The Transnational Trade In Hardcore Pornography Between Britain, Scandinavia and the Netherlands

Dr Oliver Carter has recently completed his British Academy Small Grant Project titled The Transnational Trade In Hardcore Pornography Between Britain, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. In this blog post, he reflects on the key findings of the project. Further findings will be published in a forthcoming special edition of the journal Porn Studies, edited by Carter and Professors Mariah Larsson and Tommy Gustafsson of Linneaus University.

This project explored the transnational development of the British pornography business, focusing specifically on its trade relationship with Scandinavia and the Netherlands. It drew on archival research and brought together those with knowledge of the trade through two public research events taking place in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. It discovered that previous histories of the adult entertainment business tend to identify Scandinavia as the pioneers of hardcore pornographic production, with Sweden publishing the first full colour magazine Private in 1965, and Denmark being the first country to legalise pornography in 1969. However, prior to this, Britain had an established economy of hardcore production, despite the distribution of pornography in the United Kingdom being outlawed under the Obscene Publications Act (1959). This economy supplied films and photographs to Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands through informal channels, contributing to the development of hardcore production in these countries. Many pornography couriers were regularly arrested for transporting ‘obscene’ material across borders.

In October 1969, the first erotic trade fair took place in Copenhagen, celebrating the economic potential of a newly legalised trade. It attracted 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 British exhibitors.

Even before Denmark’s internationally famous Color Climax brand appeared, British 8mm films with the Climax Original label were being smuggled across the North Sea from British ports; and when Denmark legalised pornography, some British porn entrepreneurs relocated to Denmark, taking advantage of the relaxed laws. This was a two-way trade, with Danish produced films and magazines smuggled to London, sometimes concealed in cargoes of Danish bacon and other commercial goods. In London’s Soho, corrupt police officers allowed the illicit trade to continue in exchange for regular payments from the pornographers. Danish 8mm pornography was in such high demand in the United Kingdom that several British labels presented themselves as Scandinavian, even though they were made in London and all the wording on the boxes was in English.

Eventually the emergence of legitimate pornography corporations in Europe reduced the demand for illicitly produced British porn, but British photographers continued to work for Dutch, Danish and Scandinavian publishers and films made in the UK would be exported for sale in these countries.

Though there was still a big demand in Britain for continental porn, especially when home 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, where they would be bootlegged for sale in bookstores and via mail order. Illicit shipments across the North Sea went through the port of Rotterdam concealed among innocent cargoes. Several British companies moved their operations to the Netherlands, where pornography was formally legalised in 1985. One such business named Your Choice would take orders from UK customers, but post the tapes in Britain, thus avoiding customs staff on the lookout for VHS sized packages from Dutch addresses.

With the distribution of pornography moving online, the business became increasingly globalised and the trade in physical artefacts was significantly reduced. The films, photographs and magazines that were once illicitly traded across geographic borders now primarily reside in private collections, and command high prices; a trace of a forgotten transnational trade.