In the digital age, pornography is more accessible than ever. But did you know that the genre was also widely consumed in the last century? Racy magazines and titillating erotic novels eagerly found their way to the Flemish public.
*The Tigress*,*Flesh Is Weak*, *Give Me a Hand, Sweetheart*… These erotic pulp novels sold like hotcakes in the 1960s and 1970s. Not in regular bookstores, but discreetly “under the counter” at newsstands or through door-to-door salesmen. The authors, too, stayed under the radar and hid behind explicit or American-sounding pseudonyms (Jan De Neucker, Lou Merryl, J.D. Burton, Franklin Frehman …).
The titles and covers may come across as wholesome, but the content often isn’t. The genre evolves from daring social novels to more explicit works or outright BDSM, sometimes illustrated with photographs or drawings. Catholic Flanders reacts by destroying tons of printed erotica. It was a futile effort, however, as explicit sexual content found its way into “mainstream” literature. Well-known writers such as Jef Geeraerts, Hugo Claus, and Louis Paul Boon combined sex and the written word.
In the early 1970s, pulp novels lost popularity to magazines, which could include more visual content and were cheaper to produce. Publishers such as De Schorpioen therefore began publishing magazines, including*Sex Top*and*Sexy West*. Another magazine,*De Mascotte*, started outfirmly in the tradition of the pulp novel, featuring one erotic story per issue. Gradually, however, the content became more varied, and other sections, such as horoscopes, began to appear. The covers also became more explicit.
Text: Sam Capiau
This article also appeared in*faro | a journal on cultural heritage*, 12 (2019)2.
