By David Futrelle
For years I’ve been chronicling the manosphere’s obsession with the so-called “cock carousel,” that wondrous merry-go-round of endless zipless sex allegedly enjoyed by every twentysomething Western woman, but off-limits to all Western men except the Chadliest top twenty percent.
Well, it looks like I’ve finally found the first rider of this sex-go-round, and she’s a bosomy fictional slattern named Elaine, brought to life in the 1963 pulp novel This is Elaine by someone called Jason Hytes. If the front cover is any indication, Elaine was not really that into shirts.
I have not read the book — which you can purchase used for $28.50 on Amazon — but the back cover gives a bit more detail on the perverse world of Elaine and her naughty friends.
Wait, wouldn’t the carousel have to still be working for anyone to get off?
H/T — @pulplibrarian, whose tweet was pointed out to me by former regular WHTM commenter @pecunium; I found the back cover on Pop Sensation.
Maybe the Eastport economy needed an entertainment industry?
My students informed me yesterday of a woman who recently married a theme park ride. Now I understand.
Then again, they also told me it was illegal to carry more than 50kg of potatoes in Western Australia, so…
So, on the back cover synopsis, ‘the wrong hands’ means ‘feeemale hands’, right? At least indirectly. I dunno, haven’t read it, but that’s what it seems like
Also, what the fuck happened to the Looney Toons theme towards the end? I don’t like this Bill Lava guy…
@ mish
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_sexuality
I’ll have to conduct further research into the potato thing.
@Mish
Apparently this is actually true, due to lingering price controls from the 40s.
@Buttercup
I have an image of a very adult theme park now. I’ve worked out a price for a cock carousel, now I just need to figure some other rides…
Is this trashy novel really set in Eastport, Maine? That’s truly, incongruously, weird.
Sinkable John -“This reads like MGTOW pulp.”
Agreed. I thought it was until I realised it was an actual book written in the 1960s. Maybe Jason Hytes was a MGTOW?
This book sounds like a load of crap. The only reason I am remotely interested in reading this is because I share a name with the main character. Yep, my name is Elaine.
This honestly reminds me of an early version of the “wild teen party” trope. You know, the parties you always see on movies and TV shows, full of early-twenties “teenagers” played by attractive aspiring actors, where everyone is always dancing and drinking and there’s an unspoken waiting list of people slipping off to have sex in an upstairs bedroom. Everyone knew teens were having these parties–even though most people hadn’t been to one and didn’t know anyone who had–because the media told them so.
I actually went to a few parties in university, and there was drinking, but it was mostly talking, eating, playing board or card games, and the sexiest it got was established couples cuddling and a few drunks wanting to hug everyone goodbye. Maybe I just went to the boring parties, but I doubt *all* the other parties were massive rave-orgies. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
It’s always “everyone knows” a vague group of “those people” who are having lots of sex, and everyone knows someone who knows someone who’s been involved in some hilarious hijinks like on TV…that they copied from TV, and everyone knows…
And because the media tell us other people are having all this fun that we’re never included in, it makes those people who believe everything they see on TV very, very jealous: why can’t *we* get entrance into the top-secret special sex-clubhouse? Of course it exists–you just want to keep us out!
I have yet to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Though I have seen a pretty neat post proposing that Jessica Rabbit may be ace.
Why are we singling out Elaine? The back cover says clearly that there are 4 ladies and some unspecified number of men involved. Why Elaine specifically?
Inquiring minds want to know.
@PoM
We’re singling out Elaine, cos it’s the book’s title. The author is singling out Elaine, probably cos she’s the insert for his mom/high school crush/(ex) wife. Probably…
Well, yeah, that’s what I meant. When I say “why are we doing this” I mean “why is the author doing this.”
… what? It makes perfect sense in my head.
I live in Maine, and this is extra hilarious because Eastport’s major industry is canning sardines.
Or was, since the last plant closed in 2010. All the newspapers blamed overfishing and automation, but I think we know what really happened. Elaine’s nimble hands, clipping the heads and tails off herring and packing them in oil, again and again…How could the perverts be expected to contain themselves?
@PoM
Yeah, I figured. ‘We’ can totes be used as a derisive ‘you’. I’m just an insufferable pedant and couldn’t resist ?
*Pokes head in thread*
I just wanted to pop in here to express how deeply I love the word “slattern”.
*Continues on her merry way*
Because of the sudden topic swerve between Mish’s first and second sentences, I thought that it was illegal to MARRY more than 50 lbs. of potatoes, which seemed like an extra-bizarre law. Less than 50 is okay, but more than 50 is terrible?
@Troubelle
I haven’t seen it either. Link to the post? I promise I’ll only read it after I watch the movie 🙂
Boner coaster
Tit-a-whirl
Bump and grind cars
(smacks forehead)
Suddenly, it all makes sense. Their entire worldview…is based on TRASHY FICTION! All this time, I was thinking they were watching too many bad rom-coms, and it turns out that they were just reading too much bad erotica.
(And 60-to-80-year-old men’s pulp mags, too…which I’m sure overlap with this category considerably.)
I live in Maine, and this is extra hilarious because Eastport’s major industry is canning sardines.
Or was, since the last plant closed in 2010. All the newspapers blamed overfishing and automation, but I think we know what really happened. Elaine’s nimble hands, clipping the heads and tails off herring and packing them in oil, again and again…How could the perverts be expected to contain themselves?
So, is their plan to decay for a couple of decades, then open an aquarium, ala Monterey, California? Of course in Monterey they make much of Steinbeck, does Eastport have any other literary grandeur than Elaine?
The 50 kg of potato is interesting.
Incidentally, I tested the idea of shipping root stock by boat to Iqaluit.
Beets did great, one rotted but the rest are good.
Onions did ok, many need some peeling and some were dead but most are fine.
Potato: I don’t remember doing this but putting an impermeable layer below them was a brilliant move, as they all liquefied.
Safe to say I won’t be shipping more than 50 kg of potato to Iqaluit ever.
Well, yeah, Eastport also has Betty, Ruth, and Marjorie.
@Axe
Sadly, I do not have immediate access to the post.
It’s Maine. There’s gotta be a reference to Eastport in a Stephen King story somewhere.