Double standards with erotica/porn magazines
(here's a little pimping)
Recently I heard of Filament magazine and about their struggle to get on a market as an erotica magazine for (heterosexual) women (or gay men).
The magazine is not 'eye feast' only - it also has intelligent articles with selected advertisments (they claim so). These are the previews of issue 1. On the website it says:
Filament does
intelligent and interesting articles
images of men made for the female gaze
high-quality writing and design
Filament doesn't do
fashion and cosmetics
diets
celebrity gossip
GTFO Cosmo.
The biggest struggle they had, was to publish photos of men in aroused state, i.e. with erected penises and to get a good publishers with good printers.
I was wondering why is it such a problem when there are gay porn magazines with erected penises on the market? But then I got an answer from the editor and she said that those magazines have good printers and distributors (and a market for it!) and are sold in sex shops.
Personally, I love erotica and I don't have anything against porn, either (although, when it comes to photos, I prefer erotica rather than gynaecological pornography), let there be porny magazines with naked women, if they are so keen on taking their clothes off but the double standard in publishing fucking annoys me. That's the problem.
There are naked women all around - sports magazines, daily gossip newspapers...you see boobs everywhere! There is even a campaign to shut down infamous Page 3. But when there's women's magazine to be published, to satisfy that part of the market (because, you know, women make more than 50 % of world's population...) the doors are closing and you are met with the wall. Why not for women too?
Take a look at this. Btw, this is the 'uncovered' cover. Talking about double standards...Naked female body is just like a t-shirt - so common and people feel comfortable with it. But when there's something different and fresh...SHOCK!
I was reading the comments on Guardian article and was disappointed to see people (even women) mocking the idea and not taking it seriously, let alone supporting it. We live in modern times, with women's emancipation, rights, we are supposed to have all kinds of freedoms, why not sexual ones too? And why are women not loud enough about it?
This last Saturday I went to Angel (London area) where there's erotica and sex shop called Adultworld that sells the magazine and was ready to buy it. I was actually proud of myself to get inside without feeling uneasy and uncomfortable asking for female erotica magazine, just chatting casually with a sales lady while surrounded by dildos, collars and whips. :D But the woman told me they didn't get it yet. So I will be going back.
If you can, support it, by either linking to it or buying it yourself. They are also on LJ - they set up a LJ community for reasearch of what women find attractive, it's called The Female Gaze. And there is an official journal for a magazine where you can talk to the editor, read news about the mag etc.