By Tobias Carroll. Dian Hanson knows a lot about dirty magazines. The books offer a tour of much of the 20th century through the prism of, well, sex magazines β encompassing multiple nations and continents, and ranging in style from discreet to explicit. When InsideHook spoke with Hanson, she described the genesis of these anthologies β which, in keeping with the history that informed them, also shed light on aspects of the modern world.
But as I started collecting material, I just went further and further and further back. Well, there was a lot of spicy material that came out in the s.
Because during depressions, one of the things that really thrives is the sex industry. People are depressed, you know, they want fun. Gradually, the scope of the series expanded to encompass most of the 20th century. I went straight to eBay, of course,and started buying stuff, which is the fun part of it. As Hanson explained, a policy change from eBay banned the sale of most adult materials β and a look through these six anthologies makes it clear why many of the magazines collected inside would not fly under the new regulations.
In our conversation, Hanson offered some valuable historical context for the latter. The things that were originally under the counter were fetish materials, gay materials β whatever would get you arrested. So basically, the people who were selling the material were also creating the material. The under-the-counter books represent what was not considered culturally defensible. They are all, in effect, little zines. There was a huge audience for this.
That was a wonderful thing. They figured out through the s what they could do legally. They figured out what the best sellers were.
