Science Fiction Chicks with Whips

I was pleasantly surprised when my piece covering pulp magazine covers received as much attention as it did.  I take that interest to indicate that there’s still appeal to be found in those old classics.  Of course it could only be an indication of the internet’s hunger for PIKCHURS!, but I’d prefer to believe that it means that contemporary folks will be interested in this old stuff if only they can be exposed to it.

Interestingly enough, the subject of pulp art also plays into the discussion of free vs not-free fiction/promotion for fiction.

Most kids these days have never seen a real newstand or news store/magazine shop. They don’t know what it’s like to walk through a door and be assaulted by the heady smell of newsprint mixed with chocolate, to be able to feast their eyes on a galleric display of popular art that rivals the Louvre.

And most kids these days don’t realize that those covers were that era’s version of free teasers; you didn’t really need to read any of the magazines, there was plenty of free fiction on display right there on the cover.

But boy could they pull you in.  Which was, of course, the primary purpose of such art – to get you to buy the magazine.

Which brings us to today’s subject.  SF Babes.  More specifically, SF Cover Babes with Whips, and more generally , SF Cover Babes with a decidedly Dominatrix bent.

Of course everyone knows that sex sells. The publishers of pulp magazines were well aware of this fact and they delivered in spades (well, actually, they delivered mostly lily white, but…). Ripped bodices, hints of nipples, short tight skirts, all manners of titillation.

I’m not sure exactly where the S&M connection entered the picture, but it is an element of a lot of pulp art that seems to have been particularly embraced by the SF pulps.

Today, I present a few select images of SF Babes Weilding Whips, a fairly prevalent theme as you’ll see.  (I’ve also thrown in a few images of DOMINANT women who, while not displaying their floggers certainly have a closet full of them somewhere in the background.)  Tomorrow or the next day I’ll present the other side – SF Sex Slave Babes.

Hardly anything else needs to be said at this point, right? Obviously, every woman of the future comes equipped with a whip.  And high heels. And cute little anklets.  Neither are they afraid to use them.

 No whip here but the Dominatrix sensibility – absolute ruler without question, get on your knees and grovel, worm! is in full display.

…treating men like beasts of burden…

putting them in their place when they get a little uppity and take on airs…

or putting other women in their place when they have the gaul to steal diaphenous robes…

even if their victims do sometimes get the better of them

only momentarily though.

It’s amazing how egalitarian and open-minded they were back in those days, isn’t it?

1933!

1933! See what happens when you outlaw recreational drugs? We end up with magazine covers that can’t even show a nipple!