-1 PICTURE POSTCARDS AND THE EROTIC

APPEAL OF FIREFIGHTERS

JOHN A. WALKER (Copyright 2009)

Soldiers attired in smart uniforms have an erotic appeal to viewers of both sexes.

This also applies to firefighters, who have been defined as 'courage in uniform’ and

‘the people‘s heroes’. They often perform their duties in full view of the public and,

unlike solders, they save lives instead of sometimes taking them. During the 19th

century, the popular cult of the fireman-as-hero was established visually by both

fine artists making paintings and sculptures, and by illustrators and photographers

employed by the emerging mass media of books, magazines, lantern slides, photog-

raphy, prints, advertisements, films and, of course, postcards.

Unknown artist, The People’s Hero, (Tuck’s postcard, fighting the flames series 2)
English postcard published by Raphael Tuck & Co. (1904?).

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Images of firemen emerging from burning buildings carrying in their arms

unconscious girls or women wearing only their nightdresses became commonplace.

This came to be called the 'rescue' or 'saved' motif. Of course, real firemen saved

boys and men too, but - as Robyn Cooper has pointed out - in visual imagery male

victims seldom appeared because that would have made men seem dependent. (1)

Whereas, scenes showing women being rescued enhanced the fireman's masculinity

and demonstrated his power over women.

The thought of virile firemen holding half-naked maidens overcome by smoke

clearly had erotic connotations for many viewers and artists, particularly French

artists. This is evident in Eugenio Alvarez-Dumon's painting Un Sauvetage a Paris

(1886), which depicts a fireman in a dark, smoke-filled bedroom rescuing a

swooning female whose shoulders and left breast are fully exposed.
 Eugenio Alvarez-Dumon, Un Sauvetage a Paris, (1886), Musée Crozatier.

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It is also evident in early 20th century comic illustrations by Jules Abel Faivre

(1867-1945, best known as a poster artist), which he created for books and

magazines, showing firemen descending ladders with women in their arms or sitting

on their shoulders.

Jules Abel Faivre, The Rescue, (c. 1907).

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A saucy postcard based on the latter image depicts a fat woman straddling the

fireman's shoulders and resting her hands contentedly on the rescuer's phallic-

shaped helmet. An American postcard dating from the 1930s depicting a fireman on

a ladder with a scantily-dressed female in his arms was accompanied by the sugges-
tive punning caption: 'We are having a hot time.' The fireman’s phallic shaped nose

and cheeks are flushed red.

Unknown artist, We are having a hot time, (1930s?) Art-colourtone postcard

published by Curt Teich & Co, Chicago, postmarked 1940.

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In a British printed advert dating from around 1900 for St Jacobs Oil, the claim
'The Brave men of the Fire Brigade know the value of St Jacob's Oil for Rheumatism,

Lumbago ... ' appears next to the image of a handsome, brass-helmeted fireman

wearing the classic Metropolitan Fire Brigade uniform who is rescuing a damsel in

distress. To escape the flames and smoke of a house fire, he clambers over the iron

railings of a balcony and prepares to use a rope to descend or swing to safety. To

modern eyes, this action-man image is highly reminiscent of jungle scenes in which

Tarzan, clutching Jane, uses vines to swing from tree to tree. However, Edgar Rice

Burroughs could not have been an influence because the first Tarzan story was not

published until 1912.

Flames and fire have long been associated with the 'burning' passion of love.

The widely held opinion that firemen are lustful individuals has been made visually

explicit in several comic postcards. For instance, a British one issued by Bamforth &

Co. Ltd., probably in the 1930s, depicts a 'young ladies hostel' just after a fire has
been extinguished. Through two open windows on the first floor firemen can be seen

embracing partially dressed young women while in the foreground a fire chief tells

the hostel's female supervisor: 'The fire is under CONTROL now madam!' To which

she replies sardonically: 'Yes, chief, the FIRE is but what about the FIREMEN?'

In a second comic postcard, a seated fireman has an attractive parlour maid on

his lap. She holds the prime tool of his profession - a hosepipe and squirts water into

his mouth to cool his ardour. Predictably, the card's caption reads: 'Cooling the

flame.'

Unknown artist, Cooling the flame, (c 1900?). Postcard. Sydney: New South

Wales Fire Service Museum.

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A third humorous card from around 1944 depicts an American volunteer fire-

man about to enter a bedroom in which an alluring female dressed in underwear

and high heels reclines on a bed. She is reading a book entitled Flaming Love, and

smoking a cigarette. At the window, the fireman grins, tips his fire hat in greeting

and remarks: 'I'm just a volunteer - always glad to look up an old flame!' A hosepipe

is draped over his shoulder, but since it is not charged with water, it is in a limp

condition that does not bode well for any lovemaking. -

More recently, firefighters have been represented as sex objects in calendars and

plays. Since the early 1990s, good-looking firemen and women have been willing to

pose semi-naked for calendars, usually described as 'saucy’, sold to benefit fire

service and other charities. In 2000, Peter Benedict was inspired by such a calendar

to write and direct a farce entitled Naked Flame, which has since proved popular

with theatre audiences throughout Britain. Benedict researched his comedy in

several London fire stations and was advised by the serving firefighters responsible
for British Firefighters Calendar. Audiences mostly consist of middle-aged women

enjoying hen nights, but a three-quarter length publicity portrait of actor James

Crossley tightly gripping a hosepipe nozzle set against a blood-red background,

taken by Gay News photographer Robert Workman for the farce, must surely have

appealed to homosexuals too.

Robert Workman, James Crossley, star of Naked Flame, (2000). Photo courtesy

of Guy Chapman Associates, London.

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 Uncredited photographer, Firefighter Rob Earle of Essex Fire and Rescue,

(1998). Postcard from Jarrold Publishing of Norwich.

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Glamour calendars similar to the British one are produced in countries such as

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Some focus on men, some

on women and others feature both genders. Sensual images of firefighters have also

appeared in advertisements and postcards. In 1998, for example, Jarrold Publishing

of Norwich issued a set of 30 postcards with all-male images, which had previously

appeared in editions of the British Firefighters Calendar. In these photographs, the

emphasis is on muscular arms and torsos, men taking showers and playing with jets

of water, grasping axes, helmets, nozzles and sliding poles. In short, the iconography

is borrowed unashamedly from gay erotic magazines and still photographs. Simi-

larly, the imagery of female firefighters' calendars and posters, such as those issued
by Firechix.com of Canada, reprises the pictorial cliches of pin-ups and soft-porn

magazines.

A notoriously eye-catching and 'steamy' 1999 advertisement for 'Jockey' briefs

devised by the art directors Ron Castillo and Kira Shalom, and copywriter Jan

Egan of the Grey Advertising Inc., agency of New York depicted five real firemen

from Dallas, Texas with their pants around their ankles. Actually, when firefighters

sleep in firehouses they often leave their pants and boots in this position so that they

can step into them quickly. One man holds an axe, another a hook, while a third

cradles a Dalmatian. (This breed of dog has a long association with American

firefighters.)

Grey Advertising Inc., Five Alarm Jockey … (1999). Advert, copyright Jockey

International Inc., Kenosha, Wisconsin.

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This was not the first time Jockey had employed images of firemen in its

advertisements. One published in a 1947 American magazine had an illustration of

two nozzle men climbing a ladder plus a photograph of a man in his underwear. The

copywriter contended that the fireman's uniform was functional and so was Jockey

underwear.

Firefighters' accoutrements, such as helmets, and equipment, such as hosepipe

nozzles, have a fetishistic appeal. It is no surprise, therefore, to find Playboy's

models employing firefighting gear; witness playmate Victoria Cunningham on the

cover and in a seven-page photo-spread in the March 1976 issue. Male strippers

have used the modern British yellow helmet as a prop in their performances because

all-female audiences find them sexy. The phallic/urination associations of nozzles

and water hoses are obvious and these are sometimes made explicit in humorous

depictions of firemen. For instance, an image on a British postcard shows a crowd

admiring a powerful stream of water from a hosepipe that seems to be emanating

from a fireman's groin. One spectator remarks admiringly: 'Blimey - what a man!'
 Brass sliding poles were introduced into American firehouses during the late

19th century to speed up departures. Their erotic potential manifested itself in

fantasies of scantily-dressed young women clinging to vertical shiny poles. (Lascivi-

ous pole dancing is a feature of many contemporary strip clubs.) One such image

was created in 1958 by the highly successful and prolific American pin-up and

glamour artist and photographer Gil Elvgren (1914-80), whose 'creamy, smooth-as-

silk' figure paintings were reproduced as illustrations in many media. Entitled Fire
Belle, it depicts an open-mouthed, curvaceous blonde descending a pole while

wearing a black lace bustier, sheer white dressing gown, and bright red fire hat and

boots.

Gil Elvgren, Fire Belle, (1958). Copyright Brown & Begelow, St Paul,

Minnesota.

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Bridget Jones's Diary, a romantic comedy film directed by Sharon Maguire and

starring Renee Zellweger as a hapless singleton, was a box office hit in 2001. In one

scene, Jones reports for television from a fire station in Lewisham, London. She

then simulates a firefighter by sliding down a pole. Jones is filmed from below in

such a way that her generous bottom fills the frame.

 Of course, since women firefighters now exist (they began to enter the deeply

masculine profession during the 1980s), females do literally descend poles. Despite

the fact that the masculine sexual fantasy is now both outmoded and inappropriate,

the presence of women in fire stations prompts stories of romance and affairs in

television drama series, such as London's Burning, located in fire stations.

Images of women dressed as firefighters date back to the British suffragette

movement and its 'Votes for Women' campaigns mounted pre-1914. The implication

of such images was that, given equal rights and opportunities, women could perform

tasks traditionally associated with men. The novelty of 'firegirls' stimulated the male

erotic imagination and made them the subject of jokes and puns. For instance, a

saucy British postcard shows a female dressed in a blue uniform edged with red and
a yellow brass helmet, climbing a ladder while hauling a hosepipe. The hem of her

skirt is just below her knees. At the base of the ladder, a trio of male voyeurs ogle

her calves, ankles and petticoat. The punning caption reads: 'Flossie the firegirl.

Displaying her hose.' Perhaps to avoid any adverse attention from censors, the

names of the artist and publisher are not credited on the back of the card. The

artistic style of the image resembles that of Donald McGill, who began his long

career in 1904 and became 'king' of the naughty seaside postcard.

The two meanings of the word ‘hose’ inevitably produced more puns in fireman

postcards. Witness the one below:

 During the 20th century, Hollywood produced many dramatic movies about

firefighting. One of the finest was Backdraft (1985, Universal City Studios, Inc.)

directed by Ron Howard. This film includes a passionate sex scene on the top of a

fire truck between a firefighter, played by the handsome actor William Baldwin,
and his girlfriend, played by the sultry actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. They make

love, not on a bed of roses, but on a bed of hoses! The lovers are forced to call a halt

when an alarm sounds and the truck leaves the fire station at speed with its horn

blaring! The lovers are still on board when it arrives at the fire. A firefighter

unreeling a hosepipe at the rear of the truck is surprised to find it is draped with

Leigh's black lace bra.

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References

(1) Robyn Cooper, ‘The fireman: Immaculate Manhood’, Journal of Popular

Culture, vol 28, no 4, Spring 1995, pp. 139-70.

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This is a revised version of an article which first appeared in the British

magazine Picture Postcard Monthly, no 296, December 2003, pp. 18-20. John A.

Walker is a painter and art historian. He is the author of Firefighters in Art and

Media: A Pictorial History, (London: Francis Boutle, 2005). [To acquire, apply

direct to publishers.] He is also an editorial advisor for the website:

"http://www.artdesigncafe.com">www.artdesigncafe.com</a>