Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "Prostitutes as Wives" (1971)

Can you turn a ho into a housewife? Ed Wood has some thoughts.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).

The article: "Prostitutes as Wives." Originally published in Orgy (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 3, no. 4, November/December 1971. Credited to "Dick Trent."

Excerpt: "The full time prostitute has become bored with the whole sex scene. It has meant nothing to her. And when she finally gives it up as a lost cause she is giving it up happily. Nothing is going to make her more happy then to know she has the same man coming home to her every night and it will be the same man she will wake up to the next morning."

Andy Kaufman marries a hooker on Taxi.

Reflections: When I was reading Ed Wood's 1971 article "Prostitutes as Wives," I could not help but remember what actor Peter Fonda, star of Easy Rider (1969), told Rolling Stone writer Elizabeth Campbell about the title of his most famous film:

"Easy rider" is a Southern term for a whore's old man, not a pimp, but the dude who lives with a chick. Because he's got the easy ride. Well, that's what's happened to America, man. Liberty's become a whore, and we're all taking the easy ride."

"Prostitutes as Wives," I suppose, is Ed Wood's take on these "easy riders," the ones who decide to make the arrangement permanent, but he seems to view them more favorably than Peter Fonda did. In fact, this article weighs the pros and cons of marrying prostitutes and concludes that the former outweigh the latter. Yes, Ed says, men should marry prostitutes!

Ed begins this piece by describing the same sexual double standard that was at the heart of yesterday's article, "A Look at the Nymphomaniac." Namely, young men are expected to be sexually experienced by the time they marry, but young women are not. A girl is supposed to be virginal and pure until her wedding night. But this brings with it its own set of problems, as Ed explains:

But here comes the rub! Even though she must be a virgin, he expects all the pleasures of a professional. If she doesn't know what it's all about he feels cheated. She is just a 'dumb broad' who doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. How can women be so dumb? He might just as well do what he has done for years . . . masturbate. It would be just about as exciting. 

This is an unworkable and unfair system that is quite cruel to the ladies. Incidentally, Ed provides us with a list of derogatory terms directed as sexually-active young women—not just the usual ones like "tramp" and "bitch" but obscure ones like "turkey," "gobbler," and "clap trap." That last one is kind of clever, I must admit. Mean but clever.

So if marrying virgins is impractical, how about marrying hookers instead? Ed informs us that, after years of taking on male clients, many prostitutes are looking to get out of the business and settle down with a nice guy. They're experts when it comes to pleasing a man, after all, and they're very unlikely to cheat on their husbands and ruin a good thing. You don't have to worry about them getting pregnant unexpectedly either, because ex-prostitutes are very careful about birth control. You might worry about venereal diseases, since they've had so many partners, but Eddie says it's not a problem. He writes:

As any doctor, who has examined these prostitutes will tell . . . they are among the cleanest agents around. This is because the professional prostitute has learned early that her body is the only thing she has to sell . . . to use for making a living. And she is not going to sell a diseased or crippled body. She learns all the protections there are and she practices those protections thoroughly. And she generally has her own personal physician who takes care of her regularly. Few ever become unknowing, unwilling carriers. 

So everything's coming up roses for the man who sees a streetwalker and decides to put a ring on it. According to Ed, this type of gent "has everything, sexually, going for him." This is actually one of the more focused and coherent articles in When the Topic is Sex. Ed might've even been sober or semi-sober when he wrote it. 

What's great about Ed Wood as a writer is that he will approach a topic from an angle that I had not anticipated. I assumed, for example, that this article would be about men who marry experienced prostitutes, i.e. women who have been employed in "the world's oldest profession" for years and are looking to retire. And that is what "Prostitutes as Wives" is mostly about. But Ed also writes about housewives who become prostitutes either out of boredom or to supplement their husbands' meager income. This is an entirely different situation.

Ed Wood does not seem to approve of these "amateur" housewife prostitutes. Unlike the professionals, these silly women don't know how to protect themselves against diseases or unplanned pregnancy. Men are liable to end up with a child who looks suspiciously like the blond-haired milkman. No, says Ed, what you want is a woman who used to be a hooker, not one who aspires to be a hooker. Just one of the many valuable life lessons to be found within When the Topic is Sex.

Next: "The Pimp" (1972)

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Poughkeepsie Odyssey, Part Five by Greg Dziawer

Wed Woods: Ed Wood's parents, Edward and Lillian, tied the knot in 1923.

Save the Date

Submitted for your approval: an item from the Saturday, December 1, 1923 evening edition of The Kingston Daily Freeman.

Married on a Wednesday: Ed Wood's parents.

Wood-Phillips 

Miss Lillian Charlotte Phillips, daughter of Mrs. F.J. Phillips of 10 Columbia street, Poughkeepsie, and Edward Davis Wood, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bryan Wood of Stone Ridge, Wednesday evening, were married at the parsonage of the Hedding Methodist Church. The ceremony was performed at 7:30 o'clock by the pastor, the Rev. George H. Chesebro. The bride wore a gown of gray satin with over dress of canton crepe, a blue hat with gray trimmings and her flowers were white roses. Miss Ina Wright attended the bride as bridesmaid. She wore a blue cantou crepe gown with hat to match and carried pink roses. Philip Depew was best man. Following the ceremony, a reception was held at the home of the bride which was attended by about twenty-four guests, relatives and intimate friends of the couple. The couple have received a number of wedding gifts. After a wedding trip, they will make their home at 10 Columbia street, Poughkeepsie.

That modest announcement details the matrimony of Edward Davis Wood, Sr, and Lillian C. Phillips. They are—you are quite right—the parents of Edward Davis Wood, Jr, born 93 years ago in Poughkeepsie, New York, on October 10, 1924.

Kingston, New York, was 20 miles or so north of Poughkeepsie, just over the Hudson on the western side. The article no doubt appeared here owing to this area, West by northwest of P'oK across the river and over the bridge, being the patriarchal ancestral home of the Wood family after settling in Ulster County on the west side. His maternal ancestors hailed from the east side of the river, just north of Poughkeepsie. Ulster was known for its fertile farmland and rich limestone quarries. 

Poughkeepsie was an early urban center as Dutch settlers flocked there, as they did a generation before in Ulster County (the first explorers having landing there in the 1640s), and west across the Catskills and north into Quebec. As early as 1680, Dutch immigrant land barons were granted deeds from Native Americans, and in 1692, the first house was built in Poughkeepsie, just on the the edge of the river on the east side of town, half a dozen or so blocks north of the home in which Ed's parents first resided. 

I had previously mentioned that Ed's parents were married in 1922. Seeing this article, that was clearly wrong; they were not married until 1923. Within mere months, Eddie was conceived, likely at the residence mentioned in the article, 10 Columbia Street. Columbia ran and runs perpendicular to the river, and—I don't know if this is the building that stood there or not—the street corner today crossing a narrow street, with a narrow sidewalk on the residential side toward the river, in a vicinity sparsely populated by homes. On the southeast edge of P'oK is the exclusive Hudson Pointe, now (houses selling in the range of $300-400K, the corner of 10 Columbia St in front and to the right of the development's entry sign, looking across the river). 

In late 1923, when the young married Woods moved in with Frances, Eddie's maternal grandmother, the river was a stone's throw away. I haven't ascertained, just yet, exactly where Eddie's parents were living when he was born in late 1924. Half a dozen years later, Ed, his younger brother Howard (commonly known as William) and his parents were still living with the mother-in-law (Frances J. Phillips) at 44 Conklin Street. Until he joined the Marines and left Poughkeepsie in the spring of 1942, Ed and his family moved around—half a dozen or so addresses—within a narrowly circumscribed radius of a dozen or so blocks. Over time, doubtless impacted by the Great Depression, his family resided in increasingly spartan digs. 

Ed's maternal great-grandfather Samuel Phillips married his great-grandmother, Martha Emory. The Phillips side of the family hailed from the east side of the Hudson, just north of Poughkeepsie, where his mother Lillian is now buried. 

Eddie's maternal grandfather Frank Phillips, born in 1871, married Frances, his maternal grandmother. Ed's mother Lillian Charlotte Phillips was born in 1901. The reputed influencer of his transvestism, she lived until 1989. 

The marriage announcement incorrectly names Eddie's paternal grandfather Byron as "Bryan," married to Emily. Byron passed in 1925, so it's unlikely Eddie had any remembrance beyond family photographs and anecdotes. 

10 Columbia Street (as seen in this interactive map) was, in 1923, half a dozen or so blocks south, closer to the river than any other residence of Ed's in P'oK, of the soon-to-be-constructed Mid-Hudson Bridge. Columbia runs right into Franklin St, moving east, the oft-cited place of Ed's upbringing. 

When Ed was born, the beginning of the Mid-Hudson bridge project was 6 months away, and not completed until 1930. Ed's ancestral roots, lying tantalizing close just across the river, remained remote as his consciousness dawned. South of Albany, in 1923, there was no vehicular crossing of the Hudson.

Far to the west, Hollywood must have seemed a long way off.

Additional images for this week's article, including the original marriage announcement for Eddie's parents, are available at the Ed Wood Wednesdays Tumblr. Enjoy.

Sally and Ted Forth secretly want to kill each other

The characters of Sally Forth descend into hell, a few panels at a time.

Marriage is a long haul. And no one knows that better than the characters in syndicated comic strips, where people generally don't age (or age much) and everyone is stuck in some kind of Groundhog Day-esque nightmare loop of time. That little parody up there is based on a real Sally Forth strip. It took very little to make it very bleak indeed. On the bright side, though: prime rib!

Leroy victorious!

It had to end with one of them dying.

King Features Syndicate released the last-ever installment of The Lockhorns, a cartoon feature that has been running in newspapers since 1968, today. Actually, no, that's not true at all. I don't know why I said that. Upon further reflection, this cartoon didn't seem complete. Here's a multi-panel version of my Lockhorns finale. Enjoy.

Let's fix 'The Lockhorns' today, huh?

(left to right) Their version; my version.

Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn hate each other, and their marriage is a miserable sham. They sublimate in various ways: Leroy drinks, Loretta shops. They both use words to wound each other. That's the way it is now. That's the way it was back in 1968, when The Lockhorns debuted. That's the way it will be when the newspaper industry completely vanishes in six or seven months. (I kid. The ol' gal will last at least another year and a half.) I thought a panel from today's strip was actually pretty great from an art standpoint, but the "joke" -- a really lame, forced pun on the word "thesaurus" -- ruined it. So I got rid of the joke and turned it into a quiet, contemplative moment: Leroy and Loretta wordlessly, sadly eying one another in a bookstore. For some reason, I like it even better when the image is flipped horizontally.

Peak Lockhorns.

And just for good measure, I created a little four-panel vignette using this artwork.

Sometimes, emotional cruelty needs no words.

A new 'Mary Worth' rewrite

Original by Karen Moy and Joe Giella. Drastic rewrite by your humble blogger.

I'm working on some dandy new content for this blog, but in the meantime, I wanted to post something new here. This is another one of my rewrites of a newspaper comic. I took today's Mary Worth and added my own dialogue to it, changing the plot ever so slightly. Currently, the storyline revolves around a recently-reuinted couple, Adam and Terry. Disturbingly, Adam moved into Terry's building without telling her. She was shocked and horrified at first, but now they're sort of dating again. In this episode, they've just been hot air ballooning and are enjoying a nice lunch afterwards. Terry clearly wants to take things slowly, but Adam is already talking marriage. I thought that was funny, so I made the dumb thing you see above. Enjoy.

I've done similar jokes about the high-pressure guys in Mary Worth before. Here's an example from a few years back. I called this one "The Patient Man."

A moldy oldie from the Blevins vaults.

Nick Cannon escapes from Shawshank

Marriage, madness, and Mariah: a bunny-suited Nick Cannon asks for help. With his eyes.

Look at those eyes.

The marriage of pop superdiva Mariah Carey and (actor? rapper?) public figure Nick Cannon appears to be over. They've filed for the big D after months of living separately.

I know, I know. You're devastated. After all, if the star of Glitter and the guy who stands off to the side of the stage on America's Got Talent can't make it work, what chance do the rest of us have? We should probably just intentionally steer the entire planet directly into the sun right now.

But let us not judge these two exemplars of amour too harshly for shattering our romantic illusions. They're just human, like you and me. Well, Mariah's not. I'm pretty sure she was hatched from some sort of pod deep within the Monsanto Experimental Testing Labs.

But Nick, he's just flesh and blood, the poor dope. He probably got into this Mariah Carey marriage business for all the reasons you'd guess, only to realize he'd just purchased a one-way ticket to hell. I mean, look at this photo of Nick, Mariah, and their two children at Easter. Nick is in a bunny costume, which I can say with 400% certainty was Mariah's idea. Does he look happy? No. No, he does not look happy. He looks like a man who's seriously considering either drinking bleach or throwing himself in front of the path of a Greyhound bus, anything to get out of this situation.

I want you to look deep into Nick Cannon's eyes and try to find the human being in there. 'Cause he's in there, hidden away in that bunny costume, which manages to be somehow even more demoralizing than the one in A Christmas Story. Stare into those eyes, and you'll see why Nick had to get the hell out of Shawshank, even if it meant crawling through a river of unicorn shit.

Mark Trail, you old smoothie

What works for Mark and Cherry can work for you, too!

Goofus and Gallant marry, ending decades of speculation about their relationship

Goofus and Gallant outside the small Maine chapel where they made their relationship official.

Opposites really do attract after all, as it turns out.

Goofus and Gallant, the famous cartoon pair who have demonstrated the "dos and don'ts" of etiquette and safety in the pages of Highlights for Children magazine for over 60 years, have married in a small ceremony in Maine. The wedding, which they announced to the media through their publicist, ends decades of rumors and innuendo about the renowned twosome.

"What can I say? He completes me," says Gallant, while sipping a latte in the small condo shared by the duo. "I guess I've always been attracted to the 'bad boy' aspect of his personality. I think it's the side of myself that I've never been able to express. I sometimes wish I could be as free and uninhibited as he is. He's introduced me to so many new things. I'd say Goofus has definitely widened my horizons."

"Yeah, among other things," says Goofus, snickering like a naughty schoolboy.

"Oh, you," replies Gallant, blushing a little.

Goofus and Gallant in their earlier days.

This give-and-take is typical of the pair. It is precisely this kind of chemistry which has kept their relationship working for so many decades. The spark between them was apparent from their earliest days working together.

"I had a lousy upbringing," Goofus says in one of his more reflective moments. "My parents ignored me, so I acted out to get their attention. There was very little structure or discipline in our household. So when I met [Gallant], I thought, 'Finally, here's a guy who has his life together.' I don't know. Maybe at first he was like a surrogate father to me, since my real dad was a drunk who was gone half the time. I mean, of course, we had to play up our differences in the cartoons. But after work, I'd find myself thinking up excuses to spend more time with him. And, well, things kind of developed from there."

When asked whether the announcement of their same-sex marriage would ignite any sort of controversy or possibly harm their careers, Gallant is idealistic. "The reason we decided to go public with this is that we felt it would be wrong to keep it a secret. We didn't want to live a lie, because that would send the wrong message to the very audience we're trying to reach. Whatever the fallout from this may be, we'll know that we've done the right thing. This is our little statement about the importance of marriage equality."

Goofus, typically, is more blunt. "The Highlights people have known about us for decades. I mean, how could they not? It's not like we've tried to hide it around the office. If they fired us now over this, they'd be revealing themselves as complete freakin' hypocrites. And you can quote me on that! Let the chips fall where they may. Besides, print is a dying medium. If they don't want us after this, who needs 'em?"

The Goofy Gophers, meanwhile, are also considering a same-sex union but are apparently stalemated over who should carry whom over the threshold. At press time, neither Mac nor Tosh appeared willing to budge on this issue.