Society has always been formed by the restraints placed upon the people that live within it. Often these restraints are not only physical in nature, by ideological as well. For example, children are seldom told exactly how babies come into being. Most often, they are simply told that when a man loves a woman very much, they have a baby. The children are seldom given the details that go into this creation. Because of this, the curiosity of these children is often only whetted, ending in them resolving to find out. Piers Anthony has taken this mentality a step further, incorporating it into his fantasy world, Xanth. The secret of procreation, as well as why the sight of female panties holds such sway over adult males, has been incorporated into a conspiracy that spreads throughout the land of Xanth. This conspiracy is known as the dread Adult Conspiracy. Actually, its full name is "The Adult Conspiracy to Keep Interesting Things From Children." Throughout the twenty-five novels that Piers Anthony has written, this Adult Conspiracy has affected the characters in Xanth in strange and unusual ways.
In order to full understand the Adult Conspiracy, one must understand the land from which it originates. Xanth is a magical land that is the exact same shape as Florida. It is populated by all sorts of magical creatures, many of which live in harmony with the human population. The people that inhabit this land are descendents that have traveled from dread Mundania, also known as the world in which we live today. Over the years, the inhabitants have absorbed some of the magic of the land, granting each person a distinct magical talent. These talents vary drastically in magnitude. On one hand, you have the spot on the wall variety, in which the person has a very minor talent, such as creating a colored spot on a wall. On the other had, you have magicians and sorceresses. These individuals possess amazing talents, such as the ability to turn into any animal or the ability to find out anything about anything, be it animate or inanimate.