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john willie
aka j.w.
Mid-century
visual artist
and publisher,
“John Willie” and
his wife, muse,
and inspiration,
Holly Anna Faram belonged to a clandestine community of enthusiasts with a richly diverse and liberal view on consensual erotic pleasures.
With pen and lens, J.W. set about realizing a fetish-inspired magazine to provide them with a resource
to savor consensual pleasures in their “own sweet way”, as he would often write.
Between its covers, John Willie buttoned up ideas of the fetish aesthetic.
He knew first-hand that wasp-waisted corsets, sky-high stilettos, and oil-slick gloves are charged with erotic appeal among enthusiasts.
Today, John Willie is feted as a visionary artist, his work influencing creatives throughout the visual arts, fashion, performance, and more.
In 1946, our heroine and namesake first appeared in BIZARRE magazine in a teaser ad for a serial strip
that John Willie was developing.
Its stories are highly erotic role-play fantasies told through subversive wit and humor wrapped in knots and corsets.
But beneath Sweet Gwendoline’s feigned naiveté and damsel-in-distress routine is a woman in control and acting out her erotic fantasies.
In it, Sweet Gwendoline plays the hapless victim of various dastardly plots to restrain her.
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