonstrate their success by buying such objects as prestigious cars. They like hood ornaments.

Strivers. Young strivers are fine; they may mature into achievers. But old strivers can be nasty; they may well be bitter. Because they are unsure of themselves, young strivers are eager to be branded so long as the brand is elevating. Money defines success and they don't have enough of it. Being a yuppie is fine as long as the prospect of upward mobility looms. Strivers like foreign cars even if it means only leasing one.

Experiencers. Here is life on the edge--enthusiastic, impulsive, and even reckless. Their energy finds expression in sports, social events, and "doing something." Politically and personally uncommitted, experiencers are an advertising dream come true, because they see consumption as fulfillment and are willing to spend a high percentage of their disposable income to attain it. When you wonder who could possibly care how quickly a car will accelerate from zero to sixty miles per hour, it is the Experiencers.

Makers. Here is the practical side of Experiencers; Makers like to build things and they experience the world by working on it. Conservative, suspicious, respectful,
they like to do things in and to their homes, like adding a room, canning vegetables, or changing the oil in their pickup trucks.

Strugglers. Like Actualizers, these people are outside the pale of Adcult, not by choice but by economics. Strugglers are chronically poor. Their repertoire of things is limited because they have so little. Although they clip coupons like Actualizers, theirs are from the newspaper, not from bonds. Their transportation is usually public, if at all.

The categories are very fluid, of course, and we may move through as many as three of them in our lifetimes. So, for instance, from ages eighteen to twenty-four most people (61 percent) are Experiencers in desire or deed whereas fewer than 1 percent are Fulfilled. Between ages fifty-five and sixty-four, however, the Actualizers, Fulfilled, and Strugglers claim about 15 percent of the population each, whereas the Believers have settled out at about a fifth. The Achievers, Strivers, and Makers fill about 10 percent apiece, with the remaining 2 percent Experiencers. The numbers can be broken down at every stage, allowing for marital status, education, household
size, dependent children, home ownership, household income, and occupation.

So I can understand that as an Actualizer, Thinker (and Maker in the making) and old, overeducated semi-retiree, I should not expect anyone to program television, radio, movies or periodicals for me, since I rarely buy anything. It should be no surprise to me that I find the mass media to be a great wasteland. But I’m not complaining. I actually like Nancy Grace on occasions. I understand there are millions of overworked, underpaid, big-spending, young moms who deserve a break in the evening to see some tabloid titillation and pervert perps brought to justice. And only in America can old nonspenders like me still find plenty to entertain ourselves with given that there is so little to find within the media.