The Art of Donald McGill (George Orwell on dirty postcards)

Newcastle University (Ausralia) ^ | George Orwell

[Salman]

A recurrent, almost dominant motif in comic post cards is the woman with the stuck-out behind. In perhaps half of them, or more than half, even when the point of the joke has nothing to do with sex, the same female figure appears, a plump ‘voluptuous’ figure with the dress clinging to it as tightly as another skin and with breasts or buttocks grossly over-emphasized according to which way it is turned. There can be no doubt that these pictures lift the lid off a very widespread repression, natural enough in a country whose women when young tend to be slim to the point of skimpiness. But at the same time the McGill post card—and this applies to all other post cards in this genre—is not intended as pornography but, a subtler thing, as a skit on pornography.

[Salman]

A bit of Orwell for your enjoyment. He wasn't exclusively a political writer.

[KantianBurke]

If you think you had it bad in school, read his essay "Such,such were the joys." :>

[RightWingAtheist]

Norman Podhoretz once related how Orwell was verbally attacked during a speech by a young pacifist and communist named Alex Comfort, who later wrote the notorious Joy of Sex (an important rite of passage for all Gen-Xers is stumbling upon this book in your parent's bedroom :-)