Book cover for Let's Go Stag!: A History of Pornographic Film from the Invention of Cinema to 1970 by Dan Erdman

Let's Go Stag!

A History of Pornographic Film from the Invention of Cinema to 1970

2021 Released
232 Pages
5-6 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Bloomsbury AcademicISBN 9781501333026

For much of the 20th century, the underground pornography industry - made up of amateurs and hobbyists who created hardcore, explicit "stag films" - went about its business hounded by reformers and law enforcement, from local police departments all the way up to the FBI. Rumors of this illicit activity circulated and became the stuff of urban myth, but this period of pornography history remains murky.

Let's Go Stag! reveals the secrets of this underground world. Using the archives of civic groups, law enforcement, bygone government studies and similarly neglected evidence, archivist Dan Erdman reconstructs the means by which stag films were produced, distributed and exhibited, as well as demonstrate the way in which these practices changed with the times, eventually paving the way for the pornographic explosion of the 1970s and beyond. Let's Go Stag! is sure to point the way for countless future researchers and remain the standard work of history for this era of adult film for a long time to come.

Dan Erdman

Dan Erdman is a historian, archivist, and critic. His writing has appeared in a number of publications, including Los Angeles Review of Books, Hyperallergic, and Cinema Sewer. He is the video preservation specialist at Media Burn Archive, and he lives in Chicago, USA.

More by Dan Erdman

Why Readwise Books?

Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →