Book contents
- Pulp Vietnam
- Military, War, and Society in Modern American History
- Pulp Vietnam
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Warrior Heroes and Sexual Conquerors
- Chapter 1 Macho Pulp and the American Cold War Man
- Chapter 2 My Father’s War: The Allure of World War II and Korea
- Chapter 3 The Imagined “Savage” Woman
- Chapter 4 The Vietnamese Reality
- Chapter 5 War and Sexual Violence Come to Vietnam
- Conclusion: Male Veterans Remember Their War
- Notes
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
Chapter 3 - The Imagined “Savage” Woman
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 October 2020
- Pulp Vietnam
- Military, War, and Society in Modern American History
- Pulp Vietnam
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Warrior Heroes and Sexual Conquerors
- Chapter 1 Macho Pulp and the American Cold War Man
- Chapter 2 My Father’s War: The Allure of World War II and Korea
- Chapter 3 The Imagined “Savage” Woman
- Chapter 4 The Vietnamese Reality
- Chapter 5 War and Sexual Violence Come to Vietnam
- Conclusion: Male Veterans Remember Their War
- Notes
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
Summary
The macho pulps’ portrayal of women, especially non-European foreign women, left young male readers with the impression that American dominance overseas allowed them to engage in a form of sexual oppression. Still, contemporary anxieties remained. Thus, the magazines highlighted the “red seductress,” the communist femme fatale who used her body to lure good men astray. In these storylines, women were both beautiful and deceitful, depictions which could be particularly unnerving for young men inexperienced in sex. The magazines also portrayed “exotic Orientals,” women of “darker races,” as sexually available, desirous of Americans, and a counter to stifling wives at home. As in storylines on German Frauleins or communist spies, however, Asian women could be just as deceitful, using their bodies as weapons of war. Thus, the objectification of women was perpetuated by adventure magazines, especially concerning those women who weren’t American or European. In large sense, men’s adventure magazines created a fantasy world where young men easily could find sex in almost any wartime environment. And even when women did fight alongside men, as they did in some storylines, sexualized versions of women – Amazonian tropes were common – helped leave readers with the impression that strong male warriors were also sexual conquerors.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pulp VietnamWar and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines, pp. 98 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020