A short history of the ‘Blue-Photo’: Bengali sex magazines and the visual empire of printed images (1940–1970)

Abstract

This article explores the mediations of print and photography in an emergent sexual culture in 20th century Bengal. In particular, I examine how Kolkata based Bengali sex magazines such as ‘Nara-Nari’ and ‘Natun Jiban’ negotiated between this emergent erotics and the censorial tendencies of the colonial state through a series of discourses around the body, specially those of male bodybuilders and female nude art models. In doing so, I locate the visual form and erotics of what has now come to be called the ‘blue-photo’.

KEYWORDS:

• Nude models
• male bodies
• Bengali print culture
• blue photos

Acknowledgements

Writing this article was impossible without the help of Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay and Partha Chatterjee. Darshana Sridhar Mini and Anirban Baishya owes very special thanks for their valuable comments. Thanks goes to Spandan Bhattacharya, Agnivo Ghosh, Barnali Paul, Ujjwala Sharma, Triparna Sen, Ankan Ghorai and Atmajit Mukherjee for their continuous involvement with my effort.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Nara-Nari, Boisakh 1373/1966.

2 For a detailed discussion, see Jouno Bikriti o Jounaporadh by Nandagopal Sengupta (1949).

3 Nabajug, Shrabon 1331/1923.

4 For a detailed discussion, see Jouno Bikriti o Jounaporadh, 1355/1948, 290–291.

5 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3 May 1924.

6 The motif of the snake juxtaposed with the muscular male body also stands as a central theme in the depiction of desire in the context of India. The controversial photographic shoot of Milind Soman in the 1990s for the Tuff Shoes advertisement is a more recent example. For a more detailed discussion, see Shah (2005).

7 Steven Marcus describes the pornotopia as ‘the imagination of the entire universe beneath the sign of sexuality’ (2017, 242).

8 For a detailed discussion, see Bangali Jibone Romoni by Chaudhary (2014).

9 Sundari Mohan Dash, ‘Amar Sastha Noitik Jiban’, Jiboner Alo, Boisakh 1335/1928, 24.

10 Nandagopal Sengupta, ‘Jouno Songjom Ki O Keno’, Natun Jiban, Poush 1356/1949, 508.

11 For a detailed discussion, see Bandyopadhyay (2018).

12 Urbashi, Calcutta, 1960–1969.