Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946

by Mel Gordon

Mel Gordon, author of Voluptuous Panic, the celebrated history about the sex culture of Weimar Berlin, returns with a stunningly illustrated look at Paris, The City of Pleasure, prior to and during German occupation during World War II.

The book Horizontal Collaboration encompasses the Jazz Age, Depression, World War and Occupation, and Liberation. It concludes with the shuttering of the licensed brothels in 1946, which some Parisian intellectuals thought was the final "destruction of French civilization".

The term "Horizontal Collaboration" refers to the sexual liaisons between French civilians and German occupiers from 1940 to 1944. These were extremely widespread and included both individual wartime relationships in addition to prostitution. As Allied armies swept across the French countryside, thousands of young women—and some men—were savagely punished by the authorities or by vigilante crowds, becoming a source of deep national shame.

Author Gordon redefines the pejorative term to mean something much broader: French men and women "horizontally collaborated" to overcome all social obstacles, divisions, and regulations. These obstacles include married and unmarried couples, straights and homosexuals, foreigners and locals, gun-toting soldiers and their vanquished subjects. The natural yearning for sexual pleasure equally corrupted all cohabitating partners.

This book rediscovers a remarkable time when the aesthetic and erotic capitol of Europe experienced remarkable heights and shameful lows. . . . Hundreds of images, most never before seen in a book, encompass this fascinating but little-known history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art, Sexuality, France, Cultural

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2015

Reviews

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good companion to Mel Gordon's book on Berlin, Voluptuous Panic, this volume is all about naughty Paris in the years between the world wars. You won't find much about art and literature here but lots of lurid detail about prostitution, erotic night clubs, gay life, and other delights. Fans of the outre like myself will especially appreciate the sections on erotic magic, Willie Seabrook, sexy black masses, and night spots like Cabaret L'Enfer and Cabaret du Neant. Gordon's style is light as a chorus girl's skirt and I found myself often wishing for the sources of some of his statements, but that's hardly the point. Like the Berlin volume, the text here is secondary to the astonishing, immense collection of images from the era, ranging from nightclub programs to candid photos of street life. A few of the photos are extremely explicit so you probably won't want to leave this book lying on your coffee table when the minister drops by. The last two chapters, on the occupation and liberation of Paris and on the unlikely outbreak of public morality that followed made me want to learn a good deal more about postwar Parisian vice, or the lack of it.

[Edward Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

This admirable volume depicting the development of sexuality in France is not quite as great and as all-encompassing as Mel Gordon's other volume, VOLUPTUOUS PANIC. But it does offer a fairly solid overview of perversity from the French Revolution to the end of Vichy France. We are introduced to such sinister figures as Violette Morris, a lesbian and Nazi collaborator extremely committed to hardcore physical sports and adventure who underwent a double mastectomy so that she could fit into a vehicle (priorities, man) when she wasn't tipping off the Germans about Allied locations. There is, as usual, the prodigious terminology and locations of dens and brothels that one expects from Gordon. But I think his scope here was a little too broad and caused his prodigious research to suffer. Still, there has been nobody who has adeptly chronicled all this quite as well as he has. I do hope that someone steps up to fill the void left by his passing.

[?0?0?0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

Another wonderful journey through the sexualized underworld of a fascinating European city by Mel Gordon who did a similar and superior treatment to interwar Germany with the terrifically out-there, "Voluptuous Panic".
In, "Horizontal Collaboration", we begin when houses of tolerance, late-night venues and the like were alive and creative and bringing in interesting crowds and then to the complicated Nazi occupation and the quick hit of powers destroying the sex world and much of the vibrancy of Paris.
Filled with plenty of out-of-reach - due to highly priced certain books of photography - images of the places and people described, it all amount to a sweeping, hectic, and exciting tableau of a European city not afraid to express itself in any way or explore any curiosity not matter how asinine or illegal they were.

[April-Jane Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book charts the sex industry in Paris between 1920's and 1940's. It was really fascinating, especially the parts about themed clubs and brothels. It was an area of history that I knew little about and this book was great in expanding my knowledge.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for what it is.
Comprehensive.
At times nauseating.
I started thinking I was modern and accepting and left thinking I was a prude, esp. the Black mass stuff towards the end. Closer to insanity than joy.

[Sonja · Rating 3 out of 5]

The depth of subject matter is superb, but it is such a narrow scope within the book that context of people, places, and greater world actively are hard to track.