I might as well go full NSFW here--well, not me, but this site which details WWII sexual psyops. The various countries embroiled in WWII used (or tried to use) sexual suggestions to demoralize enemy troops.
This site details the perversion, the anti-semitism, and the psychology used on your (great?)grand-parents to get them to surrender or turn back. In this day of "2 girls 1 cup" (never seen it, thanks) these pictures seem positively quaint, but they're not all blurred out so beVARE (as Bela Lugosi would say).
Interestingly, the author's thesis is that these psychological attacks had the reverse effect. The men would use the naked girl pictures as pin-ups. This tells you something very basic and true about beauty, if true. The picture--the promise of beauty, love and sex--completely overrides any text.
In the soldier's mind, it's the girl he's fighting for. And since she's in his mind, he's not likely to believe any of your libelous statements about her. She's Rita Hayworth in The Strawberry Blonde or Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not or maybe even Judy Garland in Love Finds Andy Hardy.
You're likely to just make him mad by suggesting anything else.
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Don't forget Joan Leslie...voted by the troops as the girl they'd want to go on a date with! Still around by the way!
ReplyDeleteSomewhat OT, but: I'm surprised to see that the first book cited in the link, Psychological Warfare by Paul M.A. Linebarger, after going through at least 3 hardcover editions, is now out of print and a $125 to $1,000 rarity. Since Linebarger was "Cordwainer Smith," the author of so much fine sf, you'd think it would be kept in print by fans, anyway, as part of a Collected Works.
ReplyDeleteOr, [strokes beard], is it being suppressed by sinister forces who would just as soon bury the entire notion of psychological warfare? Hmmmm.
I think a lot of sci-fi from the early part of the 20th is in danger of being lost, alas.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about Talbot Mundy the author of the great
ReplyDelete"Tros of Samothrace."
Also more recent works by Karl Edward Wagner such as his "Kane" books are slipping away.
And Robert Adams Horseclans novels.
And John D Macdonalds Travis Magee series.
So many great authors go out of print and some great series are snuffed out.
Hey let's really torture those nasty terrorists. We can drop naked photo's of Nancy Pelosi on the Taliban.
ReplyDeleteIt's a win-win.
Whoa, Troop. Geneva convention and just basic human decency.
ReplyDeleteWhat vintage Nancy are we talking about?
ReplyDeleteI mean, anything between the ages of 18 and 37 and those pics might not be too bad.
Current photos, not so much.
(here's an old family photo she has up at speaker.house.gov, and is it just me, or does it look like at least two of the dudes in this 'family' photo are totally checking her out?)
(and somehow, she let slip a pre-tightening photo on her website, O'Neill died in '94, so that shot is at least 15 years old, and possibly 20 years ago, yet she had saggier skin then, than now)