Please Don’t Take Any Advice From This 1959 Guide to Girl Watching

Maybe leave the Peeping Tom act to Hitchcock.

March 21, 2017 9:00 am

Nostalgia site Flashbak just completed a detailed takedown of The Girl Watcher: A Guide to Girl Watching, a 1959 magazine that encourages stalking and predator behavior in a seriously misguided attempt at humor.

An “official international journal” dedicated to “connoisseurs of beautiful women,” the Watcher discusses women in terms of prey (“The Hunter and the Hunted”), refers to stalkers as “resourceful and imaginative,” and creates a recipe for the perfect mate by combining body parts of four different women.

Also: Women are referred to collectibles, akin to “beetles, bottles and shrunken heads.” And there’s a lot of upskirt photography.

(When it’s not infuriating, the magazine is also confusing: they refer to one category of girl watcher as a “Booze Mouse.”)

There is one interesting historical note here — an interview with Earl Leaf, the photographer who discovered Marilyn Monroe.

Otherwise? Please don’t take any of this advice.

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.