Joop Wilhelmus

Johannes Cornelis Christiaan "Joop" Wilhelmus (7 January 1943[1] – c. 9 September 1994[2][3]) was a Dutch pornographer and entrepreneur, known for co-founding and publishing pornographic magazine Chick, founding and publishing child pornography magazine Lolita, and for pedophile advocacy.

Joop Wilhelmus
Born(1943-01-07)January 7, 1943
Dordrecht
DiedSeptember 9, 1994(1994-09-09) (aged 51)
Dordrecht
Occupation(s)Pornographer, entrepreneur
Years active1968–1987
Known forChick, Lolita
Criminal chargeChild sexual abuse (incest)
Criminal penaltyImprisonment for 4 years
Criminal statusConvicted in 1992, released in 1994
ChildrenFour

Personal life

Wilhelmus received an upbringing based on radical left principles.[4] He was a teacher[5] and started his career by publishing Provo-like journals.[6] Wilhelmus advocated complete sexual freedom,[7] and became a well-known advocate of free sexual morality.[2][8] Together with Peter Johannes Muller (of Candy magazine), Wilhelmus broke the taboo of sexuality in the Netherlands.[7] Wilhelmus also aggressively attacked women's shelters for abused women, and published the confidential addresses of these shelters.[9] Wilhelmus started sex shops[6] and a 'stimulus society' in a cellar in Utrecht that allowed couples to engage in partner swapping.[3] Wilhelmus was married[3] and had four children; three daughters[10] and one son.[11] Wilhelmus' wife shared his philosophy regarding adult and child sexuality.[12]

Chick

Chick, self-styled "sex magazine for the worker",[13] was an explicit sex journal that started in 1968.[6] Chick was founded by Wilhelmus, its editor-in-chief, and Jan Wenderhold, its sales manager.[4] It also published dating personals that were about sex and not about love.[5] Chick's initial print run of 5,000 rose to 18,000 by the second half of 1968,[6] and according to Wilhelmus, the magazine's circulation was 140,000 in 1971.[3] In the seventies, Wilhelmus argued in Chick that sex with children was part of the sexual liberation.[14] In 1970, the publication of Chick resulted in the Dutch "Chick-arrest" by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, which in turn led to the new Dutch moral law of 1971 that no longer criminally sanctioned pornography.[15] After a conflict between founders Wilhelmus and Wenderhold, two versions of Chick co-existed, Chick/Dordrecht and Chick/Amsterdam,[4] until Wenderhold eventually bought the Dordrecht version.

Lolita

Wilhelmus was also the founder and publisher of child pornography magazine Lolita.[16][17][18][19] Lolita was first published circa 1970. Besides pornography it also featured a contact service for its readers through classified ads.[20][16] Wilhelmus encouraged readers to provide new child pornography images so as to ensure his magazine's survival.[21][16] A gift magazine was given in exchange for each new child photograph,[20] and the sum of $350 was offered in the magazine if Wilhelmus could take the photographs himself.[16] While Wilhelmus was arrested for publishing Lolita in January 1971, he was released immediately after the interrogation,[17] and was never prosecuted for publishing the magazine.[17] In 1973, he gave a lecture at a Roman Catholic training institute for working girls in Rotterdam, at the invitation of the school board,[22] and Lex van Naerssen of Utrecht University invited Wilhelmus as a visiting scholar, which led to parliamentary questions in the Dutch House of Representatives.[23] In June 1975, Wilhelmus partook in a TV broadcast of the NCRV-program Hier en Nu, where he explained how normal sex with children was to him.[24] In 1986, the PSI subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs called Lolita "the most notorious of the foreign commercial child pornography publications".[20] The magazine reached issue 55 in 1984,[20][25] and was eventually closed down by Dutch authorities in 1987,[19][16] seventeen years after its conception.[25] According to Wilhelmus, at the peak of its popularity, Lolita's circulation was 25,000.[26] Lolita became an almost universal brand name for child pornography.[25][16] In an interview with the VPRO, Dik Brummel of the NVSH declared that he had bought some issues of Lolita and considered them to be "historical documents".[27]

Later years and death

Wilhelmus became a millionaire,[3][12] but as "one of the most successful"[21] and "one of the most notorious"[1] publishers of child pornography, he ran into great opposition when the social climate started changing and he became more and more isolated.[3] The Dutch authorities arrested him every time he tried to leave the country.[28] In 1992, Wilhelmus was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for having sex with his then twelve-year-old daughter.[24] Wilhelmus claimed to be innocent,[11] and his oldest daughter started a petition to free her father and asked a doctor to examine the daughter who was supposedly abused.[11] This doctor issued a medical certificate that stated the daughter could not have had sexual intercourse[10] and that her hymen was intact.[23] Two years later, Wilhelmus was released early because of good behavior.[3] The night after his release, Wilhelmus drowned in the water of the Voorstraathaven in downtown Dordrecht.[24][3] According to the police, his death was neither suicide nor murder, but Wilhelmus was drunk and his death an accident.[3]

See also

References
  1. Itzin, Catherine (1992). Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties. Oxford University Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-19-825291-7.
  2. "Joop Wilhelmus (51) overleden" [Joop Wilhelmus (51) Deceased]. NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). 10 September 1994. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  3. Vermaat, Adri (14 September 1994). "Ex-pornokoning Joop Wilhelmus raakte steeds meer geïsoleerd tot het doek viel" [Former Porn King Joop Wilhelmus Became Increasingly Isolated Until the Curtain Fell]. Trouw (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  4. Ophorst, Robbert; Schrijver, Marijn; De Vries, Roelof (2014). De lustfabriek. 50 jaar Nederlandse porno-industrie [The Lust Factory. 50 Year Dutch Porn Industry] (in Dutch). Business Contact. ISBN 9789047006862.
  5. Van der Horst, Han (2013). De mooiste jaren van Nederland, 1950–2000 [The Best Years of the Netherlands, 1950–2000] (in Dutch). Prometheus Bert Bakker. p. 106. ISBN 9789035140233.
  6. Lindner, Christoph; Hussey, Andrew, eds. (2013). Paris-Amsterdam Underground. Essays on Cultural Resistance, Subversion, and Diversion. Amsterdam University Press. p. 55. ISBN 9789089645050.
  7. Aarts, Milco (26 May 2001). "Pornokoning wil taboe op seks" [Porn King Wants Taboo on Seks]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). Amsterdam. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  8. "Dordrecht, oudste stad van Holland" [Dordrecht, Oldest City of Holland] (in Dutch). RTV Rijnmond. 1 June 2011. Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  9. Pollmann, Tessel (26 January 1980). "'Wij zijn nu op straat niet meer dan een lijf met een gat'; over agressie en de grenzen van de vrije menningsuiting" ['On the Streets We Are Now Nothing More than a Body with a Hole'; About Aggression and the Limits of Free Speech]. Vrij Nederland (in Dutch).
  10. "De dubieuze zaak Joop W." [The dubious case Joop W.]. Nieuwmens (in Dutch). NVSH. 17. Summer 1993.
  11. Wilhelmus, Joop (October 1993). Dik Brummel, Yvonne van Santen, W. Smith (Editors). "Brief vanuit de gevangenis" [Letter from prison]. Nieuwmens (in Dutch). NVSH. 17.
  12. John Lindsay and Laurence Barnett (Directors) (1973). The Porn Brokers (Documentary). Elmside Films.
  13. Thompson, Dave (2007). Black and White and Blue: Adult Cinema from the Victorian Age to the VCR. ECW Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-1-55022-791-8.
  14. Van der List, Gerry (20 November 2007). "Seks: de lasten van de lust" [Sex: The Burden of Lust] (in Dutch). Elsevier. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  15. Dutch Senate (2 July 1985). "Dutch Senate referencing the Chick-arrest" (in Dutch). Staten-Generaal Digitaal. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  16. Howitt, Dennis; Sheldon, Kerry (2007). Sex Offenders and the Internet. John Wiley & Sons. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-470-02800-1.
  17. Beetstra, Tjalling (2009). Van kwaad tot erger. De sociale constructie van satanisch ritueel misbruik in de Verenigde Staten en Nederland [From Bad to Worse. The Social Construction of Satanic Ritual Abuse in the United States and the Netherlands] (Thesis) (in Dutch). Datawyse/Universitaire Pers Maastricht.
  18. Van der Ploeg, Jan; De Groot, Roel, eds. (2010). "6.4 Is pedoseksualiteit schadelijk?" [6.4 Is Pedosexuality Harmful?]. Kindermishandeling: een complex probleem [Child Abuse: A Complex Problem] (in Dutch). Antwerpen: Garant. p. 110. ISBN 9789044125771.
  19. Tate, Tim (1990). Child Pornography: An Investigation. Methuen Publishing. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-413-61540-4.
  20. "XII. Quality and Content of Foreign Child Pornography" (PDF). Child Pornography and Pedophillia (Report). Washington, D.C.: Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs. 9 October 1986. pp. 42–43. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 April 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  21. Penn, Michael; Nardos, Rahel (2003). Overcoming violence against women and girls. The International Campaign to Eradicate a Worldwide Problem. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 59–60. ISBN 978-0-7425-2499-6.
  22. "De zaak Wilhelmus, deel één" [The Case Wilhelmus, Part One]. Sekstant (in Dutch). NVSH (10). October 1973.
  23. Eikelenboom, Siem (2012). "De eenzame dood van Chick-uitgever Joop Wilhemus" [The Lonely Death of Chick Publisher Joop Wilhemus]. Koud Bloed (in Dutch). Nieuw Amsterdam (17).
  24. Lörzing, Han (2014). Jaren van verandering. Nederland tussen 1945 en 2014 [Years of Change. The Netherlands between 1945 and 2014] (in Dutch). Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep. p. 180. ISBN 9789025304737.
  25. O'Donnell, Ian; Milner, Claire (2011) [2007]. Child Pornography. Crime, computers and society (2nd ed.). Routledge. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-84392-357-2.
  26. De Ruijter, F.G. (15 December 1984). "Seksbaron J. Wilhelmus: Amerika grootste producent kinderporno" [Sex Baron J. Wilhelmus: America Is the Greatest Producer of Child Pornography]. NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch).
  27. Brummel, Dik (7 October 1996). "Stenen des Aanstoots". VPRO (Interview). Interviewed by Sarah Verroen. Archived from the original on 11 January 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  28. Volkman, Ernest; Rosenberg, Howard (2 June 1985). "Shame of the Nation". Family Weekly. TimesDaily. p. 6. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.