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Tag: America

Posted on November 12, 2020November 22, 2020

S3 E9 Compulsive wanking: Roth ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ (1969)

Why did the Irish censors ignore this spectacularly rude book? And why is a novel about a sex-obsessed Jewish man so important in the history of censorship in Australia?

Cover art from the first edition, by Paul Bacon
Posted on October 29, 2020January 8, 2021

S3 E7 Queer, with cocktails: Moore, ‘Chocolates for Breakfast’ (1956)

A candid, haunting novel about the coming-of-age of a teenage girl. Full of decadent sexuality that would have given the censors a fit of the vapours.

2013 Harper Perennial Classics Edition
Posted on October 7, 2020November 22, 2020

S3 E4 Perverty Stuff: Salinger, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ (1951)

Holden Caulfield’s swearing and sex talk has offended many since 1951. This book is now a modern classic but why is a story of a poor little rich kid still read and enjoyed today?

Posted on September 23, 2020November 22, 2020

S3 E1 Voluptuous Jazzing: McKay, ‘Home to Harlem’ (1928

A love letter to Harlem and it’s music, this book offended all kinds of people. McKay’s honesty about sex was brave and inflammatory.

Cover of 1987 edition
Posted on August 13, 2020December 13, 2020

S2 E9 Rapey Noir: Keene, ‘Sleep with the Devil’ (1954)

The censor hated Keene’s pulp noir, banning his work many times. This taut thriller was full of violence but it was also a morality tale.

Posted on July 31, 2020December 13, 2020

S2 E7 Bestial Behaviour: Endore, ‘The Werewolf of Paris’ (1933)

Endore combined violence and blasphemy in this classic of the werewolf genre. It’s impossible to know whether the radical politics or freaky sex most offended the censor.

Cover art of 1943 edition
Posted on July 22, 2020December 13, 2020

S2 E6: Love, not Sex: Wallace, ‘The Chapman Report’ (1960)

America was horrified when the Kinsey report showed women were capable of sexual misbehaviour. Wallace’s book trashed Kinsey but it still too sexy for the Irish censor.

Pretty sexy cover….
Posted on July 15, 2020December 13, 2020

S2 E5: Lesbionic Lit: Highsmith, ‘Carol’ (1952)

Is it a subversive lesbian romance or a psychological thriller? The hetronormative censor saw a dangerous text with a ‘general tendency to deprave’.

Bantam Press cover, 1953
Posted on June 25, 2020December 13, 2020

S2 E2 Thrusting Ecstasy: Anais Nin, ‘A Spy in the House of Love’ (1954)

If you like florid descriptions of sex spiced with psychoanalysis, this is the book for you. Unfortunately, it is not my kind of book.

Posted on May 19, 2020December 13, 2020

S1 E8 Orrie Hitt, ‘Pleasure Ground’ (1961): Babes and Boobs

With a saucy cover showing lots of female flesh, Hitt’s book was never going to be sold in Ireland. But did the text deliver on the smutty promise of the cover art?

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