In a brief golden span between 1967 and 1972, the sexual revolution collided with recreational drug exploration to create “psychedelic sex”. While the baby boomers blew their minds and danced naked in the streets, men’s magazine publishers attempted to visually recreate the wonders of LSD, project them on a canvas of nubile hippie flesh, and dish it up to men dying for a taste of free love. Magazines like Way Out, Groovie, and Where It’s At vied to convince the straight audience that they offered the most authentic flower power sex trip, complete with mind-bending graphics and all-natural hippie hotties. Along the way hippies joined in the production, since what could be groovier than earning bread in your birthday suit?
At its height, psychedelic sex encompassed posters, tabloids, comics, and newsstand magazines, but the most far-out examples of all were the glossy magazines from California, center of both hippie culture and the budding American porn industry. It’s these sexy, silly reminders of peace, love, and pudenda that authors Eric Godtland and Paul Krassner (the latter of Merry Pranksters notoriety, and who People magazine named “the father of the underground press”), celebrate in Psychedelic Sex. And TASCHEN proves its worth as a publisher once again.
