In the first installment of this two-part interview, Cole Riley talks to Hanson about the glory days of the porn industry and how she found herself in the business.)
It was a matter of fate. I was looking for a job, any job, as I stepped into an elevator in a Times Square office building early one morning. The neighborhood had yet to change from the legendary seedy sex district into the gaudy neon Vegas strip it is now. The man who would become my boss was lamenting the lack of candidates for an editorial position. I spoke up and followed him out of the lift. We talked about my writing skills, joked about the freewheeling atmosphere of the place, and the purpose of his publications. All smut. I was hired as a writer for the mythic Oui magazine.

This was the Golden Age of Porn. You could look up from your desk to see Vanessa Del Rio, Erica Boyer, Samantha Fox, Lisa Be, Sharon Mitchell, Susie Nero and Anna Ventura being interviewed on their latest movie, or taking a break from a stint from dancing at Show World around the corner. One of the first people I met was Dian Hanson, a tall, gorgeous blonde who seemed self-assured, eternally pleasant, yet no nonsense. She was patient with me while I learned the ropes of writing the sexual fantasies that filled the letters section in the front of the magazine.
Hanson’s skills and savvy quickly garnered her a serious reputation for helming fetish magazines such as Leg Show, Juggs and Big Butts. “It’s devastating how well Dian understands male sexuality,” underground cartoonist R. Crumb (who, along with artist Joe Coleman, and assorted other gents, once dated Hanson) told a reporter. “She caters to perversions with an expertise that’s scary.”
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