The fetishist next door: the all-American appeal of Bettie Page.

• Author: Beato, Greg

Bettie Page, one of America's most enduring brands, is finally taking her inevitable place alongside Gap Kids and Auntie Anne's Pretzels. In March a boutique bearing her name and stocked with demure polka-dot dresses and opaque ladies' undergarments--panties, how retro!--opened in the mall at the Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas. In an age when Britney's pudgy, bald sugar dish attracts more tabloid coverage than most network sitcom stars, it's ironic, isn't it, that the 1950s pin-up queen who helped pioneer mainstream exhibitionism may jeopardize the spontaneous celebrity vulva eruptions that now give our lives meaning? Bettie, say it isn't so!

Or, actually, please say that it is. Fifty years ago, snapshots of Page ball-gagged and hog-tied, her arched eyebrows transmitting hokey cartoon alarm, were deemed such a threat to the American way of life that they prompted a Senate investigation. By today's standards, even Page's most extreme photos seem charmingly chaste. But if her power to shock has lost currency, the sensibility she displayed remains as contemporary as that other beautifully upholstered mid-century masterpiece, the Eames lounge chair.

Page's modeling career lasted only seven years, from 1950 until 1957, but during that time she posed for an estimated 20,000 photographs. She wasn't the first figure model to shed all her inhibitions, nor even the first to do it with a great big unashamed smile. But at the exact moment when soft-core erotica was evolving from under-the-counter specialty item to news-rack staple, Page was willing to show more than any woman prettier than her, and prettier than any woman who was willing to show more.

It wasn't just her industry or her openness that distinguished her. Out of those 20,000 photos, how many show even a hint of boredom or fatigue, or anything other than complete commitment to the moment? While Page is often credited for normalizing kink, for showing how even sun-kissed girl-next-door types could have a secret taste for lesbian spanking action, what's most notable about her oeuvre is how little sexual heat she radiates. Naked, fresh-scrubbed, practically incandescing with exuberance, she looks like she's posing for a vitamin ad. Rarely can one detect any Libidinal ache, or even a mild hunger for some thing carnal. Clearly, the camera excited her--but not in that way. Its promise of fame was what got her off, and ultimately the potential for celebrity overwhelmed anything more...