Fall 2023 / Section 02 (Fall 2023) ·

Sex, Censorship, and Sapphic Struggles

by Sarah Formica

A magazine cover of a bare back with hands wrapped around it amidst leaves. Text reading: "ON OUR BACKS: Entertainment For The Adventurous Lesbian"
Cover of On Our Backs Magazine’s Fall 1984 issue

My podcast discusses On Our Backs, a lesbian erotica magazine from the 80s-00s, and The Lesbian Sex Special, a controversial radio special from Australian radio station 2SER’s show Gaywaves. Through this lens, I discuss censorship of queer media and the homophobic and anti-sex ideologies that lay behind the suppression of queer resource. The podcast includes audio clips from an interview with Prue Borthwick, one of the creators of The Lesbian Sex Special, and is in conversation with essays, articles, and exhibitions including: “The Right To “Take Part In Cultural Life” & Censorship Of Queer Media” by Megan Young-Schlee, “Radical Desire: Making On Our Backs Magazine” by the Cornell University Library, and “Re-Sourcing Queer Subjectivities: Sexual Identity And Lesbian/Gay Print Media” by Rob Cover.

Six women posing for the camera
[Left to right: Debi Sundahl, LA Hyder, Myrna Elana, Nan Kinney (below), Susan Xtrom (above), and Susie Bright at the launch party for the first issue of On Our Backs], 1984.
A woman laying on the beach with her legs spread, inserting her fingers into her vagina.
Honey Lee Cottrell, LR at the beach, 1976
Photos included in the Cornell University Library’s exhibition “Radical Desire: Making On Our Backs Magazine”

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