Betty Page. She was legendary. She was iconic. She was the fetish pin-up goddess in garters with skin hugging underwear exposing more flesh per soft pornographic photographic inch. Riding crop in hand held high over a groveling sex slave on all fours, collared and leashed and begging for mercy. This scene along with girl on girl spankings, humans trained as ponies and household pets, and breasts with nipples the size and shape of flying saucers, and pubic gardens of Betty Eden exposed thick as the underbrush of a briar patch all combined for one hell of a career and sexual legacy. She was after all, Betty Page. Queen of the Pin-ups.
Page was more than a Pin-up with a whip. Sometimes she was the whipped. She could go Dom or Sub faster than a card shark could palm an Ace of Hearts. She pushed the envelope of freedom of sexual expression in an uninhibited, and for the times, unorthodox free spirited style. Soft porn with an edge that was vaginal and visually pleasing. She was in the vanguard of the avant garde in sexual freedom, along with others who came later, Tempest Storm, Lily St. Cyr and Carol Doda. They were to sexual freedom that Lenny Bruce and Mario Savio were to freedom of speech.
She inhabited a world dominated by burlesque strippers, topless and bottomless, gyrating hips and the promise of sexual nirvana. The adult club scene. Sleazy to say the least, with patrons handing off hard-ons in the dark seats of the smoky theater. Peep show nickelodeons where for quarter you and your girlfriend can get a taste of girl on girl, girl on boy, boy on boy, makes no difference. In the back the private fantasies are entertained with a caged performer as you sit and direct the action, he or she will do as ordered and instructed from self spankings to barking like a dog in heat collared and leashed. The peep show the peek show the stripper on stage warming it up for the mud wrestling twins from Japan to roll around for patron amusement and living off a few tips for tits.
It was a revolution, a sexual revolution and this uprising (no pun intended!) was led by an unassuming Xena who wasn't aware of her own powers at the time or the mark she would leave on history, women's rights and pop culture. It was the coming of age of Betty bondage, fetish with flair and sexy spankings that were out of this world. (Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it!)
So, just who was this Warrior Princess who could cause a male hard-on at twenty paces blindfolded..and bound?
Betty Mae Page was not born, contrary to popular opinion in the Twin Cities of Sado and Masochism. Betty's roots, however are deep in America's Bible Belt, of all places. The book of Genesis was about to turn the other cheek as Betty would eventually bare her cheeks for some sexy spanking scenes that probably were part and parcel of daily living in Sodom and Gomorrah. The Queen of the Pin-ups, was born in 1923 in Nashville, the Country Music Capital of the World. Her mother was part Cherokee Indian, which accounts in part for Betty's stunning beauty and exotic dark good looks that could handcuff a man in under ten seconds and bring him to his knees in submissive worship begging on all fours.
In High School she excelled in oral activities. Don't go there! She was the star of the debate team and cracked the whip as editor of the school newspaper and the yearbook. Graduating in 1940 she set her sights on a teaching career and enrolled at the Peabody School for teachers. I would have volunteered as her Teachers Pet in a flash, and being the high school drop out that I am, I would have not only stayed in school, but, I would have stayed after class to clap her erasers and submit to a little old fashioned corporal punishment at her hands.
After graduation and obtaining her degree, her path veered off into some offbeat directions. Her compass needle wasn't aimed in the direction of molding young minds, so moved to California to give Hollywood a shot. She screen tested for MGM and bombed out! Betty Bombed Out! Unbelievable! That's like saying Woody Allen could beat Sylvester Stallone in an arm wrestling competition. Now that is unbelievable! She ended up working as a secretary and modeled on the side.
At one point she moved to Jamaica in it's pre-Marley colonial days, again, working as a secretary in the land of Voodoo but soon moves back to the states. New York City in fact to be precise, where she begins a modeling career for "camera clubs" which were fronts for the production of porn flicks and photos. She was not shy by any means and she became in demand as one hot property.
In 1950, one photographer told her that her forehead was too high, so she masked it by coming her hair forward giving birth to the Betty Page Look that since has become legendary and iconic. You can see this trail of emulation in MTV's Katy Perry and her rocker bangs and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Even the Pussycat Dolls owe allegiance and homage to Betty's Bangs. Today walk down the street and any goth girl is a walking rockabilly Betty Page Doll. I've even seen some guys sporting the Page look but, it's not the same. The erection factor just isn't there, at least all the time, there may be an exception or two.
The camera clubs provided hot bondage photos by subscription only to circumvent the puritanical and outdated pornography laws that are as ludicrous as the marijuana prohibition laws. Give me pornography, or give me death! Yeah baby. Let's hear three cheers for the land of the free and the home of we, the depraved where we are deprived of good old fashioned soft porn. I guess America was always in fear that a populous with a perpetual hard-on would attack Congress for a change, instead of Congress having the American citizen bend over forwards and take it in the ass every election.
In time dear Betty attained the high priestess status of Queen of Bondage and it is estimated that there were over 2,000 photos taken of her in underwear, wielding whips, getting her ass spanked in some fantastic girl on girl action, and vice versa.
In the early Fifties she appeared in over 50 short reel stag films as well as two movies, Stri-O-Rama and Varietease!
The Page tale gets murky her and downright bizarre. In 1959 Betty is born again! What the fuck? She not only finds Jesus, but ends up working for various religious organizations and for hot damn, Billy Graham himself! Billy knows a good thing when he sees it, besides the bible is full of bondage, prostitution and slavery, so here was the real thing right before his eyes. In the beginning..there was Betty Page! I'd say the bible thumpers were now thumping something other than bibles, eh?
By 1979 the aged Page refused many interviews as renewed interest in her skyrocketed. In the few interviews she did grant, it was apparent she didn't realize her own fame or infamy in this case. Betty cracked her last whip in 2008 at the age of 85. In 2011, Forbes Magazine published its Dead Celebrities List of Top Earning Dead Dudes and Dudettes. Betty Pages estate came in at 6 million dollars a year, in the number 13 slot, tied with George Harrison and Andy Warhol!
Ok, so we take bondage for granted now, but, Betty page was the pioneer, blazing a bondage path through a new frontier of derrieres. Her legacy lives on and when we are ready to turn the page on a new chapter of bondage, forgettabout it, Page wrote the book!
THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES BOOK By Mike Marino
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