From the Well-endowed Model’s Point of View

This is an edited copy of the Discussion Thread “From the Well-endowed Model’s Point of View.” My first post was made on another discussion thread, one that was discussing well-endowed models. Kevin spun this initial post off to form it’s own separate thread. Prior to this post (entitled “Boobs”), I had posted a comment under a photo of me (“It’s me.”) and a short discussion between Kevin and me followed. This short discussion was posted beneath the photo and was lost when the My Archives gallery disappeared. Hence an early reference by winger to a discussion with Kevin — that discussion has disappeared, gone forever.

The final thread, before My Archives expired, contained over 800 posts, but many of these were “fluff” — unimportant comments not relevant to the actual discussion. Thus, I am “editing” the thread as I post each item here. Unfortunately, I have to post each one separately, because I had it ordered backwards for easy reading and when it came time to copy it, I couldn’t reverse it.

#1. Posted by shannon on 10-28-2008

Boobs

“Size 32D” announced the clerk in The Bay. A bra size so rare that only one brand made it.

I just turned 14 and soon would start Grade 9. Mother and I travelled to The Bay in Vancouver because no store in New Westminster could provide me with a comfortable bra. To mother, shopping at The Bay represented a great extravagance. She bought all her bras at the dime stores, Kreske’s or Woolworth’s, and couldn’t understand why none of their cheap, standard issue items did not fit me. We even went a step higher, to the New Westminster Woodwards Store, but its lingerie sales clerk was unable to find me a properly fitting bra. She suggested we try The Bay, with its more extensive, more expensive selection.

For a year, I complained of the pain and discomfort caused by ill-fitting bras, and finally mother gave into my pleadings. After that day in The Bay, I never wore a cheap bra again. My large bust, coupled with a small waist, was on full display from then on.

Marilyn Monroe, according to mythology, blossomed in high school, after boys noticed her curvy figure. This never happened to me. I had the curvy figure and wore sweaters to show it off, but the boys at my high school ignored me.

Throughout high school I received none of the benefits of having a large bust, but I continued to suffer the consequences: Straps cutting deep ridges into my shoulders, pain across my back, and poor posture, my rump sticking out one way to balance my top sticking out the other.

Not until moving to Los Angeles at age 19 did men – not boys – begin to notice me. But this new-found attention arose primarily from the fact that I had bleached my brown hair a pale blonde and traded my thick eyeglasses for a pair of contact lens. Now I downplayed my curvy figure, but it was still noticeable through the simple shirt dresses I wore.

In Los Angeles, bra straps continued to cut deep ridges into my shoulders and my upper back pain was so severe that I removed my bra the moment I entered home. We lived in a second floor apartment. I began undoing my bra clasps the second I hit the first floor landing. This habit was so ingrained that one evening, while being escorted home by a date, I began unfastening my bra as we walked up the stairs, then suddenly stopped, realizing I was sending a misleading signal. I quickly closed a couple of open clasps, hoping my date did not notice.

And then I became a nude pin-up model.

It was 1961 and Playboy was at the top of its game. Playboy’s success had spawned numerous imitators. These pseudo-Playboys, collectively called “men’s magazines,” featured busty nude models with a scattering of articles and short stories used as “fillers” to circumvent “obscenity” laws. Stephen King states that he got his start writing short stories for what he called “titty books.” The magazines of 1961 were quite tame by the standards of today’s “adult books,” showing only bare breasts, the pubic area strategically hidden. With the focus on breasts, Los Angeles photographers needed a constant stream of new models with large breasts to meet the demand for new “faces.”

My entry into this world did not come from knocking on the doors of Los Angeles photographers. It came from attending a Creating Writing class at Santa Monica City College. One of my fellow students was Alice Gowland, wife of Peter Gowland, a famous “glamour” photographer. His pin-up pictures of attractive women had adorned countless calendars, books and magazines since the 1940s. As Alice and I were the only two females in the class, we chatted regularly.

Alice made no comments about my curvy figure. After hearing that her husband was a photographer, I expressed my interest in being a “model.” Alice quickly offered me the opportunity to try out for “Cavalier Girl of the Month,” a centerfold for one of the better Playboy knock-offs, Cavalier. I jumped at the chance.

Working with Alice and Peter was easy and lots of fun, and for about eight hours of work, I made $200. My regular salary as a secretary was $325 a month.

The entire photography session took place in Alice and Peter’s luxurious sprawling house, located off Sunset Boulevard in the Santa Monica canyon. While enjoying a break between shooting sessions, an agent arrived at the combination studio/home, hoping to find jobs for his clients. This agent asked me if I had a representative. When I said “no,” he asked if I would like him to try to find me some more work. I said “yes.”

What was it like to work as a nude model? It paid well, $50 a day, and the day finished early in the afternoon. Rumours about photographers and their models proved untrue. Many photographers, like Peter Gowland, worked with their wives. All were more interested in getting the perfect picture than in bedding a sexy model, if indeed they even considered their models to be sexy. Photographers hoped to sell their set of pictures for between three and five hundred dollars, but they had to rely on instinct as to what would sell, and their instincts told them that an up-tight model was not saleable.

I found out later, when I was 59, that my breasts were lopsided, one a cup size larger than the other. Looking at pictures, I notice this now, in the few photos taken where I am facing the camera head-on. But no photographer told me I had lopsided breasts. Maybe they thought it would lower my self-esteem and make me appear less “bubbly” in the photos. “Bubbly” sold; worried models did not.

No photographer ever propositioned me or asked me for a date. However, one Art Director developed a crush on me. He purchased a set of photographs for the magazine, Topper, from Ron Vogal, a photographer who frequently employed me. Then Topper hired me for a photo shoot along with two other models and chartered a boat to take pictures at sea. After the shoot, the Art Director phoned for a date. We had three dates, all of which were chaste and proper, until I broke off the relationship. Nonetheless, for the next six months, Topper ran pictures of me – not nudes but face shots strategically placed on inside covers. This man spent a whole day with me when I wore nothing but a tiny bikini bottom, but it wasn’t my breasts he developed a crush on, it was me.

I made the model rounds as a blonde and then, after appearing in most of the magazines, I made the rounds again as a brunette. Working on Saturdays and/or Sundays, while keeping my secretarial job, I was able to save enough money to finance a trip to Africa.

My figure remained curvy until I reached age 40, when I developed a thicker waist. However, my breasts grew larger – until I was a size EE – and caused severe back pain. I hated the wired bras I was forced to wear to support my pendulous breasts.

At age 60 I had breast reduction surgery – down to a more manageable size C. I know several women who were aged 30 to 65 when they underwent this surgical procedure, and all have expressed the opinion: “Hallelujah, free at last!” My surgeon suggested I wear elastic-band-type sports bras for the first three months after the surgery. That was six years ago. Although I no longer have to wear sports bras, I continue to wear them. I’m flat, I’m comfortable, and at age 66 I don’t need to show off my perfectly formed, no longer lopsided, boobs.

#2. Posted by winger on 10-28-2008

Shannon,
Read your bio on the thread with Kevin. Let me just say “Welcome and Thanks for stopping by!”. It is really a thrill for a gal who actually was in the industry to come here and address the “gang”. A vast majority of us are older guys (Im 54) and we just relish the “good old days” of beautiful pinups and the memories that they bring back. Really interesting to hear about your different names used for spreads as that it a widely discussed topic here. As you can imagine it is not always easy naming a models folder as she might be known by half a dozen names or more!

Best of luck with your memoirs and I certainly hope that more ladies of the past discover this site and realize how many men still revel in their beauty and would love to know more about them!

#3. Posted by kevin on 10-29-2008

Thanks, great story shannon, just out of curiosity how long did you model for?

#4. Posted by Shannon on 10-29-2008

First, thank you Charlie. As I mentioned in another post my name changed as follows:

1. My first modelling job was with Peter Gowland, Cavalier July 1962, and as I initially thought that this was going to be my only modelling job, my real name was used: Gloria Moeser.

2. When I started working with an agent, I thought about it and decided just to use only my first two names — “Gloria Dawn”. I wasn’t trying to hide what I was doing — my boss knew I was modelling, my mother knew I was modelling, etc. But when I thought about it, I realized that if my real name was published, I might get telephone calls from strange men. I was in the telephone book.

3. All my pictures as a blond (after Cavalier) should have been published under the name “Gloria Dawn.” The release form that I signed stipulated that this was the name that was to be used with these pictures. If anyone finds a picture of me as a blond under another name, then that name was used in violation of the release form I signed.

4. I modelled for three photographers as a brunette during April-May 1963. Then I went back to being a blond (a bit darker in shade). I cannot remember what name I stipulated on the release form as a brunette model, but a photographer-friend just found a set of pictures of me as a brunette published in a 1965 Jaguar under the name “Mary Hayes.” I can understand the change from “Gloria Dawn” to something else — the magazine wanted its readers to think I was a new model — but I know that I did not stipulate “Mary Hayes” on the release form. I would have used something meaningful to me — a combination of friend’s and/or relative’s names most probably. “Mary Hayes” means nothing to me. So this set of pictures must have been submitted by a photographer who choose the name in violation of my release form. The magazine probably just accepted the photographer’s word and didn’t check the release form.

5. The reason I am now “Shannon” is because I always hated the name “Gloria” — I honestly remember hating it when I was 5 years old — but my mother loved it, and it wasn’t until I was 25 years old that I got up the courage to tell her I hated the name she had given me. I had my first name legally changed to Shannon when I was 25. You will never find any pictures of me under the name Shannon, however. I stopped modelling at age 23. Under the name Shannon, you would only find boring academic articles that I published after completing my university degrees. (Actually, you would find them only if you googled “Moeser, S.D.”)
Thanks Kevin:

I modelled from January 1962 (the Peter Gowland photo-spread) until August 1963. From January to June 1962, I lived with my mother and 4-year-old son in LA. Then mother decided to move back to Canada, and as she was my son’s caretaker, he went with her. I moved into the Hollywood Studio Club. I visited my mother and son in Canada from December 1962 to March 1963, so during that four-month hiatus I didn’t do anything, but I started modelling again in April 1963 when I returned to LA and the Hollywood Studio Club.

At your school, you may have ignored a girl with “big breasts” if she was also considered a “brain,” wore glasses and got top marks in all the classes. Boys don’t like “brainy” girls; men find intelligent women interesting. (I still remember that when I was 39 years old, one of my colleagues said: “I always thought of you as the “thinking man’s Marilyn Monroe.”)

#5. Posted by Mushashi7 on 10-29-2008

An honor to get first hand information from a model. This is very rare, ‘Shannon’. But I guess you know that.

Thanks you very much for opening up for your bag of memories, facts and history. There are quite a few persons in this community who are very interested in putting all the pieces together.

If you feel like bringing up more memories you will make many people happy. We will listen with the highest level of attention. And hopefully your information will be stored and remembered.
Everything you can remember from your career and the people you’ve met is received with thanks and gratitude. Even the smallest fragment of information can help us clear the past for the future.

I didn’t see this thread before today. I wondered why Kevin suddenly posted so many images of a model named ‘Gloria Dawn’ in the picture gallery. Now I know the answer.

I think someone in the Spiderpool group at Yahoo had contacted Peter Gowland for some information of some kind (what it was i don’t remember).

Mush

#6. Posted by javelin on 10-29-2008

The Boat Trip

A similar, but not identical, set of photos of the boat trip appeared as the centerfold of the November 1966 issue of Sir magazine. I have enjoyed them for the last 42 years! :smile:Shannon, I am glad to see you are doing well.

Jav

#7. Posted by shannon on 10-30-2008

Could you possibly post these pictures? I have never seen them.

#8. Posted by winger on 10-30-2008

So Shannon, I am curious, have you viewed other areas of the site and what do you think of all us old buggers sitting around gabbing about the gorgeous girls of yesterday?

#9. Posted by Mushashi7 on 10-30-2008

Back to you, Shannon.

I too have a question that has always been on my mind regarding nude modeling – in general.

I know you most likely didn’t tell everybody that you did nude modeling. The acceptance of this genre was not general in the society at that time (and still isn’t).
A nude model must feel some kind of isolated/alone? If you had a secret you couldn’t share with anyone?

The second part of my question is regarding what draws you to become a nude model? Is it the admiration of you as a female being and the exitement? Or is it the money that made the final descission? You mention you almost made earned equal to a month pay during eight hours of work.
Did you ever think of the people that would watch the material you posed in, or was that a minor issue for you?

How much of the material made of you did you ever see your self? Did you receive a copy of the magazines or a set of photos?

And a final question: What makes you step forward after all these years and tell about your model career in this forum? Nostalgia?

I hope I do not offend you in any way by asking. That is not my intention.
Most members (or lurkers) at this site finds your appearence in this forum very exiting and we all feel honored by your presence. Even the quiet ones.

You have been given the VIP Member status as the very first ever as a sign of our gratitude.

Mush

#10. Posted by shannon on 10-30-2008

Mush, I want to write a long answer to your question (or actually questions). However, I am currently under a deadline to write a three-page story for my creative writing group, which meets in two days — Saturday morning. So can you wait for two or three days for an answer?

I was able to post “Boobs” immediately because I wrote it as one of my early creative writing exercises about two years ago.

The creative writing group is meeting at my house this month, so not only do I have to write a story for them (actually a continuing section of my memoir), but also I have to clean up the house (I am not the greatest housekeeper, so the house only gets a thorough cleaning when I have visitors).

I will get back to you once I have completed my chores.

In response to Winger: I only read the thread on well-endowed women, to which I originally posted “Boobs” so you might look at it from the point of view of well-endowed women and what we have to do. I will read the others, and possibly have some comments, in a few days.

#11. Posted by rainman on 10-30-2008

A very interesting and informative thread. Shannon, your contributions are most welcome. Your attitude is really quite refreshing, too many models of the period have closed that part of their lives out and refuse to discuss it. As a result, few of us have had the good fortune of doing more than viewing and lusting after the beauties that Peter Gowland and others provided us with in the pages of Cavalier, Playboy et al.

Yes, we can be a boorish and crass lot. Your presence will temper that.

I, do not remember, your pictorials in Cavalier or Sir. (Before anyone comments about me having a “senior moment”, Cavalier and Sir were not available in the college town where I grew up.) Do you know whether or not any of your photos may have been in any of Peter Gowland’s photography books? I have several of these from the 50-70s and was curious.

The opportunity to read your comments and gain your prospective is again much appreciated.

#12. Posted by shannon on 10-30-2008

I don’t think that any of my photos have been in Peter Gowland’s photography books. He used me for that one Cavalier photo spread and never again. I don’t think that the Cavalier spread was one of my best because Alice Gowland put wigs on me, and the nude picture used a long, dark haired wig, that to me, looked like a wig. Peter’s test photo was better. I’ll put it up in my “Gloria Dawn” folder when I have time.

He wouldn’t have put that test photo in one of his books because it was “just a test photo.”

#13. Posted by rainman on 10-31-2008

Thanks for the reply. I went through 3 of Peter Gowland’s books and was unable to find anything, given the number of photos he took and published during the period, I thought that it would be worth a try. The test photo will be much appreciated.

I believe that your choice of dress in high school was the problem with lack of recognition by the boys in your class. You should have worn a hockey jersey.

#14. Posted by Shannon on 11-01-2008

Mushashi7 posted a message to this tread asking five questions that I promised to answer. I’ll answer one tonight. I’m not going to answer these questions in order – the first two require the longest answers and will have to be carefully thought out. I’ll answer an easy one first. Remember my answers are likely to be fairly long – you’re dealing with someone who worked primarily as a technical writer for the past 35 years. (University professors spend about 70% of their time writing – at least the successful ones do. If you can’t write, you can’t publish, and if you don’t publish you can’t be a successful university professor.)

One of Muchashi7’s questions was:

Did you ever think of the people that would watch the material you posed in, or was that a minor issue for you?

I have an amusing story you may enjoy that also answers Muchashi7’s question.

In July 1962, I was excitedly awaiting publication of my first photo spread – the Peter Gowland Cavalier issue. Peter had told me I would appear June 1962 but he must have missed a deadline because when I went to pick up the June 1962 issue, I wasn’t featured. I anxiously anticipated publication of the July 1962 magazine, fearing that somehow I hadn’t made the grade and wasn’t going to appear at all.

Just at this time, my mother and son had moved back to British Columbia. I followed them in early July to ensure they got settled. (I left my belongings and car stored in LA because I was returning to LA.)

Thus, I was in BC when July’s Cavalier came out. I still remember standing in the Vancouver Eaton store, in the magazine section, when I spotted the new Cavalier. I picked it up and flipped to the centre section. There I was in all my nude glory.

As I stood looking at my pictures, a middle-aged man also picked up the magazine. (He was probably in his late thirties, which was middle-aged to 21-year-old me.) He also flipped to the centre pictures and stared at them. He was standing right beside me and I guess I expected him to go “Oh” or say something, or at stare in a state of amazement. No! After a brief glance my way – I was standing close – he went over to the cashier to pay for the magazine, still staring at the pictures, and left. He ignored the real person standing beside him and at age 21 I still looked pretty good, even with my clothes on.

This incident started me thinking about readers of these magazines, and I realized that the pictures fuelled these readers’ fantasy worlds. The readers weren’t interested in meeting the real girls – the pictures simply nourished their daydreams.

So I never really though much again about the readers. I was just an accessory to their imaginations.

For this internet group, categorizing, rating and examining the various attributes of models has become a hobby. You’ve moved beyond the fantasy level to the analytical level. But most readers back in the 60’s just looked at the girls and fantasized.

#15. Posted by Shannon 11-01-2008

Was Picture “Flipped”?

This is in reply to Javelin’s comment on the centerfold picture of me and two other girls on the boat cruise:

A similar, but not identical, photo appeared as the centerfold of the November 1966 issue of Sir magazine. In the Sir centerfold Shannon’s arm is in a different position, and the ladies are arranged in opposite order ( I think one of the photos has been “flipped”).

I cannot remember posing for this centerfold picture, so I don’t know whether Ron Vogel “flipped” the picture for the Sir centerfold, or whether he took two pictures, one with me on the left and one with me on the right.

I do know, however, that the picture posted from the September issue of Topper was not “flipped.” I know this because I am left-handed and wear my watch on my right hand. If you look carefully at the picture, you can see a tan mark on my right wrist.

Look at the Sir magazine picture. If the watch tan mark is on my left hand, then the picture was “flipped.” If the tan mark is on my right hand, then Ron took two different pictures.

#16. Posted by Mushashi on 11-02-2008

Thanks for your answer, Shannon.

You really didn’t give it much though I feel. Just for a short while and then it was solved.

I can reflect on that. I admire a womans beauty in pictures but I don’t think I would like to get in physical contact with her just like that. The reptile part of my brain is controlled by an etchical filter. Although I think I couldn’t resist at least giving you a warm smile before I turned away with my magazine. But that wouldn’t be an invitation, just an expression of approval.

As a footnote I can add that I in general really don’t like ‘hard soft-core’ pictures revealing everything. It takes the beauty and exitement away, and leaves only basic lust left.
Nothing wrong with this, after all it is a major part of man’s brain activity he can’t turn off, but I like to admire the rest of the woman. I like to see her a a princess, something unique.
I know I am a bit old fashioned in many ways, but there has to be more in life than just straight on and down to basics.

As for turning into ‘categorizing, rating and examining the various attributes of models’ you are right. We are persons who has had an interest in this subject since we were young teenagers.
But now that we are ‘not so young and beautiful’, but only beautiful ( ) you have seen it all so to speak. And the historical issue is more interesting to many of us.
Collecting, just like stamps. Looking at the beautiful images.
I collected magazines since I was 12 or 13 I think. Starting with the lingerie models in the main women magazines. Up through the years the harder and more revealing magazines came on the market.
I ended up in having a shop where I as a part of the merchandise also dealt in porn. I feel I have seen too much perhaps. But the 1960’s and and backwards in time are the most beautiful eras.
Hollywood glamour, french postcards, the burlesque and the cheesecake period.

I wait patiently for your other answers – if and when you feel like answering them.

Mush

#17. Posted by Shannon on 11-02-2008

Magazines and their models

Mushashi7 asked:

How much of the material made of you did you ever see yourself? Did you receive a copy of the magazines or a set of photos?

Usually we never knew when and where our pictures would appear. We received payment for a photo shoot and that was that.

Ron Vogel was an exception. He sometimes told me where he sold my pictures – although I found the Modern Man centerfold on my own. Ron also gave me some B&W glossies to use for my portfolio.

Another photographer – Michael LeRoy – gave me three B&W glossies of pictures he took of me as a brunette, and phoned to tell me when he sold my pictures, but by the time they were published I was in Africa and never found the magazine.

Peter Gowland took the photo spread specifically for Cavalier. He had a contract with the magazine to find new (fresh) models. As this was my first photo spread, I was paid higher ($200) for the job. (Ron paid $60 for a day’s shoot the first time we worked together (he already had a contract to do the magazine cover); $50 a day on all other shootings; the other photographers paid $50 a day. This may not seem like much now, but in today’s dollars – taking into account inflation – $60 for a day’s shoot in 1962 would be equal to $436 in 2008, or about $62 an hour. Remember most of the models were office workers, store clerks, etc. and not making large wages.)

Other than the money, however, there was not much reward. The magazines ignored us. They didn’t know our real names, and we never received copies of the issues in which we appeared.

Only Playboy took care of its models. Its centerfold girls were offered jobs with the magazine if they wanted to continue to work in the industry. These models worked at Playboy clubs or in promotion. (I still remember the excitement caused at Capitol Records, where I was working as a secretary, when a Playboy centerfold model came to call. I never saw her, but everyone was talking about the promotional visit.) This way, Playboy kept its models exclusive – they only appeared in Playboy.

The other magazines were not as kind to its models. And so you find models appearing for a year or two and then dropping out.

#18. Posted by Shannon on 11-02-2008

Why Step Forward?

Mushashi7 asked:

What makes you step forward after all these years and tell about your model career in this forum? Nostalgia?

I have always been interested in writing. As mentioned previously, I spent much of my career as a technical writer. After retiring, I returned to BC and started new activities. I met a woman (in an exercise class) who belonged to a creative writing group and she invited me to join. (Participants, by the way, were aged 66 to 90.)

As a member of this group, I had to produce one 10-15 minute “story” each month. Great! Now, I was a member, what could I write about? It wasn’t hard to decide. All the ladies were writing stories of their past — memoirs. Some wrote short vignettes, others presented episodes that were part of a longer story they were writing. I started with a couple of short narratives about five-year-old me — my earliest memories. Then, I wrote “Boobs.” After presenting “Boobs,” I began to focus on the period my memoir would explore — my activities from age 16 to age 25. (I call it my “leap before I look” period.)

Writing a memoir involves research. After 40 – 50 years, names have been forgotten, visual details are fuzzy, specific dates need to be verified, etc. All the ladies, even those 80+, are internet experts. It helps to have pictures, letters, etc. to jog the memory.

I had a portfolio of pictures from my modelling days, but nowhere near a full collection of the magazine pictures that had appeared. I used Google to search the internet for possible vintage magazines that might contain my pictures. I found one — Escapade, December 1963 — containing pictures I had never seen. Googling for a specific name, in my case “Gloria Dawn,” can be a long, arduous process because the search engine found dozens of Gloria Dawn’s before it located one relating to me. So I didn’t google my modelling name often, and I didn’t get any more hits.

A few months ago, I discovered it was easier to search eBay for vintage pinup magazines. On September 15th, I discovered a listing for Modern Man that contained my picture. I had one copy of this Ron Vogel centerfold, but my copy was wrinkled and torn, and I wanted a less blemished copy for my collection (and the complete magazine, not just the picture I tore from the magazine). However, the eBay seller, who you know on this internet site as “jgabby,” stated in his listing that he would only ship to the US. So I contacted him, via eBay, asking if he would ship to Canada, stating that I wanted this issue because I was the centerfold model.

Thus began an e-mail correspondence. Jgabby graciously sent the magazine to me free of charge, asking only that I send back a second copy autographed.

As jgabby was a collector, buyer and seller of vintage pinup magazines, I asked if he would keep his eyes open for magazines featuring my pictures. I mentioned I had modelled for a couple of photographers as a brunette but never seen magazine spreads in which I appeared as a brunette. Jgabby found the Jaguar spread. (I am certain it is me, because one of the B&W’s in the spread shows me taking off my own dress — I have a non-nude picture of me in that dress — and another B&W displays the mole on my left back shoulder — a mole I had since age 14.)

Jgabby also told me that he found images of me on the My Archives Vintage Porn website and attached its URL. This is how I discovered your group.

So, it is not so much a case of my suddenly “stepping forward.” I have been working on a memoir for two years; I have been searching for magazines containing my pictures for two years. I discovered this site by accident. If jgabby had shipped to Canada, I would simply have bid on the magazine and never started the correspondence that led to my “speaking up.”

Probably other models from the 60’s would “step forward” also if they knew about this site. Once a person reaches age 60, she usually doesn’t feel the need to keep secrets.

I am not saying that you would get a stampede of former 60’s models visiting this website, but you would probably get a few. Two barriers stop most of these older models from “stepping forward”:

1. Many people my age are reluctant to try new ways of using the internet. For example, I have had a hard time getting my friends – that is, people I know well – to join Facebook. Even those friends with whom I correspond regularly by e-mail are reluctant to try something different. So I am obliged to become “friends” with their children/grandchildren and hope that these children/grandchildren periodically relay my news and show my photos to their mother/father/grandmother. (Sorry group, the pictures are of my cats, grandchildren and travels, and all you would find out is that Michael Connelly is one of my favourite authors, Taxi Driver and Hotel Rwanda are two of my favourite movies, and that I really, really like the blues. “Buddy Guy is coming to town on November 10th and I got my ticket two minutes after they went on sale.” No interesting information about my modelling days on Facebook.)
2. Any model searching for pictures of herself would not find this website if she simply typed her modelling name into the Google search engine. Google is the best we have right now, but it is still an imperfect search tool. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated user of the internet, but I would never have found this group if it hadn’t been for jgabby. He is in the business of collecting and selling vintage men’s magazines, and so would know the right “tags” to use to search for these items.

#19. Posted by Charlie on 11-03-2008

That’s interesting, because it’s the same as the situation with American Art Enterprises/ Parliament News in Chatsworth. Usually even the photographer wouldn’t know in advance which magazines were going to publish any particular model’s work.

The rate of pay was the same, too: $50 a day, which was good pay at the time, but not the fabulous wealth that magazine editors claimed.

I’ve stayed in touch with a few of the models I knew back in the day; I’ve tried to persuade Mary Waters to consider doing a retro/modern site like Michelle Angelo or Candy Samples, but she has decided not to do that. Rosalie Strauss told me that she couldn’t understand why men were still interested in her pictures.

#20. Posted by Shannon on 11-03-2008

Yes, I think that photographers were screwed by these magazine publishers just like the models were. The only photographers who seemed to survive were Peter Gowland, who got started early (plus his wife Alice was an excellent manager) and Ron Vogel (who was also a suburb manager). My agent said: “We’ll start with Ron and charge him $60. Ron always sells his pictures over and over. And I think he keeps them forever.”

I can understand older models not wanting to do a retro. Until I was 40, I probably would have done one, because until I was 40 I looked not-too-bad. But now I look in the mirror and go “ow.” And when I see the pictures on my driver’s license or passport, I gasp. So possibly your former models would prefer to be remembered as they were and not seen as they are today.

#21. Posted by kevin on 11-03-2008

Edited the thread title added shannon/Gloria’s name, that should help with a search – search spiders are crawling through here all the time.

What a fantastic thread – though there is one piece of information i don’t think shannon has forwarded to us from the past 😉

#22. Posted by shannon on 11-04-2008

Answer to Winger

Blues, eh? You hit me right on the bullseye with that one! I have played harmonica for many years both professionally and for the pure fun of it. I just recently took up slide guitar and bought myself a resonator (dobro) which has that Mississippi Delta sound.

Buddy Guy is a particular favorite of mine and have seen him numerous times through the years, mostly when he teamed up with the late Junior Wells. I even caught him with Junior and his brother Phil at a tiny roadhouse here in NJ back in the 80’s…what a show! Yup, love dem blues!

Given that Victoria is a relatively small city, we have been lucky in terms of visiting musicians. BB King was here a year ago. I took my two grandchildren to see him and they loved him. I’m taking my grandson to see Buddy Guy (my granddaughter unfortunately lives in Nanaimo with her mother, and it’s too far to drive for a one-day visit).

#23. Posted by Shannon on 11-04-2008

Answer to Kevin

There is one piece of information i don’t think shannon has forwarded to us from the past

I am not certain what piece of information this is, Kevin. However, I still have Mushashi’s first two questions to answer—long answers that I have to give some thought to—so maybe this hidden information will come out when I complete my answers to these questions.

Or do you simply mean my statistics: a smidgen under 5’4″, 36½-23-38 measurements. (I think this was down to 36-23-37 when I was modelling as a brunette.) Naturally dark brown hair, but been a blond so long that I feel like a blond (even my mother said, after a short reversal to brown and then re-bleaching 4 months later: “I like you better as a blond”)

I gave my current age right at the beginning. Oh “Moeser” was my ex-husband’s name, and my marriage only lasted about two months (legally, 3 years), but I have used Moeser for so long that it has become my name also. I grew up a “Torgerson”—a Norwegian name, but I was adopted; my natural mother was German and my natural father was half-German/half Scot—hence my fair skin. I seldom wore makeup except for a bit of eye liner and mascara, and some lipstick in my pictures. (I prefer a natural shade of lipstick that doesn’t even look like I’m wearing lipstick, but photographers sometimes asked me to wear a brighter colour. I still don’t wear much make-up; it looks fake on me.

I never married again. Not for lack of trying to find someone—but living in Newfoundland kind of spoiled my chances to find a suitable husband.

I have a copy of that picture also, and I have found that it just doesn’t scan well. It wasn’t one of my favourites. I thought I looked a bit dopey in it; maybe I was just tired after a long day of shooting.

#24. Posted by kevin on 11-04-2008

Originally Posted by shannon:

Or do you simply mean my statistics: a smidgen under 5’4″, 36½-23-38 measurements. (I think this was down to 36-23-37 when I was modelling as a brunette.):smile:

Thanks shannon that was it! – I was way out.

I don’t have any Buddy but i have a nice > Elmore James

#25. Posted by Mushashi7 on 11-04-2008

Thank you again for your open answers, Shannon.

And thank you, jgabby, for not shipping to Canada…

Regarding your missing pictures I believe many members of this site will be on the lookout for any of your pictures from now on. Your personal presence makes it a challenge to ‘help a lady in need’.

I know that it can be hard to find this site via Google. The reason is simple:

1. All pictures are not yet named according to contents.
2. Keywords are not attached to all images (pure lazyness).
3. Too many models have not yet been positive identified – we don’t know their model names.

But we are working on this as hard as we can.

Some of us have started a model ID project. I hope we can launch it here at MyArchives soon (at least the first beta version).
It concentrates on the 1960’s, 1950’s and backwards in time to ‘the stoneages’ with 1979 as the limit for newer models.
At this moment there are around 1500 entries (without the Hollywood stars, Ziegfield follies etc.)
(yes, you are already in it, Shannon – with 3 pictures even)

Only the most known models pops up when you do a Google search. The early 1960’s and backwards is the biggest challenge – time is about to drag it all into the maelstroem of amnesia.
Naturally this is the most important period, before it all disappears. Although a lot of information surface every day the anonymious models or lesser known models will vanish if not recorded somehow.
In you we now we have a first hand source for some of it. So, all you say will be stored accordingly and used to solve the puzzles.

There is another group called the ‘SpiderPool Group’ at Yahoo, lead by Rowan and OldBubbleHead. Their interest are the cheesecake models in and around Hollywood in the 1950’s (primarily). They have done a tremenduous job in recovering the riddles of the past.
They are more detectives rather than interested in the nude pictures. You will not find a more serious group anywhere on the internet. This group has inspired me so much.

Harry Bosch? My oh my, you are into detective stories 🙂
I read a few novels of Connelly years ago when I had my shop. (I dealt in used and rare books and often took one home with me to read).
I can imagine you have puzzled with the thought of writing a novel or two in secrecy?

It is harsh area you live in. Almost the same climate as Greenland.
Well, I know we have a rather cold climate in Denmark but I can imagine there can be some hard winters on Bay de Verde Island. What made you chose this place to live in?

#26. Posted by javelin on 11-04-2008

Sir Nov. 1966 “Boat Trip: Spread

I have now posted in the Gloria Dawn page the images from the November 1966 Sir Magazine which consists of only two pages plus the “flopped” centerfold. Since the pictures are similar, but not identical to the Topper Pics, evidently Ron V was able to sell the same set twice. The models only got paid once though.:rolleyes:
Jav

#27. Posted by Shannon on 11-04-2008

Climate follies (sorry nothing about boobs and other interesting things)

Mushashi7 wrote:

It is harsh area you live in. Almost the same climate as Greenland. Well, I know we have a rather cold climate in Denmark but I can imagine there can be some hard winters on Bay de Verde Island. What made you chose this place to live in?

Have to give you a geography lesson Mush. I live in Victoria, BC. Victoria is the warmest place in Canada. In the winter it hovers around 5°C most of the time. (Nears 0°C only in January and February.) The city goes bananas whenever it gets a bit of snow. It is the retirement capital of Canada—and we get a fair number of European retirees as well, especially from northern areas like Denmark and Germany. Its much warmer than such U.S. places as New York, Chicago, etc. in the winter and much cooler than these same places in summer;it seldom goes above 25°C in summer.

Now Newfoundland—that’s another story. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live there, except to make money and get out. The weather is about the worse in Canada Bay de Verde Island is in Newfoundland. I went to Newfoundland for a job, and kind of got stuck in that horrible place Great job (worked only 6 months a year); poor climate and very isolated. I was conflicted for 30 years. BC is my home and always has been my home, even if I lived in Newfoundland for 30 years.

#28. Posted by Shannon on 11-04-2008

Getting onto the academic path

Originally Posted by javelin

Now that we have the important stuff out of the way, such as your measurements. I am really curious how you turned to the rigors of an academic life and to go as far as a PhD in psychology and a professorship. It must have been an interesting journey indeed..

Was their any particular turning point in your life that caused such an abrupt career change. I would love to hear whatever thoughts you would care to share with us in this matter.

Jav

The short answer to your question is that my boyfriend (fiancee) refused to marry me unless I got my BA. He wanted me to be able to support my family if anything happened to him. (This is part of my memoir.) Secretaries have never been highly paid, not in the 60’s or now. I was supposed to get my BA and return to Africa.

Once I started university, I became one of the top students, and university professors always encourage their top students to go to graduate school. I wasn’t certain until I finished my PhD that I would become a professor. I wasn’t especially drawn to that career, but it turned out to be a good career choice for me. Just as I was finishing, my boyfriend disappeared.

I had always been a good student in high school, but with my working class background, my cultural environment did not encourage me to go on to university. Anyway I got married and almost immediately separated then had to support my son. My career took some interesting twists and turns before getting onto the academic path.

#29. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

I kill houseplants too

Originally Posted by winger

Blues I can discuss at great length, the American Civil War is a great passion of mine as well and I do so love ice hockey. Alas, as a gardener I am afraid that all I can muster is a batch of weary woe begone impatients. I am one of the few humans on record to have actually killed a cactus.
….

Since there are hardly any record stores worth a darn in the states anymore I buy discs off of Ebay or Amazon and I find about any cut I want to pre listen to on YouTube. Many artists, if not most, have a page on MySpace. Hope you have a great time seeing Buddy, his kind is fast disappearing unfortunately.

I have killed several cacti also, and every other other type of houseplant. Spider plants live the longest with me—although I have killed a few of those as well. My current spider plant seems to say “okay, I know you will water me eventually, even if I have to wait a couple of months.” It must be very hardy, because I did forget to water it for two months; my other hanging plant died, but my spider plant just lived on, until I finally remembered it.

Record stores have disappeared here as well. Amazon is now our only source of decent CDs.

#30. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Clarifying things for Mushashi7

Originally Posted by Mushashi7
The ‘Acer plantanoides’ is stated as imported from North America in my botanical flora books.
I know one of the authors personally. And when he writes this plant was imported from NA I believe him.
….
I do hope you fertilize your roses a lot though. They demand a LOT of food to be rich in bloom. If not you should try buying some NPK fertilizer and give them a real good amount. You will be rewarded.
Is it clay soil in your garden? That is what they like best.

About your runaway fiancee: Men are really stupid sometimes (including my self, seen in the back mirror).
Men often abandon their girlfriends when they are young.
…
On the other hand I might insinuate he didn’t really love you enough. Demanding you too finish your BA before he would eventually marry you is utter crap.
…

I can’t dispute your knowledge about trees, as I am not knowledgeable at all about them (Although I noticed that when I did google ‘Acer plantanoides,’ it was called the “Norway Maple.”)

I am as bad with my outdoor plants as I am with my houseplants. Still they manage to bloom. We do have clay soil here.

My boyfriend (fiancee) didn’t leave me—he “disappeared”. People disappear in politically unstable places like Africa. He was very good and kind, unlike most of the men I managed to choose in my younger days. He was right—I needed to have an education to support myself, although he didn’t expect me to go as far as a PhD—but he didn’t discourage me from going on either.

#31. Posted by charlie on 11-05-2008

Originally Posted by shannon4027

Yes, we only got paid for the one photo shoot.:frown: I don’t know how Ron was able to sell this particular set of pictures twice. I was almost sure that Topper paid the boat rental fees. Ron must have had a special contract drawn up that let him sell “extras” to other sources.

Oh, Gawd! The business details are both boring and… I dunno, something else. AAE/Parliament worked thusly: Editors would estimate the number of pictures needed for the coming month. A coordinator would call agents to set up shoots with models. On any particular day the photographer would go to the AAE office, pick up however many rolls of film were necessary, and a lighting guy if necessary, and would meet the model at a pre-arranged location. They would do the shoot; the model would go home and the photographer would drop the film off.

Some models were hired more often, usually depending on how regularly they were available. With some models (Roberta Pedon) AAE would collect a ton of material in a month or so; with others (Michelle Angelo) they would do two or three shoots a year. Then they would publish a magazine with a couple hundred shots; then they would sell the same shots to however many magazines would buy them.

Only about 10% of the shots would be usable; sometimes photographers would keep rejects. Bob Ellison, who worked for AAE, was famous for this. Years later he sold some of the shots to Score. Other times AAE would keep the editorially rejected shots and sell them to other publishers. They would get recycled endlessly.

A fair number of photographers were boyfriends of models; Lance Kincaid and Mary Waters were bf/gf for the six months her career lasted. Ilsa Haslund (a/k/a Ditta) had a boyfriend or husband who submitted her pictures to several magazines, then disappeared.

Sometimes magazines would set up special shoots, like Cavalier or Fling. Others would take whatever came over the transom, like Gent or Gem.

By the way, I live in Seattle, about 100 air miles south of Victoria. Shannon, you didn’t mention the rain. It started last week. There will be a day or two breaks per month until next July.

#32. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Thanks charliels531. Interesting information about the business that even I was not aware of. I did know that photographers took endless shots because only a few were usable, but the fact that they could sell photos from the same shoot over and over and over….well, us models should have insisted on better contracts.:mad:

We used to say that if you grew up in BC you developed web feet. I think that Victoria gets a bit less rain than Seattle—something about a mountain range blocking the worse systems—but yes, the rainy season has started. People from the east always complain about the rain, but you don’t have to shovel rain:biggrin:. They’re just jealous. And there are heavy rains and showers, and in Victoria thus far, our rainy season has consisted mainly of showers. But do you remember a couple of years ago, in November, when we got downpour after downpour after downpour? My back yard was a swimming pool.

#33. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Taste in men

Originally Posted by charliels531

That reminds me of a lady friend who once told me that when she was younger, she had very poor taste in very rich men.

I had very poor taste in very interesting men.:biggrin: I was never attracted to rich men; the men I was attracted to were those who led exciting lives—but also tended to be egocentric.:frown:

Needless to say, there is one who is going to play a major role in my memoir—after we broke up, he became famous. And a second, the nice one, also has a role in my memoir. He was “a good man”, not egocentric, but led a mysterious life that even I have been unable to untangle—i.e., how much of his background was a facade? exactly what happened to him? By the miracle of the the internet, I have been able to discover some interesting facts I never knew.

#34. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Kept a Secret?

Mushashi7 asked:

I never kept it a secret Mush. My mother knew, my not-quite-four-year-old son knew, my boss (a devote Christian Scientist) knew, my boyfriend—the egocentric one—knew, my best friend knew, my hairdresser knew—all the people who were important to me knew.

When my agent wanted to take some nude test pictures to show to photographers, he took them in my apartment with my mother and son nearby. He took a lovely picture of me and my son at the time, as a present for my mother.

If you will indulge me a bit, here is an excerpt from my memoir that shows my demeanor. I had just moved into the Hollywood Studio Club and met my new roommate for the first time:

******************************************

I can still see her now, standing by the bed, her caramel blond hair swept into a topknot, her clear, modulated voice and unhurried movements projecting elegance that cannot be faked. Yet Adrianne’s warm smile tempered her formal appearance. She immediately initiated a conversation. Soon we were discussing intimate details of our lives, focusing on our boyfriends. I described Lou’s good qualities—his intelligence and social skills—and downplayed his negative behaviours. Proudly I exhibited his first record, Stormy Monday, featuring his photograph…….

As we bonded over our respective rocky romances, I also revealed that I had a four-year-old son, currently living with my mother in Canada, and modelled nude for men’s magazines. It is a tribute to Adrianne’s grace and good disposition that she absorbed this information with aplomb instead of rushing to ask Miss Williams for another roommate.

******************************************

When I began university in 1965, I mentioned the modelling. I wasn’t so crass as to display the pictures but I managed to insert my modelling experiences into conversations—so all my friends (other students) knew and the information reached my professors. But no one cared. All professors care about is how well you do on their exams—and I did well. The nude modelling was past history that had no bearing on how they perceived me as a student and potential future member of their profession.

My attitude towards my past modelling experiences was shaped by two factors:

(1) Secrets were not a part of my family tradition. For example, I mentioned in a previous posting that I was adopted. Often when I say this to people, the conversation goes like this:

“When did you find out you were adopted?”

“I always knew. There was never a time when I didn’t know. The adoption agency told mother that secrets always end up being uncovered, and if I found out later, it might cause resentment.”

“Did being adopted made you feel different?”

“Not really. It explained why I looked so unlike my mother and was smarter than her. Mother often said, ‘you are special because you were chosen’. ”
(2) I equated the type of modelling I did with the pinup girls of the 50’s and didn’t think there was anything wrong in posing for pinup pictures. Once Marilyn Monroe showed her boobs, everyone started showing their boobs. I never got anywhere near porn and was never asked to do porn. Hard core modelling came along later, in the late 60’s/early 70’s, along with such nasty things as illicit substances to keep the models happy. I modelled in a more innocent period and I still think my pictures reflect this “innocence.”

One more question to go Mush—the most difficult and, from the standpoint of a memoir writer, the most important.

#35. Posted by Tony T on 11-06-2008

Originally Posted by shannon4027

……. Hard core modelling came along later, in the late 60’s/early 70’s, along with such nasty things as illicit substances to keep the models happy. I modelled in a more innocent period and I still think my pictures reflect this “innocence.”………

Your comment is interesting in that one of my favourite ‘model’ photographers is Bunny Yeager. In her book ‘Bunny’s Honeys’ she gives her reasons for moving away from the glamour photography she was famous for in the 50’s and 60’s. This being the fact that she didn’t like the move towards the more explicit poses that were being demanded by Editors “drawing direct attention to the vagina and more” – “the loveliness of a women’s body was gone”.

It is also interesting that in the 80’s demand for her work re-emerged and it is now still selling well.

TT.

#36. Posted by shannon on 11-06-2008

Geography again, but I’m sure we’ll get back to boobs eventually guys

Originally Posted by luckyloki

“The windswept waste of whitening flannel that is Victoria,” as Eric Patrick Nicol observed in Sense and Nonsense (1947). I take it the university you referred to is UBC, Shannon. Is their humor magazine still called The Ubbysey? I was born in Vancouver and spent several of my younger years living on Hope Island, across the Goletas Channel from mainland BC. I imagine the island is covered with condominiums now, and peopled with refugees from the California real estate market, but it was an idyllic place for a wee nipper when I was there. As for “harsh,” I recall only one snowfall on Hope Island and none in Vancouver, but Newfoundland might as well be above the Arctic Circle in its entirety. Were Newfie jokes in circulation while you were living there?

In 1965, Simon Fraser University opened its doors. I was a “charter student” of that institution. It was an interesting time to be there: the professors were so young there were few barriers between students and professors; about one-third of the students were “mature students” (over age 21); and many students were from working class families—the first in their families ever to attend university.

Victoria downtown in not yet covered with condominiums but things are starting to move in that direction. The city is still ringed by single-family housing. Also lots of senior-citizen “assisted care facilities” in an area that probably has more retirees per capita than any other city in Canada.

St. John’s, Newfoundland is not too far north—about the same latitude as Vancouver. BUT is gets an arctic air flow that never stops coming. Cold and very, very windy. And when it does snow, you shovel forever because the wind blows the snow into deep drifts.

Newfie jokes were told by all, including those who regarded themselves as “real Newfoundlanders.” (Before becoming a “real Newfoundlander” your family has to have lived for at least three generations on the island.)”:wink: Over the course of teaching there, I saw big culture change though. Once TV arrived, the almost incoherent accents started to go, and Costco arrived about 1997, making the people on the Avalon Peninsula (where nearly the entire population lives) just like everyone else—almost. How they can stand that wind is beyond me.

#37. Posted by rainman_927 on 11-07-2008

Originally Posted by Tony T

It is also interesting that in the 80’s demand for her work re-emerged and it is now still selling well

As usual, a very astute observation and commentary. It not only applies to the works of Bunny, but also, to Peter Gowland, Ron Vogel and others, that continued to photograph women in the 70-80s, as they had in the 50-60s. While there was more display of the pubic area, or it no longer being airbrushed or cloaked behind a prop, the focus was not on that area. The manner in which the areas was displayed was more natural than previousy permitted in the glamour/pinup genre.

Bunny’s comments were directed more to the Larry Flynt type of photography that emphasized the anatomy of the area. There was a 5-10 year period where many magazines went through their “Hustler phase” pushing the limits to out do each other in being explicit. To their surprise many, including Playboy, lost readership and ultimately returned to a more classic style.

I believe that when publisher’s realized their error, Bunny’s work became sought out once more. Bunny’s photography and its popularity is a reflection of her techniques of capturing a model that are timeless. Although, Shannon was not photographed by Bunny, her photos are reflective of Bunny’s style.

#38. Posted by shannon on 11-07-2008

Escapade Picture

Originally Posted by rainman_927

Shannon, I was editing some of my photos, removing logos, etc. and came across this pic. Immediately, I thought it was you. Is it you?

Yes. This is from the Escapade December 63 photo spread. I was the centerfold model in that spread also. I only discovered this magazine spread about a year ago. (This was the magazine I obtained after I first googled my modelling name.) I thought, when I saw it, that the whole spread was one of my better ones.

There is one picture in the set of me with a large panda bear. This brought back a few memories of that shoot. The photographer was quite young and worked with his wife. The wife thought up a lot of the props, she visualized me as an ‘innocent girl’ and I think this approach comes through in the series of shots.

charliels531 mentioned in his post a couple of days ago that a fair number of models were the girlfriends of photographers. I found that a number of wives worked as their photographer-husband’s assistant. Maybe these wives started out as their boyfriends’ models and ended up as their assistants. Just a thought, but if I remember correctly, the wife who worked as an assistant in this shoot was quite attractive. She could easily have started out as a model and ended up as an assistant.

#39 Posted by shannon on 11-08-2008

What draws you to become a nude model?

Mushashi7 asked:

The second part of my question is regarding what draws you to become a nude model? Is it the admiration of you as a female being and the excitement? Or is it the money that made the final decision?

This is a question I have been grappling with for two years, ever since I started writing. (It wasn’t an issue before I began writing.)

Two years ago I attended an intensive one-week workshop on “Memoir Writing.” The story I submitted for this workshop was “Boobs”—the narrative posted at the beginning of this thread. Our first exercise at this workshop consisted of examining the narrative of the person seated on our left and providing a ten-minute critique—a “round robin” situation. The woman who critiqued my story said: “I saw it as a girl with low self-esteem searching for a way to better herself.” I felt her perspective was partially correct but not dead-on.

Last summer I attended the intensive one-week “memoir” workshop again. This time I submitted a piece entitled “The Hollywood Studio Club” that I had failed to get published. As mentioned in earlier posts, my life took several twists and turns, and I have always felt that the period I lived at the Studio Club was a very positive turn—a time in which I learned a lot about myself by bonding with other girls. Furthermore, I wanted to get the story about the Hollywood Studio Club into the public because very little has been written about it and that which has been written consists mostly of negative incorrect myths. So I was disappointed when I was rejected because I thought it was quite well written.

Again our class critiqued each other’s pieces. The critique of my story was that “there was not enough of me in it.” Although I had mentioned lots of facts about my life, I was told I didn’t explain my motivations—why I made the choices I did.

So I have started re-writing The Hollywood Studio Club, adding background information about me. I am still at an early stage in this revision (but can use a lot of the old material). For example, in the first manuscript, in one of the early scenes, I initially wrote that I didn’t want to share a room, as thus:

I do not want a roommate, I thought, but didn’t say because I needed immediate accommodation. Socially inept in high school, ignored by most, I formed few friendships with my classmates. Once I began working in offices, first in Vancouver, then in Los Angeles, I made no friends among female co-workers, who were polite but distant, barring me from their closed circles. Not looking forward to living in a dormitory filled with females, I wanted a single room where I could isolate myself.
I changed this now to:

I do not want a roommate, I thought, but didn’t say because I needed immediate accommodation. Socially inept in high school, ignored by most, I formed few friendships with classmates. A high-achieving studious girl living in the wrong part of town, I did not fit in with the elite clique attending academic courses. On my first job—in Vancouver—my lack of interest in homemaker topics branded me an outsider among female co-workers. Before moving to Los Angeles, I altered my image, replacing thick glasses with contact lenses, bleaching brown hair a light champagne blond and losing ten pounds. This make-over attracted men—for the first time I had boyfriends—but other secretaries ignored me at my first Los Angeles job, although I made friends with African-American girls on the production line, which shocked the establishment because inter-racial friendships were discouraged in the Los Angeles of 1959. Everyone seemed relieved when I took a higher-paying position in a one-man office where my skills were appreciated and eccentricities overlooked. I quit 2½ years later, in June 1962, searching for a new career path, one that required living in a the Studio Club dormitory until I got established. I wanted a single room to isolate myself from the cruel social games females play on those who are different.
I don’t know if this is clear enough, but hope I am beginning to move in the right direction.

(By the way, Mush, I wrote this last section before I ever entered this internet site, so I don’t feel your questions too intrusive. They are queries I need to answer for myself, if I want to write a publishable narrative.)

A short answer to your specific question is thus:

The money was definitely a factor because as a secretary I made enough to cover my half of the rent and food costs for me and my son (my mother paid the other half), plus car payments, clothes, etc.—i.e., basic living costs. The modelling fees went into a savings account.
In high school I had been shunned. I know now that this was because my mother purchased a house in a poor working-class area of town. We were working-class, but my father made enough money—he was a highly paid construction foreman—to live in a better part of town. Mother, however, had no concept of class differences. She saw a bargain and purchased the house, not knowing that it would affect my socialization.
I mentioned I had no boyfriends when I was in high school. I would have had boyfriends had I wanted to socialize with classmates who lived in my area of town. But I wanted to socialize with classmates attending my classes—academically challenging classes—and all lived in the “better” section of town.
I had probably too much self-esteem in some ways. I refused to bow to cultural norms, refused to act in ways that others wanted me to act. But I thought that boys shunned me because I was unattractive, which wasn’t the case at all (when I look at it in hindsight).
When I finally got boyfriends, it was because I analyzed my physical attributes and chose what to emphasize in order to make me more attractive (not my boobs, but my face, small waist, fair smooth complexion, eyes, smile, etc.). Becoming a model was like winning a trophy—proof that I was indeed physically attractive.
I got into nude modelling because I was too short to be a regular model, and I wanted that trophy. Models of all types—nude and otherwise—are probably drawn to it because they want to be admired as “an attractive female.” Once I achieved this goal, I moved onto other goals. I think this is why you find nude models working for a year or two then moving on. There is not enough money in nude modelling to sustain a full-time career. If I could have made it a full-time career—and I tried for a short time—I would have remained a nude model for a longer period.

#40. Posted by rainman_927 on 11-09-2008

Shannon, thank you for your commentary. Your candor is appreciated. As a charter member of the “older than dirt” contingent of this group, I have been reading your posts with a great deal of interest. Too often, what one reads about nude models and the entire industry is colored by the writers perspective or agenda. Your “first person” narratives have provided an insight, that heretofore, was not available to many of us. The details about your experiences should help all of us to recognize whether what we read is really factual or a bunch of psycho mumbo-jumbo or revisionist tripe.

#41. Posted by sub006 on 11-09-2008

Originally Posted by milkmaniac

Shannon, at one point during this very interesting thread you mentioned that you grew to a EE cup. Would you have a picture or two of this to share with us? The idea of you at that size is just so tantalizing. Thanks.

Sweater, swimsuit or other clothed pictures also perfectly acceptable. PLEASE!

11-09-2008

#42. Posted by shannon on 11-09-2008

Pictures after modelling period

No pictures, either clothed or unclothed. At EE one looks fat.

I gained quite a bit of weight, then lost some of it, but my boobs stayed large. I see that in a few older women who are naturally well endowed; they may have gained weight then lost it for health reasons, but don’t lose the weight in the boobs. Even those women who have been artificially enlarged look fat to me. Maybe when you see their pictures nude you don’t think they look fat, but if you were to see them in person, clothed, you would think they were definitely overweight. Mine was a natural EE, but whether natural or artificial, I still think that EE looks fat. (Once I had breast reduction, down to a C/D size, l looked much better.)

(I do have one picture—fully clothed—that I couldn’t discard because it is me with my two grandchildren in Goldstream Park in 1999. But pictures of children are not allowed on this site. I only kept this picture because it shows me with my grandchildren, and I won’t even include it in my personal photo album—the one I show to friends—because I look fat.)

I have in my personal album a few pictures of me taken over the years, but all of them are fully clothed. I never had nude pictures taken after I stopped modelling at age 23. I won’t post a picture of me now, even though I have been told that I look “good for my age.” The crucial phrase is “for my age.” I don’t think that pictures of older women should appear on this site, any more than pictures of children. (By older, I mean, over 54. At 45, some women can still look good, but by 55, the illusion disappears This is true in men as well, by the way, although some men can carry the illusion until age 60.)

This internet site is based on illusions and fantasy. A picture of an older woman would destroy these illusions. I have shared a few pictures of me now—that is, at age 68— with friends, but I wouldn’t post them to this internet site. It would spoil the illusion created by those pictures in the folder “Gloria Dawn.”

My boobs grew overlarge between ages 55 and 60—and you won’t find pictures of me during that period anywhere.

#43. Posted by charlie on 11-10-2008

Shannon, your post about your reasons for modeling mentioned the critique of the essay you wrote, about “low self-esteem”, and reminded me of a radio program on National Public Radio here in the States. The program, Prairie Home Companion, has recurring episodes about two cowboys, Dusty and Lefty, who are in search of the meaning of life. Whenever they come to a new town, Dusty always asks the first person he meets whether the person can direct them to “a saloon that caters to women with low self-esteem.”

#44. Posted by rainman on 11-13-2008

Originally Posted by shannon4027

Does anyone in this group have copies of the photography books edited by Adophe Barreaux in 1963/1965? They feature photographs by two photographers I worked for and I wondered if any pictures of me were published in them.:redface: The books were:

Famous photographers photograph beautiful women (Donald Klumpp was one of the featured photographers), published in 1963 by Whitestone Publications;
Camera studies of figure beauty (Michael LeRoy was one of the featured photographers), published in 1965 by Whitestone Publication;
Figure studies of famous photographers (Donald Klumpp was one of the featured photographers), published in 1965 by Whitestone Publications.

I have looked through my collection of art and photography books and do not have any of these. I have been purchasing various used photography and art books/magazines through a couple of used book stores locally(Cincinnati) and on eBay. My purchases has concentrated primarily on finding ones by Peter Gowland, Bunny Yaeger and a couple of other photographers, therefore it is possible that they have been offered and I just do not remember seeing any featuring these photographers. I will check my sources on eBay and locally and advise you if I find anything.

#45. Posted by shannon on 11-13-2008

Photography books

Thanks rainman

I have found these books offered on the internet but will purchase them only if they contain pictures of me. I don’t collect glamour photography books per se. I find, however, that seeing pictures that I posed in helps bring back memories that I can use when writing my memoir.

By the way, a visitor to this site, who wishes to remain anonymous, informed me that the “test photo” that Peter Gowland took (which appears in the “Gloria Dawn” folder) has been published by Gowland twice, once in “Peter Gowland Photographs the Figure” (Whitestone #39 1962) and once in the “Figure Quarterly” V42 1965 (The Nudes of Peter Gowland).

11-13-2008

#46. Posted by shannon on 11-13-2008

Pictures after modelling

Originally Posted by sub006

Shannon, thank you for sharing so many memories from the other side of the camera. Tease us once in a while with a clothed picture of yourself in the still-attractive (your definition) years between 30 and 45.

There were not many pictures of me taken after I finished modelling (other than passport pictures and we won’t count them). Right now I am in the process of scanning about 600 slides into the computer, then I have to scan another 2000 photos into the computer. But the only pictures that were taken with me as the centre of attention were taken before I was age 16. After that, my personal photos have my son as the centre of attention. That is what parents do.

Other than pictures of me or my son when we were young, (or of my grandchildren when they were young), there were a few pictures of me taken during travels, but mostly I was the one taking the pictures, and if I appeared in these pictures I was part of the background scenery.

Only twice after I finished modelling did I have pictures taken with the intention of viewing them as portraits. In 1970 my roommate and I took a number of pictures of each other, using the photographers’ technique of taking lots of pictures so a couple would turn out okay. I just scanned this set into my computer. I had pictures taken because I had lost some weight, thought I looked quite good and wanted to preserve the moment. I don’t mind sharing this one with you here in the “thread” but I wouldn’t want it placed in the folder “Gloria Dawn” because “Gloria Dawn” existed only in 1962-63.

In this picture I was 30 years of age (actually closer to 31).:rolleyes:

I also had another “set” taken when I was 48 years old, but I haven’t found this group yet. These were photos not slides, and whereas my slides are in chronological order, my photos are in a big box, completely unorganized. It is going to take years to get them all organized and scanned.

#47. Posted by winger on 11-14-2008

Thankyou

Thankyou Shannon, for everything. All the great pics in the world of all my favs do not equal having you here sharing yourself with us! Such a beautiful woman you were and still are!

11-14-2008

#48. Posted by sub006 on 11-14-2008

Shannon,

Very cute picture, THANK YOU!

We are always so critical of our own appearances. That thumbnail-size shot at 30 could be a junior high school yearbook picture. No make-up, I guess.

You inherited wonderful genes from your birth parents. Beautiful face and figure, and evidently waking up most mornings looking decades younger than the calendar insists.

We look forward to a slow and tantalizing dribble of a few candid individual and cropped pictures of our “model” member after retirement.

Don’t some of you other guys agree?!?

Bless you, sub006

#49. Posted by Mushashi7 on 11-14-2008

Thank you for this enlightenment, Shannon. Forgive me for not responding to your explanation. I’ve had a lot on my mind the last week (and had a wisdom tooth removed that still kills me, lol).

I was wondering what actually makes women become models.
As I see it you just go one step further and expose your selves more than normal. But the basic reasons for doing so is burried inside every woman I think. Women has the need to be admired and acknowledged for what they are. Becoming a model means that society gives you this acknowledgement. It flatters you. And if you also get money it is quite a personal achievement.
This ‘need’ does not disappear, no matter how old you get, does it?

I don’t judge. I just try to understand the world and how it works.
It is not every day you have the chance to ask a real model these questions. 😉

And…I think no matter how old you get you will still be very beautiful. A face like yours never looses its grace, Shannon.

Mush

#50. Posted by milkmaniac on 11-15-2008

Shannon, thanks for the new picture you posted, and more specifically the nice answer you gave regarding pictures of you at a larger bra size. Your thoughtful answers and consideration are very appreciated.

#51. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Reply to Mushashi7: Need to be Admired

I think that all women who want to get married ask themselves whether they are attractive enough to allure men. In our current society, ‘being a model’ is the stamp of approval. Today’s society equates ‘model’ with attractiveness. Consequently, if you were to ask teenaged girls their secret goal, many would say to become a model or actress. It is not so much a career goal as a desire to be valued as an ‘attractive woman’ in the eyes of men (and other women).

Few actually take the first step towards achieving this goal. Even truly beautiful women seldom make the trip to New York or Hollywood to ‘try out’ for a modelling career. They fear failure, which would say to them “you are not attractive” even if they really are gorgeous and a thousand people told them they are gorgeous, if they tried and didn’t make it as a model, something inside would keep telling them they “are not attractive.” So it takes a brave woman to take even the first step.

These few brave souls are then placed under tremendous pressures to maintain their allure, and thus frequently develop ‘body image disorders’ — anorexia in fashion models, abnormal breast enhancement in nude models. (I am aware some men on this site find abnormally large boobs attractive, at least when looking at pictures, but I think natural is best, and certainly a lot healthier.)

How far a model will go to retain her status as ‘a model’ depends on the individual woman. I was quite willing to show my boobs (or naked buttocks) but I would not let anyone touch me. (One photographer found this out when he ‘brushed’ his hands against my breasts a couple of times. He never went any further, but I froze, and he never got any usable pictures—no happy, bubbly me flirting with the camera, just a sullen, upset model complaining about the cold.)

While I was modelling part-time, everything was fine; the modelling income supplemented my ‘day job’ pay. When I decided that I wanted to be a full-time model, I discovered there was not enough photography work to support full-time nude models. Models like me had to obtain promotional work to supplement the photography work. This involved doing trade shows, cheesecake poses in dealer newsletters, etc. I got one of the cheesecake dealer newsletter jobs through Ron Vogel—$50 for two hours work and they gave me two copies of the newsletter. In other words, good work if you could get it! But unless someone like Ron Vogel recommended you, you were f****d. And I mean that literally. My agent told me that if I wanted that type of work, I would have to have a ‘sugar daddy’ who had clout in that job market. I may have had bad taste in the men I picked, but I picked them—I controlled whether or not I wanted a relationship. So I went back to being a secretary.

Other models might have had different standards than me—but I think my approach was the norm, judging from the few nude models I met during that time. That is why you see them appearing for a year or two and then disappearing. Most of these models had other jobs, or husbands to support them, and the modelling fees just brought in ‘extra’ money. Those girls who got into this work and did not have another skill or source of support were the ones who got f****d royally.

Mush, you wrote: “This ‘need’ does not disappear, no matter how old you get, does it?” I am not certain what you are referring to. If you are referring to “the need to be admired and acknowledged for what they are” then you are correct, the need to be admired and acknowledged is always present, in both women and men, throughout life. Women and men all want to be admired and acknowledged for doing something—what that ‘something’ is differs from person to person.

If you are referring to the need to be admired as a sexy woman, then I think that this need does diminish with age, especially if one acquires other skills. I do not think the need to be considered ‘attractive’ ever goes away, in either women or men—but ‘attractive’ is not identical to ‘sexy.’ The young woman, looking to attract a mate, wants to be considered sexy. The woman who is no longer looking for a mate wants to be considered attractive by her peers—both males and females—but what these peers consider attractive can differ significantly. Currently, I belong to two groups. One is a ‘woman’s university group’ that draws intelligent upper-middle-class women who dress well, groom their hair regularly, etc. (we are talking about women aged 65-90). Some are married, some are widowed, but none is looking for a ‘mate.’ The other group is a yoga group that draws women (and a few men) aged 25-80 from all class levels and ‘attractive’ to this group is a healthy body, calm mind and devotion to the yogi path of life. Clothes and hair styling are irrelevant. I don’t think many in the yoga group are looking for a mate either, except possibly a few unmarried younger ones—and there are very few of those. Our yoga classes are not for dilettantes—they make us work hard.

And finally, thank you for your compliment, Mush, but our society does not usually admire an aging face. Once in a while, a portrait is taken of an older person—man or woman—whose face has acquired beauty through an inner calmness that shines through the wrinkles. But I haven’t reached this stage of grace yet—maybe I don’t have enough wrinkles—but most probably it is because I have not yet reached a stage of ‘accommodating acceptance.’ I am still a competitor, still resist doing what ‘others’ tell me to do. I can be taught, but not told, as those who try to bully this 68-year-old woman have found out.:smile:

#52. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Response to Bowser: Your Wife’s Response to Submitting Her Photos

Originally Posted by bowser

Dear Shannon,
My second question is more personal, and has to do with how you felt about modeling. In the first year or so of my relationship with my wife (back when she was my girlfriend and not my wife) I did black and white photography as a hobby. My wife was rather built and I took dozens of pictures of her, some posed, most candid, and tried to convince her to let me submit them to a magazine. I’m certain she could have been a nude model given her figure (she was 5′ 6″, 135, 36DD/28/36 and 20 y.o. at the time), but she would never let me actually submit any of the photos I took of her as she was too self conscious about it. So to get to the point, where you at all apprehensive or nervous about the prospect of doing nude modeling? Did you grapple at all with issue of body image and self esteem when first considering it and actually modeling? I ask simply because I’m curious to get the opinion of another woman other than my wife about this. It’s not like I can ask someone with that kind of background or experience every day.

Anyway, thanks for your time and anything you may care to post in response.

I don’t know your wife, so I can only offer hypotheses as to why she wouldn’t let you submit those photos.

Hypothesis #1: Fear of Failure, Part 1
Your wife may have feared the photos would be rejected by the magazine, making her appear less attractive to you, especially as she was only your girlfriend at the time. I had a self-esteem issue when Alice Gowland took me to meet Peter for the first time, because it was Peter, not Alice, who made the decision about whether I was usable. I think this shows in the heavy eye makeup I wore in my test photos. In person, eye makeup was the only makeup that enhanced my features. But it was too glaringly obvious in those test photos, so I cut it down for the actual Cavalier shoot and in all subsequent photo shoots. (I still wore light eye makeup in those shoots.)

Hypothesis #2: Fear of Failure, Part 2
You wife may have feared the photos would be rejected by the magazine as a consequence of your photography skills. Most women have far better eyes than men. She would know her own flaws. I could certainly list my flaws at any point in time. Professional photographers know how to hide flaws and highlight assets. Your wife could have compared the photos you took of her with photos in magazines and concluded the photos of her didn’t measure up. She simply may have had a better eye than you. (I once heard that Playboy received many submissions from boyfriends and husbands, nearly all of which were rejected in favour of submissions by professional photographers.)

Hypothesis #3: Fear of Society
You wife may have feared repercussions from society if she appeared in these magazines. Although tasteful figure modelling is more acceptable now than in the 60’s, there still is a stigma attached, particularly among women. Women set society’s mores, and women still do not like figure modelling. When they don’t like something, women can be very unpleasant to the woman who is doing what they do not like.:frown: (Read Jane Austin)

Hypothesis #4: Photography and Body Image
Your wife may have thought that she looked too fat in the photos you took, even though she knew she wasn’t fat. Photography distorts: a three-dimensional object becomes a two-dimensional image. If you have the lighting and angle correct, this distortion enhances the model’s looks. Usually, however, it makes some part of her body wider than it really is. This is why, as has been mentioned previously on this thread, professional photographers take 10 photos to get one good one.

I will answer the first part of your question in another posting, because it is specific to university topics and will not be of interest to most of the readers visiting this site, so they can skip it.

#53. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Response to Bowser: Boring PhD Discussion of University Topics

Originally Posted by bowser

Dear Shannon,

Let me add my thanks for your participation here on this site. I whole heartedly agree with everyone else here that a woman like you, with both beauty and brains, (a PhD no less) is indeed rare and impressive.

First, it seems your background is in cognitive and/or developmental psychology, from what I can see on the reference under your name on “Cognitive Mapping in a Complex Building”. I’ve noticed this has become somewhat of a hot topic again lately. I was fortunate enough to have received my BA in psychology at Cal Berkeley where I did my senior honors thesis with Stephen Glickman. He is emeritus there now but his first two years at Cal were also the last two that E. C. Tolman was there, who as far as I know is the progenitor of the entire field of research on cognitive maps. So my first question actually has two parts.

1) Are you still active faculty, or have you become emeritus? and 2) Are you still following this line of research. I ask merely out of curiosity.

The short answer to your question is that I retired in 2005. I moved from one side of the country to the other and so am not near MUN.

If you look up references to my academic work on the internet or elsewhere, you will see that I stopped publishing in 1988. This was deliberate on my part because I was not promoted to full professor. The department stopped the promotion—twice, once in 1983 and once in 1985. Had the department not stopped it, it would have sailed through the upper levels of the university and I would have felt compelled to carry on with my research program because I had been ‘rewarded.’

I found out belatedly that one female ‘colleague’ had been using dirty tricks to impede my acceptance amongst other colleagues ever since I had been hired. Mostly it didn’t work, but she got some to listen to her. Unfortunately none of my colleagues passed on her gossip to me—probably they just refused to listen and assumed that others in the department would ignore her as well. But she captured the ear of one influential department member and he had the power to block my promotion.

I didn’t find out about these dirty tricks until 1987, just before taking a two-year leave. A very good friend, a graduate student, told me that when I first arrived in the department, in 1973, this ‘colleague’ told everyone I was a nymphomaniac and when it became plainly obvious that I was not, she called me a ‘dried-up nymphomaniac.’

I was turned down for promotion, officially, on the basis of (1) low output (I only published 20 papers); and (2) poor references. I appealed this denial of promotion, arguing that although I had few research publications, they were of high quality, and were being cited by major researchers. The reason for such a small number of publications was that I had no graduate students—no one had graduate students because what graduate student is going to move to isolated Newfoundland when they can study in BC or Ontario. History has proved me correct on this point. My now-ancient publications are still being cited.

The Department Head refused to share the letters of reference with my Faculty Association Adviser or with the Appeals Committee, citing confidentiality. Thus my appeal was heard without me ever having access to these letters of reference; my Appeals Adviser was unable to question members of the promotion committee about “how” they viewed specific statements in these letters as negative. Much later, just before I retired, I decided I wanted to read these letters of reference, because now we had a union and our contract gave us the right to see letters of reference. Of the five referees, only one was negative; the other four recommended my promotion to full professor.

My revenge was to stop applying for grants and stop publishing academic papers—things that brought prestige to the university. Instead I started private contract work evaluating programs in government and non-profit agencies. These reports are not generally available to the public, although there is one on the internet, which for some reason does not come up when you google my name. It is located at: http://www.hrle.gov.nl.ca/hrle/publi…ergenFinal.pdf (Guys, this is boring technical information, not pretty pictures.) Google is still an imperfect search engine because my name is on this paper as “Principal Investigator.” I designed this project and all questionnaires, analyzed all qualitative data and wrote the report. I also got a lion’s share of the payment. My payment from this project alone made up for any monies lost by not being promoted to full professor in 1985. And there were many more projects than this one.

Needless to say, the university was upset because of how I got my revenge, and Queen Bee’s nose was a bit out of joint by my transition from academic researcher to successful consultant. [Just a note specific to Bowser: Research in Canada is handled a bit different than research in the US. Canadian grant recipients cannot be paid from the grant; it only funds research assistants, equipment and overhead, so there is no financial gain or loss associated with starting or stopping a research program in Canada, unlike in the US.]

Because I stopped my research program in 1987, I haven’t followed this line of research. My paper is often quoted in articles I don’t understand—I lost the thread of this research years ago. Tolman, by the way, studied cognitive mapping in rats. I studied cognitive mapping in humans—quite a different area of research. I think my paper is cited so often because it was one of the first to look at this topic.

#54. Posted by Mushashi7 on 11-16-2008

Thank you, Shannon.

I have never measured women by their popularity via public channels. When a model exposed her self she was just a woman who had chosen this. I felt more like a peeping tom having the chance to watch. A woman never became more attractive or valuable in my eyes because of this a such. I have my own taste in women and ‘exposed’ women were simply a selection of all the woman in the world..

There are thousands (millions…) of women who models. Many I don’t see anything special by (especially the very young ones).
I usually look at their faces first. This is where the beauty is to be found. This is the most important.
If a model have a ‘great body’ is a minor issue. Every woman is beautiful in one way or another.
I like a nice bust though. The larger the better I have to admit. I know it has no practical function if a bust is big or small. A large bust can’t produce milk any better than small ones. “It just makes a woman more woman”. Well, yes..ahem….

Take Toni Kessering for example. Her body is nothing close to the ideal woman (wasp waist etc.), but her bust and eyes does it for many watchers. She has those ‘snob eyes’ (bedroom eyes), a bit distant that seems uninterested in what they look at. That challenges men I think. And she is build ‘solid’. A real healthy farmer-wife to look at. Your first impression will be: Here’s a healthy woman that can produce a lot of healthy children.

Many men actually prefers polstered women. Soft, round and cuddly. The type they want to marry are the slim with wasp waists. But they dream of soft women with a few pounds extra on their waist.
I do not intend to be rude by this; but experiments have shown very clear that men produce and ejaculate much more seemen when they are interacting with a thick/big woman than a thin.
It is obviously something nature has arranged to secure the survival the fittest. So, nature does not dictate slim women as the ideal.

But the ideal we have chosen is an exaggeration and simplification of a womans curves. An optimisation, so to speak. Just think about the popularity of the classic Coca Cola bottle.
Looking at the ideal women in the middleages you do not see wasp waists, but a very solid woman type with tiny shoulders instead. In the stoneage it was even more significant; enormuous waist and thighs.

Especially today with the health problems that occurs with our digestion of food with too much fat, overweight, we will see the slim women type as the ideal for a long, long time.
In the past fat was nessecary for our survival. Now it is killing us. So, I think that ‘the ideal’ is determined by a common social instinct for survival.

Originally Posted by shannon4027

…but our society does not usually admire an aging face.

No, not on the surface. And not in the battle of the young ones life. But they will when they grow up and see things a little clearer.

For my part I adore mature women. They are so much more interesting. They have lost much of their naive innocence. They are experienced and more clever, even wise sometimes.
Maybe because I like ‘brainy girls’ more I see things this way. I have tried to live with ‘non-brainy’ girls, and it just doesn’t work out. I get annoyed within a short time. I miss the conversation.

It means a woman chooses to model because it gives her a status as being beautiful?
That is also what I thought. I can understand that.

Mush

#55. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Reply to Tony T

Originally Posted by Tony T

Shannon

Forgive me for asking the following in relation to your two answers to Bowser, if you feel that you do not want to answer it.

In the first you said in your 3rd hypothesis that “….Women set society’s mores, and women still do not like figure modelling. When they don’t like something, women can be very unpleasant to the woman who is doing what they do not like.”

Do you think this had any bearing on the attitude of your ‘adversary’ at university, that you referred to in your second answer, assuming she knew of your past – even though your modelling finished years before.

TT.

When I wrote these answers I thought an intelligent reader might connect these two postings and ask this question, as least in his mind, but I didn’t want to go on and on—the posting were long enough.

In this case, the answer is “no.” Just before I retired, I was talking (gossiping?) with one of the secretaries in the office and she said: “I have never seen two people with such diametrically opposite personalities as you two.” I had the feeling that Queen Bee would never stoop so low as to have a friendly gossip with a mere secretary. I did not make up this nickname—Queen Bee. I heard it used behind her back by several members of the university community.

Her nose was put out of joint when I was first hired and she was pushed down a notch because I already had a better research record than she did. She was a mediocre researcher—but mediocre was better than nothing in a department where one-third never did any research at all. I don’t think anyone in the department knew about the modelling because it never came up in discussions with friends. I never mentioned it by this time because it was old history.

Queen Bee picked up on my sexy appearance (I was still sexy at age 33) and what I refer to as my “flirty mannerisms.” I don’t know how better to describe them except to say that the image projected in my best “Gloria Dawn” photos reflected an inner me that didn’t disappear until I reached age 50+. I remember one evening, when I was 56, in a bar—I never went to bars, but this was a blues bar and I was the guest of the owner’s wife—when a man my age began flirting with me and I suddenly pulled back, realizing I didn’t want to enter into another relationship because I was a grandmother now and wanted to begin a new stage in my life. I finally learned to reign in my “flirty mannerisms,” but it was a conscious behaviour modification and I never stopped being loose and open in communications with others.

It was my tendency towards loose, open personal interactions that the secretary was referring to, in opposition to QB’s tightly controlled interactions with everyone.

What QB could not understand was why I was immediately welcomed into inner circles of the best researchers at conventions, etc. when she was left out in the cold. She didn’t understand that I could be loose and open on a personal level but extremely disciplined and meticulous on a professional level. So she did what many up-tight, shrewish women do—she attributed my success to “sleeping around” with these top-level colleagues. When it became obvious that I wasn’t, she changed her story to “initially gained entry by sleeping around.”

QB didn’t find many who believed her, but unfortunately she caught the ear of one very insecure person who was voted into a position of power precisely because the department thought he was ineffectual and wouldn’t rock any boats. This never happened again because he caused so much chaos (not just with me) but it was bad timing for me because this was precisely when I should have been promoted. I was 46 and grappling with changing research interests. If I had been rewarded for the contributions I already had made, I would have continued grappling with research questions—new questions—and smoothly changed into a new type of academic researcher. Because I was not rewarded for my past contributions, I evolved into a non-academic researcher—not a happy outcome for our department, which was seriously suffering from a lack of academic research output and relying on just a few—including me—to pull up its reputation in academic circles.

#56. Posted by Tony T on 11-17-2008

Shannon

Thank you for having taken the time to answer my query so fully – it is much appreciated. Presumably QB would have blown a fuse had she known of your earlier career.

4 thoughts on “From the Well-endowed Model’s Point of View”

Joseph Hofmann on March 20, 2013 at 4:14 pm said:

Glad you decided to save this. Wish I had saved some threads, especially the ones where Charlie pontificated about what and who ke knew in the business…fascinating! I miss him and Kevin greatly.

Reply ↓
- onmemories on December 12, 2018 at 4:51 am said:
  
  I am still in touch with both Charlie and Kevin. They are both Facebook “friends.”
  
  Reply ↓
nudnt on January 23, 2016 at 8:29 pm said:

To all models of the fifties, sixties and seventies! You are outstanding not only by bravely showing your beauty, You also prevented a lot of young girls to starve themselves.
I love you all!

Reply ↓
patpalmerpatrickpatrick Palmer Dublin Ireland on December 12, 2018 at 3:16 am said:

I came across this blog by chance and find it amazing. It is too much to read all at once so I will keep coming back to it.
Good luck with any future ventures.
George Harrison Marks is my hero !

Reply ↓

#1. Posted by shannon on 10-28-2008

Boobs

#2. Posted by winger on 10-28-2008

#3. Posted by kevin on 10-29-2008

#4. Posted by Shannon on 10-29-2008

#5. Posted by Mushashi7 on 10-29-2008

#6. Posted by javelin on 10-29-2008

#7. Posted by shannon on 10-30-2008

#8. Posted by winger on 10-30-2008

#9. Posted by Mushashi7 on 10-30-2008

#10. Posted by shannon on 10-30-2008

#11. Posted by rainman on 10-30-2008

#12. Posted by shannon on 10-30-2008

#13. Posted by rainman on 10-31-2008

#14. Posted by Shannon on 11-01-2008

#15. Posted by Shannon 11-01-2008

#16. Posted by Mushashi on 11-02-2008

#17. Posted by Shannon on 11-02-2008

Magazines and their models

#18. Posted by Shannon on 11-02-2008

Why Step Forward?

#19. Posted by Charlie on 11-03-2008

#20. Posted by Shannon on 11-03-2008

#21. Posted by kevin on 11-03-2008

#22. Posted by shannon on 11-04-2008

Answer to Winger

#23. Posted by Shannon on 11-04-2008

Answer to Kevin

#24. Posted by kevin on 11-04-2008

#25. Posted by Mushashi7 on 11-04-2008

#26. Posted by javelin on 11-04-2008

Sir Nov. 1966 “Boat Trip: Spread

#27. Posted by Shannon on 11-04-2008

Climate follies (sorry nothing about boobs and other interesting things)

#28. Posted by Shannon on 11-04-2008

Getting onto the academic path

#29. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

I kill houseplants too

#30. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Clarifying things for Mushashi7

#31. Posted by charlie on 11-05-2008

#32. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

#33. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Taste in men

#34. Posted by shannon on 11-05-2008

Kept a Secret?

#35. Posted by Tony T on 11-06-2008

#36. Posted by shannon on 11-06-2008

#37. Posted by rainman_927 on 11-07-2008

#38. Posted by shannon on 11-07-2008

Escapade Picture

#39 Posted by shannon on 11-08-2008

What draws you to become a nude model?

#40. Posted by rainman_927 on 11-09-2008

#41. Posted by sub006 on 11-09-2008

#42. Posted by shannon on 11-09-2008

Pictures after modelling period

#43. Posted by charlie on 11-10-2008

#44. Posted by rainman on 11-13-2008

#45. Posted by shannon on 11-13-2008

Photography books

#46. Posted by shannon on 11-13-2008

Pictures after modelling

#47. Posted by winger on 11-14-2008

Thankyou

#48. Posted by sub006 on 11-14-2008

#49. Posted by Mushashi7 on 11-14-2008

#50. Posted by milkmaniac on 11-15-2008

#51. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Reply to Mushashi7: Need to be Admired

#52. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Response to Bowser: Your Wife’s Response to Submitting Her Photos

#53. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Response to Bowser: Boring PhD Discussion of University Topics

#54. Posted by Mushashi7 on 11-16-2008

#55. Posted by shannon on 11-16-2008

Reply to Tony T

#56. Posted by Tony T on 11-17-2008

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4 thoughts on “From the Well-endowed Model’s Point of View”