FILAMENT Magazine And The Erection Dilemma

The beautifully-produced London-based magazine FILAMENT has a problem.

Explicit images of women are available at any newsagent, but Filament, the world’s only magazine featuring male pictorials designed for the female gaze, is finding itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to printing explicit images of men.

Filament only prints explicit images when these are of high photographic and erotic quality, and clearly designed for women – we won’t ever be putting hard cocks on every page. The problem is, all the printers that a small, independent magazine like Filament can afford have said they won’t print images of the male of the species in a state of obvious arousal. Reasons given include that printing these images may cause offence to ’women’s groups’.

If they can sell another 300 copies of FILAMENT #1, they’ll have the money to switch to a printer that isn’t terrified of the cock, and then they can

make history and print (we’re pretty sure) the first explicit male pictorial in a British women’s magazine.

Link to the fundraising page. And, here, a link to the purchase page. Obviously, click around the site and have a nose at it. I thought it was a lovely object, and I know Niki enjoyed looking at it, although there was, to her taste, a distinct lack of morbidly obese beardy men with all their hair burned off.

I’ve posted before about this magazine, one with whom I am directly affiliated (I’ve been sharing my food photos and helping Suraya with layout). It boggles my mind how easy it is for malecentric print media to disembody women (in a rather nasty and unwholesome way), but when a feminist indie wants to respectifully objectify and dismember male images, it gets shot out of the sky. So, give us a hand, if you will. I’m sure I can help with the beardy dudes on fire.

Thanks.

“How pleased I am to find another female photographer who does erotic images of men…I swear there are about 6 of you in the world.” 

That woman was Suraya Sidhu Singh, and at the time I laughed at her comments regarding my “erotic” photographs. I rarely shoot implied or blatant nudes, and so I thought she was a little crazy for filing my work under that category.

However, after many conversations back and forth, I realized Suraya was on to something I’d never really consciously seen in my own work. Non-traditional, non-mainstream (yet attractive) people enjoying themselves are indeed erotic–possibly not sexual, but sensual. Suraya’s generous comments allowed me to unrestrain my female gaze just a bit, and I credit her for inspiring me to try open-minded and wilder things within my artwork.

In return, it is my pleasure to present to you the first issue of Suraya’s London-based magazine, Filament, dubbed “The Thinking Woman’s Crumpet”, a highly-researched, beautifully bound publication chock full of both saucy males posing for the camera and intelligent articles. I just love her letter from the editor:

“Do you remember the magazines? They were so full of things that inspired us…When did we get ahead of them? Growing into the type of woman they didn’t want to talk to…We stand at the back of the male strip revue on a hen night, looking past the oiled, muscle-bound hunks, checking out the narrow-hipped lads behind the bar. If I look for us in magazines, I won’t find us…There is only so much to be said about the state of women’s media before you have to sort out the problem yourself.”

And indeed, she has. Filament is filled, cover to matte cover, with articles about witchcraft, pubic hair, making music, feminism, the ethics of porn, and alternative history. I have never in my life seen a women’s erotic magazine that wasn’t degrading, disgusting, and telling me to diet and/or suffer for hotter sex. Thus, I am very excited about this publication, not to mention some of my food porn pics are featured with a delicious celeriac dish. Yes, folks, a dirty magazine with recipes (and Jean-Paul in leather trousers)!

Now that I’ve bragged on it, I should tell you that Filament is online at http://filamentmagazine.com/
Go get a copy!

Thank you. [Photo of Suraya by Gerard Harvey.]