An analysis of pornography during apartheid (1948 to 1984)

Le Roux, Zack

An analysis of pornography during apartheid (1948 to 1984)

Thesis / Dissertation

2026

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Historical Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

The nature of what was considered pornographic by Apartheid powers and their response to this material along with its impact and availability, even under censorship, provides an important look at the social conditions surrounding expressions and exercises in human sexuality. This study will address the economic questions of production, distribution and consumption along with the social implications and messaging within pornographic content itself. It will analyse the racialised, gendered and queer aspects of pornography, which are often neglected within these questions surrounding sexuality, focusing instead on the diversity of the lived experiences of sexuality. The racialised and gendered legal policies surrounding the subject matter gives a guideline for the way that pornographic content can be understood within the four decades between 1948 and 1984 that the archival research draws from. The specific aspects of the available pornographic material will be compared to these policies to reconstruct an understanding of the role and impact that it potentially had, tempered by the limitations of archival shortcomings. The thesis will use internal government documents discussing seized pornographic content along with the original text of publications or other pornographic content that can be traced or reconstructed, aiming to mesh the two and build as thorough of a context as possible. The systems of censorship surrounding pornography were linked with the more general methods of policing marginalised bodies, with pornography as a result having the potential to provide a counter to this through expression of greater sexual freedom. This thesis aims to indicate the need and offer a starting archive for more intersectional research of media under Apartheid in general and of pornography specifically as a banned medium with how it relates to legal, economic, sociological and historical aspects of lived experiences; showing that porn, like other forms of media, can both conform to and countermand hegemonic systems.