ABSTRACT
When the authors of this article were first asked by the editor of The Serials Librarian to undertake this assignment, they thought that they knew something of the scope and nature of sex magazines. Wrong. Perusal of the shelves of several bookstores and magazine racks in several cities persuaded the authors that there was much that they could not have imagined being sold over counters, and that there is literally a periodical for every erotic taste, ranging from the tame and slightly risqué to the almost unbelievable, in terms of content, emphasis, or graphic depiction of the topic. It became, therefore, incumbent upon the authors to pare down the very broad classification sex magazines, to something manageable, and to something which would be of concern to libraries. This was accomplished in several ways, as will become apparent from all that follows.
