Wilhelmus received an upbringing based on
radical left principles.[4] He was a teacher and started his career by publishing
Provo-like journals. [5][6] Wilhelmus advocated complete sexual freedom, and became a well-known advocate of free sexual morality. [7][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 and a 'stimulus society' in a cellar in Utrecht that allowed couples to engage in
partner swapping.[6][3] Wilhelmus was married and had four children; three daughters and one son. [3][10][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]
^
abcOphorst, 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.
ISBN9789047006862.
^
abVan 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.
ISBN9789035140233.
^
abcdLindner, Christoph; Hussey, Andrew, eds. (2013). Paris-Amsterdam Underground. Essays on Cultural Resistance, Subversion, and Diversion.
Amsterdam University Press. p. 55.
ISBN9789089645050.
^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).
^
ab"De dubieuze zaak Joop W." [The dubious case Joop W.]. Nieuwmens (in Dutch). 17.
NVSH. Summer 1993.
^
abcWilhelmus, Joop (October 1993). "Brief vanuit de gevangenis" [Letter from prison]. Nieuwmens (in Dutch). 17. Dik Brummel, Yvonne van Santen, W. Smith (Editors).
NVSH.
^
abJohn Lindsay and Laurence Barnett (Directors) (1973). The Porn Brokers (Documentary). Elmside Films.
^Thompson, Dave (2007). Black and White and Blue: Adult Cinema from the Victorian Age to the VCR.
ECW Press. p. 227.
ISBN978-1-55022-791-8.
^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.
^
abcBeetstra, 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.
^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.
ISBN9789044125771.
^
abPenn, Michael; Nardos, Rahel (2003). Overcoming violence against women and girls. The International Campaign to Eradicate a Worldwide Problem.
Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 59–60.
ISBN978-0-7425-2499-6.
^"De zaak Wilhelmus, deel één" [The Case Wilhelmus, Part One]. Sekstant (in Dutch) (10).
NVSH. October 1973.
^
abEikelenboom, Siem (2012). "De eenzame dood van Chick-uitgever Joop Wilhemus" [The Lonely Death of Chick Publisher Joop Wilhemus]. Koud Bloed (in Dutch) (17). Nieuw Amsterdam.
^
abcLörzing, 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.
ISBN9789025304737.
^
abcO'Donnell, Ian; Milner, Claire (2011) [2007]. Child Pornography. Crime, computers and society (2nd ed.).
Routledge. p. 7.
ISBN978-1-84392-357-2.
^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).
^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.