EROTISM AND REVOLUTION

A sure way had to be found by which revolutionary ideas could circulate. Guys, erotic literature became the ideal answer! The authorities called them mauvais livres, while the printers and distributors passed them off as livres philosophiques; these were books without authorization to be printed, with licentious and sometimes obscene characters, a special vehicle for progressive and liberal ideologies. On the stalls of Paris, as well as in shop windows or in the deep pockets of gentlemen, novels, pamphlets and pamphlets with erotic or pornographic content began to appear, despite the relentless persecution of the police. This number of mauvais livres was truly immense. These books were produced in great secrecy, sometimes even across the border, so as not to be hunted down by the censors; in Switzerland there was, for example, the Société Tipographique de Neuchatel, active from 1769 to 1785, and circulated the pamphlets in France challenging the customs of Paris. In this regard, there were catalogs and archives of prohibited books confiscated by the police. The most famous texts are: ‘La Pucelle d’Orléans’ by Voltaire in 1777 ‘Thérese philosophe’ by Diderot, ‘Furor uterines de Marie-Antoinette’. Within the panorama of philosophical pornography, where political and religious defamation find a place, the two terms freedom and libertinism are connected in a completely original way.