Stumbling around on tumblr today, I came across an uncredited image that reminded me of something I had seen before…
If anyone recognizes that photo and can tell me when and where it was published, I’d love to hear from you. And if you have a copy of the publication and could supply me with a better scan, well, that’d be just peachy.
UPDATE (22 June 2015):
Thanks to the inspired efforts of an anonymous reader (see the comments section below), we now have the precise context for Jones’s “reference photo” posted above. The source is a photo layout titled “Secrets From My Diary,” shot by J. Frederick Smith, for the December 1973 issue of VIVA (vol. 1, no. 3). And thanks to the efforts of fans on the VFILES site, we can view the photo in the context of the original NSFW article/layout:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
The scans are small, yes, even if you click to enlarge them, but the information is much appreciated. Thanks, hsc!
Ragged Claws Network 
Deadlines! Deadlines! Deadlines! At least Jones didn’t leave the sock on his version.
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When I saw this reference photo, I knew it looked familiar– that soft-focus style was a dead giveaway– but it took a while to find it online for an exact credit.
It’s from the Dec. 1973 issue of VIVA (vol. 1, no. 3), a photo layout titled “Secrets From My Diary”, shot by J. Frederick Smith.
I think the guy was a male fashion/advertising model of the time (no idea what his name was), and the woman he’s hauling off might be– and I stress MIGHT be– Cassandra Peterson in her pre-“Elvira” years. I haven’t found good enough scans of these pages to be sure, but I do know Peterson did do a couple of soft male/female spreads in VIVA and PLAYGIRL in the early ’70s, and this might be one of them.
VIVA (“The International Magazine for Women”) was a short-lived PLAYGIRL knockoff started by Bob Guccione, publisher of PENTHOUSE. For some reason, PLAYGIRL was a phenomenally successful magazine in its first couple of years, and several skin magazine publishers attempted to cut in on the market, none of the imitations lasting more than a year or two.
I don’t have a way to provide a better scan of the one image you posted, but if you’re interested in seeing the entire layout as it appeared in the issue, some rather small scans of the cover and the spreads were posted to the VFILES hosting site:
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142
To save wading through a lot of images, the links to the spread are here:
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2117/media/76377
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142/media/76380
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142/media/76379
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142/media/76378
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142/media/76383
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142/media/76384
https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/2142/media/76385
Hope this was of interest!
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Yes, absolutely of interest! Thanks so much for taking the time to do the research. As you can see, I have now added the images to the original post and have credited you with the find. Might be an odd thing to say, but you’ve restored my faith in the Web — for a few hours, at least! 😉
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Pretty cool. It’s doesn’t look like Cassandra Peterson from the looks of it though.
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