Did you ever notice the boys and men saved the lingerie pages until last?
For one thing, a lot of them were glossy, and didn't serve the purpose real well.
'Course, the main reason was that was the closest thing to Playboy we had!
Ya'll were hurting for literature back then if the lingerie pages of the Sears and Roebuck catalog were exciting. No wonder so many old Southern guys have eyestrain problems. It was always so dark in there.
I used to cut paper doll families out of the catalog. Only the sizes never worked out quite right. When I found a Mama and a Daddy I wanted to ride around in my matchbox car with their son and daughter, the Mama always turned out huge and the Daddy I cut out was little bitty, same for the kids, they never matched. This playtime activity was done in the middle of the living room floor, though. When a catalog was promoted to the status of toilet tissue, it was no longer paper doll material.
You're right, though. The slick pages were rejects in the Charmin category. - We did graduate to real toilet tissue at some point. I think it was about when we moved halfway across the state and rented an apartment with an indoor toilet. The catalog didn't fit on that little toilet tissue holder on the wall.