Porn Without Frontiers

Fifty years ago, Denmark became the first country in the world to permit the sale of hardcore pornography. Within the next couple of years Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and France were to liberalise their attitudes to – and eventually legalise – explicit images and films. In October 1969, the first erotic trade fair took place in Copenhagen, attracting around 50,000 attendees from across Europe plus hundreds of international print and television journalists, eager to see for themselves magazines and 8mm films which had previously only been available ‘under the counter’, offered by Danish, Swedish, German and – perhaps surprisingly – even British exhibitors.

In the UK it was illegal to sell anything more than pin-up photographs and nudie films; but far stronger material could be found in the back rooms of Soho’s bookshops, where the vice police took monthly bribes to look the other way. Such was the demand for Soho’s 8mm ‘rollers’ that Michael Muldoon (aka Mike Freeman) started exporting them to Amsterdam in the mid-1960s, until he was arrested by the Dutch police when one of his couriers was intercepted entering the Netherlands with a suitcase full of stock. Eventually the emergence of legitimate pornography corporations in Europe killed demand for Soho porn but British photographers continued to work for Dutch, Danish and Scandinavian publishers.

There was still a big demand in Britain for continental porn, especially when video replaced 8mm. Amsterdam sex shop clerks would show tourists how to remove spools of tape from cassettes to smuggle them back home without detection. Illicit shipments across the North Sea went through the port of Rotterdam concealed among innocent cargoes. Companies such as Your Choice took orders in the Netherlands but tapes were posted in Britain, thus avoiding customs staff on the lookout for VHS sized packages from Dutch addresses.

With funding provided by the British Academy, researcher Dr Oliver Carter visited Amsterdam to uncover the secretive story of the trade in pornography between the Netherlands and Britain. He met with people who were involved in the pornography business from the 1960s to the 1990s.

On Saturday 12 October 2019 at 19:00 at Filmhuis Cavia, Oliver Carter was joined by a panel of adult industry experts to reflect on the development of the Dutch porn industry and its relationship with the UK.

His guests included:

• Willem van Batenburg – A pioneer of Dutch erotic feature films (Pruimenbloesem, etc) who began his career directing 8mm shorts. He is author of the memoir Het Komt Allemaal Weer Omhoog: De Memoires Van Een Erotisch Filmmaker (2007).
• Patricia Clark and Jayson Pannell – Former co-directors of Amsterdam-based Your Choice which devised innovative methods of making hardcore videos available to British buyers for over 30 years.
• Terry Stephens – With over 20 years involvement in adult entertainment, Terry made the series Viewers Wives for Your Choice. He is Chairperson of the United Kingdom Adult Producers association (UKAP).

This event is part of a wider project funded by the British Academy which explores the transnational development of the British pornography business, focusing specifically on its relationship with the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

The objectives of the project are to:

• Collaborate with academics, archivists, industry and audiences to produce primary research;
• Examine the transnational relationship between the British, Dutch, Scandinavian and German pornography businesses;
• Consider the technological, political, economic and legal frameworks affecting the production and distribution of hardcore pornography between Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia and Germany;
• Contribute to discussions around histories of the pornography business and wider debates around hidden enterprise cultures.