Radical Desire: Making On Our Backs Magazine

Copyright Cornell Library
Exhibition poster; LA Hyder, cover image for the first issue of On Our Backs, 1984, gelatin silver print.

Radical Desire: Making On Our Backs Magazine
open through September 30, 2022
at Kroch Library, Hirshland Gallery, Olin Library, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA

On Our Backs magazine launched in San Francisco in 1984 promising, per the tagline on the cover, “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian.” The photographic images on the cover and throughout were central to its mandate to deliver sexual content for lesbians. All the exhibited materials are drawn from Cornell Library’s Human Sexuality Collection.