The Big Book of Legs by Dian Hanson [Hardcover Book]
The female leg is a sexual oddity. Non-genital, and nearly
identical in structure to the corresponding male body part, there is no
obvious reason why it’s 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,
100 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 post-French Revolution cancan and
ending with the 1960’s Sexual Revolution miniskirt. 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 masters of leg art.
