LURID LITERATURE IN THE UNITED STATES
BY FRANK R. KENT (the Baltimore Sun).
[We pretend to no detailed knowledge of this matter but cannot refuse to a distinguished American writer an opportunity of pointing out a danger which he sees in his country.—Ed. Spectator.] SEX which, as the psychologists tell us, is, together with Fear and Acquisitiveness, one of the few primal instincts inherent in human beings is certainly being cultivated to an amazing extent in America— particularly in the smaller cities. Perhaps it is because things stand out more clearly in the small cities than in the large ones, but what with the magazines and the movies many of the little towns seem to be saturated with sex.
That is a harsh thing to say and will be, quite naturally, resented by the small element to which it does not apply. Also, needless to say, it will be resented by the larger element to which it does apply. It is particularly harsh when to say it at all means a sort of general indict- ment of communities where the church-goers are pro- portionately greater than in the large cities. But it is nevertheless true. The proof is in what the people read.
In New York and elsewhere there has recently been considerable commotion over some of the immodest plays of the year. From time to time, too, there is an outcry against some particularly salacious novel. If, however, from any source attention has been called to the remarkable epidemic in this country of porno- graphic periodicals, it has escaped general notice. It used to be that Paris held the palm for that sort of thing. Americans, in the French capital, marvelled that a civilized nation could openly permit the sale of such dirt on the streets, and it was taken to indicate that the French, as a people, were dirty-minded. Men used to smuggle copies of these Paris periodicals back from abroad and stealthily pass them around among their friends.
They do not do that any more. You can get in America—in the big towns as well as the small, but particularly in the small—not only more periodicals of this kind but periodicals which are more outspoken than any you will find in Paris or London. Moreover, the more lurid of the French papers have now been translated into English and are sold 'on the stands side by side with the imported French periodicals.
Figures furnished by the news dealers themselves `Trove what I have said. In one small city in Ohio, of approximately 25,000 inhabitants, out of 110 weekly and monthly periodicals on sale sixty-eight were either • out and out devoted to " sex stuff," or were so close to the border line as to be almost over it. In another city of the same relative size, 1,800 copies of a single monthly, devoted exclusively to sex experiences, are sold of each issue: 'It is the biggest single Seller of them all, and, says the dealer, " mostly to women."
Then there are a whole flock—fifteen or twenty— monthlies of the "Hot Dog," "Red Pepper," " Whiz Bang " type, which add' to the suggestiveness of the French a coarseness and vulgarity that are entirely American. All of these . periodicals _ are • openly and frankly. pornographic. They carry no advertising and are shipped to the dealers by. express,: so as_ to- avoid . going through the mails.. They. are of the type that have to be read by stealth and hidden in the desk.
The significant and alarming feature, however, is the extraordinary way in which these publications multiply. The more there are of them the greater the demand. It is apparently not possible to satiate the appetite of those who buy and read them. No better evidence of this is needed than the fact that since January at least half-a-dozen new ones have made their appearance on the stands. A look at the shelves in a well:stocked news store these • days, in any American city; big or little, makes you want to apologize to the French for the things you have thought about them. As fast as one of these little things gets out and on its feet, another one is launched. At the present rate there will be a hundred of them in a year. The principle upon which • they operate, apparently, is that there is no such thing as sex satiety in literature.
The rapid and remarkable rise of these publications —it has all occurred within the past eighteen mOnthS- is certainly the most sensational development in the publishing business on this side of the water in the last five years. Yet it has seemingly attracted little attention either from the daily newspapers or from the decent' magazines. It is an unenviable distinction, but we do seem to have taken the lead in lewdness away from the French. It is not a pleasant thing upon which to reflect.
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