The Pearl: A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading was a pornographic monthly magazine issued in London during the mid-Victorian period by William Lazenby. It was closed down by the British authorities for violating contemporary standards of obscenity.
The Pearl ran for eighteen issues from July 1879 to December 1880, with two Christmas supplements. As an underground publication, it was limited to 150 copies and cost twenty-five pounds, which made it unusually expensive relative to comparable contemporaneous pornographic periodicals. The Christmas Annual, a crudely produced supplement that ran sixty pages, sold for three guineas. Only the special numbers contained illustrations. The publisher and editor, William Lazenby, also wrote some of the content. [1] The magazine was distributed discreetly through mail order. [2] Based on the cost and subject matter, the target audience appears to have been middle- and upper-class professionals. [3] Two of the flagellant poems were composed by Algernon Charles Swinburne, though it is unclear whether he authorized their publication. [4] The format of the magazine, in combining a mix of short stories, serial fiction, current events, and letters to the editor, parodied contemporary family magazines such as Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, which itself contained depictions of corporal punishment. [5] Parts of the magazine were later compiled and translated into German. [6]
After the magazine was shut down, Lazenby would go on to publish three subsequent pornographic magazines, The Cremorne (1882), The Oyster (1883), and The Boudoir (1883). The popularity of pornographic magazines like The Pearl was part of a trend that began in the 1860s of capitalizing on the profitability of writing about sex, which served to proliferate discourses about sexuality by the time of the fin de siècle in England. [7]
The general format of the periodical was to publish three serial erotic tales simultaneously, devoted to sex in high society, incest, and flagellation, respectively. The novels, six in total, were interspersed with limericks, hymns, odes, songs, facetious nursery rhymes, acrostic poems, parodies, faux advertisements, and fabricated letters to the editor. The topics depicted in the novels and poems were wide-ranging, including women's suffrage, physical disability, sexual impairment, secret sex societies, bestiality, India-rubber dildos, slave rape, duels, mock crucifixions, Turkish harems, and prophylactic devices. [8] : 498 The Pearl often contained extensive political commentary, including references to the Reform Bills and Contagious Diseases Acts, and portrayed or alluded to many controversial public figures, including Annie Besant, Charles Spurgeon, Wilfrid Lawson, Newman Hall, Edmund Burke, William Gladstone, and Robert Peel. [8] : 516
The Pearl contains the first obscene tale about slavery in the Americas. The story, entitled My Grandmother's Tale, depicts the brutal sexualized flogging of a black West Indian slave girl by an overseer of ambiguous racial background acting under the authority of a white plantation owner. [9]
The Pearl's serial novel Lady Pokingham, in which a consumptive invalid recounts her sexual adventures from a wheelchair, has been noted for its depiction of transience, bodily decay, and death, which thus provides counter-evidence to the idea advanced by Steven Marcus that Victorian pornography portrays a pornotopia. [10]
Swinburne’s flagellant writings from The Pearl have been cited in British legal arguments as evidence against the safety and utility of corporal punishment in schools. [11]
In 2011, a local councillor in Australia was convicted for possession of "child exploitation material" because a digital copy of The Pearl was found on his laptop. [12] Greg Barns, the director of Australian Lawyers Alliance, noted that the conviction would imply criminality for possession of any number of works of art and literature, and media reports pointed out that HarperCollins had republished the magazine in 2009, and was currently available on Amazon. [13] When the Victorian origins of the materials were identified on appeal, the conviction was set aside. [14]
A selection from the story Lady Pokingham is read during a scene in the 2012 film The Master .
The Pearl's characters and locations, being Victoriana, are featured in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore.[ citation needed ] A girls' school seems to be haunted by a ghost (The "Holy Spirit") that is raping and impregnating the students. The headmistress is Rosa Coote, a character from one of The Pearl's serials. The "Holy Spirit" turns out to be Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man.
Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use any artistic form to depict erotic content, including painting, sculpture, drama, film or music. Erotic literature and erotic photography have become genres in their own right. Erotica also exists in a number of subgenres including gay, lesbian, women's, bondage, monster and tentacle erotica.
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". It is now referred to as the three-prong standard or the Miller test.
Pornographic films (pornos), erotic films, sex films, 18+ films, or also known as blue movie or blue film, are films that present sexually explicit subject matter in order to arouse, fascinate, or satisfy the viewer. Pornographic films present sexual fantasies and usually include erotically stimulating material such as nudity (softcore) and sexual intercourse (hardcore). A distinction is sometimes made between "erotic" and "pornographic" films on the basis that the latter category contains more explicit sexuality, and focuses more on arousal than storytelling; the distinction is highly subjective.
Pornography has existed since the origins of the United States, and has become more readily accessible in the 21st century. Advanced by technological development, it has gone from a hard-to-find "back alley" item, beginning in 1969 with Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) and home video, to being more available in the country and later, starting in the 1990s, readily accessible to nearly anyone with a computer or other device connected to the Internet. The U.S. has no current plans to block explicit content from children and adolescents, as many other countries have planned or proceeded to do.
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros intended to arouse similar feelings in readers. This contrasts erotica, which focuses more specifically on sexual feelings. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. Much erotic literature features erotic art, illustrating the text.
Pornography laws by region vary throughout the world. The production and distribution of pornographic films are both activities that are lawful in many, but by no means in all countries so long as the pornography features performers aged above a certain age, usually 18 years. Further restrictions are often placed on such material.
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law in the form of mere possession of obscene materials.
Pornography has been defined as sexual subject material "such as a picture, video, or text" that is intended for sexual arousal. Indicated for the consumption by adults, pornography depictions have evolved from cave paintings, some forty millennia ago, to virtual reality presentations. A general distinction of adult content is made classifying it as pornography or erotica.
New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), was a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court, unanimously ruling that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution did not forbid states from banning the sale of material depicting children engaged in sexual activity, even if the material was not obscene.
Child erotica is non-pornographic material relating to children that is used by any individuals for sexual purposes. It is a broader term than child pornography, incorporating material that may cause sexual arousal such as nonsexual images, books or magazines on children or pedophilia, toys, diaries, or clothes. Law enforcement investigators have found that child erotica is often collected by pedophiles and child sexual abuse offenders. It may be collected as a form of compulsive behavior and as a substitute for illegal underage pornography and is often a form of evidence for criminal behavior.
In the United Kingdom, pornography is regulated by a variety of laws, regulations, judicial processes, and voluntary schemes. Pornographic material generally has to be assessed by regulators or courts to determine its legality. British censorship laws with regard to pornography have often been some of the most restrictive in Western Europe.
Legal frameworks around fictional pornography depicting minors vary depending on country and nature of the material involved. Laws against production, distribution and consumption of child pornography generally separate images into three categories: real, pseudo, and virtual. Pseudo-photographic child pornography is produced by digitally manipulating non-sexual images of real minors to make pornographic material. Virtual child pornography depicts purely fictional characters. "Fictional pornography depicting minors", as covered in this article, includes these latter two categories, whose legalities vary by jurisdiction, and often differ with each other and with the legality of real child pornography.
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality and social politics of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage, vile, vigilance in conservation, or revenge. In expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war," ; misdirection. As a legal term, it usually refers to graphic depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity, and related utterances of profanity, or the exploited child, human being or situation on display.
In the United States, child pornography is illegal under federal law and in all states and is punishable by up to life imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000. U.S. laws regarding child pornography are virtually always enforced and amongst the harshest in the world. The Supreme Court of the United States has found child pornography to be outside the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Federal sentencing guidelines on child pornography differentiate between production, distribution, and purchasing/receiving, and also include variations in severity based on the age of the child involved in the materials, with significant increases in penalties when the offense involves a prepubescent child or a child under the age of 18. U.S. law distinguishes between pornographic images of an actual minor, realistic images that are not of an actual minor, and non-realistic images such as drawings. The latter two categories are legally protected unless found to be obscene, whereas the first does not require a finding of obscenity.
Simulated child pornography is child pornography depicting what appear to be minors but which is produced without their direct involvement.
The production, sale, distribution, and commercialization of child pornography in Japan is illegal under the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children (1999), and is punishable by a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or a fine of ¥5,000,000. Simple possession of child pornography was made illegal by an amendment to the act in 2014. Virtual child pornography, which depicts wholly-fictional characters, is legal to produce and possess.
William Lazenby was an English publisher of pornography active in the 1870s and 1880s. He used the aliases Duncan Cameron and Thomas Judd. His notable publications include magazines The Pearl, which published poems thought to have been written by Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Oyster, The Boudoir and The Cremorne He also published such books as The Romance of Lust, Randiana, or Excitable Tales, The Birchen Bouquet (1881), The Romance of Chastisement (1883), The Pleasures of Cruelty (1886) and The Sins of the Cities of the Plain. He was an associate of Edward Avery and Leonard Smithers. He was prosecuted in 1871 and again in 1881.
United States obscenity law deals with the regulation or suppression of what is considered obscenity and therefore not protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In the United States, discussion of obscenity typically relates to defining what pornography is obscene, as well as to issues of freedom of speech and of the press, otherwise protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Issues of obscenity arise at federal and state levels. State laws operate only within the jurisdiction of each state, and there are differences among such laws. Federal statutes ban obscenity and child pornography produced with real children. Federal law also bans broadcasting of "indecent" material during specified hours.
Pornotopia is an idea in critical theory describing an imagined space determined by fantasies and dominated by human sexual activity, expressed in and encompassing pornography and erotica. The word was coined by American literary critic Steven Marcus in his 1966 book The Other Victorians, deriving inspiration from nineteenth-century English literature on sexuality by moralists, physicians and erotic authors.
Victorian erotica is a genre of sexual art and literature which emerged in the Victorian era of 19th-century Britain. Victorian erotica emerged as a product of a Victorian sexual culture. The Victorian era was characterized by paradox of rigid morality and anti-sensualism, but also by an obsession with sex. Sex was a main social topic, with progressive and enlightened thought pushing for sexual restriction and repression. Overpopulation was a societal concern for the Victorians, thought to be the cause of famine, disease, and war. To curb the threats of overpopulation and to solve other social issues that were arising at the time, sex was socially regulated and controlled. New sexual categories emerged as a response, defining normal and abnormal sex. Heterosexual sex between married couples became the only form of sex socially and morally permissible. Sexual pleasure and desire beyond heterosexual marriage was labelled as deviant, considered to be sinful and sinister. Such deviant forms included masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution and pornography. Procreation was the primary goal of sex, removing it from the public, and placing it in the domestic. Yet, Victorian anti-sexual attitudes were contradictory of genuine Victorian life, with sex underlying much of the cultural practice. Sex was simultaneously repressed and proliferated. Sex was featured in medical manuals such as The Sexual Impulse by Havelock Ellis and Functions and Disorders of Reproductive Organs by William Acton, and in cultural magazines like The Penny Magazine and The Rambler. Sex was popular in entertainment, with much of Victorian theatre, art and literature including and expressing sexual and sensual themes.
