Joop Wilhelmus#Chick

Wilhelmus received an upbringing based on radical left principles.{{cite book|last1=Ophorst|first1=Robbert|last2=Schrijver|first2=Marijn|last3=De Vries|first3=Roelof|year=2014|title=De lustfabriek. 50 jaar Nederlandse porno-industrie|trans-title=The Lust Factory. 50 Year Dutch Porn Industry|language=nl|publisher=Business Contact|isbn=9789047006862}} He was a teacher and started his career by publishing Provo-like journals. {{cite book|last=Van der Horst|first=Han|year=2013|title=De mooiste jaren van Nederland, 1950–2000|trans-title=The Best Years of the Netherlands, 1950–2000|language=nl|publisher=Prometheus Bert Bakker|page=106|isbn=9789035140233}} Wilhelmus advocated complete sexual freedom, and became a well-known advocate of free sexual morality. {{cite web|url=http://www.rijnmond.nl/dossiers/01-06-2011/dordrecht-oudste-stad-van-holland|title=Dordrecht, oudste stad van Holland|date=1 June 2011|publisher=RTV Rijnmond|language=nl|trans-title=Dordrecht, Oldest City of Holland|access-date=21 December 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321044608/http://www.rijnmond.nl/dossiers/01-06-2011/dordrecht-oudste-stad-van-holland|archive-date=21 March 2015}} Together with Peter Johannes Muller (of Candy magazine), Wilhelmus broke the taboo of sexuality in the Netherlands.{{cite news|last=Aarts|first=Milco|date=26 May 2001|title=Pornokoning wil taboe op seks|trans-title=Porn King Wants Taboo on Seks|url=http://krant.telegraaf.nl/krant/archief/20010526/teksten/bin.muller.vrouw.blad.seks.html|newspaper=De Telegraaf|language=nl|location=Amsterdam|access-date=21 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232031/http://krant.telegraaf.nl/krant/archief/20010526/teksten/bin.muller.vrouw.blad.seks.html|archive-date=3 March 2016|url-status=live}} Wilhelmus also aggressively attacked women's shelters for abused women, and published the confidential addresses of these shelters.{{cite news|last=Pollmann|first=Tessel|date=26 January 1980|title='Wij zijn nu op straat niet meer dan een lijf met een gat'; over agressie en de grenzen van de vrije menningsuiting|trans-title='On the Streets We Are Now Nothing More than a Body with a Hole'; About Aggression and the Limits of Free Speech|newspaper=Vrij Nederland|language=nl}} Wilhelmus started sex shops and a 'stimulus society' in a cellar in Utrecht that allowed couples to engage in partner swapping. Wilhelmus was married and had four children; three daughters and one son. {{cite journal|date=Summer 1993|title=De dubieuze zaak Joop W.|trans-title=The dubious case Joop W.|journal=Nieuwmens|language=nl|publisher=NVSH|volume=17}}{{cite journal|last=Wilhelmus|first=Joop|date=October 1993|others=Dik Brummel, Yvonne van Santen, W. Smith (Editors)|title=Brief vanuit de gevangenis|trans-title=Letter from prison|journal=Nieuwmens|language=nl|publisher=NVSH|volume=17}} Wilhelmus' wife shared his philosophy regarding adult and child sexuality.

Chick, self-styled "sex magazine for the worker",{{cite book|last=Thompson|first=Dave|year=2007|title=Black and White and Blue: Adult Cinema from the Victorian Age to the VCR|publisher=ECW Press|page=227|isbn=978-1-55022-791-8}} was an explicit sex journal that started in 1968.{{cite book|year=2013|editor1-last=Lindner|editor1-first=Christoph|editor2-last=Hussey|editor2-first=Andrew|title=Paris-Amsterdam Underground. Essays on Cultural Resistance, Subversion, and Diversion|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|page=55|isbn=9789089645050}} Chick was founded by Wilhelmus, its editor-in-chief, and Jan Wenderhold, its sales manager. It also published dating personals that were about sex and not about love. Chick{{'}}s initial print run of 5,000 rose to 18,000 by the second half of 1968, and according to Wilhelmus, the magazine's circulation was 140,000 in 1971. In the seventies, Wilhelmus argued in Chick that sex with children was part of the sexual liberation.{{cite web|url=http://www.elsevier.nl/Algemeen/nieuws/2007/11/Seks-de-lasten-van-de-lust-ELSEVIER147266W/|title=Seks: de lasten van de lust|last=Van der List|first=Gerry|date=20 November 2007|publisher=Elsevier|language=nl|trans-title=Sex: The Burden of Lust|access-date=21 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001959/http://www.elsevier.nl/Algemeen/nieuws/2007/11/Seks-de-lasten-van-de-lust-ELSEVIER147266W/|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=live}} 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl/document/tekst?id=sgd%3A19841985%3A0000039&pagina=5|author=Dutch Senate|author-link=Senate (Netherlands)|title=Dutch Senate referencing the Chick-arrest|date=2 July 1985|publisher=Staten-Generaal Digitaal|language=nl|access-date=21 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141221080009/http://www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl/document/tekst?id=sgd%3A19841985%3A0000039&pagina=5|archive-date=21 December 2014|url-status=live}} After a conflict between founders Wilhelmus and Wenderhold, two versions of Chick co-existed, Chick/Dordrecht and Chick/Amsterdam, until Wenderhold eventually bought the Dordrecht version.

Wilhelmus was also the founder and publisher of child pornography magazine Lolita.{{cite book|last1=Howitt|first1=Dennis|author-link1=Dennis Howitt|last2=Sheldon|first2=Kerry|year=2007|title=Sex Offenders and the Internet|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|page=75|isbn=978-0-470-02800-1}}{{cite thesis|last=Beetstra|first=Tjalling|title=Van kwaad tot erger. De sociale constructie van satanisch ritueel misbruik in de Verenigde Staten en Nederland|year=2009|publisher=Datawyse/Universitaire Pers Maastricht|language=nl|trans-title=From Bad to Worse. The Social Construction of Satanic Ritual Abuse in the United States and the Netherlands}}{{cite book|year=2010|chapter=6.4 Is pedoseksualiteit schadelijk?|trans-chapter=6.4 Is Pedosexuality Harmful?|editor1-last=Van der Ploeg|editor1-first=Jan|editor2-last=De Groot|editor2-first=Roel|title=Kindermishandeling: een complex probleem|trans-title=Child Abuse: A Complex Problem|language=nl|location=Antwerpen|publisher=Garant|page=110|isbn=9789044125771}}{{cite book|last=Tate|first=Tim|year=1990|title=Child Pornography: An Investigation|publisher=Methuen Publishing|page=60|isbn=978-0-413-61540-4}} Lolita was first published circa 1970. Besides pornography it also featured a contact service for its readers through classified ads. Wilhelmus encouraged readers to provide new child pornography images so as to ensure his magazine's survival. A gift magazine was given in exchange for each new child photograph, and the sum of $350 was offered in the magazine if Wilhelmus could take the photographs himself. While Wilhelmus was arrested for publishing Lolita in January 1971, he was released immediately after the interrogation, and was never prosecuted for publishing the magazine. In 1973, he gave a lecture at a Roman Catholic training institute for working girls in Rotterdam, at the invitation of the school board,{{cite journal|date=October 1973|title=De zaak Wilhelmus, deel één|trans-title=The Case Wilhelmus, Part One|journal=Sekstant|language=nl|publisher=NVSH|issue=10}} and Lex van Naerssen of Utrecht University invited Wilhelmus as a visiting scholar, which led to parliamentary questions in the Dutch House of Representatives.{{cite journal|last=Eikelenboom|first=Siem|date=2012|title=De eenzame dood van Chick-uitgever Joop Wilhemus|trans-title=The Lonely Death of Chick Publisher Joop Wilhemus|journal=Koud Bloed|language=nl|publisher=Nieuw Amsterdam|issue=17}} 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. 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".{{cite report|date=9 October 1986|title=Child Pornography and Pedophillia|chapter-url=http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED275958.pdf|publisher=Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs|location=Washington, D.C.|chapter=XII. Quality and Content of Foreign Child Pornography|pages=42–43|access-date=21 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427053510/http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED275958.pdf|archive-date=27 April 2015|url-status=live}} The magazine reached issue 55 in 1984,{{cite book|last1=O'Donnell|first1=Ian|last2=Milner|first2=Claire|year=2011|orig-year=2007|title=Child Pornography. Crime, computers and society|edition=2nd|publisher=Routledge|page=7|isbn=978-1-84392-357-2}} and was eventually closed down by Dutch authorities in 1987, seventeen years after its conception. According to Wilhelmus, at the peak of its popularity, Lolita{{'}}s circulation was 25,000.{{cite news|last=De Ruijter|first=F.G.|date=15 December 1984|title=Seksbaron J. Wilhelmus: Amerika grootste producent kinderporno|trans-title=Sex Baron J. Wilhelmus: America Is the Greatest Producer of Child Pornography|newspaper=NRC Handelsblad|language=nl}} Lolita became an almost universal brand name for child pornography. 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".{{cite interview|last=Brummel|first=Dik|interviewer=Sarah Verroen|title=Stenen des Aanstoots|url=http://weblogs.vpro.nl/radioarchief/2008/12/26/over-het-einde-van-de-nieuwe-sekstant-en-de-affaire-ome-harry/|work=VPRO|date=7 October 1996|access-date=21 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111013957/http://weblogs.vpro.nl/radioarchief/2008/12/26/over-het-einde-van-de-nieuwe-sekstant-en-de-affaire-ome-harry/|archive-date=11 January 2015|url-status=dead}}

Wilhelmus became a millionaire,{{cite AV media|people=John Lindsay and Laurence Barnett (Directors)|year=1973|title=The Porn Brokers|medium=Documentary|publisher=Elmside Films}} but as "one of the most successful"{{cite book|last1=Penn|first1=Michael|last2=Nardos|first2=Rahel|year=2003|title=Overcoming violence against women and girls. The International Campaign to Eradicate a Worldwide Problem|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|pages=59–60|isbn=978-0-7425-2499-6}} and "one of the most notorious" publishers of child pornography, he ran into great opposition when the social climate started changing and he became more and more isolated. The Dutch authorities arrested him every time he tried to leave the country.{{cite news|last1=Volkman|first1=Ernest|author-link1=Ernest Volkman|last2=Rosenberg|first2=Howard|author-link2=Howard Rosenberg|date=2 June 1985|title=Shame of the Nation|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19850602&id=C08gAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bcgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3665,927481|newspaper=Family Weekly|publisher=TimesDaily|page=6|access-date=21 December 2014}} In 1992, Wilhelmus was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for having sex with his then twelve-year-old daughter.{{cite book|last=Lörzing|first=Han|year=2014|title=Jaren van verandering. Nederland tussen 1945 en 2014|trans-title=Years of Change. The Netherlands between 1945 and 2014|language=nl|publisher=Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep|page=180|isbn=9789025304737}} Wilhelmus claimed to be innocent, and his oldest daughter started a petition to free her father and asked a doctor to examine the daughter who was supposedly abused. This doctor issued a medical certificate that stated the daughter could not have had sexual intercourse and that her hymen was intact. Two years later, Wilhelmus was released early because of good behavior. The night after his release, Wilhelmus drowned in the water of the Voorstraathaven in downtown Dordrecht. According to the police, his death was neither suicide nor murder, but Wilhelmus was drunk and his death an accident.

{{portal|Human sexuality}}

• Child pornography laws in the Netherlands
• Dutch Society for Sexual Reform
• Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom and Diversity
• Vereniging Martijn
• Edward Brongersma
• Frits Bernard

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20180930115902/https://www.anp-archief.nl/page/591600/dordrecht-14-januari-1971 Photo of Wilhelmus] at news agency ANP
• [https://beeldbank.regionaalarchiefdordrecht.nl/search/detail/id/72B671D7B052EF313FC022FB9741580F Photo of Wilhelmus] at Regionaal Archief Dordrecht

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilhelmus, Joop}}

Category:20th-century Dutch criminals

Category:1943 births

Category:1994 deaths

Category:Child pornography

Category:Deaths by drowning

Category:Dutch pornographers

Category:Dutch activists

Category:Pedophile advocacy

Category:Dutch people convicted of child sexual abuse

Category:Dutch publishers (people)

Category:Incest

Category:People from Dordrecht

Category:Sex scandals in the Netherlands