In the heat of battle, photographer Horace Bristol captured one of the most unique and erotic photos of WWII.
Bristol photographed a young crewman of a US Navy “Dumbo” PBY rescue mission, manning his gun after having stripped naked and jumped into the water of Rabaul Harbor to rescue a badly burned Marine pilot. The Marine was shot down while bombing the Japanese-held fortress of Rabaul.
“…we got a call to pick up an airman who was down in the Bay. The Japanese were shooting at him from the island, and when they saw us they started shooting at us. The man who was shot down was temporarily blinded, so one of our crew stripped off his clothes and jumped in to bring him aboard. He couldn’t have swum very well wearing his boots and clothes. As soon as we could, we took off. We weren’t waiting around for anybody to put on formal clothes. We were being shot at and wanted to get the hell out of there. The naked man got back into his position at his gun in the blister of the plane.”
“And well, there was his butt, and I had a camera. I mean I AM a historian.”
That is the BEST EVER quote about the nature of historians I’ve ever seen
the most fucked up thing about married straight couples in paranormal reality shows is that the husband is almost always the skeptic and the wife will be like terrified to exist in her own home and she’ll beg her husband to believe her and she’ll be crying every night and he’ll straight up look at the camera and be like “I don’t know I guess I just thought she was imagining things.”
like this is beyond belief in ghosts what it comes down to is one member of these couples was so distressed they were in tears nightly or at least weekly, BEGGING their partner to listen to them, and their partner was like “whatever this’ll blow over.”
how does your relationship survive that?? how are these people still together?? if my wife came into the room crying and told me she’d seen bill watterson, author of acclaimed comic calvin and hobbes, manifest in our kitchen and tell her he didn’t like our wallpaper, I’d like. obviously have some questions. but I’d fucking address her distress and take steps to make her feel better lmao???
these husbands are all garbage and they feel justified bc they weren’t the “crazy one” who believed in ghosts.
they were the good, logical, “sane” spouse who did rational and good things like, completely and purposefully ignore their partners’ growing and life-altering distress for months.
I know this seems like such a niche topic to get into but I grew up in an old town where everyone has one or two ghost stories, and it’s almost always wives telling them while their husbands chuckle and shake their heads throughout the entire story.
It doesn’t matter whether they believe in ghosts or not. What it is is one adult recounting experiences they not only firmly believe to have happened one way, but which have profoundly affected their lives, and the other adult literally publicly laughing at them “hahaha, women and their imaginations, you know?”
Both possibilities shock me but don’t really come as a surprise: the husband literally thinks his wife is such a child that she “imagined” these experiences like a backyard game for elementary schoolers, or the husband believes his wife apparently idk?? hallucinated but it’s not a big deal and we don’t need to have a discussion about her health and whether she feels safe and happy in her home because again. silly women and their apparent hallucinations you know???
Turns out horror tropes aren’t actually Metaphors, that’s really just how it is
I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my ex guy friend a few years ago. We were 24. And he was talking about this girl he met at work that he really liked. She was 17.
He was telling me how he liked her, and didn’t want to have sex with her until she was 18, and he just wanted to date her cuz sex would be “wrong”
But here’s what struck me about the conversation. When listing all the things he liked about her, not one of them was ABOUT her. It was about how much she like him and was interested in him and his life in his hobbies. How she found everything he did was amazing and cool.
And here’s where it really hit home for me “she’s not like girls our age” (I guess forgetting he was speaking to a girl his age) But what he meant by that wasn’t that she was special, what he meant was “she’s not old enough to have met more interesting people to compare me to” and “she’s not experienced enough to fight me on my bull shit”
Because of course a teenage girl is gonna find a 24 year old man who has a nice car, a money to pay for things and the freedom to be involved in all his fun hobbies, of course she’s gonna find all that Amazing. Cuz she’s in highschool. Where as “girls his age” expect that. It’s not cool and amazing. Girls his age expect more. Girls his age also aren’t gonna fall for cheesey one liners and compliments, especially not in the same way an insecure still figuring herself out teenage girl is.
And let me tell you, this guy was no “loser” when it came to women. He was popular, good looking, everyone knew him, and for a lack of better words he “got around” But when it came to serious relationships I’m sure he heard a mouthful from the few women he dated “get a stable job so you can move out of your parents house” (and look no shade, the economy is rough but if you’re dating someone and they’re not even looking for jobs it’s annoying and trust me there was no fire under his ass to try) You know who he isn’t gonna hear that from? A teenage girl in highschool.
Thankfully nothing came of this. But what I really want to say, young people, if an older person is interested in you don’t trust them. Especially if you’re in highschool or just getting out of highschool. They don’t think you’re special, they think you’re not gonna be able to see their flaws. They’re trying to feed their ego. Cuz guess what? You are special. And you deserve every opportunity to figure out how goddamn special you are and be able to find someone just as special as you, and find you just as special and be able to have healthy equal relationships with that person. But that person who’s 6, 7- 10 years older than you isn’t interested in how special you are. They’re interested in how special you make them feel. And they will manipulate you to keep it that way.
Older people, keep your friends in check. Like I said, this guy wasn’t a loser, he didn’t have a history of dating young girls, he championed women’s rights, LGBT rights- you name it. White knighted his way past my ability to see thru his facade. Took me way to long to see what a shitty person he was.
honey-bun-diaries 