The boys call me a Sunday School girl because I will not smoke, drink or kiss,” said one anonymous participant. Leonor Fini was an Argentine-Italian painter who spent much of her artistic career in France. Associated with the Surrealist movement, Fini’s self-portraits and mythological paintings focused on eroticism and dreams. “ Paintings, like dreams, have a life of their own and I have always painted very much the way I dream,” she once said. Genet, Jean. La galère/de Jean Genet.; [Eaux-fortes de Leonor Fini.]. Illustrated by Leonor Fini, Jacques Loyau, 1947. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, 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. 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.

Domínguez was a Spanish artist best known for his loosely rendered Surrealist paintings. Influenced by avant-garde European painters such as René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, and Yves Tanguy, he employed bizarre subject matter to great effect. Domínguez, like Max Ernst, used a technique called decalcomania, a technique used by some surrealist artists which involves pressing paint between sheets of paper. Hugnet, Georges. Le feu au cul / [Georges Hugnet]; [illustrations d’Oscar Domínguez]. Illustrated by Oscar Dominguez, [Robert J. Godet], [1943]. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GKUCFJ839309656/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=be484433&pg=5 Hugnet, Georges. Le feu au cul / [Georges Hugnet]; [illustrations d’Oscar Domínguez]. Illustrated by Oscar Dominguez, [Robert J. Godet], [1943]. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GKUCFJ839309656/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=be484433&pg=20 Illustration for plays Out of this collection, however, one genuine curio from the striptease era does stand out. Probably made for strip clubs and the 8mm home movie market, Harrison Marks’ Xcitement (1960) once again features his favourite model, Pamela Greene. From its very first shot of a slightly decrepit putti overlooking a divan adorned in fake leopard skin, Marks announces that this is going to be a strip show imbued with neoclassicism and culture. The Uncharted Sea, meanwhile, warns young men of the dire consequences that will arise from licentious living, and the price is not left in doubt. “I’ve paid heavily for one night out,” bewails our hero, George. “I’ve lost my job, and now I have gonorrhea.” Surrealism was a cultural movement which developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I and was largely influenced by Dadaism. According to André Breton, surrealism utilised art and literature to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality”, or “surreality”. Surrealist artists and writers frequently employed free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious mind to create their works. Surrealism was a philosophical movement, but also a revolutionary movement most commonly associated with communism and anarchism. From the 1920’s onward, Paris was a centre of the surrealist movement, so it is no surprise to see a number of works in Enfer written and illustrated in surrealist style. The six short stories featured in Le Cinglant Argument feature characters whose sexual frustrations and desires find release in all sorts of flagellation. The sixteen illustrations featured in this book, illustrated by an anonymous artist, leave no doubt this is a flagellation novel; they offer a wonderful visual aspect to the stories. Aside from the erotic nature of the illustrations, it is interesting to see the fashions, furnishings, and stylings of the turn of the twentieth century brought to life. Le Cinglant argument / préface de Pierre Guénolé. Office central de librairie, 1900. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GEYFLB626093737/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=55793c24&pg=111Right: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GDTLVQ153556106/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=32b93350&pg=74 Homosexual Erotica Eve Blue, a college undergraduate, was there for the fun. That December night, she kissed six men, caressing and touching them but never going all the way. The young flapper had just experienced a “petting party”—a 1920s and 1930s fad that titillated youth, scandalized adults and stoked the myth of the immoral flapper. Throughout the 1920s and 30s so-called ‘propaganda films’ about birth control or the dangers from sexually transmitted diseases, such as The Uncharted Sea (1928) and The Irresponsibles (1929) were refused film certificates by the BBFC. This is surprising since neither of these two films depicts how such diseases are actually caught, only that they seem to occur outside “marital relationships”. But not everyone approved of the fashions and fads of these newly liberated young women. To many Americans, petting parties epitomized everything that was evil about the Jazz Age. These parties took on different forms, but they all had the same goal: physical pleasure. Right: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GDAAIR446444339/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=9376408d&pg=45 The Novel de Flagellation

Traditional girls cared about getting married and raising kids; flappers wanted to party instead of settling down. Petting parties only added to this reputation. When The Washington Post published a glossary of the flapper’s philosophy in 1922, it defined life as “One long petting party accompanied by jazz. Future: Heaven only knows what.” 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”.Right: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GEILBK698847083/AHSI?u=omni&sid=AHSI&xid=eafc0675&pg=31 Delve into the fascinating lives and histories of the authors and artists in Enfer Bluefit the stereotype of the 1920s flapper to a T, chasing a lifestyle that would have been unthinkable just 20 years before. She drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, and dabbled in bohemianism. She cut her hair short, wore dresses that showed off her fashionably slender figure, used daring slang and dated multiple men before marriage.

Le Cinglant Argument is one of the books in a sub-collection of Enfer known as Flagellation. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, an editorial subgenre flourished in France: the novel de flagellation, a specialized branch of erotic literature. In this context, “passionate flogging” is a sexual act consisting of experiencing an erotic pleasure to be whipped. The Flagellation books in Enfer consist of literary works on spanking, caning, and whipping. In the twentieth century, erotic art became more adventurous, not only in what it depicted, but in the art forms used. A variety of twentieth-century art and design movements, from abstract expressionism to art deco to pop art to surrealism, are illustrated in the books of Enfer. Additionally, erotic literature changed with the times. Some of the works still offered social commentary and criticism, but there were just as many texts dealing with love, sexual desires, fetishes, and outright pornography. 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,Not all petting parties were intentional affairs; some broke out spontaneously in dance halls, cars or secluded places. And to some, the very thought of a party devoted to sex—even a relatively chaste version—was cause for outrage. But the reality wasn’t as simple—or as scandalous—as it seemed. Flappers’ reputations were made worse by petting, but the practice also reflected traditional values by avoiding premarital sex. In a day when a woman’s reputation could still be irreparably damaged by divorce or an illegitimate child, petting let flappers thumb their nose at the convention while still protecting themselves against the repercussions of sex. New media can always rely on sex to propel its popularity. And the motion picture was no exception to this rule. Right from the start, when moving images were developed in the 1890s, their erotic potential was seized upon. We know that a group of adventurous Brazilian pornographers bought one of the first five Kinetoscope cameras manufactured by Thomas Edison in 1893. Three years later, on this side of the Atlantic, George Méliès produced the first moving picture to feature nudity, though only a few frames from Le Bain (1896) have survived. 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.

Much of the hand-wringing about petting parties focused on the supposed immorality of the young woman who attended them. Critics grumbled about flappers’ refusal to engage in traditional courtship and their flippant attitudes toward long-held social conventions. Some of the erotic literature and art in Enfer, published between the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, was created for sexual gratification, titillation and amorous fantasies. The descriptions and depictions of sexual escapades and episodes can be arousing, humorous and sensual, or display the darker aspects of human desire. Enfer is more than just erotica; many of the works in the collection offer intriguing social commentaries and criticisms, and the opportunity to delve into the fascinating lives and histories of the authors and artists themselves, as well as the social and cultural movements they represented. Don’t be afraid to venture beneath the book covers and read between the lines; you never know what you will find in Enfer!Georges Hugnet (11 July 1906 – 26 June 1974) was a French graphic artist. He was also active as a poet, writer, art historian, bookbinding designer, critic and film director. According to one source, Hugnet’s early rebelliousness eventually developed into a combative, stubborn nature causing quarrels with publishers, other artists, poets, friends, and family throughout his life. In the 1940s, Hugnet was part of the French Resistance in German-occupied France. In 1943, Hugnet collaborated with Spanish surrealist Óscar Domínguez to create Le feu au cul, a term generally used with someone who is on the lookout for sexual liaison opportunities. The book of art and poetry was published secretly during the wartime occupation. Hugnet’s erotic poetry was well paired with Dominguez’s overtly sexual artwork, which, “ demonstrated an unceasing preoccupation with the subconscious, with automatism and with unfettered spontaneity.”