The Big Book of Legs, by Dian Hanson. The female leg is a sexual oddity. It’s non-genital, nearly identical in structure to the corresponding male body part, and there is no obvious reason why it should be eroticized. Yet, through much of history, across many cultures, the female leg was hidden from sight and treated as such a taboo topic that it became an object of intense sexual obsession. In the Victorian era, the word “leg” was so forbidden that it couldn’t be uttered in polite society, lest men be driven wild with lust. Even now, 80 years after women’s legs came out of hiding, their allure remains strong.
In this third book of Dian Hanson’s wildly successful body parts series, she explores how freeing the female leg became central to women’s liberation, beginning with the French Revolution and ending with the sexual revolution. Over 400 photos document the first burlesque “leg shows” of the 1800s, the silk-stockinged flappers of the 1920s, the nylon-mania of the 1940s, the dawn of the stiletto heel in the 1950s, all leading to the golden age of leg magazines in the 1960s. Learn who wore the first high heels, how nylons became a weapon of war, why Betty Grable’s were the million dollar legs, where Elmer Batters got his start and just what the deal is with feet, while enjoying great vintage photos by Irving Klaw, Batters, and other great masters of leg art. The Big Book of Legs is on sale now and definitely worth it.—N.B.
