Retro Phart

In 1957, swiveling hips were banned on television. Fifty-three years later, couples' sex-aid lubricants are a main-stay of television advertising!

When Elvis--The Pelvis--Presley took the stage on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1957, CBS censors had determined he could only be filmed from the waist up. This was a family show, after all, and both Sullivan and CBS considered the thrusting hips more striptease act than family entertainment.

Teenagers world-wide were denied a visual of his sensual, gyrating hips! Those famous hips were lewd and crude. And--by gawd--downright sexual. The underlying theory, no doubt, was that the gyrations would fuel the libido of millions of teens (and some adults) and send them into a sex-driven frenzy. Although, to have voiced that theory publicly would've been taboo in 1957.

Today, every third commercial on prime-time television is for KY Brand Yours and Mine, and the sister product: KY Intense.

Yowza!

I can get hyper-critical of most television advertising, and I'm really tired of seeing the KY ads over and over and over. But, I have to admit, I do chuckle at the sweet little couple skipping through the forest!

We've come a long way, baby!