I’ve read National Geographic on and off for years, and I’ll be damned if I can recall a single article featuring scads of topless native women. But the belief that NG routinely publishes such articles is widespread: it is the fodder for jokes, reminiscences about adolescent sexual discovery, etc. What’s the straight dope? How often does NG publish such pictorials? Was the rate significantly higher in the past?
I have to admit that I don’t see hem so much these days, but back in the 1960s I recall quite a few of them. For that matter, there was a surprising amount of nudity in Life magazine at the time, too.
???
I recall that they had (annually? periodically?) a photo contest and the year after Woodstock there was one girl photographed topless at the concert and that year’s winner was an unclothed woman stretched across her bed, reaching for her baby, but I don’t recall any others. shucks
As for NG, they never had hordes of such photos. Periodic articles on New Guinea or the African veldt might have one or two or a group shot of all the women in the village beating manioc root or something. (For every sixteen year old that caught a teen guy’s attention, there were several older women who would make him want to avert his gaze.)
The big point was that it was the only mainstream magazine–particularly one which would not be behind a counter–to which a randy teen had access in the school or public library. The photos did not need to be frequent, just there, somewhere.
Yes, a national institution.
Yes, naked women.
Go back to the 1940s.
This is a very complicated story. Try the study “Reading National Geographic”.
It’s not Playboy, and it’s not a Sunday church sermon.
Really makes you think.
The first naked native woman was pictured in National Geographic circa 1915. It’s reproduced in the book celebrating National Geogrpahic magazine’s 100th anniversary. Also, it’s pictured in the official published index to the magazine, found in the reference section of many libraries.
Not much any more. When I was 10 or 11 in the early 1930’s it was common. My parents used to go various places to play cards and I went along because baby sitters hadn’t been invented yet. And, of course, my older sister didn’t want to take care of such a pest.
One house we went to had lots and lots of Geographics in their basement that I used to painstakingly pore over. It now seems strange to me that the photographer never seemed to get a naked man into a single picture.
Nekkid chicks in National Geographic? You betcha! As a horny nerd back in the day (“the day” here being defined as the early to mid '90s) with an extensive collection of National Geographics (dating back to my 2nd birthday), I got to know several issues published in the '80s that featured rather attrctive topless ladies from around the world. I recall with particular fondness an article on the newly formed Federated States of Micronesia (Yap in particular), as well as a pictorial about Paris, featuring naked-and-paint-splashed coeds at a post-streaking party…
Very educational publication…a national treasure in many, many ways…
I went to a Christian school (K-12!). The middle school library (mid-late 80’s) had scores of NG’s. They actually drew little bikinis and bathing suits on the nekkid natives. sigh
Well, when I was a kid (late 1960s-early 1970s), my Christmas gift each year from my uncle was a subscription to National Geographic. And, while the magazine was far from pornographic, they seemed to do 5 or 6 articles a year about various tribes in Africa or the Amazon, and there’d always be numerous pictures of naked teenage girls.
I know, because when I was 11 or 12, that’s always the first thing I looked for in each new issue I received! Look, in those days, it’s not like a kid that age had a lot of other options, if he wanted to see such things! So, a lot of males my age still have fond memories of the old National Geographics.
My subscription to National Geographic ran out over 20 years ago, and I only see it once or twice a year, now. I gather that such features are very rare nowadays. For one thing, there just aren’t many primitive peoples running naked through the rain forests any more. And for another thing, nowadays, kids can see all the nekkid wimmen they want on cable television.
Mind you, I’m sure that even in the 60s and 70s, the editors of National Geographic were well aware that naked Amazon Indian girls were good for sales. I don’t believe for a second that their interest in such things was purely sociological or anthropological!
I agree, but you have to put it in perspective. There were plenty of naked women’s breasts – and men’s too – but I don’t recall seeing too many female crotches, if any at all.
In other words, I think that they showed men and women equally: top fronts yes, rear ends aplenty, front bottoms off limits.
caveman, that was the funniest post i have read in ages. subtle (like a fine wine) and and hilarious (like an aged cheese). especially,
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Western Pacific for two years, and we periodically had National Geographic photographers come out and shoot the “natives” of the islands especially the slightly clad “native women” for different issues. So those issues exist.
…And as recently as May, 2000. Pages 56 and 57. And they’re Europeans, as well. I remember reading the letters to the editor a couple of months later: One woman said she was glad the NG was showing more equality by photographic people other than copper-age tribesmen nude, the other letter came from a World War II veteran who had made an amphibious landing on that particular beach in the article. He said it looked a lot better now than back then. 
Ranchoth
What!!! Are you me? Those were the two i was most fond of myself!!! Must be some mid-90’s nerd connection…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by astorian *
[ I gather that such features are very rare nowadays. For one thing, there just aren’t many primitive peoples running naked through the rain forests any more. And for another thing, nowadays, kids can see all the nekkid wimmen they want on cable television.
I get it now! Its a conspiracy…
Christian missionaries force their concept of ‘modesty’ on the natives… Natives compelled to cover breasts… National Geographic can no longer provide nudity under the pretense of being educational… We are forced to subscribe to cable TV to see boobies… Cable TV companies owned by… CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES!!
We had some stacks of National Geographics in my 70’s era grade school classroom, and there were a few issues there that tittilated us in ways that would be hard to understand now. We had to look at still pictures of topless primitive tribewomen, and kids today can download full-screen video of Kobe Tai getting double-penetrated… It’s not fair!
I heard a comedian once say that he looked at so many Nat. Geographics as a kid that he was 16 before he realized that when a woman gets naked she doesn’t necessarily have to be holding a spear.
As a test of my searching abilities, I searched for these articles in my “Complete National Geographic” DVD ROM collection, and I think I found them.
Check out
http://www.geocities.com/revtim.rm/
and look for links labeled
micronesia_yap.jpg
paris_paint.jpg
These are just single pages, and not the whole articles, so I believe they should fall under fair use.
Let me know if these are the pics you are remembering!
Yes sir!!! (too be not perve for a moment, i have National Geographics dating back to 1948, the year my MOM was born, so they were used mostly to learn. Except for these two photos…)
Of course you’re right. I really have no idea whether or not there were naked men in the Geographic. If there had been I certainly wouldn’t have noticed them.
Ha! You slashdotted yourself.
<ahem>Not that I would ever be looking at said pictures, of course. Nuh uh.
As another angle, I watch the National Geographic channel fairly often, and I can’t remember any shows that show ‘scads’ of naked women. TLC seems to have a lot more shows of that type.