LENDING A HAND: 1920s Erotica

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At the core of everything we do is our reproductive drive. It's primitive. It makes men want to be powerful to get women and women want to be beautiful so they can get men. That's why we want to take lots of pictures." Vintage porn has an undeniable appeal. Every photograph tells a story, and you can tell that some thought went into setting up each shot. Why does that woman have a Howdy Doody doll in her hand? How did that man get his leg up over the steering wheel? Did those newlyweds take these photos themselves, or were they on a set? As you can see, the panel depicts a mother and child being protected from a fanged serpent by a nude, bearded, knife-wielding father. However, the trustees of the School did not appreciate the display of male genitalia and would not allow it to be placed above the School's entrance unless Kennington added a loincloth. Jean Genet, (born December 19, 1910, Paris – died April 15, 1986, Paris) spent his early life as a petty thief and a vagabond, yet later became a writer, playwright and human rights activist. Genet was also openly homosexual, and many of his works explicitly portrayed themes of homosexuality and criminality, reflective of his own life journey. In 1947, Genet published La Galère ( The Galley), a poetic work about a virile murderer who is transformed into a tragic “queen” in a fantasy involv­ing a galley ship transporting prisoners to apenal colony in Guyana. If you enjoyed reading about the images in nineteenth and early twentieth texts in L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, you may enjoy Phil’s discussion of images in earlier works from the seventeenth to nineteenth century. You may also be interested in reading about another module in Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender series, Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century, in Sex! … and Sexuality, and Gender which discusses the Private Case from the British Library, materials from the Alfred C. Kinsey Institute for Sex Research and the New York Academy of Medicine.

The first known example of British ‘cheesecake’ top ends The Pleasure Principle, a new collection on BFI Player exploring the history of British film erotica. Appropriately shot on a Kinetoscope or ‘peepshow’ camera, the Brighton-based pioneer Esme Collins’ A Victorian Lady at Her Boudoir (1896) is, in effect, a three-minute long stripshow in which the leading lady stops short in her shift, appears confused by the camera and tousles her hair by way of a wink to the audience.As one would hope from an artist with integrity, he refused to censor or change his vision and so the work was placed above the entrance of the library where it remains today. Perhaps some kind of brief would have been useful... It was between the acts put on in Soho’s strip clubs that the short uncertified films Goodnight with Sabrina (1958) and Burlesque Queen (1961) would have been exhibited. With tassels twirling, over-elaborate dance steps and bodies swathed in voluminous gauze, these 8mm shorts are caught in time, oddly prim in routines that could have been choreographed by the Women’s Institute. The censors’ no nudity rule persisted in the coming decades, and curiosities such as Action in Slow Motion (1943), which feature nudes in action (albeit shot at a distance), would not have not been seen in cinemas. By the beginning of the 1960s, however, one man was determined to find a way to put naked bodies on the British screen. In the summer of 1960 the pin-up photographer Harrison Marks told the head censor at the BBFC: “I’m going to be waving the banner for British nudists.” The censor was not impressed. But he knew that the board would have to pass Marks’ intended film, Naked as Nature Intended (1960), provided “the film’s setting is recognisable as a nudist camp or nature reserve”. Surely the Preston nude can't be the only one that caused some controversy at the time... Well indeed not. Artistic nudes have had a complicated history, tied up with the male gaze, the public perception of what was 'decent' at different times in history, religion, and plenty of other factors.

Argentine-Italian surrealist painter Leonor Fini was invited to illustrate La Galère and created six etchings depicting explicit sexual activities between men. Finding homosexual erotica can be challenging given past social attitudes toward homosexuality. In 1956, Genet was given a fine and a suspended prison sentence for publishing the illustrated editions of La Galère and Querelle de Brest, both of which were considered “in contempt of morality”. Finding a work that artistically depicts gay intimacy, especially illustrated by a female artist, is something of a rarity. His drawings for Paris-Éros featured a combination of pencil and watercolour washes, depicting women and men in elegant attire and seductive poses. Aside from the titillating qualities of some of the illustrations, it is interesting to see the fashions of the period depicted. One such illustration shows two fashionably dressed ladies likely wearing corsets that gave their figures the wasp-waisted look that was in vogue. Dumont, Auguste. Paris-Éros Première série Les maquerelles inédites / Martial d’Estoc / dessins de Gaston Noury. Illustrated by Gaston Noury, Le Courrier littéraire de la presse, 1903. Archives of Sexuality and Gender,With life this pleasant, it's no wonder that nobody was smiling in the creepy pictures taken in the Victorian era. Everybody looks so severe that it seems as if people in the 1800s just didn't have the time, or strength to have fun. But as these rare vintage photos prove, that wasn't always the case. The caption contest at RetroRaunch rivals the New Yorker's for wit; here's a favorite (NSFW). (Oh, and this one (NSFW).) Right: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GDAAIR446444339/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=9376408d&pg=45 The Novel de Flagellation Please be aware that this blog post contains content that may be offensive to some readers; the decision to read the post is at your own discretion.