Here is a delightfully fun-filled watercolour by an artist known as Ivrasaki, about whom I have been unable to discover anything, other than he was active in the 1930s.  Much erotic art is rather solemn but it is good to find an artist who depicts sex as fun and certainly these three couples are having fun out in the countryside.  The guitar playing girls and her man are apart but the other four are happily interacting with each other.  They all give the impression that they may all swap partners later on!  

More Ivrasaki soon.

The two above have a strong voyeuristic element as well as a physical and emotional distance.  The top one is rather more companionable!

Tristan and Isolde are two of the great lovers of legend and since their first appearance, as Tristan and Iseult, in 12th century Franco-Norman poetry, there have been many versions of their story.  Like Romeo and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca and Anthony and Cleopatra, it is a doomed love which suited the Victorian sensibility.  Matters are complicated in that the story is a love triangle in that Tristan is sent by his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to bring back the Irish princess Isolde to be Mark's bride.  However, on the way back the two take a love potion.  Depending on the version of the story this is either accidentally or Isolde takes the potion destined for her and King Mark and gives it to Tristan instead, thus becoming a typical (for the Victorians) predatory woman.  The two fall in love but King Mark doesn't learn of their affair for some time. When he does he decides to hang Tristan and burn Isolde at the stake but Tristan escapes, rescues Isolde and flees to the forest where they are not discovered again for some years.  Eventually Mark persuades Tristan to return Isolde to him and he is banished to Brittany where he marries a woman, also called Iseult ( not coincidentally).

In one version of the story, Mark treacherously kills Tristan, while he is playing the harp, with a poisoned lance. In the other version Tristan is injured in a fight with other knights and sends his friend to bring Isolde, who is the only person who can heal him, across the sea.  His friend is told to display white sails on his ship if he is bringing back Isolde and black if he is not. However, Tristan's jealous wife, sick of being an Isolde substitute lies to him about the colour of the sails and Tristan, thinking that Isolde no longer cares for him, dies of grief.  On arriving in Brittany Isolde also dies on seeing Tristan's body and this is the scene depicted in Egusquiza's painting.

It is not surprising that such a melodramatic story appealed to the Victorians and many artists of the time did their own paintings of the couple, mostly full of medieval backdrops and costume.  Egusqueza's version has a rare eroticism about it with Isolde barely dressed in the flimsiest of,  garments, her breasts exposed. He based Isolde's figure on a nude study he had done some years before, adding the lightest drapery to the figure for the painting.   This was not a random drawing, later re-used for unconnected paintings years later, in the manner of Delacroix; he was already planning his Tristan and Isolde painting back in 1893.




Egusqueza came from a well-off family from Santander. in the north-western, Basque area of Spain and studied art in Madrid and then Paris. After some travel he returned to Paris and stayed there until a one year visit to Rome.  In 1876 when back in Paris, he first heard the music of Richard Wagner and from then on developed a fixation on the operas of the composer.  He later got to know Wagner and drew his portrait.




He started to feature Wagnerian themes in his paintings, although more often illustrating characters rather than actual scenes.   This drawing is of Kundry, the high messenger of the Grail, from Wagner's final opera Parsifal.  Wagner handed Egusquiza a copy of the manuscript of Parsifal for him to look at in 1880 and the painter attended the premier in Bayreuth in 1882.




Egusqueza knew Wagnjer's operas intimately and played the music himself on the piano.  He began to attend performances of the operas in Bayreuth.  He started work on his Tristan and Isolde project in the early eighteen nineties and knew that he wanted to produce  paintings illustrating two key scenes from the opera, Firstly, the finale of Act III with Isolde's death upon the body of Tristan (in Wagner's version of the legend Tristan is still (barely) alive when Isolde finds him on the beach).




The second paintingwas to depict Tristan and Isolde alive in the night (from Act II).  The opera itself is about the tensions between night and day with the lovers embracing the night, which enables them to pursue their amorous encounters undiscovered.  It is about life and death too, of course and Wagner was influenced by the rather pessimistic views of philosopher Artur Schopenhauer, and through Wagner, Egusqueza embraced his views too.  In this early rendering by the artist, a diaphanously clad Isolde is embraced by the warrior Tristan.




The figures seem to be enveloped in dark. Egusquiza had written a book on stage lighting and was very aware of the light effects he wanted in his pictures.  The final painting of the lovers alive was not completed until 1912, three years before the artist's death.  Both are large canvases, some five feet by eight.




In this drawing, Egusquiza presents his final composition for the lovers. Isolde's arm is moved from the initial sketches so that she holds Tristan's wrist, linking them in death.  It was anoher five years before the final painting was first exhibited at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1911, where it was rapturously received. Privately owned Tristan and Isolde: Death  was not seen again in public until a retrospective of the artist in his home town of Santander in 1995.  It made a huge impact and became well known as a result.  In 2000 it was bought by the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum where it hangs today.  Tristan and Isolde: Life is now just forty five miles away in the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Santander and Cantabria.

Egusquiza, through his intimate knowledge of Wagner's opera, has produced a painting that matches the passion and tragedy of the music and is much more than a man and a woman in medieval clothe,s like most of the other depictions of the chracters..

Well, we haven't had a magazine pictorial on The Seduction of Venus for a couple of months, so before our particular friend Sophie starts berating us about 'too much art' I thought I better post something.  It's been surprisingly hot in the South East of England for the last few days so I spent some time over at my friend A's, for skinny dipping fun in her pool.  We also had a general float about on her pool inflatables, too as well as quite of of pink wine. . 

When I got back today (very refreshed indeed) I remembered a Hustler pictorial of a couple in a pool and thought that would be just the thing for this warm spell.  The problem is I couldn't remember which issue it was in, so had to spend some time searching through my files to find the October 1979 magazine it appeared in.

It's a typical Hustler pictorial of the time with four big images scattered across just six pages and just one sentence of accompanying text.  There are no names given for the models; they are just called 'him' and 'her' which is accurate, if a little unimaginative.

Although she has her hand framing his genitals in this one he doesn't seem to very excited by the prospect, unless it is post coital one, of course.  The problem with these very short pictorials is that it wasn't really possible to tell any sort of story or even present a logical sequence of images.

In the final one he does look a bit more pleased to be floating around in the sunshine with such a lovely girl (I know the feeling).  Or maybe he is just responding to her delicately spread petals and rosy entrance.  Anyway, that was it for the pictorial.  A nice, hot, damp atmosphere but not enough pictures.

Fortunately, I have some outtakes so can examine their pool bound frolics a little more.  I am not sure what sort of person wears a snorkel mask in a swimming pool though.

This one is a variant on the first double spread in the magazine pictorial.  The main difference is that he has his hand on top of her hand, as she parts her pink labia in that curious way Hustler had it's models doing.

He's still wearing his snorkel mask in these as she tries to get him excited but totally fails.  She does givesus an assertively presented anus in  this, one though

He decides to go in for some of that inner thigh kissing that magazines of the time presented as they didn't want to risk getting their magazines confiscated for showing actual pussy kissing.

As she plays with her pussy his interest, at last, seems to be being engaged.  The bottom one is a variant of the last one in the magazine pictorial.

Having aroused his interest she decides to take matters into her own hands and, it is implied, mouth.  This shot would have been a bit strong for the magazine at the time.

The final two photographs have him on top and, in the last picture, photographed in such a way that he does look like he is actually doing it to her, even though, almost certainly he wasn't.  It was the first use of this 'are they or aren't they' angle in Hustler and they would continue to use it a lot thereafter.

Hustler isn't, perhaps, the first magazine that would spring to mind when discussing couples pictorials.  Penthouse with its 'Love Sets', yes, and the other Guccione magazine, aimed at women, Viva. whose couples sets were, at least initially, rather more sensuous than Penthouse's efforts, even though they were often shot by the same photographers.  In this post I look at every Hustler couples pictorial.  Some of these I have covered before in my Pubic Wars series but some are new.   Some I have already posted in full on this site and others I may post in the future (especially if there are any requests)

But Hustler did feature couples pictorials from its first year of publication, 1974.  Penthouse had had its first couples set back in 1970 but between then and the end of 1974 they only had three more. During 1974 they didn't publish any at all but the real magazine for couples sets at this time was the Playboy owned Oui, which had even started featuring men with women on some of their covers. 

This was not universally popular, however, and some readers wrote in complaining about the men, especially when they appeared in the centrefolds as well.  Most erotica throughout history had depicted men with women together but Playboy had made erotic pictures all about women.  The men in Playboy's early centrefolds were hinted at (two glasses, a smoking cigar etc) but not shown.   They wanted to show that their Playmates enjoyed male company but didn't want to spoil the illusion that these women would go with their readers.  Playboy did go on to have couples pictorials but they were rare and often more in the nature of travelogue pieces, 

In 1974, Hustler was a very different magazine, visually, from what it would become a year or so later.  Its nude pictorials were complete copies of the gauzy, romantic Penthouse style.  It was not surprising that they followed this approach with their first couples pictorial, Really Gittin' Down in November 1974, their fifth issue.

This first couples pictorial was not long, just six pictures over five pages, and was gently sensual.  There were no copulating positions, it was all about foreplay.  The only differences from the Penthouse style were that the man's face was actually in contact with the girls's groin (it would be some time before Penthouse risked this) in one shot, they clearly showed the woman's divided pubic mound (Penthouse would ensure the women it its couples pictorials displayed less than those in solo ones) and the language in the accompanying text was more frank.  Penthouse went in for poetry and tasteful euphemisms whereas Hustler talked about the couple "fucking, sucking, hoing humming and reaming".  In a final piece of product placement they said the couple had met at a Hustler Club, "where people go to get together".

The next couples pictorial wasn't really a couples one at all and by today's standards looks very dubious indeed.  The piece had rather more text accompanying it than a usual pictorial. as it discussed the 'Lolita complex' and the fact that most men had "Fantasies about the young blooming body of a teenage nymph"  The photographer used a short, small breasted woman, had her shave her pubic hair for the required effect and posed her with a much older man.  The effect looks very dodgy today and it is ironic as Larry Flynt became a strong campaigner against the sexual exploitation of women below the age of eighteen. 

April 1975's Karen and Ken was a step forward in Hustler's depiction of couples and not just in the fact that it used two names as the title of the pictorial.  For a start, alongside all the previously seen gentle caressing, there was this strong sex position shot.  Penthouse had yet to show anything that made it look like the couple were having actual sex in any of their pictures.

The other noteworthy thing about this pictorial was the fact that it contained, not one, but three pictures showing the man's penis.  This was a month before Penthouse risked one very small photograph doing the same.  Oui, however, had broken this barrier back in 1974.  The depiction of the penis would become something of a battleground in the pages of the magazine over the next few years.

It would be eight months before the magazine had another couples picture but when it did, in December 1975, it would cause a storm and have far reaching effects for publisher Larry Flynt.

Butch A black stud and his Georgia peach was all about the male model's penis to the extent that the girl, became little more than a decorative companion in the manner of a magician's assistant.  She is Deborah Clearbranch, who was, indeed. from Georgia, although she moved to California where she became a topless go-go dancer.  She posed, at the age of seventeen, for Penthouse and appeared in the magazine in June 1974.  She would change her name and become porn star Desireé Cousteau.

He is Butch Williams and Hustler would, as a result of his impressive anatomy, announce a prize for any man who could prove he was as well endowed. No one ever won.

This is not really a "Love Set' in the Penthouse sense, although there are a couple of shots of the two models embracing.  No, Cousteau's job is just to gaze admiringly at Bitch's, admittedly impressive member, which she does with suitably idolising expressions on her face.

So, having boldly gone with three shots of a flaccid penis in their previous pictorial they jump stright to warp speed with this one.  Considering the nervousness about shots of penises in the other major magazines, it wasn't surprising that there was something of an uproar.  Nevertheless, this wasn't the real source of the many objections to the pictorial. Complaints flooded in, particularly from the South, because he was black and she was white. Playboy had had similar problems when it published a picture of a naked black man with a white girl.




Having only had one copulatory position in their couples sets so far, they finished the pictorial with this one of Deborah seemingly being taken from the rear; certainly the first depiction of the rear entry position in a men's magazine. One man who saw the photos got particularly incensed. Joseph Franklin later said"It just showed a black male and a white female together and when I closed up (the magazine) I just thought to myself I'm gonna kill (Flynt). I just got very incensed because of photos that they published in Hustler, you know, mixed race, you know, white women with black men so this made me sick, you know, grossed me out and still does." In June 1978 Larry Flynt and his lawyer were leaving a courthouse in Georgia (ironically) when they were gunned down by shots from a .44 calibre rifle, leaving Flynt a paraplegic. No one was caught at the time but racist, serial killer Franklin admitted to the crime subsequently.  He has not been tried for it because he is already serving life imprisonment for other murders.






After the depiction of interracial rear entry and adoring penis gazing in December 1975's issue, readers might have wondered what Hustler editors might come up with in 1976. The following month, however, there were no sex positions in the Dracula themes set and he doesn't take any clothes off.  The only notable thing about the pictorial was the lady giving the camera an assertive rear end display and just displaying her anus.








Another not really a couples pictorial for March, with, the story of the pictorial went, a lady betting her dinner companions that they would prefer her shaved pussy to her hairy one (what a bizarre thought!).   She soaps herself up and the gentleman set to with the razor.  Mainly the pictorial is an excuse to show as many pussy shots of her as possible but there is one post shaving shot of her with one of the men, although his nether regions are concealed by her knee.




July's issue, which sported a very revealing cover, offered up the next proper couples pictorial and in what seemed like the perfect title for the magazine, was called A Day in the Life of a Gynaecologist.




This, was a more complex pictorial with two dozen pictures depicting a gynaecologist's consulting room and featuring an extra as a nurse.  It also featured the first depiction of a speculum in a men's magazine pictorial in this, Hustler's first close-up cunt shot.




Finally, we get a series of copulation shots as the gynaecologist very unprofessionally bangs his patient on the couch.  So this pictorial gave us a number of firsts for couples shots in the magazine and had a strong narrative with pictures displayed in chronological order of the story.  You certainly couldn't accuse Hustler of following a particular set pattern with its couples pictorials.






The following month would bring Under the Table at Tony's a pictorial about a man and a woman hooking up in a restaurant, with all the photographs shot at below table top level for an effectively voyeuristic approach.  There is some intimate action in this one as he pushes his hand inside her knickers to reveal her pink labia, his thumb pulling one of her lips to the side in a unique hand to intimate part contact/




It's not easy to spot initially, and that may have been one of the ways that the pictorial got away with a leap forward in physical intimacy, but she has her hand curled around his prick in this shot.




This photograph is even more suggestive, with the hint of her pink tongue almost in contact with his just visible cock.






A gentle kiss on the bottom (it is notable that none of the models in any of the couples pictorials so far had been shown kissing each other on the lips) is followed by his finger pressing right between her legs; the point of contact hidden by her finger pressing his.




Another one with a medical setting, this time the man is the patient and, according to the text ended up in hospital after crashing his car while his girlfriend gave him a blow job; hence the rather medically unlikely plastered cock he demonstrates in the early shots.  His nurses soon remove this, however, and one of them gives him an implied blow job, presumably just to ensude it is still working.




Sat on a bedpan the blonde nurse is shown with her fingers clearly on his genitals.  Both women display their nether regions in many of the shots much more assertively than the few examples seen in Penthouse couples pictorials to that point.




The patient gets massaged with baby oil in this superbly tactile shot; undoubtedly the most sensuous photograph in the pictorial.




There is a full on copulation shot, which includes the second nurse clamped onto his back as he takes the blonde, in a nicely participative threesome shot.




Although this is close to that dreaded entity, the comedy couples pictorial, it contains a number of nice shots (the bust massage being particularly noteworthy) and the final body pile up is quite well done (complete with enticing anal presentation by the dark haired nurse).






It would be four months before Hustler had another couples pictorial.  This one, A Passing Fancy, would really set the style for most of those that went after.  The Penthouse soft focus had well and truly gone and so were the many smaller pictures in some of the earlier sets. It was just an encounter told in under ten photos.




It began with the most graphic implied cunnilingus shots to appear in the magazine so far.  These were considered quite naughty at the time as Penthouse would discover later in the year when they had their  May 1977 issue seized at the Canadian border due to a couple of pussy munching shots.




This set also had the girl seemingly stimulating herself during the encounter too.   It also included the first graphic nipple licking, as well as the first example of toe sucking in ny of the major men's magazines.




There was just the one sex position but it was another rear entry one.  The accompanying text said he "bucked himself furiously into her tight, young ass", implying anal penetration, still illegal in many US states (and, indeed, the UK).



This shot of the girl, thighs spread, anus presented, manages to be graphic, tender and erotic at the same time as his cock nuzzles her thigh as he (nearly) kisses her forehead.  Hustler's most successful couples pictorial to date.






Hustler gave the couples pictorials a rest for the next eight months, choosing, instead, to feature some girl/girl sets.  When the next boy/girl set appeared. in September 1977. it certainly trumped anything that Bob Guccione had done in Penthouse as it was all shot underwater.




Not only did it have the first picture of a man with his fingers on the girl's parts but it aso featured the magazine's first sixty-nine shot in this impressive sub-aqua performance.








Several photographs had the girl interacting with the man's prick and the picture of her with her mouth open, next to his balls, pushed another barrier in the magazine.  Maybe the fact that all the action was veiled by water made it more acceptable than if the same actions had been depicted on dry land.




The next couples pictorial wouldn't appear until February 1978 and to say it was strange is an understatement. The lady cupid on the Valentine's Day cover doesn't really hint at what would become one of Hustler's most controversial (and that's saying something) pictorials, depite then claiming it was there "most shocking pictorial" on the cover..








In the pictorial The Naked...and the Dead a girl on death row is shaved of all her hair (seemingly for real - full marks for commitment to the model) and. apparently in exchange for a last cigarette, she lets the prison guard have sex with her.




The final picture has her on the electric chair with smoke and sparks (not very convincingly) coming out of it.  This is a disturbing pictorial and not erotic at all and this is largely due to the acting of the girl, who looks appropriately hopeless and depressed, all life knocked out of her.




May 1978's cover was certainly controversial too, making the reproductive roleof women all too clear and featuring a naked pregnant woman in a (quite tasteful, actually) pictorial inside.




The couples pictorial, Belle of he Ball (see the whole pictorial here with some graphic outtakes) that month was another group one with one girl taking on five men in a slave plantation period piece.  Again, the acting of the model makes this one.




The girl presents the juiciest looking pussy seen so far in a couples pictorial (I know couples isn't technically correct but sixsome doesn't sound right either).  Really remarkably, however, what we have here is the very first proper kiss in one of these boy/girl sets.  An interracial kiss at that.




The pictorial, as printed in the magazine, was more about the slaves getting their revenge on the girl  and chaining her up rather than any sex action but it is an enticing idea, well executed by photographer James Baes.






Hustler jumped a month until its next couples set. Seat of Passion, photographed by Clive McLean.  No actual kissing again but some tongue play.  This was all about one of those curious sex seats that are specifically designed to enable as many positions as possible.  They claimed in the magazine that it was anew invention but  King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, had one made for him and kept in his favourite Parisian brothel in the nineteenth century!




This was an unusual pictorial in that nearly all the pictures were on a giant pull-out, the size of eight normal pages.  This replaced the normal Hustler's Honey gatefold that month.  Since he had been shot Larry Flynt had found God and decided that the magazine was to be less about just naked women and more about liberation through sex.  He intended to do away with the Hustler Honeys and replace them with couples pictorials.  This was to be the first of those






Other than this shot, with the amusingly placed lipstick marks, there was not much in the way of penis reveal (or pussy reveal either, for that matter) but there was this very strong male rear end and balls shot which can't have been too popular with the 'no men in the magazine' contingent.  They do, at least. look like they are actually having sex.






There were not one, not two but three couples pictorials in the August 1978 issue, although the first one wasn't a pictorial proper but an illustrated article on men's top ten fantasies.  The picture illustrating group sex included some tickling testicle play.








This is the first clear use of the open mouth over cock effect to indicate imminent fellatio. At this stage erections certainly couldn't be shown so it is more promise than delivery.




Again, instead of the usual Hustler Honey centrefold shot, they had the couple in the gatefold picture, with more testicular display again.  The boy has to gaze at her pink pussy with his tongue out just as she has to gaze at his penis with her mouth open.  This rule of no mouth to genital contact would continue for nearly twenty years,




The second couples set that month, shot by Clive McLean, was called Stirring it Up and had a painting and decorating theme.  This is the first photograph to appear in the magazine to show mutual genital touching.




Here, again, is another Hustler convention, which was required because of fears of censorship at the time, as the man holds his penis at the girl's entrance supposedly indicating imminent penetration.  Except he is patently not stiff at all.




As part of his new ongoing role as a sexual educator, Flynt offered a photo guide to sex positions and the first couple on the cover.  These were the two models who would demonstrate the positions inside.








There was more floppy cock action in the desert in a pictorial called Hit and Run, culminating in a Bugatti bonnet bonk.  The centrefold featured the couple, once more too.  A disgruntled reader wrote in the November issue:  "Ever since Mr. Flynt's hospitalisation your centrefolds have sucked, and September's Hit and Run sucked worst of all.  All we see anynore are hairy assholes and limp dicks.  Who needs that shit?" Not a fan, obviously.

Onto the cover couple for the Sex Positions guide with photos by Clive McLean and a very serious commentary by Dr Joseph Barry.  One thing about this was that at least the couple were shown kissing in several of the pictures, although, other than the girl on top one they were not very revealing.  Dr Barry warned of the woman on top position that "Some men feel threatened taking the 'passive' or 'feminine' position, while on the other hand, many women are too inhibited to take an active role in love-making." 

October's issue had an effectively sexy cover of two interlocked torsos and unlike the previous cover there was no sheet covering the man's bottom, their genitals were obviously in contact.  Larry Flynt, back at work after his shooting, was convinced the CIA had ordered the hit (not so, as we subsequently discovered) and this pictorial was supposed to be an allegory of the rape of Justice by a sinister figure with a very nasty looking spiked phallus who was, perhaps, supposed to be the personification of the CIA.  Very strange, this one and certainly not erotic, unless you were really into extreme sado-masochism.

There was more conventional boy/girl action in the centrefold pictorial Hard Day's Work, although the man was not hard at all, of course.  Yet again, the couple featured in the centrefold and yet again, it was all about his balls, although there was some quite bold pussy play by the girl to keep the spread legs centrefold lovers happy (ish)..

Although there was another couple of the cover in November (the girl was the fabulous Joyce Gibson who had appeared in Penthouse's first threesome pictorial, Bawdy Bathers, in Dcember 1974), things otherwise were returning to normal at Hustler with the Honey returning to the centrefold and the couples banished to subsidiary pictorials.

There were two couples pictorials again, that month. The first one was a conventional one called Yen for Love, supposedly set in a Japanese tea house.  Although there was still flaccid cock inaction the girl's charms were much more on display than in some of the recent couples pictorials.  Interestingly, outtakes from this session show that at some point he got very stiff indeed.

The second one was something of a curiosity in that not only did it feature the girl actually pissing (in a first for any mainstream (sorry) men's magazine at the time - something that wouldn't be seen in a couples pictorial in the magazine for twenty years) but had her interacting with a curious beastman.

The beastman's head had been created by Hollywood special effects man Rick Schwartz, who had worked on the Planet of the Apes TV show, but it didn't really look very good on the not very hairy body of the man involved.  More floppy cock and open mouth poses.

The couples on the cover continued into December but, unlike the previous cover couple (sadly) these two did appear inside.  This set threw up a couple of firsts: the first cock between tits shot and the first time the man spreads the girls labia to show her pink vulva.





Into the last year of the seventies and the fifth year of publication for Hustler.  The new year saw the couples on the cover retained as they had been since the previous September.




Although they had famously had an interracial set before, Quiet Village was their first all African-American couples set. With her hand on his balls and her lips seemingly (or at least unprovably either way) on his cock this was a strong shot for the time.




Needless to say although they published two appreciative letters (from women, I wonder why?) about the pictorial in the April edition, there was the usual ranting missive from someone who was less impressed. "It's bad enough that you're showing dick. But nigger dick?" said, the not very tolerant, Brian Edwards from Illinois. It was actually one of Hustler's best boy/girl sets for some time.




The male model must have been looking at the previous article on sex positions as he certainly goes through quite a few of them.  Other than the Sex Positions feature itself this pictorial had the most actual copulating poses to date.  Full marks for athleticism!






The second couples pictorial was one of the dreaded comedy ones, done in a sort of superhero strip cartoon way, with speech boxes and written sound effects added to some of the pictures.  It was technically a threesome (and an interracial one as one of the girls was oriental) but the superhero's talents weren't that impressive in comparison to the African village gentleman.  An appreciative letter a couple of months later, remarked on the shaved pubis of he oriental lady.  What a novelty!





February's couples cover was rather good, with two nicely built people embracing under a shower.  They appeared in the pictorial inside, Wet and Wanton by James Baes.






As the cover picture indicated, this was a successfully sensual pictorial and included a couple of unusual overhead shots as the girl gets her bottom washed.   A bit of penis grasping in this too.  You did, at least, get the impression that the couple enjoyed being together.






Honestly, you don't get a blonde with beastman pictorial for years and then two come along close together.  Rich Schwartz was on makeup duty again, this time clearly working from his Planet of the Apes template.  Entitled Circus of Lust there were more dangling testicles but this time with implied buggery from the lady's bullwhip handle.




After six months of couples covers it was back to a girl in the brassy shape of Yvonne, photographed in none too subtle style by Suze Randall.




The couples pictorial that month was not so much a boy/girl one as a boy/woman, as the pictorial text discussed the issues of older women, from the pre-sexually liberated age, who have to hire gigolos to satisfy themselves. Or, at least, that was the excuse for the pictorial, Male for Sale, but at least Hustler was hiring an older female model.  More cock'tit interface here.

More of note was the visibly aroused male model in the set. Hustler had been criticised for all the soft penises (except by those who wanted them out of the magazine altogether, of course). They had had a few "is it or isn't it?" pictures and several of their male models had been at least semi-erect but the man in this pictorial had definitely risen to the occasion.




The model was Candy Samples and when asked by appreciative readers, Hustler said she was fifty years old but actually she was born in 1940 so she would have been 39 at this point. The grey wig doesn't really successfully turn her into an old person but it's the thought that counts and it is still good to see someone older than their teens or twenties on the pages of a men's magazine of the period.



The couples cover returned for April although the actual couple featured in the pictorial inside were different.  Sleeping Beauty was a racy version of the fairy tale and while the prince awakened Sleeping Beauty she seemed to awaken his interest too.  This was the first example of the female model grasping an erection, rather than just a flaccid penis.  This was an early pictorial by German photographer Matti Klatt, who had just joined Hustler.
The following month Hustler published a letter asking "What has happened to your male-female spreads? It seems that you are covering up the guy and showing off the girl at the expense of the male. Let's see more cocks and nice chests." As the letter was one of those Name and Address Withheld by Request ones it wasn't possible to tell if the writer was male or female.




The couples shot, The Toy Shoppe, that month, was by Clive McLean and, although it did not mention it in the accompanying text, is obviously based on the story of the Nutcracker ballet. And what a splendid nutcracker the ballerina here would be! The impressive thing about this shot is that the lady is genuinely en pointe (and has convincingly toned looking thighs) which is not an easy thing to do.






 At least in The Toy Shoppe there was some semi-erect penis depiction to keep Miss (or Mr) Name and Address Withheld happy. This set was successful because the girl looks like a ballerina not a stripper dressed as a ballerina.






The final pictorial that month was put together, Hustler maintained, because of the number of requests they were receiving about S&M and, in particular, where to buy the equipment. This pictorial used porn stars Jaimie Gillis and his then girlfriend, Serena, to showcase the products sold in a shop called The Pleasure Chest on Santa Monica Boulevard.




Contrary to the complaints the previous month about lack of cocks in the magazine, Suze Randall's shoot had Mr Gillis looking appropriately excited at the presence of his lovely girlfriend.

After a rocky start. when he almost closed down the magazine due to poor sales, Larry Flynt's Hustler had engendered a whole raft of similarly downmarket men's magazines. Never worried about being a lifestyle magazine like Playboy or having an arty sensibility like Penthouse, by the end of the decade Hustler was one of the big three as regards sales and was considerably cheaper to produce. In fact, compared with his blurrily printed pictures of strippers in his first issues, the women in Hustler were now easily as attractive as those in Penthouse and Playboy. Flynt wasn't so worried as Hefner and Guccione about pushing the boundary over explicitness and had suffered the lawsuits to prove it. The biggest change in the magazine, from 1977, was the increasing presence of these couples pictorials which, almost as much as the brazenly displayed cunts, came to define the magazine.

Next time, just as it looked as if the erect penis barrier had been broached once and for all, we would see a backing off of assertively presented cocks until much later in the decade.

Given it is Wimbledon ladies finals day today, I thought I might find some sort of tennis themed pictorial.  This one is more locker room than on court action but it includes enough tennis clothes and accessories to satisfy Agent Triple P's lady tennis player fantasies!

This girl/girl pictorial, Settling out of Court (oh, how the writers of men's magazines couldn't resist terrible tennis allusions in their titles for these sorts of sets - at least there was no 'love all' nonsense) appeared in July 1980's Club.  This shared a cover photo with May's Men Only in the UK but this particular pictorial didn't appear in Britain.

We start with a few nice undressing shots and while one girl might get away with her largely white outfit at the All England Club the other would have no chance with her dark blue ensemble.

A bit of gentle body kissing here and our first view of a truly magnificent bush!  In the next one the other girl's equally splendid coal black fleece is revealed.  The pussy stroking is still quite unusual for the time.

Here both ladies get a chance to stroke each other's fur as well as revealing their labia for the first time in the set.

Usually the pictorials that appeared in Men Only then appeared in Club in the US a month or two later.  However this pictorial never appeared in the UK magazine because by this period Paul Raymond had dialled right back on showing explicitly displayed labia, which we certainly get here.  Delicious!

There is nothing particularly special about this set but I like both girls and their raven locks (at both ends) and they look reasonably affectionate towards each other, which always helps.  There is nearly a kiss and all we really needed was a smile or too!  Not good, not bad.  Deuce, perhaps (sorry!).

Here is a delicious picture of kissing women from the late nineteenth century.  They have something of Daisy and Edith, from my erotic story The Lust World, about them!  The standing girl is a voluptuous lovely indeed!  What a splendid posterior!  I have no exact date for this picture but these striped stockings were very popular in the 1890s.  Gorgeous!

No, not that sort of watersports but a couple under the water in a pool in this very nice pictorial by Hal MacQueeney, which opens with this magnificently presented posterior on the two page opening spread.

Appearing in September 1977's issue, Hustler obviously thought the pictorial noteworthy enough to mention it on the cover.  As I examine Hustler's boy/girls couples pictorials I will continue to feature some in full which take our fancy.




Given our appreciation of the tactile pleasures to be had when skinny dipping with ladies, it is not surprising that I like this one.  Here we get another superb, anus flashing, rear end shot from our water nymph as she sheds herself of her bikini bottoms.

The man seems understandably delighted with his companion's buoyant display here.  Full marks to them both for havmaintaining such engaging expressions under the water!

Even more barrier breaking was this, Hustler's first sixty-nine position in a couples pictorial.  It's quite graphic one too, with his mouth on her mound and her pink parts spread.

Several photographs had the girl interacting with the man's prick (my lady friend maintains that it is a 'prick' when it is soft and a 'cock' when it is hard!) and the picture of her with her mouth open, next to his balls, pushed another barrier in the magazine. Maybe the fact that all the action was veiled by water made it more acceptable than if the same actions had been depicted on dry land.

Finally there is an indistinct but heavily suggestive mouth to penis shot. This was an excellent pictorial with an unusual setting, that contained some striking (such as the shot of the girl gazing raptly at his prick) and quite racy, for the time, pictures.

Most of the work of the classic pin-up artists was not very revealing, let alone blatantly erotic.  If doing calendar work, for example, they would be allowed one tasteful nude out of twelve images.  Depiction of pubic hair was very rare indeed and only really appeared in private works which were not for publication.  It is something of a surprise, therefore, to discover this very graphic painting by Fritz Willis (who we have featured on Venus Observationshere and here) called Afternoon Delight.  It shows a typical Willis Girl (as they were know from 1946 when he started doing pin-ups for Esquire magazine) posing with typical Willis props such as a hat, fruit and a wine bottle.  What is not at all typical is that she is guiding her partner's penis into her pussy.  Great expressions by Willis on both figures.  I cannot think of a similar erotic painting by any of the other top pin-up artists.