5 Ways Libraries Used To Be Hardcore

While every profession employs miserable people doing jobs just because they’re told to, librarians are an exception. Librarians are heroes. Librarians — and firefighters. Firefighters are heroes, too. It’s no coincidence, then, that these two occupations are so well represented in porn. Libraries aren’t just sanctums of knowledge and places where you can furtively watch porn (about librarians). In the past, stuff there got pretty intense. For example:

Libraries Sterilized or Even Incinerated Books, and Laws Kept the Sick From Borrowing. The rise of public libraries in the 19th century raised a troubling possibility: What if trading books was gross? You were touching all these items that other people had fondled, people whose hygiene and morals you had no way to evaluate. We don’t have many public shoe exchanges, or rent-a-bra companies, because despite the obvious advantages of such facilities, such ideas repulse people. Maybe we should be just as weirded out by borrowing books… read more >