"'Treating lesbians like they had money was the whole fucking idea': Sex and the Lesbian Consumer in On Our Backs Magazine"

On Our Backs (1984-2006), the first lesbian sex magazine, worked to both stimulate and satiate the diverse appetites of the newly emerging lesbian consumer. Published during the height of the feminist “sex wars,” the women behind the magazine believed that vibrant and easily accessible pornography could make the lesbian community “stronger and more visible than ever.” On Our Backs offered readers enhanced visibility in two deeply intertwined facets of their lives: sex and consumption. Sexual visibility meant capturing, in either the narrative or illustrated form, the realities of lesbian sex. Economic visibility meant working to incorporate lesbians into the growing consumer marketplace as lesbians. By the early 1980s, many in the lesbian community grew frustrated at their inability to purchase comfortable sex toys or properly fitting attire –a feeling aggravated by the increasing number of products explicitly produced and designed for gay men. On Our Backs itself met the demand for sexual items marketed by and for lesbians, but its advertisements also provided a network of lesbian and ally owned businesses that offered goods and services in line with the tastes and needs of the diverse lesbian community. For both its lesbian producers and consumers, On Our Backs widened the world of lesbian sex and presented them with a new and effectual form of social power –market recognition.