As every smart parent knows, the best way to keep kids from becoming sexually active is to treat their feelings as something dirty, destructive and unmentionable. This is particularly true when you are raising daughters, because society does not go far enough in enforcing a double standard for males and females. Girls, nothing is more important than maintaining a good reputation! Take it from “First Kiss,” the cautionary tale from Falling In Love #118:

Your first boyfriend … Your first date … And your first kiss! And suddenly that one kiss leads to another and another and another … until you finally have to ask yourself: “Am I still worthy of love?” Continue reading →

Young Romance #194 (DC Comics, 1973) totally ruined my usual ritual of finding a histrionic romance comic story and mocking it from start to finish. Not that “Full Hands, Empty Heart,” the story about the thwarted love of an African-American nurse and a white doctor, doesn’t have its ridiculous parts. However, I found myself having sincere feelings after reading it. That’s not how WTF? Wednesday is supposed to work! Continue reading →

Confused about whether someone’s really into you? Look for these three signs: Verbal bullying, shaming and physical intimidation. As the Young Romance #193 (1973) gem “Miss Peeping Tom!” teaches us, cruelty is simply misguided passion. All it takes is a little nudge to get that man on the right track!

Tina, a lonely teen shutterbug, is bold enough to take photos of unsuspecting couples in broad daylight while they’re making out, but too timid to talk to boys. Her best friend, Wendy, tries to school her with sage observations about the opposite sex: “Any girl can cut (guys) down to half their size by making them bend over to kiss her! And the only way to do that is to get real close to them!” Continue reading →

When you’re a gay teen in a heteronormative society, there’s nothing more reassuring than tragic portrayals of homosexual people and being told, “You can be fixed!” In 1974, Young Romance #197 flirted with this subject with all the finesse you’d expect from a story titled “That Strange Girl.” They really called it that. Continue reading →

When it comes to receiving soul-crushing messages about weight, most women are pretty well covered, thanks. But in 1979, Charlton Comics decided that some of us weren’t paying attention. Described as the low-rent district of comics publishing, Charlton packed so much sexist, body-shaming hostility into a single story in Secret Romance #44 that it made even the most regressive women’s magazine look like Ms.

The story’s title is simply: “Fat!” Yes, with an exclamation point. Continue reading →