Tabloid porn in Quebec

ABSTRACT

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Canadian region of Quebec saw a proliferation of tabloid newspapers, of uniform dimensions, covering a wide range of sensational genres (such as crime and celebrity gossip). Increasingly explicit content of a sexual character cut across these genres, marking each of these genres with elements of the pornographic. At the same time, a number of tabloid papers emerged devoted exclusively to sexual content, typically offering softcore photographic imagery of nude bodies and sexual activity which accompanied journalistic narratives (of variable veracity) chronicling sexual behaviour. The generalization of the tabloid form, this article suggests, has had particular effects on the ways in which these papers have survived. While, on the one hand, the tabloid form and use of cheap newsprint materials have contributed to a sense of the valuelessness of these papers, the manner in which the pornographic is very often ‘hidden’ within other sensational genres has allowed many of these papers to survive in contexts of preservation from which they might otherwise be expelled.

KEYWORDS:

• tabloid
• Quebec
• erotic
• print
• sensation

Acknowledgements

Many of the ideas here were developed in exchanges with Susanna Paasonen, who bears no responsibility for the author’s errors or misconceptions. The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions proved extremely helpful in revision of this article. The author is very grateful to Siavash Rokni for his help in finding materials.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.