On Our Backs archive (Ms.2005.26)

Historical note

On Our Backs was the first women-run erotica magazine and the first magazine to feature lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience in the United States.

The magazine was first published in 1984 in San Francisco, CA by Debi Sundahl and Myrna Elana, with the contributions of Susie Bright, Nan Kinney, Leon Mostovoy, Honey Lee Cottrell, Dawn Lewis, Happy Hyder, Tee Corinne, Jewelle Gomez, Judith Stein, Joan Nestle, Patrick Califia, Morgan Gwenwald, Katie Niles, Noreen Scully, Sarita Johnson, and many others. Susie Bright became editor-in-chief for the next six years. Later editors included Diane Anderson-Minshall, Shar Rednour, Tristan Taormino, Diana Cage, and Heather Findlay (Brown, Class of 1986). On Our Backs defined the look and politics of lesbian culture for the 1980s, as well as playing a definitive role in the feminist sex wars of the period, taking the side of sex-positive feminism. It was issued quarterly during 1984-1989 and then bi-monthly.

The title of the magazine was a satirical reference to Off Our Backs, a long-running feminist newspaper that published the work of many anti-pornography feminists during the 1980s, and which the founders of On Our Backs considered prudish about sexuality. Off Our Backs regarded the new magazine as "pseudo-feminist" and threatened legal action over the logo OOB.

In 1985, Sundahl and Kinney spun off the first in a series of precedent-making lesbian erotic videos, called Fatale Video. Distribution of the magazine in Australia began in 1986. By the late 1980s, Fatale Media was the largest producer of lesbian pornography in the world.

In 1994, the magazine experienced financial problems, and, was sold to its then marketing director, Melissa Murphy (Brown, Class of 1990) who published only one issue after which the magazine was declared bankrupt. Its assets were bought in 1996 by HAF Enterprises (co-owned by Heather Findlay), and it resumed publication in 1998. The original creators moved on to other projects.

Citation: On Our Backs, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Our_Backs, accessed November 8, 2016.