In 2012, a year before Roger Finance’s shop, Star X, in Toulouse finally closed, Finance produced the last of Farrel’s drawing collections, Pourquoi pleurent-elles? (Why Are They Crying? – the gender-specificity of the French ‘elles’ untranslatable in the generic English ‘they’). The texts are by Léon Despair and the preface by Christophe Bier; the drawings nearly all come from a much earlier period in Farrel’s output.

Finance had a hard time finding a printer. Many refused; one even reported him to the police. The police paid a visit, Finance was summoned by a judge. It was ruled that there was absolutely nothing reprehensible – these are only drawings – so there was no prosecution. As Christophe Bier says in his conversation with Ayzad, ‘With eroticism there are always problems, depending on the evolution or the regression of morals. Finance had issues with the police, which were mild compared with the 1984 bans on some of his books. Today the main problem is more fear and self-censorship. The pressures of concerned citizens associations creates a climate of self-censorship, and that influences the whole field of erotic publishing. Publishers hesitate, ask advice from law firms who justify their salaries by advising censorship and recommending prudent cuts. The biggest enemy of publishers today is themselves and their fears. From a strictly legal point there is no problem in publishing drawings like those of Farrel. He is not a revisionist, he propagates no terrorist ideology, and he only tackles his own fantasies. As an artist he uses his freedom of creation.’

Bier sums it up like this: ‘We live in a world seeking zero risks and wanting to sanitise fantasies. If we truly care about human dignity and the protection of children, it is better to help the real victims, those closest to us upon whom we too often close our eyes. The “good” citizens who attack risqué artistic works only want to save imaginary victims and ignore the cathartic value of fantasies. In the twenty-first century it is time to learn not to be afraid of fantasies, but to play and enjoy them – as Farrel does. I have a hard time taking Farrel’s work seriously because all of his horrors are taken to such extravagant excess. They exist in a realm of pure fantasy. It’s time to give up trying to regulate fantasies, to want to sanitise them. Fantasies are obscene, indecent, rude, politically incorrect, so let them be.’

Pourquoi pleurent-elles? was published by Roger Finance for Promo Média X, Toulouse.