Plexus Magazine

"Plexus was a French magazine published bimonthly from 1966-1970, created as the companion publication to fantastical realist magazine Planète. It billed itself as humor and erotica focused (its subtitle was "the uninhibited magazine"), but featured a wide range of topics: philosophy, psychedelica, literature, filmmaking, science fiction, and more. Only 37 issues total were published during its short four year run, but it made a big splash, even being prohibited to minors in 1967 after just one year of publication for its “pornographic content.” I first came across Plexus via Will Schofield of 50 Watts, and fell in love with the magazine's dramatic art-influenced covers. It was one of the first things I found digitally that really ignited my IRL collector's bug; despite encountering lots of cover scans online, I was irritatingly unable to locate more information about the magazine’s history, or find any interior images. So, I bought a few issues on eBay, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the inside had just as much artistry as the outside. Featured here are a few scans from my small collection. What's made Plexus stand the test of time, I think, is that the editors approached sexuality with playfulness and iconoclasm, while also recognizing that a wide range of “non-sexual” topics are imbued with an eroticism worth investigating—placing nudity next to conventionally academic topics like philosophy makes nudity serious, and philosophy carnal, flipping the whole system on its head. The publication does objectify the female form, but the absurdity and humor of those depictions, as well as contributions from female artists, helps it avoid veering into sexist tropes or dehumanization." —Elizabeth Goodspeed