Doesn’t this ultimately trace back to the fact that sailors in pre-coed navies, by the nature of their trade, necessarily spent more time isolated in all-male groups away from contact with women (i.e., at sea)?
I wonder how much blame can be put on Shirley Temple for this?
As far as the “gay” look I wonder if that comes from it’s use in old musicals where guys in sailor suits danced and sang all over the stage?
Hmmm. Yes, you are right. I think that is part of the mystique. Sailor go to places, exotic, interesting places, and have interesting adventures*.
*Not really. My husband calls himself “a glorified truck driver”. Everything is computerized, codified, standardized, nothing is left to chance. Plus people do not go sailing for months or years on end without their family knowing their fate. I speak with my husband on the phone and communicate with him by email on a daily basis.
Yeah, but that wasn’t always so. I did a deployment in the days before individual sailor email accounts and before Sailorphone. Once during that cruise they ran a radio patch through to a MARS station in the States, and I was able to talk to my folks over essentially ham radio. It was hell reminding my mom to say “over” so the operator could switch the circuit over.
Shortly after this I got engaged, and during workups my fiancee needed to contact me for some reason and sent me a telegram - Western Union actually got it to the Navy who dutifully transmitted it to the ship. This marks the only time I’ve received one, and I’m probably the last American on these boards who has.
Things are better now - when I’ve gone underway as a contractor I’ve had much better connectivity than I ever had as an active-duty sailor.
BTW, the best thing about the crackerjacks were the pants. Hell to get into and out of (they had 13 buttons!) but they were, shall we say, flattering.
Well, duh, not only do women (and some men) love a man in uniform, it’s associated with something sweet with a prize inside!
Also, comments on the relative manliness of a sailor’s uniform is not routinely welcomed by same, to say the least. My dad, who was in the Navy in WWII, once, while quite drunk, commented on the little ball on top of a French sailor’s hat. Unsurprisingly, the French sailor was not at all amused.
Come to think about it - I can’t figure it out either. 
Damn thing must have come with an instruction manual.
My guess: one sits on the chair, one kneels on the provided padding. I assume the sitter (the blowee, if you will) could position his feet however he liked in the various foot rest looking things.
I don’t know about that, are these guys from the Navy like it says, or the Marines? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCSZuvKl_uA
Yeah, but we weren’t even born yet.
J/K, we are 39. When we met 15 years ago we kept in touch by fax (he sent me faxes), and I saw him every weekend (it was a short route). He’s only have email in the last 8 years after he went to work for his current employer.
The sailor suit is not always displayed as silly or ghey:
I think the village people added to a certain stereotype, but that stereotype wasn’t always the dominant one in the past.
Because they’re all based on the (British) Royal Navy uniform from the 19th century, when the RN was far-and-away the most powerful force on the seas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_uniform
I remember during Fleet Week in San Francisco, my sister commenting that the sailor uniforms seemed quite swooshie. I pointed out that they are snug in the butt. She took a second look at a passing sailor and responded, “Oh! Oh, my… I think you’re right.” So, not necessarily gay, but enough not-gay to attract a hetero girl.
Which reminds me of a thread I started a while back about the prevalence of sailors in musicals.