Hi everyone the news is garbage but I want to tell you about Tab — Toronto's premiere smut tabloid that I spent all afternoon reader and which *I am in love with.* 
Now, first off: Tab is riddled with almost-hilariously-outdated and offensive language. But unlike many other tabloids of the time (and today) it was surprisingly, as we say now, "woke." Tab's editorial line was sex positive, pro-sex work, pro-gay, and alive to trans issues!
Tab had a particular penchant for keeping tabs on police busting gay men for cruising — giving rise to the incredible pun of "pansies bloom by night."
But, even in the mid-70s, Tab had a dedicated gay columnist! GAY SET, by (suppressed laughter) Duke Gaylord, ranged from catty observations of local gays' relationships to publishing extensive reviews of the modern scientific research into sexuality and gender.
Duke Gaylord frequently wrote about gay life, but also profiled lesbians, drag queens, and transgender people in a way that was both incredibly catty and surprisingly prescient. (i.e. Gaylord wrote a lot about how prisons will struggle to accomodate trans people.)
The ads, which Tab advertised were the cheapest in Canada, are also *amazing*
DEBBIE PUT DOWN THAT WANG
Tab just casually published the names of the staff in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa above an ad about Hermitics.
While the tabloid began publishing full-on nudes — by the late-70s moving them onto it's frontage — it was surprisingly feminist!
When then-mayor art Eggleton (who just retired as a Senator) moved to clean up the so-call "smut strip" of Yonge St, Tab was skeptical. Its readership appeared to include many of the sex workers who worked there.
The paper basically took a tone that today we'd call "harm reduction" — rather than siccing the Vice squad onto Yonge St, why not regulate it?
Oh and when I say that the gay column was catty, boy was it ever catty
Finally, I fight I can get behind!
Toronto in the 1970s was such an interesting crossroads. Between the boring veneer of "Toronto the Good" and the city becoming an actual, yknow, modern city. And Tab was right on the front edge of that.
All images via @CLGArchives
Sorry for the typos but also it's friday and this is a thread about a 70s smut tabloid so idgaf
