Off Key

Who Evil Thinks

The becoming lack of modesty that has always been such a prominent characteristic of American advertising, is still just that. And if anything it is getting more so. Time was when corset advertisements were the only public ventures into the realms of the great undressed, and although nasty little schoolboys used to gaze longingly upon them on long train trips and on warm evenings, the pictures were comparatively chaste.

Not so, however, nowadays. And now that men's corsetry has come to the fore in America, things are much worse. Paunchy old men have been taking eight inches off their waists with the Well belt for many a year now, but they at least were old men, and fully dressed. The modern trend to a greater perfection in dress, heralded by the invention of the zipper, has let down all the bars.

And if the perusal of foundation ads used to affect little schoolboys, think what a reading of Esquire must do to a sensitive girl. She starts off by finding a young man on page 13, pictured in four colors and little else; the else however gives him "cool comfort and body ease" while being "so brief he doesn't know he's wearing them." A few pages further on she is thrilled by "the greatest thing they ever did to pants" (this is an old favorite), both these before she even approaches the reading matter.

That isn't so bad. But if any young thing wanders into the inner depths of the magazine, where they continue the stories, she finds the answer to the squirmer's prayer--something with a "Y-front," presumably for Yale men, which protects squirmers from becoming "nervous nonentities" and "makes sitting a joy." Soon comes Mr. 1937 stepping out in "the new order of the day in next-to-body wear for men," which for a nominal fee gives you "a flat midriff and a military swing."