Undergoing many changes throughout the years, the title was relaunched in 1971 as a top shelf magazine.ĭuring the Second World War, many American glamour magazines were beginning to feature provocative images of popular screen stars. The title had plate prints of artistic nudes but was mainly text based.

Covering male issues from a male perspective the publication ran with a tagline of ‘We don’t want women readers. In 1935, the predecessor of the adult magazine, as we know it today, was launched with Men Only. Crude but popular Tijuana bibles were a pocket sized dose of filth. Known as ‘Tijuana Bibles’, these crudely drawn but bawdy images were the forerunner to glossy top-shelf magazines in America. A cultured periodical that was already considered by many as being obscene was largely regarded as a softcore adult magazine by the time of the Second World War.Īround the same time in the states, explicit comic books were growing in popularity. In the 1920s, the British title ‘Health & Efficiency’ began publishing images of the naked female form in the name of naturism. The introduction of halftone printing in 1880 allowed photographs to be replicated relatively inexpensively and it wasn’t long before the adult industry sat up and took notice here was a method to mass produce erotic imagery and circulate these to a wider audience.įrance was the first such market and nude models were photographed in the name of ‘art’ and appeared in titles that celebrated naturism. Though pornographic images have been produced since the dawn of civilization with the Ancient Greeks depicting the goings on from inside brothels on pottery, the adult magazine (as we know it) first took shape in the 1880s.

Adult Magazines: A Brief History Our guide to the best porn magazines and adult nude mags

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