In memory: Debi Sundahl
The founder of On Our Backs has passed; a revolutionary in women’s sex education, independent cinema, and publishing
My friend, and 1980s partner in turning the world upside-down— Deborah Sundahl— has died. The cause of death was cancer, and she passed away in hospice, in Billings, Montana. She was 69.
I’d like to offer some recollections and photographs, as well as those of Brenda Marston, the librarian of the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell Library, who hosts our mutual archives.
In addition, I’d like to offer condolences to Sundahl’s family, who have been gathering in her memory.
Sundahl was the original publisher of On Our Backs magazine (1984 -1994), the first lesbian glossy magazine on any subject, as well as the first (and last) all-women-created erotic magazine of any persuasion.
Deb was the reason that our magazine turned to the earliest Apple computers and Adobe 1.0 Pagemaker software, to become the first periodical, in 1984, to use personal computers to layout and typeset a magazine. Her name belongs in Steve Jobs’ museum. She e…