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1950s Brooklyn Men All Agree: Women Need To Be Spanked
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 7, 2012
Modified Jul 7, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 7, 2012
Modified Jul 7, 2012
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We may now live in an age where softcore mommyporn paperback 50 Shades Of Grey is the most popular book in America, but things were a lot different in the 1950s: women were only spanked back then when they forgot this is a man's world. At least that's how the four Brooklyn men interviewed by defunct newspaper The New York Daily Mirror (see clipping above) saw things. Although all the responses are unnerving, we may have to give the monster prize to barber Frank Desiderio: "Yes, when they deserve it. As a barber, I've got a lot of faith in the hairbrush."
The New York Daily Mirror started in 1924 and ceased publication in 1963; this clip seems to be from the late 1950s, and perhaps gives an indication of why they didn't last through the '60s. Herman Martin, the man who proposed the question to the paper, deserves special recognition—although the fact the Daily Mirror went out and interviewed people about it is pretty horrible in and of itself. As a Jezebel commenter points out, there is a bit of poetic justice for them: the building where the Daily Mirror was published Martin lived is now the offices of the ACLU.
Tagged
brooklyn
fifty shades of grey
men
misogyny
sexism
spank
spanking
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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