Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog

The New Zealand Herald has an extensive profile of Filament creator Suraya Singh, who grew up in New Zealand but now lives in London. The article traces the origins of Suraya’s idea for an erotic magazine and her struggle to get it up and running last year.

There was also the belief that all women are the same. “We had one distributor who said he’d shown a copy to a woman in accounts,” says Singh.

“She didn’t like it, so he decided all women wouldn’t like it. Even if the story was the truth, the claim was ridiculous. That sort of thing got surreal at times.” Another was that most women aren’t visual and that those who are would rather look at other women than naked men. This belief is supported by New Zealand’s self-styled king of porn, Steve Crow.

In his view, marketing erotica to women is notoriously difficult and while he hasn’t yet seen Filament, he says it isn’t something he’d want to back or predict a future for.

New York Press reports on the launch of another indie erotic magazine aimed at straight women. Candy Rain (previously “Ligerbeat“) is the project of three New York women, Callie Watts, “Mama D” and “Yung Ho”. It seems that Callie is the main driving force as she has previously worked for Playgirl before it folded and also helps with Bust magazine.

The mag came about because the three joked that they could do better than Playgirl. When a male friend volunteered to be a model, it all became quite serious. Candy Rain’s first issue was funded by a party with a $5 cover charge. It’s only 31 pages and I’m not sure where you can buy it.

What female porn consumers want, according to Watts, is a realistic reflection of sexuality encompassing both carnal lust and the inherent humor of floppy external genitalia. “No one ever gives porn a chance to be both [funny and hot],” she laments. “You can make fun of the dick and still wanna stick it in your mouth.”

When Filament launched last year I expressed doubts about how well they’d do because they decided to be a hard copy magazine. So far they’ve proved me wrong by being very popular. I’ll be interested to see if Candy Rain can replicate that success.

Erotica authors (and book cover crusaders) Kristina Lloyd and Mathilde Madden have written a great piece in the Guardian discussing the difficulties Filament has had in printing erect dicks.

I liked this bit:

When set against the plethora of men’s lifestyle and top-shelf magazines featuring scantily clad and open-legged women, the struggles faced by Filament highlight a deeply entrenched sexism: men can look at women but women cannot look at men.

Attempts to even out this disparity often lead to cries that two wrongs don’t make a right; that countering the prevalence of eroticised women by adding men to the mix legitimises sexist objectification. But there’s nothing inherently sexist about depicting nudity. It’s sexist when only women are deemed to signify the erotic; it’s sexist when eroticised images of women are so normalised and widespread that women stand to be viewed first and foremost as sex objects – their value inextricably linked to their sexual desirability. The sexism is in the inequality.

As much as I support Filament in their quest to get dicks onto newsagent shelves, part of me is pondering the fuss. How is it that the print world is so fucking outdated? I’ve been publishing photos of naked men with erect cocks since the year 2000. No government interference, no printing issues, no distribution hassles, no sexist male penpushers getting all nervous about the prospect of peen. Just me and my server and my FTP program.

And yet that has never been deemed newsworthy. I’ve been participating in a publishing revolution for almost a decade and yet here we are still hung up on what’s considered suitable to print on paper. How extraordinarily strange.

And how is it, in two thousand and fucking nine, that people can be spooked by photos of erections? What? How? Why? WHY?

New magazine Filament wants to put hard cocks in their next issue. Unfortunately the printers are refusing to come to the party, saying that “printing these images may offend women’s groups.” They’re now looking for another printer but need more cash so they’ve launched an “erection drive” in the hope of selling more issues.

We’re talking about fighting the system here girls! I can only applaud Suraya’s effort to get hard dicks onto magazine shelves.

Find out more here.

Reuters reports that HBO are creating a half-hour television series about an old-school feminist who starts a porn magazine for women. The concept will examine all the feminism versus “raunch culture” ideas and will star Diane Keaton in the lead role (and as executive producer).

“We’ve came a long way since the Kinsey report; women are more sexual now,” said Noxon, referring to Alfred Kinsey’s controversial 1953 report “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.”

Added Parouse: “There seems to be a new evolution of what women are sexually. Women are acting more like men sexually.”

Sounds like a bit of fun. Chances are we won’t get to see it in Australia. Ah well, there’s always downloading.

Meanwhile, Violet Blue’s Oprah article continues to cause ripples. The Examiner has an opinion piece here and here.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been in contact with Suraya Singh who is the editor of the newly launched Filament magazine for women. She’s been on a PR blitz that’s seen her receive excellent coverage in mainstream media and across the web.

When I first found out about the magazine I must admit to being a little skeptical about its chances, mainly because it’s a print magazine. Already it has encountered a number of difficulties from printers and distributors because of the magazine’s cover and content. In this interview, Suraya reveals her reasons behind that particular decision.

I was happy to receive a copy of the first edition and I’m very impressed with the whole concept, partly because I can see it’s a revival of the ideas and philosophy of my old favourite mag/employer, Australian Women’s Forum. I applaud the fact that Filament doesn’t want to make you feel bad about your body by featuring diets or fashion or cosmetics. It’s great to see something that’s about stimulating the mind – and the nether regions! The photography is artistic and moody. Some of the guys were definitely not to my taste but that’s just me.

So without further rambling, here’s the interview:

What do you hope to achieve with the mag?
When I stopped reading mainstream women’s magazines, I stopped having body image issues, but why should an entire media format be off limits to women who want to feel good about themselves? I want Filament to provide a genuine alternative for women – to be sexual without your own body necessarily being the subject of that.

I also hope that Filament will present a genuine challenge to the magazine industry, and the erotic market generally. Women have been put in the ‘too hard’ basket for too long, and the market needs to start taking catering to the female gaze seriously. We’re not gay men in skirts, nor are we merely the wives and girlfriends of the heterosexual male market – erotica producers who want to cater to women have to start by seeing us as women.

Why did you choose print?
I wanted to offer a true alternative to other women’s magazine, and offering the hot shirtless men that were literally in amongst challenging articles was important – like 70s Playboy, but for women. If Filament was just photography, or the articles were shorter and chattier, we almost certainly would have gone for web.

What problems have you encountered getting the mag up and running?
We did everything on a budget of basically zero, so everyone involved is giving their time for free, which has its own problems – you can’t pay people to get it done within a particular timeframe, nor can you pay for photographic environments or anything like that. The fact that Filament turned out better quality than a lot of fully professional publications is a huge credit to everyone who gave their time.

Photographing for the female gaze is uniquely difficult because we’re really inventing a new style of photography – there’s no one’s work you can look at and say that’s a perfect example. Getting photography that works on this score is always a challenge.

Distributors have also been really negative about our choice to have a man on the cover. Their view is that women don’t buy magazines with men on the cover. This may be true, but how are things ever going to change if those magazines are never distributed? So right now we’re selling Filament entirely through our website. At the end of each day I print out our order list and put them all in envelopes and send them out, which I quite enjoy actually.

Were you surprised by anything in your online research?
Most of the research we use is published academic research, but we do supplement the finer detail with primary research via our livejournal community. That type of research is pretty unscientific, but it does give us a steer in terms of what to try. For example, glasses on men got an extremely high approval rating – almost 90% of the women we asked thought men are hotter in glasses. Bondage, visually speaking, seems to polarises women – we either love it or hate it.

How do you approach your models?
These days they are approaching us more and more, but I still go up to men that I see in the park or in clubs with a Filament postcard – I suggest they check out the details on the site and if they’re keen, email me some snaps. It’s great now that it’s summer (in the northern hemisphere) as there are more lads around with their tops off. If anyone reading this knows any hot men who they’d like to see in Filament, tell them to get in touch!

What’s your vision for women’s porn?
I’d like to see all those who are producing erotic image of men for women working together to share ideas and cater effectively to different niches. One of the ‘problems’ with the heterosexual women’s erotica market is that women’s tastes are so incredibly diverse – but so are men’s: I think we should share and specialise – I don’t think there’s anything to be gained in trying to compete. I love being able to direct someone who wants something Filament can’t offer to a publication or website that offers that. So far I’ve had great conversations with Syzygy Mag, Shot with Desire and now For the Girlsabout what we do. Long may it continue.

You can get Filament here. Pic of Suraya from the Filament site.

Emily Dubberley is the editor of Scarlet Magazine and she used to run Cliterati which was a great female-friendly erotica site ages ago. Now she’s got a book out about kinky sex. I found this great interview with her so thought I’d throw up a quick link to it.

I tend to sympathise with this comment:

Occasionally I’ll get turned on writing about sex, but 99 per cent of the time it’s just work. I love my job but there are times when I tire of it. If I’ve got PMT, the last thing I want to do is test three sex toys.

A couple of days ago I wrote about Filament, a new erotica magazine for women. Over the last few days the mag has received several mentions in mainstream media. Great PR for Filament but, unfortunately, the same old tired assumtions and discussions are being rehashed.

The Daily Mail doesn’t hesitate to come blaring in with assumptions at full mast:

Women just don’t respond to visual stimuli in the same way that men do – and if we did, I doubt whether Filament’s hairless, feminine men would be the ones to turn us on.

But then neither, in all probability, would perfectly honed, six pack-flexing, chiselled hunks. A man who can make a woman laugh is worth ten of either type. To tickle our erotic centre, we need a living, breathing, talking human being.

So why do we persist in pretending we’re just like men?

The author then goes on to say that if women do like porn, it’s because we’re embracing the “laddette” culture and trying to be blokes. She declares that “leering at pornography aimed at women” is “as innately unfeminine as drinking yourself senseless.”

Ah yes, “femininity”. That word so often used to put women in their place. I’m sure I speak for porn-loving women everywhere when I say: Fuck off, Olivia Lichtenstein.

Meanwhile, a blogger at the Brisbane Times has declared that “there’s no decent porn for women” after having done, oh, about 2 minutes worth of research into the topic. Still, at least she doesn’t give the “women aren’t visual” myth as much creedence as others:

Are women visual creatures too? Yes. Perhaps not in the same way men are perceived to be. We might not all enjoy the close-up motion shots common in most porn (though I’m sure there are women who do – and that’s great).

But we shouldn’t be told that sex is only as good as we think or feel it is. And men shouldn’t be told that it’s only as good as it looks.

Unfortunately the majority of commenters seem to have ignored this and are rehashing the old assumptions about women and porn.

Over at the New York Press. the writer warns the magazine that it’s probably too academic and “dry”. I guess there’s no pleasing some people.

At least the New Zealanders don’t go for the usual angles. They’re just proud that the magazine’s creator is a kiwi.

I received an email from Filament’s creator, Suraya, today. I’m looking forward to hearing more about why she’s decided to go into hard-copy publishing and also her other plans for the mag.

Here’s their site.

The Independent has a piece about a new women’s erotica magazine being launched in the UK. It’s called Filament and it’s tagline is “the thinking woman’s crumpet.”

Suraya Singh is yet another woman who felt that porn wasn’t offering her what she needed so she’s made her own. She’s got fairly negative things to say about existing women’s erotica, so she’s put me offside somewhat, but all power to her for doing a whole bunch of research into what women want to see.

The Filament version of “what women want” is not Playgirl-style beefcake but “toned men with oval-shaped, often quite feminine faces.” The first issue of the mag features pictorials of said men, found through asking guys on the street if they wanted to pose. There’s no full frontal nudity, although that possibility hasn’t been ruled out.

I do applaud the mag for their list of what they won’t do: diets, celebrities, “men are from mars, women from venus” crap, makeovers, shopping etc. Sounds like the old Australian Women’s Forum ethic that I always found so appealing.

Naysayer Rowan Pelling says he believes making erotica for women is “notoriously difficult.” I do enjoy it when people say that. It thins the herd.

What’s puzzling me is this: why take a risk with a hard copy magazine? If this journal is supposed to be wank material, they’re pushing shit uphill. Meatworld porn just can’t compete with the privacy and instant, easy availability of internet porn. Even if your nude guys have feminine faces. And if you’re not even going to show peen, forget it.

So, what would inspire a woman to buy a magazine with semi-nude male pics in it and wait for it to arrive in the post? I’m really thinking it’s gonna have to be something along the lines of “artistic” in the same way that Black + White magazine can do arty nudes. Then you can buy the thing and just admire the shadowy moody photography and put it on your coffee table.

Either that or the pictorials are a few sexy pages to flick past on your way to the interesting articles, which in the Playboy tradition, is what you’ve really bought the magazine for (no, really, you do). Thankfully, the sample article on the site discussing the ethics of pornography looks well worth reading.

A few years ago Sweet Action was touted as the hip new thing in porn for women. They only made it to 3 issues. I’m very interested to see if Filament can stay the distance.

The New York Times has a two-page feature article about the demise of Playgirl magazine. It features interviews with the three women who edited the mag and gives fairly frank details about what went wrong:

So she and her fellow editors, all women in their 20s and all relative neophytes to the world of magazines — and pornography — resolved to fill Playgirl with something different. They aspired to bring Playgirl back to its roots, back to a time when the magazine covered issues like abortion and equal rights, interspersing sexy shots of men with work from writers like Raymond Carver and Joyce Carol Oates.

All the while, the editors juggled the demands of the publisher, Blue Horizon Media, which they said pushed to fill Playgirl with even more nudes and fewer words.

“It always felt like this uphill battle,” said Jessanne Collins, 29, who was Playgirl’s senior editor.

Apparently the people who ran the magazine have nothing to do with the Playgirl site – a pity.

By the way, the timeline showing a progressively blase attitude to naked men after three weeks… Make it eight years and that’s where I’m at; paying more attention to lighting and contrast than cock size. Sigh.

Well, Playgirl Magazine is finished.

Writer Jamye Waxman confirmed the rumours in this blog post. She says it’s a shame because Playgirl could never quite be the intelligent sex magazine for women it wanted to be.

The staff at Playgirl does get it, but what they were allowed to do with that knowledge never completely translated… both because their hands were always tied and because, well, the people who approve what you get don’t always understand where you’re coming from. Especially when they’re not the people who read a magazine like Playgirl.

Of course, the real issue is that Playgirl magazine has become a victim of technology. Why would anyone really bother with buying a hard copy sex magazine (and facing down the sales assistant as you hand over the money) when you can access smut online without leaving the house?

I actually suspect that Playgirl mag would have folded earlier if the company had been able to make use of their domain name before 2006. Up until that point a court order had prevented its use thanks to a wildly fraudulent episode with a scammer way back in 2000.

Nonetheless, it’s the end of an era. Playgirl mag was launched in 1973 as a feminist response to Playboy and it’s long been a flag of sexual equality for women… even though it’s usually considered a gay magazine.

As an Australian I’ve never actually read the US Playgirl. Our own version, Australian Women’s Forum, folded in 2001 thanks to censorship and declining readership. AWF had had its day. I like to think I carried the torch online – you’ll find many of the articles I wrote for AWF at For The Girls.

Meanwhile, Playgirl will use this news as a way to plug their membership site.

Interestingly, a search on Google News reveals that the main media outlets reporting on the magazine’s closure are gay websites.