A reformed reformer’s sensational tribute to our American “Sex” magazines
By John F. Rutter
Editor’s Note: Are “Sex” magazines immoral? Literally scores of magazines of this sort are published in America. The basis of most of them is the sex complication. Do periodicals like these “pollute” the mind? Have they a “pernicious influence” on “the rising generation”? Should they be excluded from the mails or should they openly flourish on the newsstands? Read this “true confession” of an ex-reformer, specially written for Vanity Fair.
Readers of Vanity Fair will recall that, only a few months ago, my name appeared on the front page of America’s leading dailies in connection with a truly unfortunate occurrence. My beloved spouse (who had shared for ten years, without so much as a murmur, the responsibilities and dangers attendant upon the career of a militant anti-vice crusader) suddenly, and for no apparent reason, eloped with a Chinese laundryman, Foo King by name, after emptying an automatic pistol in the general direction of my whereabouts. Despite the conspicuous position which I at that time occupied as a purity crusader in Boston, the matter would probably have escaped everybody’s notice—attempted assassination is so prevalent in America nowadays—but for the fact that the last of Mrs. Rutter’s shots took disastrous effect on a pet Pekinese belonging to Miss Eleanora Sears, which was enjoying an airing nearly a quarter of a mile away, in the Boston Public Gardens. This terrible accident, besides creating a lively stir in fashionable and artistic circles, was directly responsible for my being disharged from the presidency of that foremost Puritan institution: the Society for the Contraception of Vice.
Bitterly as I bewailed this totally unexpected blow to my career (I was in the midst of an epoch-making work, entitled: “Lewd Literature—What Is It?” when the crash came) my agony at being summarily deprived of my wife was even greater. For, public opinion to the contrary, reformers are human beings. To have exercised the sacred prerogatives of a husband for an entire decade and suddenly to find oneself a bachelor of circumstance is, even to a reformer, painful. The popular cure—namely, to seek another mate—was naturally impossible to an individual of my refined and high-strung temperament. On the other hand, misfortune overtook me in the heyday of my, so to speak, natural resources. What should I do?
To this burning question my tortured soul responded, with a dark and ominous pertinacity: “Suicide!” Of course, I recoiled in horror from the thought of taking my own life. But, as time went on and my sense of loss materially increased, the idea of death assumed a positively pleasant aspect in my overwrought imagination. I began to realize that what was unpleasant was, not suicide, but the horrid possibility that it might be incomplete—in other words, that I might hurt myself very badly instead of merely killing myself. All I needed was a plan which, by eliminating any possibility of living, would render dying absolutely certain. Accordingly, I tossed my cherished work on lewd literature to the winds and considered how to secure my own demise.
Being an almost fanatically thorough person, as well as a lover of intellectual exercise, it took me only eight weeks to solve the puzzle. I then sold all my wordly possessions, including my magnificent Beacon Hill residence and my almost priceless collection of indecent, lewd, obscene and lascivious books, paintings, pamphlets, drawings, etchings and sculptures. With the proceeds, I purchased a piece of stout rope, a gallon of kerosene, a revolver, a box of safety matches and a ticket to a particularly secluded nook in an almost inaccessible portion of the Adirondacks, where I rented a small bungalow for twenty-four hours.
The porch of the exclusive and isolated dwelling which I had selected overhung a lake, above whose tranquil surface the eaves projected, at a height of several yards. Without losing any time, I made one end of my rope fast to these eaves and arranged a running-noose at the other end, in such a way that when I stood erect on the railing of the porch, facing the lake, the noose hung level with my chin. Next, I thoroughly soaked myself from top to toe with the kerosene and placed my box of matches on the railing. Finally, I loaded and cocked my revolver and laid it beside the matches, ready for action.
My miseries were about to cease. Thanks to the precautionary measures which I had adopted, death was absolutely sure. I merely had to mount the railing, adjust the noose around my neck, set fire to my clothes, shoot myself and leap into space. If the bullet missed my brain, no matter—I would be incinerated and hanged. If the kerosene failed to ignite, I would be hanged and shot. If the rope broke, I would be shot and incinerated. And even if everything went wrong—if the kerosene did not catch fire and the rope broke and the gun did not go off—I had no cause for alarm, since I could not swim a stroke and would consequently meet death by drowning in the lake below.
With what a sense of triumph did I climb on the railing in my kerosene-drenched clothes, pick up my matches and my revolver, adjust the running-noose around my neck and take my last look at the world! It was indeed a moment never to be forgotten. One of those magnificent Adirondack sunsets, you know the sort, drenched the heavens in splendour.
I heard a whippoorwill calling rhythmically to its mate in the woods just behind the little bungalow. About my ears, eyes, nose, and, in fact, everything else, several million mosquitoes, ignoring the odour of the kerosene, danced enthusiastically round about me. The whole scene was one of mingled exaltation and solemnity, which only the pen of a poet could possibly describe.
In this lyric milieu, I balanced myself precariously on the railing, with my neck in the fatal noose, pointing the revolver at my head with one hand and with some difficulty striking a match with the other. I had but one thought: my faithless wife, the former darling of my bosom, probably at that very instant enjoying the perfidious embraces of her villainous Oriental paramour. “Come to me, death!” I exclaimed with all my soul—and touched the blazing match to my left trouser-leg.
There was a roaring upward rush of flame—I pulled the trigger and jumped outward. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in approximately eighteen inches of icy water; thoroughly confused, minus my hair, whiskers, eyelids and eyebrows, but otherwise uninjured! After a few blessed seconds (during which I felt sure I was in Heaven) my intelligence informed me of what had actually happened. The flare-up of the kerosene had disconcerted my aim, the bullet—by some freak of chance—had cut the rope, the shallow water of the lake—whose depth I had completely omitted (in my excitement) to ascertain—had extinguished the fire: in brief, the whole intricately thought-out scheme had been a complete failure and—horrors!—I was alive after all.
I was about to lie down on my back and try to swallow the whole infamous lake, when a sheriff (attracted by my shot) arrived at full speed in a birchbark canoe, accompanied by two deputies armed to the teeth, and arrested me for not having a hunting license. Despite my vigorous protestation, I—John F. Rutter—was ignominiously tossed into a primitive log hut which served in the capacity of a jail.
It is probable that even Moses himself, as he glimpsed the Promised Land, experienced no more authentic thrill than did I—upon finding myself face to face with a half-dozen of those colourful little magazines which (as I remembered) I had spent the sum total of my misdirected energies in attempting to exclude from the mails.
When, a few minutes later, my jailer entered and discovered me prone upon the floor and frankly—for the first time—consuming photograph after photograph, illustration after illustration, experience after experience, confession after confession, a large grin of understanding bisected his bronze visage. He inspected me minutely for some moments; then delivered himself of the unforgettable dictum: “Reckon everything’s hunkey-dorey with you, ain’t it?” I started from my trance—and grasped his honest paw, in a silence that conveyed ineffable gratitude on my part and entire appreciation on his. “Have yer read ‘Roll Over On Your Own Side, Lucy’ yet?” he whispered, bending almost affectionately above me. “Not yet,” I murmured faintly, with my eyes glued once more to “What a Young Girl of Thirteen Learned in Paris.”
Since then I have attained a completely normal outlook on life. I am a respected, not a detested, member of the little house-party1 here where I have been living pleasantly for some time since my adventure. I am almost foolishly happy, I laugh heartily whenever I recall my former morbid ideas and attribute my entire mental health and intellectual happiness to the one hundred and thirty-one (constantly issued, week by week, month by month) various and assorted “sex” magazines, of which I consume (on the average) twenty or thirty a day. In my estimation, they are one of the three greatest blessings which our civilization has produced, the other two being the player-piano and the radio.
From Vanity Fair, January 1926.
1. Editor’s Note: Mr. Rutter is at present an inmate of the State Insane Asylum. The phrase “house-party,” used by the author, refers, of course, to his incarceration in the asylum.