Well, we said we’d explore Japanese bondage arts a bit more, so here’s a nice beginning—a collection of colorful SM magazines from the 1970s. We’ll show you what’s inside one of these later. 

Maybe the English word “sex” is to the Japanese what the French word “soirée” is to English speakers—i.e., a foreign word that carries more meaning than its indigenous equivalent. Maybe “sex” sounds really dirty to Japanese ears. Maybe it’s just conveniently short. We don’t know the answer, but below are six one-sheets using that magical English syllable. However you say it, just do it. 

Photo of Japanese model/singer/actress Linda Yamamoto, aka Yamamoto Rinda, circa 1993. 

Liliana Cavani’s controversial drama Il portiere di notte, aka The Night Porter, is a landmark of Italian cinema, and another of those seventies films that could never be made today. It involves the sado-masochistic relationship between a concentration camp survivor, played by Charlotte Rampling, and a former camp officer, played by Dirk Bogarde. The camp is eventually liberated, but the Nazi manages to escape the Allies. Postwar he builds a normal-seeming life but must carefully hide his former identity. Meanwhile, the woman builds a normal-seeming marriage, but conceals her psychological scars. In Vienna years later, the woman is shocked to encounter the Nazi again, and soon their destructive codependency is rekindled. The amazing promo poster above uses a frame from the movie’s pivotal scene, a flashback in which Rampling performs a striptease wearing an SS uniform, after which her captor rewards her á la Salomé with the head of a prisoner who has been tormenting her. Il portiere di notte is dark, slow, and deadly serious, but for the true film buff it’s probably a must-see. It was generally well-reviewed upon release, but there were also slams from a few major critics. In the end, you’ll have to make your own decision. Il portiere di notte premiered in West Germany yesterday, 1974. 

The great Hindu writings the Upanishads tell us that in the same way a man begins his life innocent, and in the fullness of time becomes cynical, thus doth the editorial content of a pulp magazine begin pure, and slowly evolve into softcore porn. We’re paraphrasing, of course. We were talking yesterday about how Short Stories changed its format in order to try and survive the death of the pulp markets, so today we thought we’d show you an explicit progression. Below is a selection of Male covers that begin in pulp territory in the 1950s, but reach near-porn status by the early ’70s. At least now we know what to do with Pulp Intl. if our traffic drops off.

Cover and interior pages from the French erotic magazine La Vie Parisienne, January 1959. If you recognize the photo of Lily Niagara in panel two, that may be because we used it back in August for another post. We have more issues of this publication to show you in the future.

Promo shot of iconic English actress and singer Jane Birkin from the French film Catherine et cie, aka Catherine & Co.,1975. 

It wasn’t until after adopting the pseudonym Lili St. Cyr over her unusual birth name that her career began to blossom. She scored a job in Montreal at the Gaiety Burlesque House, and worked there for seven years, eventually earning $1500 a week. It was during that time that shedeveloped some of her trademark techniques, including working with a cockatiel, and having her g-string snatched off by a fishing line that was invisible to the audience. Burlesque crowds were usually raucous, but St. Cyr, with her sheer grace and insistence upon infusing balletic movements into her routines, more often awed audiences into silence.

At the height of her fame in the mid-1950s, St. Cyr was reportedly earning more than $100,000 a year. With the fame came famous suitors such as Howard Hughes and Vic Damone, but she seems to have married only for love, if one is to judge by the fact that none of her six husbands werecelebrities. With the fame also came the moral watchdogs, those desperate to stop consenting adults from doing what they wished with their own time, and the arrests followed. She was making enough money to afford top legal representation, and she chose the best—Jerry Giesler, who we discussed last June.

As much as the public loved St. Cyr, it was her enemies that seemed to control the direction of her life. Her legal troubles continued, and another marriage went by the wayside. But St. Cyr was nothing if not persistent. By the time she finally retired from burlesque after thirty years, she hadachieved a longstanding goal of establishing herself in another industry by opening a mail order lingerie business similar to Frederick’s of Hollywood. It was called The Undie World of Lili St. Cyr, and her garments were geared toward a male clientele—the idea being that prodding men to give lingerie as gifts was more profitable than trying to appeal to women. St. Cyr was right, and her business became wildly successful, hawking its wares in colorful catalogues that remain collectibles even today. After St. Cyr sold controlling interest in the business, she drifted into a quiet twilight, but, like former nudie queen Bettie Page, experienced a revival during the 1990s. But unlike Page, St. Cyr didn’t appear at conventions and signings—she stayed in her little apartment with her cats.

Most of the sites we visited looking for information on St. Cyr discuss those years of seclusion as if they were an anomaly. But in that 1957 Mike Wallace interview, she confessed that she hated having people look at her. Wallace seemed baffled by this, and for some reason didn’t seem to make the connection that $100,000 a year will go a long way toward helping someone battle stage fright. The idea that she might actually beshy instead took him into a line of questioning during which he flat-out said: “You don’t like yourself very much, do you?” And St. Cyr replied, “No, I don’t.” Asked why, she says, “Perhaps because of what I do.” So it seems clear that St. Cyr was always destined to spend her last years avoiding the limelight. And while it’s safe to say the world certainly missed her, it’s equally safe to say that she probably never missed the world.     

Cover and assorted interior pages from the January 1974 issue of the great Australian men’s magazine Adam. Incidentally, that suspicious stain on Heidi's leg in panel twenty-four was put there by a previous owner, we swear. Click keyword Adam below to see the other issues. 

Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, shown here in two shots from the same photo session, with a wardrobe change in between, 1975. For reasons probably having to do with poor manual dexterity, she never got either outfit completely fastened. How embarassing. More Kristel wardrobe malfunctions here and here. By the way, don't you just love the drapes?