East coast erotica
19 18 J AY GER T Z M A N SOFTCORE PUBLISHING: THE EAST COAST SCENE The softcore paperback sex pulp had a long span of popularity, a large readership, and a complex publishing history. It may have been a literary lightweight, but it took a lot of effort to get it to work correctly to bring in the money. And it certainly did do that. By 1969, according to the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, in New York City alone, publishers issued per month, respectively, 20 titles with press runs of at least 75,000 copies (Midwood-Tower, with yearly sales of 7.2 to 9 million copies) and 12 titles with runs of about 25,000 (Bee-Line; about 3.1 million copies sold for the year).2 I. Before we begin, we must be clear that popular paperback publishing after World War II was based on the procedures used to publish and distribute mass-market magazines. The antecedent of the adult bookstore was the urban newsstand. Successful booksellers and publishers understood what sold magazines, how their distributors operated, who bought them, and why the customers came back for more of the same. Paperback books, as well the digest-sized newsstand pulps that preceded them, were written and marketed as if they were magazines. Until 1957, the American News Company distributed both. Distributors were the most influential people in the business, for it was they who delivered, and placed in racks, the publications.3 There is a legal and cultural context for the ubiquitousness of the softcore sleaze paperback throughout the ’60s. In 1959, Barney Rosset’s Grove Press published an unexpurgated Lady Chatterley’s Lover against the wishes of the author’s estate as well as the Postmaster General’s. Rosset could afford good lawyers, and he won his case against the Post Office by showing that he had prepared a scholarly edition of a literary classic. Softcore sleaze paperbacks have an erotic promise that holds its own—the libidinous nudges of titles, blurbs and cover art, even the suggestions offe red by the authors’ names. In the earlier ’60s, four-letter words were strictly taboo. Not only were “cock,” “balls,” and “pussy” inadvisable, but even the scientific designations for the sex organs were considered problematic. Unlike hardcore, the curtain rose in the first act, not the last: the sex scenes had to be in proportion to the bulk of the story, so setting and characterization were necessary. As a sort of requiem for the genre, Olympia Press published, in 1971, The Dirtiest Book in Tow n, a fictional collection of softc o re c ove r s , blurbs, and text.1 The storylines and euphemisms concocted were a satiric tribute to the verbal and narrative skills needed to write such books. There was, for example, the stream-of-consciousness gambit: Suddenly he was pumping and pounding and gasping and grunting and groaning and moaning and grinding and pushing and pulling and shoving and tearing. The science fiction variation: T h ey all had seven breasts, and not as we know them on Earth women—much large r, with nipples flaming red, and erect. The usual fe m a l e opening was in the back, and in the front they all had oversized penes [sic]—three times large r than any known on Earth men... Then Philiotina, their chieftain, fo rced her huge erection into Bill’s anus—way up to the base—while two others held his legs apart as she fo rced her huge n e s s in and out... And the clinical report: Then he [vernacular for osculated] my [ve r n a c ular for mammalia (sic)]. I spun around and starte d to [vernacular for fellatio]. He [vernacular fo r d i gitalized] my [vernacular for genitalia]. Moments later we were [vernacular for copulating]. “The worst filth I’ve seen...” So said Police Commissioner Michael Murphy (center) after raids on distributors of a l l e gedly obscene books in Queens fo l l owing parental complaints. District At to r n ey Frank O’Connor (right) and aide Guy A. Vitacco, flank Murphy in one raided establishment at 35-27 31st Street. P h o tographer: Bruce Hopkins © Bettmann/CORBIS 21 20 classics. A bit late r, the same court ruled The Sex Addicts was not obscene because “The acts of inte rcourse are not described in detail, so as to exceed the limits of conte mp o r a ry candor in such matters, nor do we find re p u l s i ve and disgusting language of the kind given permission [by the C h a t te r l ey d e c i s i o n ] . ”6 Softcore paperbacks were sold in newsstands, specialty sto res of various kinds (cigar and candy stores, drug stores), bus and airport kiosks, and through the mail. The major point of sale was the bookstore, and the rise of the sex paperback coincided —at least on the East Coast—with the rise of the Adult Book Store. This major outlet was evolving by 1960 from what was usually called the Back Date Magazine and Book Store. The adult book shop shared ways of configuring space with its forerunner. Upon entering, one saw a center table, upright racks, and both l i b r a ry and pegboard shelving for paperbacks. Some of these, including the softcore novels, might be wrapped in cellophane (thus providing more prurient curiosity) and displayed on the center table, having had the cover price crossed out and raised.7 The cash register was strategically placed, as it was in the back date magazine shop, often on a raised platform. Materials of special interest, more expensive than other items, might be behind the register, or proximate to the clerk and the register.8 Non-fiction books on sexology, sexual anthropology, and prostitution, classic erotica of the past, and titillating bestsellers by Robbins, Wallace, and Susann were common in both back date magazine stores and the early ’60s adult bookstores. Both shops had r i s qué nove l t i e s . He then published Tropic of Cancer, and d e fended booksellers in over 60 jurisdictions who faced prosecution for carrying it. Liberating these two books from the obscenity laws almost bankrupted Rosset, but opened the way for other expre s s i ve work of l i te r a ry, artistic, political, or scientific merit, and radically changed public taste as we l l . Rosset also published in cheap paperback under his Black Cat imprint we l l - w r i t te n V i c torian erotica, making this body of mate r i a l available to a mass audience. There is a va s t gap between Law rence and Henry Miller’s n ovels and the sleaze, but once the early ’60s “de-censorship” decisions we re made, publishers could plead that their books we re not devoid of lite r a ry, artistic, political or social value. They often provided intro d u ctions by “experts” with Ph.Ds after their names. But more imp o rt a n t l y, they could t a ke adva n t a ge of the fact that, after L a d y C h a t te r l ey, they we re not offending conte mp o r a ry social more s .4 In 1963, the New Yo r k S u p reme Court ruled that softc o re magazines and books, while crude, affo rded people without the education or taste to desire better a valid outlet for spending leisure time. Also that ye a r, with Tropic of Cancer b e i n g openly sold, the Illinois high court state d that two softc o re paperbacks, with the typical titles C a mpus Mist r e s s and Born To Be M a d e, could not be censored, because they “do not go substantially beyond custo m a ry limits of candor” and we re not “utterly without redeeming social imp o rt a n c e . ”5 I n 1966, Illinois stated that seven paperbacks we re not patently offe n s i ve and contained less sexual activity, sadism, oral sex and s c a tology than recently de-censored ero t i c turn the area into a “World’s Fair industrial zone.” The article’s conclusion was that in the battle between “negatives and positives... the creeps and the investors will make it a struggle.”13 All the despair over “the merchants of smut” making money by exploiting the prurience of a puritanical culture, the community action in the name of decency, and all the media cove r a ge given screeds by politicians and clergy had the predictable effect. Times S qu a re’s sex businesses grew to include pro stitution strolls and drug pushing. Middle-class citizens shied away from the increasing numbers of young Hispanic and African-A m e r i c a n men visiting from Harlem and the Bro n x .14 I n 1965, Bro a d way’s premier general inte re s t b o o k s to re, The Concord, which had opened just north of the Paramount Theater marqu e e in 1933, closed. The owner cited street crime: m a r ijuana sellers, pickpockets, drunks, flamb oyant gays, and more generally the unruly a fte r-dark atmosphere which had driven the p l aygoers away as soon as the curtain fe l l . “The street has turned into an unwa l ka b l e j u n g l e ,” he said.15 This was an exagge r a t i o n , but re f l e c ted an understandable public response to the environment in which one p u rchased softc o re paperbacks, not only in N ew York but in Boston, Philadelphia, B a l t i m o re, Wa s h i n g ton, Pittsburgh, and other l a r ge eastern cities. No wonder some purchasers pre fe r red cigar and candy sto re s , n ewsstands, and mail order outlets. No wonder, also, that booksellers, distributors, and publishers of softcore sex novels had to face social stigma, harassment from police and community moralists, and legal fees. The largest New York City distributor of softcore paperbacks was G.I. Distributors. In the ’60s, it handled both mass-market and secondary lines designed to appeal to the clientele of adult book stores. In April, 1963, police raided its Long Island City, Queens warehouse and confiscated many softcore paperbacks, bundled and ready to be trucked out to secondary retailers. G.I. was an established, well-financed company and defended itself vigorously. The owners sued the Police Commissioner and the Queens District Attorney for $325,000 in damages, and requested an injunction against further interference in the sale of their books, which they claimed were not legally obscene.16 G.I.’s successful defense didn’t stop police during the Wagner and Lindsay administrations from making periodic “sweeps” and “raids” during the rest of the decade. Back date magazine establishments carried girlie, adventure, and mystery pulps, but also all kinds of general-interest fare. In adult stores of the mid-’60s, one could find peep booths as well as a larger selection of sex toys and images, supplementing conve n t i o n a l steady sellers such as the greeting cards and erotic playing cards; photo and strip sets (a series of action photos which, when flipped through, gave the impression that the girls we re moving); 8 mm films, re c o rds, and slides; and “art study” magazines of nudist and beefcake images. Many adult shops had windows that were blocked from the view of the passerby by signage or shades, accommodating citizens offended by the exclusively sexual goods. Blocked windows also created an atmosphere of prurience. As sociologist Michael Stein put it, the “normalized” purchase of sexually explicit materials9 required that both store owner and patron adopt a kind of “hiding strategy.” Such was the ambiance in which softcore sleaze was purveyed. Liberal court decisions of the 1960s by no means meant that police, clergy, and politicians became more tolerant of sexual e x p ression in print or on film. The opposite was true. In New York, the Ro b e rt Wa g n e r administration (1954–65) was a wa te r s h e d . There were numerous confiscations of horror comic books and nude photographs which police officers, but certainly not law ye r s , thought we re obscene. A series of pornograp hy raids fo l l owed the conviction of a photographer who wholesaled pictures of nude women. Instead of the decision being based on the presence of pubic hair, or the community’s conte mp o r a ry tolerances, the more general concept of “prurient inte rest” guided the decision.10 A Mayor’s Citizens’ Anti-Po r n o g r a p hy Commission was created after Monsignor McCaffrey’s 1963 call for action against “the disgrace that is Times Squ a re” befo re World’s Fair visitors arrived. Several months l a te r, Operation Yorkville’s Father Morto n Hill went on a hunger strike until the Commission’s four-point program was instituted. One goal was creation of a court dedicated to hearing obscenity cases.11 Mayor Wagner “welcom[ed] his help and the help of other religious and civil leaders in rooting out this evil.”12 In 1966, the Herald Tribune, in an article headlined “The Problems of Times S qu a re—Winos and Daffodils Ta ke Ove r,” described re a l tors’ hopes that inve s to r s would purchase Times Square properties and Sleaze emporium, mid-town Manhattan, 19 6 3 . 23 22 SEX LIFE OF A COP ( 1959) By Oscar Pe c k Saber Books J.B. Rund, publisher of The Bélier Pre s s , b e l i eves that Malkin might have distribute d books in collaboration with Reuben Sturman. Sturman had realized by the mid-’60s how much more lucrative erotica was than any other kind of bookselling. He had already seen his wa rehouses raided in Detroit (1963) and C l eveland (1964). From the Cleveland location, the FBI confiscated 590 copies of Sex Life of a C o p, written and published by Sanfo rd Ad ay (Saber Books, Fresno, CA).30 Rund sugge s t s that Malkin may have been Sturman’s packa ge r,31 which means Malkin would have hire d the writers and cover artists, had the pre s s work done, and paid salaries. As packa ge r, he would have re c e i ved a flat rate, and possibly h ave been allowed to keep some copies to sell. Malkin had the savvy to conduct successful sex book publishing and distributing operations. Earlier in his care e r, he ran an imp o rt a n t distribution outfit called Sate l l i te, in which Times Squ a re’s current smut king, Eddie Mishkin, was a part n e r.3 2 An insider among N ew York’s pariah entre p reneurs in erotica, he k n ew the popularity of fetish artists such as Bill Wa rd, Bill Alexander (later on the Hudson New s s t a ff ) ,3 3 Gene Bilbrew, and Eric Stanton. Bilbrew and Stanton had for years been doing art wo r k for Irving Klaw’s Nutrix bondage booklets, which earned Klaw national infamy when the Ke f a u ver Committee investigating the effect of obscenity on juvenile delinquency qu e stioned him in 1955. These men created for Malkin’s typewritten pulps dynamic cartoonlike images, in stark primary colors, which embodied the objects of the voyeur’s lust: exaggerated breasts and buttocks, women lasciviously anticipating what the leering men in the pictures might do, women cavorting before male onlookers. Their work, which appeared on covers of various softcore novels, was imitated on adult bookstore posters in the hardcore period. It was an epitome, that is, of the Times Square bookstore and sex emporium, and perhaps of the secondary softcore market generally. Another kind of softc o re publisher was the “ f l y- by-night” va r i e t y. Such a person’s books c a r ry no indication of publisher or of publisher’s imprint (or “line” or series), except in some cases for a phrase such as “An Original Arrow Re a d e r.” Chris Eckhoff has noticed that in some instances, except for the cove r, the manu f a c t u red object had previously been on the m a r ket. The fly- by-night version was a kind of re m a i n d e r. Its publisher had stripped the book of its original cover and a new one had been glued on, bearing a new title. In some cases a which Womack was a leading practitioner. Womack would arrange to have his own name and address put on a mail order dealer’s catalogue. When orders came in, Womack wo u l d m a ke out an address label for each custo m e r, and send it to the dealer with the order and one-half the remittance. The dealer, alway s g r a teful for additions to his mailing list, wo u l d send out the books.2 8 The Liberty Gift Shop, on Seventh Ave n u e just south of 42nd Street in Times Squ a re, wa s a mini-center of secondary publishing and distributing in the mid-1960s. Chris Eckhoff, a v i n t a ge paperback bookseller, explains that L i b e rty’s ow n e r, Stanley Malkin, used the second floor of a topless bar he owned as an off i c e for the editing of Unique, After Hours, Nitey N i te, and First Niter Books. Eckhoff thinks that U n i que Books’ Buffalo, New York address that might have been only a mail, or mail dro p , a d d ress. It may be, conjectures C.J. Scheiner, bookseller and scholar of erotica, that there was a collaboration between Malkin and the owner of Gordon Books, located north of Niagara Falls near Hamilton in Canada, and thus close to Buffalo. The purpose of this collaboration would have been to distribute seco n d a ry market paperbacks in Canada. Malkin m ay have arranged with WWNC (World Wide N ews Comp a ny), AMD (American Magazine D i s t r i b u tors) or EMD (Eastern Magazine D i s t r i b u tors) to place his books in secondary markets, for these initials, Eckhoff points out, were on the spines of Unique, After Hours, First Niter, and Nitey Nite books.29 t r i b u tor and retailer’s fees amounted to half the c over price, he would do well, especially if he could publish ten or more volumes per month.2 2 The Commission listed some 15 easte r n concerns: Olympia Press Inc., Ove r s tock Book C o mp a ny (Bob Brown), Inte r s t a te Book Distributors (formerly L-N), Cosmopolitan (formerly Eastern News), and Tu xedo in New Yo r k ; Pendulum Books, Atlanta (Mike Thev i s ) ; Central Sales, LTD, Baltimore; Sove reign New s C o mp a ny, Cleveland (Reuben Sturman); Marble Distributors, Boston; Po tomac New s and Guild Press, Wa s h i n g ton DC (Herman Womack); United Graphics, Delray Beach, F l o r i d a .2 3 Other secondary publishers included Bedside, Fleur de Lis, Ko z y, Casanova, and Tu xedo. Buffalo was the location of a publisher responsible for the fo l l owing lines: Unique, We e Hours, First Nite r, After Hours.2 4 T h evis, Womack, and Sturman ran “emp i re s of the obscene.” For all three, the softc o re pulp paperback, a significant cash cow, was one of s everal sexually- o r i e n ted products. Sturman, by the ’70s, had cre a ted a multifaceted business: books (Eros Gold Stripe, Consolidate d ) , sex emporia, peep booths, sex novelties (Doc Johnson’s), and films. He had to deal with Mafia bosses on many levels, like them hiding his huge investments behind a shield of corpor a te names. Eventually his corporate shields we re pierced and he was sent to federal prison, h aving become one of the century’s media whipping boys for the kind of organized crime n ewspaper and TV “re p o rters” never attribute to tobacco, gas and oil, pharmaceutical, or mili t a ry hard wa re industries and their corporate s u b s i d i a r i e s .25 Womack, a man of physical and i n tellectual stature, established an enormous clearinghouse especially for gay lite r a t u re. By 1970 he faced federal prosecution for distributing the latter (magazines, books, photo g r a p h s ) , some of which fe a t u red underage boy s .2 6 T h evis, like Sturman, began with new s s t a n d operations. By the early ’60s his publishing and distributing operations we re nationwide. His federal prosecutions for transport i n g obscene materials across state lines began in 1970. He became invo lved with murd e r, exto rtion, and arson charges, and died in prison.27 Mail order was an imp o rtant method of selling softc o re, as the ads in the back of many books show. Numerous catalogues crossed the c o u n t ry, especially reaching customers in towns and rural locations without booksto re s . Of the many mail order concerns based in East Coast cities, Arnold Levy’s World Wide Books was one of the largest. Lev y, and many others, took adva n t a ge of the “drop-ship” method, of I I. T h e re we re two kinds of publishers, and two channels of wholesale distribution, for softc o re ’60s sleaze: mass-market and secondary. M a s s - m a r ket firms such as Fawcett Gold Medal, which originated the paperback original ( b e fo re the late ’40s, paperbacks had been reprints of hard c over books), distributed to “ d e p a rtment sto res, drug sto res, book sto re s , g i ft shops, specialty shops, in many places w h e re you will see the softc over book on sale s i d e - by-side with the hard c over books.”17 Fawcett acted as its own distributo r, rather than relying on a separate middleman concern. Dell and MacFa d d e n - B a rtell did likewise, and all three firms distributed other publishers’ books as well. Other mass-market firms with s e x u a l l y- o r i e n ted material we re Signet, Po c ke t , B e r k l ey, and Grove (the afo rementioned Black Cat Books). The 1970 Technical Re p o rt on Obscenity and Po r n o g r a p hy (the Lockhart pre sidential Commission) re p o rted Bee-Line, Towe r and Lancer to be mass-market publishers, although these firms we re of lesser stature than the ones previously mentioned.1 8 M a ny publishers fo l l owed Barney Rosset and had their wa res distributed by both mass-market and s e c o n d a ry outfits. His Black Cat paperbacks, including The Victorian Library, and the lite r a ry classics by Law rence, Burroughs, and Miller, reached adult booksto res through the offices of G.I. Distributo r s .19 Prurient inte rest paperbacks for the mass market may have reached points of sale not by national but by local, or independent, d i s t r i b u tors. There we re usually no m o re than one or two of these in any large city.2 0 The secondary market consisted of va r i o u s specialty sto res and newsstands, but fo c u s e d in the ’60s on adult outlets dedicated mostly or entirely to sexually explicit mate r i a l s. Publishers, many of them functioning also as d i s t r i b u tors, primarily handled imprints (and d i ffe rent “lines” specific to various fetishes) targe ted exc l u s i vely for these sorts of readers. The L o c k h a rt Commission explains that print runs for secondary books was between 10 and 30 thousand copies, while the mass marke t variety could often have been as high as 10 0 , 0 0 0 .21 This meant a higher unit cost for the s e c o n d a ry publisher. At the end of the decade, he typically would spend approx i m a tely $4,000 in production costs (author’s fee, “make - re a d y,” printing) and another $500 for shipping. On a print run of 30,000 copies, he would be spending 15 cents per book. Retail prices ranged fro m 95 cents to $1.95. If half the books printe d we re sold, and the publisher’s return after dis- 25 24 Notes 1. Terrance McKerrs and Fredric Dehn [editors], The Dirtiest Book in Town: A Bedside Companion for the Sensuous Man and Woman (NY: The Olympia Press, 1971). Some of Olympia staff writers mentioned in the Acknowledgments are Marilyn Meesky, Lou Caselli, and Michael Menzies. The subtitle is modeled after the bestsellers The Sensuous Man and The Sensuous Woman. 2. “Part II: Books and Magazines,” President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Technical Report, Vol. III: The Marketplace: The Industry (Washington, DC: GPO, [1970]), 86–87. 3. I am indebted to editor and writer Earl Kemp, email 17 Jan. 2004, for this insight and for many others regarding the paperback and magazine business, and also to Steve Gertz, email to the author, 21 March 2002. 4. Edward de Grazia, Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius (NY: Vintage, 1993), 496–504; Kenneth C. Davis, Two Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 241–45. 5. Paul l. Montgomery, “Pulp Sex Novels Thrive as Trade Comes Out into the Open,” New York Times, 5 Sept. 1965, (hereafter abbreviated as NYT).,” Felice Flanery Lewis, Literature, Obscenity, and Law (Carbondale: So. Illinois U.P., 1967), 192. 6. Lewis, Literature, Obscenity, and Law, 193–95. 7. Montgomery, “Pulp Sex Novels,” 26. 8. P e ter Campbell Brown, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, v Kingsley Books, Inc. et al, Court of Appeals, State of NY, 1955, index number 41983, Supreme Court of the State of NY (clerk’s office, 60 Centre St., New York City), pp. 32–35 (testimony of James Rushin, police department detective). 9. Michael Stein, The Ethnogr a p hy of an Adult Booksto r e ( L ew i s ton, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 1990), 73, 113 . ment or social observation. The same lower level of style and theme characterizes seco n d a ry sex pulps depicting hete ro s e x u a l lifestyles. The secondaries were also more likely to have spelling errors, blurred or faint text, flimsy paper, weak bindings, and poorly composed title pages and covers.35 When the Lockhart Commission analyzed the secondary sex paperback industry in the l a te ’60s, they found that the market was satu r a ted, and that competition was cutthro a t . M a ny titles we re being dumped on discount s h e lves. There was also great hostility among d i s t r i b u tors and publishers alike .3 6 T h e Commission listed 15 secondary- m a r ket publishers in New York alone (there we re thre e m o re in the Los Angeles area). Among these flourishing in 1968, or continuing to flourish then, we re Bark Book Distributors, and Star D i s t r i b u tors Ltd. (both with organized crime connections); Ove r s tock Book Comp a ny; G.I. D i s t r i b u tors; Inte r s t a te Magazine Distributo r s ; and the Olympia and Ophelia Presses (both Maurice Giro d i a s ) .37 I I I . In 1965 Ro b e rt Redrup, a Times Squ a re new sstand dealer, sold to an underc over policeman t wo softc o re sex pulp paperbacks, Lu st Pool and Shame Age n t. In 19 67, the ensuing case came befo re the Supreme Court, which wa s divided on criteria for obscenity. The Court a d o p ted a policy of reversing without comment all obscenity convictions which reached it.3 8 This decision was an open sesame for hardc o re. By 1969, softc o re sex pulps had been l a r gely supplanted by “fuck books.” But that is not quite the end of their story, thanks to a publisher with marketing genius, ideological conviction, and the courage needed to test the limits of public tolerance for sexual explicitness. This was Lyle Stuart, who successfully m a i n s t reamed the adult booksto re softc o re paperback. In 1969 Lyle Stuart published the hoax novel, N a ked Came the Stranger by “ Penelope Ashe.” A N ew s d ay journalist, Mike M c G r a d y, had organized some two dozen c o lleagues to collaborate in writing a softc o re e rotic tale that he hoped would become as popular as Jacqueline Susann’s bre a k t h ro u g h sexy potboilers. N a ked Came was initially released in hardback and sold in general outlets. 39 The illusion of artistic and social va l u e had to be present to give booksellers and c u s tomers the rationale they needed. The jacket had to be “taste f u l ,” because otherwise the volume would appear to be what McGrady n ew title page had been added, but in others t h e re was none. Opening the book, one fo u n d the conventional half title (or “ad cart”) leaf with a set of blurbs, then the first chapte r, on the second leaf. On the final page or back c over is the “printed in USA” statement. The publisher had reissued the work unidentified, as a new line, hoping in this new sub-edition to get some additional return on it. Alte r n a t i ve l y, the book may have been the product of someone who was undertaking a pirating gambit, h aving got his hands on a number of re m a i nder copies of one or more books. A 1965 N ew York Times i n ve s t i g a t i ve article discussed ye t another kind of “suitcase operato r,” who had paid to get books produced cheaply by offset in runs of 50 or 60 thousand and “[sold] their output to a distributor for about half the cove r price.” The suitcase “publisher” had a minimal i n vestment, and probably operated alone, or with one or two accomplices. Their pro d u c t s we re sold as single titles to a local secondary d i s t r i b u to r. Only outlets like Times Squ a re ’ s adult sto res carried them.3 4 Such a book was illegal. State laws re qu i re d businesses to apply for permission to operate , and corporations to file cert i f i c a tes. Both in these papers and on the manufactured book itself, the publisher or distributor had to identify himself with a valid name and address fo r tax purposes. The people behind a fly- by- n i g h t operation, who dealt only in cash, did not dilute their profits by sharing them with anyone other than the distributor or bookseller. The fo r m e r would have had a problem if his business re c o rds we re audited. He would not have been able to identify the fly- by-night publisher by business name or address, and probably wo u l d h ave no invoices or receipts from him. M a ny, but not all, secondary- m a r ket paperbacks carried the notice “Adult Reading” or “Adults Only” on their covers. They diffe red in c o n tent and production values from massm a r ket softc o re sex paperbacks. Survey i n g the mass-market and secondary gay- l e s b i a n paperbacks of the ’60s, Laurence Miller finds little of the insightful delineation of tabooed sexual desire that made books by mass-market authors popular. Although secondary paperbacks sometimes fe a t u red a gre a te r variety of gay and fetish lifestyles, they s t ressed the titillating and sensationally exo t i c . In contrast to the mass-market sto ry, the seco n d a ry novel heavily favo red female characte r s i n vo lved in the lesbian, high-heel, flage l l a t i o n , and bondage scene who we re two - d i m e n s i o nal randy perve rts, not sympathetic tro u b l e d outsiders. There was little character deve l o p- NAKED CAME THE ST RA N G E R ( 1969) By Penelope Ashe D e l l a d m i t ted it really was. He liked the pro p o s e d c over art, with its dow n wa rd-bearing phallic lipstick protruding from its casing. He sugge s te d the addition of a nude woman, with her back to the viewe r. Stuart took a chance on the jacke t revision. The total effect was artistic enough to t r a n s form a pin-up nude into a study of classic beauty that hid salacious content behind a shield of sophistication for discriminating adults. The publisher learned from his books to re contacts that it was the jacket that sold the book. Men took the book from its shelf, read it, wa l ked away, and then, as they we re l e aving the sto re, bought it.40 N o t a b l y, sociologists doing field studies during the late ’60s we re observing exactly this behavior pattern in p a t rons of adult booksto re s .41 N a ke d was on the fiction bestseller list in 1969. S t u a rt fo l l owed the next year with T h e Sensuous Wo m a n, pseudonymously authore d by “J.” He conceived the book, as he explained to the authoress, as a sex manual for wo m e n . M a ny softc o re publishers had entries in this ge n re. Lyle Stuart Incorporated’s would be revol u t i o n a ry because it would make oral sex “ respectable” for Americans.4 2 It reached third place on the nonfiction list. Again, the cover art was key. Stuart originally planned to have an open-mouthed woman on the jacket, the colors of which we re to be chart reuse and black. But his write r, an excellent publicist, had a bette r idea. She took Stuart to Bloomingdale’s to show him how soap and perfume we re displayed fo r discerning middle-class women. The colors and typeface on the revised, non-illustrated dust j a c ket sugge s ted “sensuousness, not smut.”4 3 Lyle Stuart claims to have “started the sex revolution in [trade] publishing,” and te s te d the boundaries that separated ente rt a i n m e n t f rom vice, bringing what had been disre putable 42nd Street stuff into the mainstre a m . To demonstrate the subtle but powe rf u l effects of creative book packaging, and the weird contrast between the reality of text and the cosmetics of its exterior, one need only juxtapose the covers of Naked Came the Stranger and The Sensuous Woman with the softcore paperbacks illustrated in the book you now hold in your hands. J ay A. Gertzman is the author of B o o k l e g gers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 19 2 0 – 19 4 0 . 26 10. Richard Kuh, Foolish Figleaves? Pornography in–and out of–Court (NY: Macmillan, 1967), 108–10; “21 Face Court in Smut Raid,” New York Post, 19 Jan. 1961, 8; “Times Square Smut Raiders Nab 22,” New York Daily News, 19 Jan. 1961, 5; “22 Arrested in Times Square Raid on Smut,” New York Herald Tribune, 19 Jan. 1961, 18. 11. Ronald Collins and David Skover, The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2002), 240–41. See “Priest Denounces Smut in Times Square,” NYT, 6 May 1963, 1; “City Opens Drive on Pornography,” NYT, 29 Oct. 1963, 1; “Jesuit Begins Fast to Protest Pornography Sales to Children,” NYT, 28 Oct. 1963, 24; “Mayor’s Unit Seeks Pornography Curbs,” NYT, 30 March 1965, 34. 12. “City Opens Drive on Pornography,” NYT, 29 Oct. 1963, 1. 13. New York Herald Tribune, 6 March 1966, clipping preserved in H. Lynn Womack Papers, Box 2, Folder 11, Human Sexuality Archive, Kroch Library, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY. 14. William Kornblum et al., “West 42nd Street: ‘The Bright Light Zone,’” Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, 1978, (typescript), 74–76. 15. Richard F. Shepard, “Times Square Home of Unbest Sellers Is Closing,” NYT 26 Oct. 1965, 47. 16. “2 City Officials Sued in Seizure of Books,” NYT, 10 May 1963, 17. 17. U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Hearings, 82nd Cong., 2nd Session, H.R. 596 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1953), 9–20. Testimony of Ralph Daigh, Vice President of Fawcett Publications. 18. President’s Commission, III, 85–86. 19. Barney Rosset, personal interview, 23 Jan. 2001, New York City. 20. President’s Commission, III, 76–78. 21. President’s Commission, III, 94. 22. President’s Commission, III, 94–98. 23. President’s Commission, III, 89. 24. Laurence Miller, “Adult-Oriented Gay and Lesbian Paperbacks During the Golden Age,” Paperback Parade, December 1997 [vol. 47], 42–58 (an excellent checklist). 25. Eric Schlosser, Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 116–18. 26. Peter Osnos, “Womack Arrested Again as Obscenity Publisher,” Washington Post, 25 April 1970, Box 1, Folder 1, H. Lynn Womack Papers, Kroch Library, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY; James Griffin, “Dr. Womack and the Nudie Magazines,” The Washington Daily News, 30 April 1970, Box 1, Folder 2, Womack Papers. 27. John Heidenry, What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 231–33; “Jury in Racket Case Will Not be Limited, ” NYT, 21 Aug. 1979, 21. 28. Arnold Levy, personal interview, 23 April 1964. 29. For the information in the above paragraph I am grateful to the following: Chris Eckhoff, “After Hours Books,” 25–27, and interview 14 July 2004; Clifford Scheiner, professor (Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality) and erotica collector, interview 25 Feb. 2001; Stephen Gertz, bookseller and author, email 21 March 2002. 30. Schlosser, Reefer Madness, 116–18. 31. J.B. Rund, interview 15 July 2004, New York City. Rund’s invaluable Bélier Press publications include those on the work of Bettie Page (Private Peeks), Eric Stanton (Bizarre Comix), and John Willie (The Adventures of Sweet Gwendolyn). 32. See Chris Eckhoff, “A fter Hours Books,” Paperback Parade, April, 1996, 25–31. J.B. Rund told me (7 May 2003) that Malkin’s bar was in the second building to the south of the booksto re; there was a small hotel in between. The Manhattan County Clerk’s re c o rds show Liberty Gift Shop was opened and incorporated in 1952, and in 1964 changed its name to Forsythe Books. A Re quest for Business Name form in the New York City County Clerk’s office lists Stanley Malkin, and Fr a n k Ad l e r, as owners of The Little Book Exc h a n ge, 228 W. 42nd Street, an address associated also with “smut king” Eddie Mishkin, d i s t r i b u tor of at least one early edition of the typew r i t ten flagellation booklets Nights of Horro r, which he was enjoined fro m selling by New York police in 1955. In 1960, Mishkin’s indictment for similar booklets eventually led to a prison sente n c e . 33. I am grateful to Chris Eckhoff for this information (interview Jan. 2004). 34. Montgomery, “Pulp Sex Novels,” 26. 35. “Adult-Oriented Gay and Lesbian Paperbacks During the Golden Age,” 26–42. 36. President’s Commission, III, 90. 37. President’s Commission, III, 89. 38. de Grazia, Girls Lean Back Eve ry w h e r e, 512–18; Lewis, L i terature, Obscenity, and Law, 19 6 – 97. 39. Mike McGrady, S t r a n ger Than Naked or How to Wr i te Dirty books for Fun and Pro f i t ( N Y: Wyden, 1970), 2–3, 22–23. 40. McGrady, S t r a n ger than Nake d, 93–10 9 . 41. David A. Karp, “Hiding in Pornographic Booksto res: A Reconsideration of the Nature of Urban Anony m i t y,” Urban Life and C u l t u r e 1.4 (Jan. 1973), 427 – 51 (see esp. 442–43); William C. McKinstry, “The Pulp Voyeur: A Peek at Po r n o g r a p hy in Public P l a c e s ,” in D eviance: Field Studies and Self-Disclosures (Palo Alto, CA: National Press Books, 1974), 30–40. 42. Lyle Stuart, “Breaking Through in Book Publishing,” Breaking Through in Book Publishing, videotape, rec. 22 June 1972 , I n s t i t u te for the Ad vanced Study of Human Sexuality, San Francisco, CA (re e l - to - reel tape). 43. Te r ry Garrity, S to ry of “J”: The Sensuous Wo m a n ( N Y: Morrow, 1984), 53–54.Related:
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