Nudity and sex

Mussengang used language and images that may seem too explicit by today’s (2021) standards. Do you ever see such drawings nowadays, in a more or less official publication by a respected institution such as a university.

And yet, even in the early years, there were readers who objected to Mussengang and Bert Cornelius’ cheerful drawings (7, 8, 9, 10 and 11).

As did the deeply religious student house inhabitant Annie Stortemelk (writer Frank den Hollander’s favourite), who had great trouble adjusting to the wild student life. For her birthday, her boyfriend Aernout van Wassenaer (reclining, with glasses) gifted her a performance by a male stripper. Illustration 12 shows what happened next.

Gender neutral

More than a quarter of a century after Mussengang’s final instalment (1995), students from those days still complain that Bert Cornelius only ever drew beautiful women. And it’s true that Bert liked to draw beautiful women, often scantily dressed, if at all. But he certainly didn’t spare the men (13, 14), also not when it came to the question of who was dominating whom.