The Boobs that Shaped America

It’s funny to think that the birth of our country’s strip clubs traces back to a total drip like Barry Goldwater, but that conservative also-ran was in San Francisco to accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president when — on the night of June 19, 1964 — a lounge singer by the name of Carol Doda decided to show the city what she thought about his “traditional American values.” 

Okay, technically it was PR maven Davey Rosenberg who had the idea for Doda to descend from the ceiling of the Condor Club in a monokini with her nipples on full display, and the fact that Goldwater was in town for the RNC was more of a coincidence than anything else, but those pesky facts didn’t stop Doda from stealing the Republicans’ thunder and becoming a political icon all her own. Goldwater’s sons even came to see Doda’s show before they returned to the campaign trail, blissfully unaware that the half-naked blonde they watched sing atop a baby grand piano would soon be regarded as a symbol of the women’s liberation movement their father was promising to stop in its tracks.

Not that Doda ever claimed to be much of an activist. “I wanted to be in show business,” she said, “and I didn’t know any other way than showing my business.” Her business — in both senses of the word — would soon grow bigger than she had ever imagined.

Save for the liquid silicone injections that swelled Doda’s “fried egg” B-cups into a pair of…