A Complete Digitization of Eros Magazine: The Controversial 1960s Magazine on the Sexual Revolution

Last year we told you about the dig­i­ti­za­tion of Avant Garde mag­a­zine, a short-lived but influ­en­tial 1960s mag­a­zine, which fea­tured lith­o­graphs by John Lennon and artis­tic pho­tographs of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe. Today, we’re pleased to announce the dig­i­ti­za­tion of Avant Garde’s sis­ter mag­a­zine, Eros. Also a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Ralph Ginzburg (edi­tor) and Herb Lubalin (art direc­tor), Eros posi­tioned itself as a quar­ter­ly mag­a­zine on love and sex in Amer­i­ca. Author­i­ties, how­ev­er, did­n’t take kind­ly to a mag­a­zine cov­er­ing the sex­u­al rev­o­lu­tion. Not in 1962. And when Eros pub­lished its fourth issue, Robert Kennedy, the U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al, indict­ed Ginzburg for dis­trib­ut­ing obscene lit­er­a­ture through the mail and vio­lat­ing fed­er­al anti-obscen­i­ty laws. Ginzburg was con­vict­ed (a deci­sion lat­er affirmed by the Supreme Court) and sen­tenced to five years in prison. Ulti­mate­ly, he served eight months.

Thanks to Mindy Seu, a new­ly-cre­at­ed web­site lets you read dig­i­tal copies of Eros. All four issues: Spring 1962, Sum­mer 1962, Autumn 1962, and Win­ter 1962. When you vis­it the site, click the word “Index” in the top right cor­ner, and then you can eas­i­ly nav­i­gate through indi­vid­ual pages.

As you do, keep one thing in mind: Eros was no flim­sy mag­a­zine. Accord­ing to The New York Times, it was a “stun­ning­ly designed hard­cov­er ‘mag­book’,” cov­er­ing “a wide swath of sex­u­al­i­ty in his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, art and lit­er­a­ture” and fea­tur­ing arti­cles by the likes of Nat Hentoff.

Also, if you click on “Resources” once you’re on the new site, you can read arti­cles about Eros mag­a­zine and the con­tro­ver­sial tri­al.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Com­plete Dig­i­ti­za­tion of the 1960s Mag­a­zine Avant Garde: From John Lennon’s Erot­ic Lith­o­graphs to Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Last Pho­tos

Down­load 336 Issues of the Avant-Garde Mag­a­zine The Storm (1910–1932), Fea­tur­ing the Work of Kandin­sky, Klee, Moholy-Nagy & More

Exten­sive Archive of Avant-Garde & Mod­ernist Mag­a­zines (1890–1939) Now Avail­able Online

2,200 Rad­i­cal Polit­i­cal Posters Dig­i­tized: A New Archive