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Sex and Psychological Operations

by: Herbert A. Friedman

Warning! These historical wartime images are sexually explicit.
This is a military reference site for adults only.

Note: Portions of this article on wartime sexual propaganda first appeared in Oui, Sir, and Soldier of Fortune magazines in the early 1980s. Some of the author’s information was later used in the television documentaries Secret History – Sex Bomb, and Sex and the Swastika. This article is a work in progress. The author will add more leaflets as translations become available.

To the average person, the connotations of the word "Pornography" have always brought forth a mental picture of a depraved person leering at filthy pictures. To the scholar, the word meant simply "The description of prostitutes and their trade". Later other definitions were added, attempting to encompass the term "obscene". We now consider Webster's "Writing and pictures intended to arouse sexual desire" as an appropriate statement of meaning. Would it surprise you to know that all the major combatants involved in World War II used pornography as part of their psychological operations (PSYOP) strategy?
Professor Paul M. A. Linebarger stated the justification for this effort in his book Psychological Warfare (Infantry Journal Press, Washington D.C., 1948).

Young human beings, especially young males, are apt to give considerable attention to sex. In areas of military operations, they are removed from the stimuli of secondary sex references, which are (in America) an accepted part of everyone’s daily life: bathing beauty photos, magazine covers, semi-nudes in advertising, etc. Our enemies tried to use the resulting pin-up craze for propaganda purposes, hoping that a vain arousal of oestrum would diminish morale.

In German Psychological Warfare (Arno Press, New York, 1972) Ladislas Farago states:

Since young soldiers are in a state of hyperactive bodily development, their immediate problems are related to appetite and sex....Sexual deprivation may be a motive for a soldier’s suicide attempt.

Both the Axis and the Allies printed aerial propaganda leaflets using sexual themes in an attempt to demoralize enemy soldiers at the front. Did these leaflets work? Did the finders become emotionally crippled and unable to carry on their duties and responsibilities? Just the opposite occurred. The "pin-up" pictures became collectors items sought after by the troops who greedily collected and swapped them. If anything, the leaflets raised morale. There is no doubt that they were the most heartily appreciated propaganda leaflets used in World War 2. We can probably state that they were the most widely read and circulated enemy documents of any war

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Sex and Propaganda