A few months back, I posted a couple of old cartoons and got in a conversation on Twitter about the old trope of men and women shipwreck victims as desert island castaways. The most common version of the trope treats women as especially-valuable flotsam; it always seems to be assumed that whatever man washes up on an island will get to enjoy the sexual services of any castaway women who might share his marooning.
I was therefore somewhat amused to find a century-old joke in The Magazine Of Fun (August 1921) that flips this trope on its head. The male castaway is an earnest and energetic gentleman, and the woman washed up on his desert island finds him wanting:
Deserted!
They were cast away together on a raft. So far as they were able to ascertain they were the only survivors from the good ship Lekytub. On the morning of the third day the raft came to rest on a sandy island.
He at once set to work to build a shelter. He built two shelters.
“Now,” he said, “we’re fixed. There’s one house for you and one for me.”
Quickly she ran down to the beach, and getting aboard the raft, shoved off.
“Good-by,” she called, “I’m going to find a new shipwreck partner.”
