It is my hope as I obtain evidence through correspondence, photos, and magazines like yours (which is produced in excellent taste) to prove that rubber, latex, leather and PVC are not perversions of sexual outcasts and that I might persuade my wife to enjoy them with me. In this event I will become a customer for more than just pictures and copies of ATOMAGE.

Her principal concern, I am quite sure, is that this is not something done by “nice” people and I must confess the preponderance of evidence here in the United States would tend to support her contention.

The preponderance of economic evidence on the other hand would indicate a very substantial number of people have a taste for rubber, leather and PVC based on the costs of production which must be supported by sales.

Although attitudes are changing – quite rapidly in the last decade – the Puritan ethic regarding things erotic is still quite strong. “If it feels good it must be either illegal, immoral or fattening” is not a completely irrelevant expression over in the States. The result is that things which should be beautifully moving are instead exploited and turned into pornography of the base, tasteless variety.

So you can see it is especially rewarding to have contacted a person with the sensitivity and good taste and refinement you have displayed.

– R.L.B. (U.S.A.)

Your wife’s attitude is a very general one and is fully understood and appreciated. I t is a natural legacy of a much stricter social climate which she has been totally unable to relax due to the grossly disproportionate glare shed upon the activities of a minute section of the population of the world by these lurid magazines. The proportion of people who enjoy their leather or rubberwear in privacy or in public and in joint acceptance and understanding far outweigh all that sensational nonsense. I t is a subject upon which we at ATOMAGE feel most strongly and for that reason we have slanted issues No.4 and 5 so decisively in the “togetherness’ direction.

Although it probably cuts no ice with her at the moment, it is nevertheless plain fact that the buyers who support our own and the rubberwear factories are from the highest echelons of society down to the central professional classes Interest amongst the working classes of people is almost unknown. It has always been a matter of some satisfaction to us in the past to learn of cases where our efforts have enabled wives to come to terms with this problem and we have heard, on more and more frequent occasions recently, “a second honeymoon” attributed to the removal of these inhibitions and the introduction of these wider interests. It is, in fact, most extremely ironic that it is the most intelligent people who are involved and the rougher element of society who don’t seem to bother and to whom straight sex has no overtones.

You may now appreciate some of our reasons for wanting to keep ATOMAGE going. It is not, up until now, a very profitable venture as circulation is limited to the discerning, but it is fulfilling and, l feel, worthwhile, if some more happiness can be achieved, whilst, at the same time, removing many of the tensions in a practical way instead of people having to “let off steam” in the usual and mostly anti-social acts witnessed on every street corner of our cities today: – Ed.