'[I]f you have experienced the same sensation as I have from actually applying these devices to a beautiful girl,’ the correspondent continued, ’you’ll understand exactly what I mean.’ Well acquainted with deception and masquerade himself, Charles Moulton indeed understood exactly what the soldier meant. ’Charles Moulton’ was the pseudonym of William Moulton Marston, the well-known Harvard-trained psychologist. The name was a hybrid of Marston’s and his publisher’s middle names. Charley Gaines, the president of All-American Comics, had forwarded the soldier’s unsettling letter to ’Doc’ Marston with the suggestion that the two men discuss its contents. ’This is one of the things I’ve been afraid of’, he wrote, ’without quite being able to put my finger on it.’4 The infantryman, however, had no doubts about the comic’s chief fascination: it was full of titillating images of women being ’chained or bound, or masked.’ Should they have to defend themselves against charges of sadism (which they often did), Marston and Gaines could always reiterate the sergeant’s claim that the sado-masochistic features of the comic appealed only to an eccentric minority of their readership. ‘Believe me, my interest is not just that of another curiosity seeker,’ the soldier wrote, ’it is much more than that to me. It is a part of my life, and a very necessary part, too.’ Although they conceded that the comic depicted too much bondage, committing themselves to reducing 'the use of chains by at least 50 to 75%’, Marston and Gaines had no intention of 'interfering with the excitement of the story or the sales of the books’. And the sales were phenomenal. By the third issue alone, Wonder Woman was selling half a million copies. Marston was well aware that Wonder Woman titillated the boys as much as she inspired the girls
The lie detector, Wonder Woman and liberty: the life and work of William Moulton Marston