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Samuel Roth, books he sold.

Remembering Samuel Roth, the Bookseller Who Defied America’s Obscenity Laws

Samuel Roth was the sort of bookseller whose wares came wrapped in brown paper.
by Ed Simon via Literary Hub on July 3, 2024
A collage of suggestive images of women, a woman holding a camera, and a red letter X.

How Candida Royalle Set Out to Reinvent Porn

As a feminist in the adult-film industry, she believed the answer wasn’t banning porn; it was better porn.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on March 18, 2024
Carvings on two whaleteeth (scrimshaw)

The Pleasure Crafts

Everyday people's creation of porn and erotic objects over the centuries.
by Cintra Wilson via New York Review of Books on December 17, 2020

A Brief History of Porn on the Internet

Pornographers were in many ways the innovators who fueled the rise of the internet as we know it.
by David Kushner via Wired on April 9, 2019
Drag queen reading book to children.

Censorship Through Centuries

A new book examines battles over drag story hours and book bans through the lens of LGBTQ history.
by Rebecca L. Davis via Literary Hub on September 9, 2024
Digitally altered portrait of a man in a suit with his face pixelated, framed by computer windows.

What the Doomsayers Get Wrong About Deepfakes

Experts have warned that utterly realistic A.I.-generated videos might wreak havoc through deception. What’s happened is troubling in a different way.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on November 13, 2023
An illustration of Anthony Comstock, published in Puck magazine in 1906.

The 150-Year-Old Comstock Act Could Transform the Abortion Debate

Once considered a relic of moral panics past, the 1873 law criminalized sending "obscene, lewd or lascivious" materials through the mail.
by Ellen Wexler via Smithsonian on June 15, 2023
Collage of women's rights symbolism. Woman outline waving flag.

Who Lost the Sex Wars?

Fissures in the feminist movement should not be buried as signs of failure but worked through as opportunities for insight.
by Amia Srinivasan via The New Yorker on September 3, 2021
Collage of sexual freethinkers with a book, a gavel, and a bra.

The Radical Women Who Paved the Way for Free Speech and Free Love

Anthony Comstock’s crusade against vice constrained the lives of ordinary Americans. His antagonists opened up history for feminists and other activists.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on July 15, 2021
partner

Trump and Biden Both Want to Repeal Section 230. Would That Wreck the Internet?

Today's heated political arguments over censorship and misinformation online are rooted in a 26-word snippet of a law that created the Internet as we know it.
via Retro Report on November 30, 2020

A Slave Trader’s Office Decor and the Pornography of Capitalism

In the antebellum South, the slave trader’s office was a site of desire.
by Jeff Forret via The Panorama on February 17, 2020

“Ulysses” on Trial

It was a setup: a stratagem worthy of wily Ulysses himself.
by Michael Chabon via New York Review of Books on September 13, 2019
Lithograph titled "Kiss Me Quick" showing a man and a woman kissing. The woman has her hands on the hats of two children.

Sexual Revolution: Event or Process?

The most important dimension of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s was the increased freedom of sexual speech.
by Jeffrey Escoffier, Christopher Mitchell via NOTCHES on October 11, 2018

Hugh Hefner Was Never The Star of Playboy

Perhaps the only true generalization to make about Hefner is that he is given too much credit for his role in American history.
by Josephine Livingstone via The New Republic on September 29, 2017
Braille Playboy

For Years, There Was Playboy for Blind People. A Republican Congressman Tried to Kill It

The government shouldn’t subsidize porn, he argued.
by Jessica Lipsky via Timeline on September 21, 2017

A Brief History of Sex on the Internet

An excerpt from "The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido."
by David Friend via Wired on September 15, 2017
Political cartoon of clothed animals and Anthony Comstock bathing clothed, and cowering at underwear in a store window.

The History and Legacy of Anthony Comstock and the Comstock Laws

As the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes to revive the Comstock Act, this seven-part forum explores the Act’s influence on American life.
by Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Allison K. Lange, Kimberly A. Hamlin, Nicholas L. Syrett, Cathleen D. Cahill, Magdalene Zier, Andrew Wender Cohen via SHGAPE Blog on September 24, 2024
Still from Midnight Cowboy of a man with a gun in Times Square.

How the Movies Captured Times Square’s Grimy Golden Age

Times Square’s decline can be dated to the Depression, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the bottom fell out.
by Nathaniel Rich via Current (The Criterion Collection) on July 25, 2024
A man surfs the web on an early box-computer which emits neon green light

How Corporations Tried—And Failed—To Control the Spread of Content Online

The recent history of copyright in music cannot be separated from the rise of technologies for the recording and transmission of content online.
by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu via Literary Hub on February 8, 2024
Matthew Kacsmaryk in 2017 answers questions during a Senate hearing on his nomination to be a U.S. district judge.
partner

The Original Comstock Act Doesn’t Support the New Antiabortion Decision

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rationalized his medication abortion opinion through a distorted reading of the long-dormant 1873 law.
by Lauren MacIvor Thompson via Made By History on April 12, 2023
A naked David Opal signaling a peace sign with his hands on a TV screen in front of a background of a 1970s themed living room.

What Became of the Oscar Streaker?

After Robert Opel dashed naked across the stage in 1974, he ran for President and settled into the gay leather scene.
by Michael Schulman via The New Yorker on January 30, 2023
Image of a young girl using an iPhone.

What Makes a Millennial?

The defining boundaries and problematic categorizations carried by our culture's treatment of the label "millennial."
by Sarah Wasserman via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 18, 2022
Illustration of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

Sex, Scandal, and Sisterhood: Fifty Years of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

They’re global icons who have left a lasting imprint on American culture. But do recent controversies threaten the squad’s future?
by Sarah Hepola via Texas Monthly on August 15, 2022
Illustration of Thomas Stevens on his bike

The 19th-Century Hipster Who Pioneered Modern Sportswriting

More than a century before GoPro, Thomas Stevens’ around-the-world bike ride vaulted first-person “sports porn” into the mainstream.
by Robert Isenberg via Longreads on April 26, 2022
Josh Hawley at Senate confirmation hearing

Stranger Dangers: The Right's History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon

Josh Hawley’s attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are part of a long, sad tradition.
by Paul M. Renfro, Ali Breland via Mother Jones on March 28, 2022
Painting of events and characters in the book Bambi, with a scared deer surrounded by violent acts of a person and dog hunting and predators capturing and eating prey.

“Bambi” Is Even Bleaker Than You Thought

The original book is far more grisly than the beloved Disney classic—and has an unsettling message about humanity.
by Kathryn Schulz via The New Yorker on January 17, 2022
The full chart of television genres from 1945 to present.

Television Genres Over Time

Here’s how the distribution of genres has changed since 1945 up to present.
by Nathan Yau via FlowingData on October 26, 2021
A performer on stage

The Mermaid in the Fishbowl

The rise of optical illusions and magical effects.
by Stephen R. Wilk via OUPblog on June 27, 2021
A boy surfs on a computer keyboard surrounded by details from earlier internet eras.

You Probably Don’t Remember the Internet

How do we memorialize life online when it’s constantly disappearing?
by Kaitlyn Tiffany via The Atlantic on March 22, 2021
"The Wikipedia Story"

An Oral History of Wikipedia, the Web’s Encyclopedia

The definitive story of Wikipedia on its 20th anniversary.
by Tom Roston via OneZero on January 14, 2021
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