The Lure Of National Geographic

As I came of age in the 1960s, my older brother and I relished a visit to my grandmother’s house in Westbrook, Maine, since piles of National Geographic were stacked chronologically in her attic. We would disappear into the dusty atelier for hours, poring through the magazines for photos of naked women; mostly African, Asian, Melanesian, or Amazonian. It was our first exposure to naked women, however neither of us understood why white women were racially unacceptable to the editors of the National Geographic and their exclusion from my early years of sexual awakening meant that the only other source to see naked white women was in stroke books and those women accepted everything. To this day a white woman clothed or naked conjures up a succubus of deviant behavior. Maybe if national geographic had published photos of naked white women on a beach in the South of France I'd hold my females of my racial make-up in higher esteem.

At least sexually. Of course now there are no more naked women in National Geographic. The religious right wouldn't accept such an outrage. Even for women of color.