BIZARRE Nos 9, 12 and 13. From No13, John reverted to his real name, John Coutts, as the copyright-holder, probably in response to increasing problems with piracy
Kinsey Institute, moral panic, Bizarre returns, and closes
Fans of John Willie and Irving Klaw may not be aware that both were of great interest to the famous sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey.
Jane’s chapter on Kinsey, who founded his Institute of Sex Research at Indiana University in 1947, asserts that he believed nearly all ‘perversions’ fell within ‘biologic normality’ — in vivid contrast to the prevailing views of that era’s self-appointed moral guardians.
Furthermore, Kinsey and Paul Gebhard, his successor at the Institute, had regular contact with Klaw and Willie, requesting all new output be mailed to their organisation — something that, from as early as 1950, began to incur the displeasure of the Federal Government.
One could imagine certain authority figures of those times sniggering about the whole notion of ‘sex research’ and perhaps even suspecting Kinsey’s motives weren’t entirely academic. But Jane doesn’t doubt his purpose:
“I do think Alfred Kinsey was sincere in his academic aims; he quite literally died fighting to legitimise the sort of research I’m privileged to do today.
“But speaking for myself, it’s far from purely academic. I take my work and my research very seriously, but part of that seriousness stems from the fact that I care very deeply about this material and enjoy it on a personal level. I want it to be documented, preserved, and remembered.
“As you say, there’s a lot of ‘sniggering’ around sex that I find entirely unnecessary. This attitude is what leads people to destroy their parents’ or grandparents’ collections of erotic materials after death rather than finding a repository that would preserve them.
“We’ve lost so much important historical material in just this way — especially early hardcore, amateur, and/or LGBTQ+ content.
“This is one of the things I really admire about John Willie. Whenever possible he was very plainspoken about his own interests and encouraged his readers and fans to adopt a similar attitude. In matters of gender expression especially, he was far ahead of his time.”
Although, as Garrett points out, Bizarre went into hiatus after the first five issues, the magazine made its comeback with issue 6 in 1956.
That same year, Leonard Burtman launched Exotique, an outwardly similar pocket-size fetish publication with a different emphasis — in this case on dominant females.
Does Jane have thoughts on how Exotique positioned itself, compared with Bizarre?
“Exotique certainly created a niche for itself with its femdom content, and Tana Louise’s glamorous outfits were always to die for!
DOMINANT WOMEN such as The Riding Mistress often appeared in Bizarre but, unlike Exotique, they were not the magazine’s main focus
“Dominant women did appear often in Bizarre, but it was not the primary focus of the magazine — perhaps because John Willie’s personal preference was for submissive women.
“What really appeals to me about Bizarre is the potpourri of ‘something for everyone’ — in contrast to Exotique’s specialised approach.
“Bizarre provides a fascinating glimpse into the most popular fetishes of the 1940s and ’50s, including some lesser-discussed interests
such as tattoos and piercings, which are often associated with later decades.”
From issue 13 of Bizarre, John reverted to his real name, John Coutts, as the copyright-holder, probably in response to increasing instances of his work being pirated.
And interestingly, the community aspect of the magazine grew to become increasingly important, eventually becoming more important than the imagery, Jane believes.
As explained in the prologue to her book, John Willie was producing much of his most famous work at a time when US producers of fetish material were increasingly falling under legal scrutiny and attack.
Accordingly, her Juvenile Delinquency chapter focuses on the 1955 Senate Subcommittee hearings under Estes Kefauver that subpoenaed distributors — including Irving Klaw, who took the 5th Amendment when called. (Bettie Page was also subpoenaed but never called to testify.)
SHOWING BONDAGE imagery like this doubtless contributed to Bizarre being targetted by an exposé in Behind the Scene magazine in 1956
Willie himself escaped the Subcommittee’s gaze, but, Jane notes, he did not escape an exposé of Bizarre published by Behind The Scene magazine in May 1956.
And while it’s easy to imagine that the moral panic around kinky material in those less enlightened times has long since been consigned to the dustbin of history, one doesn’t have to look far to see that, at best, moral panics continue — albeit with a change of focus.
Or at worst, that the exact same stuff that troubled 1950s moral guardians still troubles their successors today.
We see the same impulses to censor and ban found today not only among lawmakers, but also among social media owners, who resist government attempts to rein them in while happily imposing impenetrable forms of censorship on the rest of us.
Jane Garrett agrees: “I think readers of the book will recognise many instances from John Willie’s life that mirror current-day events.
“Chief among them would be the current panic surrounding trans rights, which I hope is less of a debate in the UK than it is in the US (I frankly can’t fathom why human rights are ever the subject of ‘debate’ at all).
“And as you point out, the censorship that magazine publishers, artists, photographers, and models faced historically is similar to the censorship we see on social media today (though the consequences today are typically less dire).
“We are still dancing around trying to figure out how to hide certain body parts or censor certain words. Many people I know have been targeted because their artwork shows a woman’s nipple, sometimes losing accounts with tens of thousands of followers as a result.
“In John Willie’s time as now, most of these rules and laws were being enacted and enforced by people with no sense of nuance and no understanding of the communities they were attempting to police.”
In Willie’s case, the combination of no longer being sure of escaping legal retribution and increasing problems with piracy led him to cease publishing Bizarre with issue 20 in summer 1956 (after which it continued in inferior form under new owners before ceasing after issue 26 in 1959).
Los Angeles: photo stories, last complete Gwendoline
PAT CONLEY, a popular men’s mag model, in a pole tie influenced by imagery Willie found in Japanese magazine Kitan Club, which had begun pirating his work in the early 1950s (photo c/o Bélier Press)
In 1957, John moved to Los Angeles, where, writes Jane, there was a better adult publishing environment. He found he could sell photos that he had initially shot as research for a new cartoon series.
As the author notes in her Los Angeles chapter, these narrative photo sets — simple bondage stories — became John’s primary source of income in his LA years.
It kept him afloat financially, but by 1960, he had grown weary of the industry.
Could he have achieved a better outcome for himself if he’d been a better businessman? Or did he do as well as anyone in his position could have done, given the moral and legal constraints of the times?
“I think it’s commonly agreed that Willie was not a good businessman,” she responds.
“This is not really a surprise; creative people rarely are good at business, simply because these are separate skill sets that both require consistent development.
“I think John Willie actually did better than most, given the circumstances. He managed to
release 20 issues of his magazine himself. He mostly managed to eke out a living through creative pursuits.
“If he had cared less, had less integrity, or been more absorbed in the financial side of things, would he have built a major empire? Maybe. But maybe not.
“His artwork remains engaging, absorbing, and beloved for a reason, and part of that is that he never cut corners. His passion for the subject matter comes across immediately to anyone who shares his interests, and I believe that’s why it has endured.”
By 1958, writes Jane, John had whittled down his model list to just a few trusted women, of whom one of the most important was Pat Conley, a popular model for men’s magazines.
In November of the same year, John released Sweet Gwendoline and the Race for the Gold Cup, a substantial reworking of the original Sir D’Arcy comic that would be the last completed work featuring Gwendoline.
READ MORE – GO TO PAGE 4 OF 4Jane Garrett book signing at Book Soup: Nov 18 2024
Author Jane Garrett hosted a book signing for her biography, John Willie: A Bizarre Life, at Los Angeles store Book Soup on November 18. David Jackson was there to cover the proceedings and below is a selection of his phone photos from it. (Click/tap any preview below to open slideshow of full-size images)
Tags: Artists, Bondage, Book Releases, Fetish Photography, Fetish Pioneers
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