Featuring cabaret costumes, scantily clad chorus girls and burlesque dancers, this calendar showcases the best dancers and actresses involved in the burlesque scene from the mid-twentieth century to the 1960s. Featuring photographs from some of the most exciting performances, this is a celebration of the flamboyant vintage burlesque. The datepad features previous and next month's views.

The disturbing, exciting, and defiantly avant-garde films of Jesus "Jess" Franco, director of such films as Vampyros Lesbos and Lilian the Perverted Virgin. Jesus "Jess" Franco is an iconic figure in world cinema. His sexually charged, fearlessly personal style of filmmaking has never been in vogue with mainstream critics, but for lovers of the strange and sado-erotic he is a magician, spinning his unique and disturbing dream worlds from the cheapest of budgets. In the world of Jess Franco freedom was the key, and he pushed at the boundaries of taste and censorship repeatedly, throughout an astonishingly varied career spanning sixty years. The director of more than 180 films, at his most prolific he worked in a supercharged frenzy that yielded as many as twelve titles per year, making him one of the most generative auteurs of all time. Franco's taste for the sexy and horrific, his lifelong obsession with the Marquis De Sade, and his roving hand-held camera style launched a whole new strain of erotic cinema. Disturbing, exciting, and defiantly avant-garde, films such as Necronomicon, Vampyros Lesbos, Virgin Among the Living Dead, and Venus in Furs are among the jewels of European horror, while a plethora of multiple versions, re-edits and echoes of earlier works turn the Franco experience into a dizzying hall of mirrors, further entrancing the viewer who dares enter Franco's domain. Stephen Thrower has devoted five years to examining each and every Franco film. This book-the second in a two-volume set-delves into the latter half of Franco's career, covering titles including Shining Sex, Barbed Wire Dolls, Swedish Nympho Slaves, and Lilian the Perverted Virgin. Assisted by the esteemed critic and researcher Julian Grainger, Thrower shines a light into the darkest corners of the Franco filmography and uncovers previously unknown and unsuspected facts about their casts, crews, and production histories. Unparalleled in scope and ambition, Flowers of Perversion brings Franco's career into focus with a landmark study that aims to provide the definitive assessment of Jess Franco's labyrinthine film universe.

Statuesque actress, stuntwoman, martial artist, bodybuilder, bodyguard, dominatrix. For over 15 years Mistress Xena has helped bring thousands of twisted fantasies to life. Submitted allows you to become a fly on the wall of her dungeon as she reveals her story and the private fantasies of her anonymous clients. These incredible dreams are revealed for the first time - outrageous to some, but for Xena it's just another day at the office. These letters take the reader on an often hilarious and provocative journey through the secret minds and desires of Xena's slaves.

In 1975, Tom Bianchi moved to New York City and took a job as in-house counsel at Columbia Pictures. That first year Tom was given a Polaroid SX - 70 camera by Columbia Pictures at a corporate conference. He took that camera to the Pines on summer weekends, those pictures became the book Fire Island Pines, Polaroids 1975 - 1983 published in 2013. Now, some 44 years later, we finally get a first look at another extraordinary collection of Polaroids by Tom taken in his NYC apartment at 63 East 9th Street. Whereas Fire Island is an expansive communal experience happening on a sunny sand bar outside of the city under huge open skies, Tom's New York apartment was an intimate track-lit den, a safe stage where he and his friends invited each other to play out their erotic night games. Tom's New York City Polaroids take us behind the closed door of his apartment, "Back then we were in the early days of a revolution that seemed inevitably headed to a more loving, playful and tolerant way of being. We were innocents", Bianchi recalls. This is an essential companion book to Fire Island Pines and an important document of urban gay life.

"I've always been fascinated by sex, the diversity of practices, the will and perseverance of people to realize their fantasies," says Paris photographer Laurent Benaim. "These moments of pleasure captivate me in all their forms: the beautiful, the ugly. I have no criteria for aesthetic selection, only the expression of human desire interests me." That said, Monsieur Benaim seldom photographs simple desire or simple sex acts. His models, he insists, run the show, bringing their uncommon interests to his studio; he acts only as witness and documentarian, offering his creative encouragement and nonjudgmental camera. He shoots only amateurs, people whose lives range from button-down white collar to transient to circus sideshow. They are young and old, straight, gay and transgender, able bodied, ample bodied and oddly bodied. They have been coming to Benaim's large commercial studio in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil since 1999, first a trickle, then a flood, as word spread that their quirks and obsessions would not just be embraced, but transformed into art, through a painstaking 19th-century print technique little used in the last 100 years. Benaim earned his photographic degree in 1982. He set up shop as a conventional photographer, but at heart was a pictorialist, always searching for ways to defeat photographic realism. In 1991 he saw an antique photo with just the look he sought, and through trial and much error taught himself the gum dichromate process. It's tedious, smelly, and probably poisonous, but Benaim has used it exclusively since 1996, giving his startling sex photos the look of oversized French postcards, printed, perhaps, in the damp cellar of a Belle Epoque whorehouse. The technique softens the extremity of his subject, leading to gallery shows in Paris, Berlin, Milan, Luxembourg, Zurich and, fittingly, at the Kinsey Institute for sexual research in Bloomington, Indiana.Laurent Benaim presents 300 of the photographer's 1,000+ photos in what will be among TASCHEN's most transgressive-and talked about-titles, with an introduction by editor Dian Hanson.

The Kama Sutra gives detailed instructions on how to spank it. Contemporary Italians touch it for luck before placing a bet. Americans are having it cosmetically enhanced at rates approaching breast enlargement surgery. The female butt, tush, culo, or derriere has always inspired awe, fantasy, and slavish devotion. Curiously, its primary purpose is functional rather than aesthetic: butts balance our bodies while running, according to biologists. But ask any pygophiliac-as fundament fans are clinically termed-and you'll get the same answer: female hindquarters exist to please the eye, the hands, and parts south. Sir Mix-a-Lot said it all when he proclaimed, "My anaconda don't want none, unless you've got buns, hun." All of this valuable insight, as well as some 400 photos from 1900 to 2008, were included in TASCHEN's original The Big Butt Book, released in 2010. Now, that same content is compressed and reconfigured into TASCHEN's popular Bibliotheca Universalis format, with some new photos thrown in just for fun. You'll still find works by Elmer Batters, Jean-Paul Goude, Ralph Gibson, Richard Kern, Jan Saudek, Ed Fox, Guido Argentini, and Sante D'Orazio, of butts ranging from petite Pam Anderson's to sumptuous Serena Williams's, all contextualized by interviews with porn icon John (Buttman) Stagliano, filmmaker Tinto Brass, and butt queens Buffie the Body, Coco Austin, and Brazil's Watermelon Woman, but in a portable size, at an affordable price. What could be more bootylicious?

Between 1987 and 2001, Dian Hanson, then editor of Leg Show magazine, and photographer Roy Stuart collaborated on over 100 fetish photo shoots. It was critical to Stuart's taboo-busting philosophy that any sex portrayed in these photos be authentic, and he often included female masturbation, always to climax. To Stuart it seemed absurd that so many young women didn't know how to reliably give themselves orgasms. It smacked of male/female inequality. He therefore kept a number of high-powered vibrators in his studio and encouraged prospective models, during the often weeks-long educational process leading up to a photo shoot, to experiment with these machines to learn what pleased them best. When he and Hanson would confer on a shoot he might ask if masturbation would be appropriate; she came to understand this meant the model had acquired the necessary skill and wanted to demonstrate it. The answer, therefore, was always "yes". The volume Getting Off, second in the Embrace Your Fantasies series, represents the best of these photo sessions, accompanied by original Leg Show text by Hanson. All images are from the original transparencies, rescued from the Leg Show archives before the magazine ceased publishing in 2012. Join us once again for an exploration of 1990s sexual freedom, and a unique celebration of female empowerment.

An astounding collaboration between Agent Provocateur, Mike Figgis and Kate Moss, "The 4 Dreams of Miss X" breaks new ground. Genius innovators in haute couture, AP have commissioned Mike Figgis to portray Moss in her first acting role, resulting in four unique films: "Shadows", "Scale", "Exhibitionist and "Narcissus" - "The 4 Dreams of Miss X". Shot in night vision, these films are intensely intimate: a beautiful woman's private dream experiences. Two films have been released online in 2006, with the final two released in January and March 2007. Brought together for the first time on DVD, you can now enjoy Kate Moss' first ever speaking role at home and full screen.

You can discover Japanese art like no other. Originally created by the artists of the ukiyo-e school of the floating world to advertise brothels in 17th-century Yoshiwara, these popular spring pictures (shunga) transcended class and gender in Japan for almost 300 years. These tender, humorous and brightly coloured pieces celebrate sexual pleasure in all its forms, culminating in the beautiful, yet graphic, work of iconic artists Utamaro, Hokusai and Kunisada. This catalogue of a major international exhibition aims to answer some key questions about what shunga is and why was it produced. Erotic Japanese art was heavily suppressed in Japan from the 1870s onwards as part of a process of cultural modernisation that imported many contemporary western moral values. Only in the last twenty years or so has it been possible to publish unexpurgated examples in Japan and this ground-breaking publication presents this fascinating art in its historical and cultural context for the first time. Within Japan, shunga has continued to influence modern forms of art, including manga, anime and Japanese tattoo art. Drawing on the latest scholarship and featuring over 400 images of works from major public and private collections, this landmark book sheds new light on this unique art form within Japanese social and cultural history. Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art is published to accompany an exhibition at the British Museum from October 2013 to January 2014.

Photographer Marc Lagrange had a gift for illuminating intoxicating beauty and communicating timeless elegance. Filled with longing and sensuality, his photographs are a celebration of fantasy and desire. In the early 1990s, Lagrange began to work quite intensively with Polaroid film, and his nude portraiture found a more dramatic and touching look. As a medium, Polaroid film corresponded perfectly to his aesthetic and artistic vision and it rapidly became a valid means of expression for him. The Belgian artist particularly fell for the unique quality and cool-brown tone coloration of the rare Polaroid 100 Chocolate, one of the last types of film ever to be produced before the Polaroid factory closed down permanently in 2009. Chocolate contains an enticing series of carefully selected and mostly unpublished works shot by Marc Lagrange on Polaroid 100 Chocolate film. More than just preliminary studies of his sophisticated image compositions, the photographs impress with their warm colors, rough textures, and painterly aesthetic. His sensual Polaroids are a powerful example of his craft, as well as his attention to detail.

New York Girls, first released in 1995, and published by TASCHEN Books in 1996, defined a time, a place, and the raw esthetic of the artist Richard Kern. Kern was a leading figure in the 1980s Cinema of Transgression, director of the iconic films You Killed Me First, Fingered and Submit to Me Now; producer of Sonic Youth's "Death Valley '69" and Marilyn Manson's Lunchbox music videos; and a pioneering zine publisher responsible for The Heroin Addict and The Valium Addict. After kicking his own heroin habit, Kern turned to still photography, shooting girls in his downtown, punk-inflected New York social circle. They were naked, bold, tattooed, pierced, and casually posed in minimal sets, mostly just Richard's ratty slum apartment. They were young, but not innocent, fully complicit in the bondage, gunplay, and infamous candle insertions. The text was an interview with Kern by Kim Gordon. All of this predated SuicideGirls by six years and was utterly, supremely cool. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kern's best-known work, TASCHEN is releasing an updated edition with never-published outtakes from the original photo sets, as well as photos rejected as too explicit for the first book and stills from his 25 films. We know you've missed Monica, Erin, Jaiko, Jen, Susan, Amy and Sam, and thought you'd enjoy seeing just a bit more of them.

Here, Kitty, Kitty!

Dive into the origin of us all

The Big Book of Pussy, not to be confused with a book of big pussies, closed out the popular “body part” series with an offering just as controversial as it was popular back in 2011. As in previous volumes, editor Dian Hanson explored the historical significance of her subject, explaining how the female genitalia have been coveted, feared, reviled, and worshipped by civilizations worldwide, from New Guinea to old Ireland. Her text was supported by playfully positive photographs of women exposing their vulvas, from 1900 to 2010. And with more than 400 photos, the point was made emphatically, in images both naturally furry and stylishly groomed.

Now, this fresh edition reframes not just the subject, but the format and design of this popular volume in the portable and affordable Bibliotheca Universalis size, to meet the needs of consumers like the gentleman who commented on Amazon, “Who wants a two-ton Pussy Book being ‘exposed’ for the mailman?” Relax, my finicky friend! Your pussy now arrives in a discreet 14 x 19.5 cm (5.5 x 7.7 in.) size!

Included are interviews with the auteur known as Pussyman, the ex-cop who turned masturbation into millions with a toy called the Fleshlight, clit queen Vanessa del Rio, squirter Flower Tucci, and vaginal performance artist Mouse. Contemporary photographers Richard Kern, Ralph Gibson, Jan Saudek, Guido Argentini, Ed Fox, and others share their favorite pussy photos, urging even the shyest reader to call, “Here, kitty, kitty!”

“Discover 111 years of images of women as nude as the news, and just as pleasantly delivered… an exceptionally well-written and insightful book, and a time capsule of how we perceive this aspect of the female body.” — LA Weekly

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis―Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favorite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia. Bookworm’s delight―never bore, always excite!

Text in English, French, and German

It's the old story. When TASCHEN released the first limited edition of Crumb Sketchbooks 1982-2011, fans drooled over the gorgeous packaging of this six-volume boxed set, the artist's thoughtful editing, the hand-written introduction, marbleized page edges, and signed Crumb-colored art print. Not all, however, could afford the steep price. So they whined and coveted, with the wail growing louder when the second boxed set, 1964-1982, was released the next year. Covet no more. Robert Crumb. Sketchbook, Vol. 1: June 1964 - Sept. 1968 combines the two earliest volumes from the limited editions, produced directly from the original artworks now belonging to an ardent French collector, into one fat 440-page Crumb feast, selling for an irresistible price. This book contains hundreds of sketches, including early color drawings from the master of underground comic art, cover roughs for the legendary Zap and Head comics, the original Keep On Truckin' sketches, the first appearance of Mr. Natural, plus his evolution and refinement, Fritz The Cat, the Old Pooperoo, and many, many voluptuous Crumb girls, all wrapped up in a quality hard cover featuring an illustration newly hand-colored by Crumb himself.

The man behind the paintings: the extraordinary life of J. M. W Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artists J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life. A near mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.

The sculptures of Conrad Shawcross ra explore subjects that lie on the borders of geometry and philosophy, physics and metaphysics. For the 2015 Summer Exhibitions Annenberg Courtyard installation Shawcross created a large-scale, immersive work consisting of five cloud-like forms in steel. Made from thousands of tetrahedrons these stand at over six metres high and weigh five tonnes each. Shawcross explains: The Greeks considered the tetrahedron to represent the very essence of matter. In this huge work I have taken this form as my brick, growing these chaotic, diverging forms that will float above the heads of visitors. As well as photography of the works in situ, the publication contains working drawings, structural diagrams and a text by the architecture writer Patrick Sykes.

The origin of the world: The cat s out of the bag in 3 luscious dimensions First, The Big Book of Breasts, then The Big Penis Book, The Big Book of Legs, and the weighty Big Butt Book. What could follow but The Big Book of Pussy, an in-depth exploration of the female pudendum, that coveted orifice man spends nine months trying to escape, and a lifetime attempting to reenter? And what could follow that but The Big Book of Pussy 3-D? In 220 pages, featuring 110 black and white photos converted to sublime 3-D by the nerdy little genius Jon Schnitzer and his crew at The Brain Factory, The Big Book of Pussy 3-D doesn't just contain the same photos from the original volume, but also many never-before-seen photos unique to this edition. And as with the other-body parts 3-D editions, the effects are subtle on the page, but intensely dimensional when you slip on your red and blue anaglyph glasses included with this volume. Fans of the untrimmed wild-caught pussy, take note that hair provides one of the best subjects for 3-D viewing, demanding meticulous hand conversion by the 3-D artist with a full and fluffy viewing pay-off."

The fourth book in the Bondi series from photographer Paul Freeman

Back in 1974, the sexual revolution was in full swing and the adult entertainment business was on the verge of becoming Big Business. Deep Throat had created America's first porn star in 1972, but just two years later 1974 Linda Lovelace was already retired and the industry was seeking the next big thing. Vanessa del Rio should have been that thing, except in 1974 there were no ethnic sex stars. Undeterred, Vanessa took any role they'd give her, because, amazingly, she was there for the sex more than the money. Fans, awed by her on-screen passion, made her a top box-office draw and America's first Latina star. Retired since 1986, Vanessa del Rio remains a sexual icon who cuts across all ethnic boundaries. In this fresh and irresistibly affordable edition, TASCHEN presents Vanessa in all her candor, confidence, and exuberant sexuality through vintage photo shoots, film stills, her own enormous archive, and her own words. And because paper and ink can't do justice to a personality this big, an original 140-minute DVD documentary is also included.

Sportive gentlemen, lascivious ladies: Since the earliest days of photography, people have been getting up to all manner of rannygazoo in front of the lens. This collection presents the finest highlights from the collection of New Yorker Mark Rotenberg, who began collecting antique smut after finding a stash of vintage erotic pictures in a Brooklyn dumpster and now owns a 95,000 strong collection of archive pornography dating from between 1860 and 1960. Flick through these pages and witness the fitness of our forebears as they romp, cavort, and frolic with unabashed energy and glee. From early monochromes of daringly dropped drawers and seductively waxed handlebar mustaches, to Kodachromes of cheery, twin-peaked pin-up beauties in the 1950s, this fine collection spans the sublimely sensual and the ridiculous.

Sex in the Third Reich: this subject is bound to raise wild speculation. What happened behind closed doors of a nation whose regime broke all taboos? More than 300 private pornographic photographs, almost all from one private collection which survived the most adverse conditions, provide ruthless testimony of the high time when those pictures were still sensational and daring, coquettish and provoking, but most of all: prohibited.

This intimate glimpse of Picasso's sensual drawings selects some of the most compelling examples of the artist's celebrated erotic works. Thirty-five of Picasso's erotic drawings are exhibited in this collection that offers viewers the unique experience of watching over the artist's shoulder as he works. Picasso's brilliant draftsmanship is evident on every page, while his versatility is reflected in these pieces, which are in turn provocative and humorous, angry and tender. Designed to resemble an artist's sketchbook, this superb addition to the "Erotic Sketchbook" series features stunning reproductions, an embossed cover and a delicate ribbon tie, making it the perfect gift or keep- sake for lovers of art and lovers everywhere.