A Hard Man is Good to Find

August 13, 2009 8:49 PM

Filament aims to be a different kind of women's magazine. They plan to "cover a wide range of topics [but absolutely no beauty or diet articles] that inspire and engage , and [give women] gorgeous boys the way [they] like to see them." Their first issue is out and featured a mix of articles, fiction, poetry and pics of shirtless boys. For their second issue, they want to include a pic of a man with erection, but their printer bailed because the printer was afraid of a backlash. The magazine has also had issues with distributors because many of them don't want to deal with a women's magazine with a man on the cover. Via (NSFW) Erotica Cover Watch (NSFW) which is a blog dedicated to ending the preponderance of (naked) women on the covers of erotic books, and is trying to get more men and couples on the covers.
posted by nooneyouknow (80 comments total)

Filament aims to be a different kind of women's magazine. They plan to "cover a wide range of topics [but absolutely no beauty or diet articles] that inspire and engage , and [give women] gorgeous boys the way [they] like to see them."

Is there a "women's magazine" that plans to "cover a wide range of topics [but absolutely no beauty or diet articles] that inspire and engage , and"...that's it?

Seriously, is that what makes a women's magazine a "women's magazine?" All women's magazines must include either a) diet and beauty tips or b) peen?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:52 PM on August 13, 2009

Not to be missed: LOLtits
posted by dhartung at 8:53 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Women, stop objectifying men!
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:08 PM on August 13, 2009

I think it's intriguing. There are few media representations that aren't from the perspective of the male gaze.
posted by Danila at 9:33 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't know why, but at first, out of the corner of my eye, I misread this as:

Flatulence aims to be a different kind of women's magazine.

And I thought, "Yeah, that sounds pretty different, all right."
posted by limeonaire at 9:33 PM on August 13, 2009 [6 favorites]

A taste for man-boys is all well and good, up until the day you need to get a couch up two flights of stairs.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 10:16 PM on August 13, 2009 [5 favorites]

The magazine has also had issues with distributors because many of them don't want to deal with a women's magazine with a man on the cover.

And yet, I assume that in the UK (as here) there are plenty of gay mens' magazines chock-full of pictures of buff naked guys.

I suppose if this magazine goes under, women will just have to keep doing what they've always done: snipping photos out of the gay magazines & pasting them into battered copies of Pride & Prejudice.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:19 PM on August 13, 2009 [5 favorites]

Filament does not:
think shopping and a makeover is the answer to all problems.
only cover what we like or agree with.

so they do cover shopping and makeup and diet and glamour?
posted by rubah at 10:26 PM on August 13, 2009

Stop being so phallogocentric!!!
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:30 PM on August 13, 2009

Backlash? How could there be backlash against the printer? I don't know who prints a single magazine! I guess that's why I'm not a brain-dead grassroots activist.
posted by grobstein at 10:31 PM on August 13, 2009

I don't know about the guy on the FAQ page, but he looks like he passed out after knitting his chest hair while drinking too much wine. Not very sexy if you ask me.
Man-boys? This must be geared towards curious girls who are 15. yet the mag denies it. Might as well look at Abercrombie ads. Those guys are a little more buff, no fluff, and could probably move the furniture around when you need to redecorate.
posted by redhead at 10:33 PM on August 13, 2009

Wait, I thought women weren't allowed to have overtly sexual thoughts?

THIS IS NOT THE AMERICA MY PAPPY DIED FOR YOU COMMIES
posted by Avenger at 10:36 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Our images of men are made for the female gaze. We draw on research about what women find erotic, from published academic research and our own online research community.

Can you imagine playboy saying something like this?

I don't know what to make of these women seeing the need to employ academic research to compile masturbatory material.
posted by phrontist at 10:41 PM on August 13, 2009 [6 favorites]

Oh, and the advert pics change, from goth, to creepy like the albino dude in the DaVinci Code, lip piercing, eyeliner. bleh
posted by redhead at 10:44 PM on August 13, 2009

For example, on average, women prefer:

- men with more feminine face shapes

Damn it.

men who are not muscle-bound

Phew.
posted by empyrean at 10:53 PM on August 13, 2009

I'm all for the female gaze

Until guys have to start kissing other guys at parties to be hot

Coz I ain't doing that

Sry.
posted by Non Prosequitur at 10:57 PM on August 13, 2009 [8 favorites]

After reading redhead's comments, then refreshing the page a few times, I got quite a good laugh. Especially with Little Black Riding Hood here.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:57 PM on August 13, 2009

I don't know what to make of these women seeing the need to employ academic research to compile masturbatory material.

The issue is that (some takes on the) "male gaze" posit that women have become a sort of "sexualized gender"; i.e. sexiness in women seem sexy to both men and women. A naked woman posed with a man in a suit, for example. So going straight for "what turns you on?" isn't really going to undo that.

The issue this brings up of course is whether trying to go with a "female gaze" is exactly the right approach, maybe trying to just copy and reverse the gaze isn't really what liberates women more, etc.
posted by Non Prosequitur at 11:04 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Every time I try to access it my request times out. Did something happen to the site?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:07 PM on August 13, 2009

Our images of men are made for the female gaze. We draw on research about what women find erotic, from published academic research and our own online research community.

Can you imagine playboy saying something like this?

Actually I sort of feel like Playboy should do a bit more research into what straight men find attractive.
posted by creasy boy at 11:25 PM on August 13, 2009 [12 favorites]

Ugly predominantly white models + silly posing + unwillingness to embrace feminism = epic fail, I'll go back to Bitch/Bust and my Wong Kar Wai movies thanks. And I'm presumably the target audience for their magazine (female, 25 years old, magazine addiction, uninhibited about sex).
posted by saturnine at 11:39 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Why is the magazine called Filament?
A filament is:
•the bit of a light bulb that lights up
•the part of a flower that holds the male reproductive stuff.
•the largest structure in the known universe.


•obsolete technology
•babies, babies, babies!
•(no comment)

oh shut up.
posted by longsleeves at 11:56 PM on August 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Women are 10 times more likely than men to undergo cosmetic surgery and 43 times more likely than men to suffer an eating disorder. Is this because women are ‘naturally’ life-threateningly obsessed with their appearance, or is this in some way influenced by women’s media? Many men’s magazines don’t discuss men’s appearance, but nearly all women’s magazines discuss women’s appearance.

Filament breaks this trend by covering a wide range of topics that inspire and engage, and giving you gorgeous boys the way you like to see them.

MetaTranslation:
Statistic highlighting disparity between women vs. men undergoing cosmetic surgery; statistic highlighting disparity between women vs. men suffering eating disorders. Hypothetical question attributing statistics to 2 possible root causes: genetic predisposition towards appearance obsession or the media. Statement comparing discussion of the topic of appearance in gendered magazines.

Vague brand identity statement OH AND WE GOTS SEXY BOYS FOR YOU TO LOOK AT BECUZ WE KNOW WHAT U LIKE!!!
posted by iamkimiam at 12:05 AM on August 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'd be curious to read it - sure there's lots of ways the concept can be picked apart, but I appreciate that they're trying to do.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:16 AM on August 14, 2009

rats. what they're trying to do. what.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:17 AM on August 14, 2009

I'm not sure why everyone's being so .. knee-jerky about the deal. I kinda like the pdfs of the sample issue. I like that the tone isn't all that axe-grindy even though their positioning almost threatens to be. Ideally they should have put more content up though, to get the word of mouth started.
posted by Non Prosequitur at 12:17 AM on August 14, 2009 [2 favorites]

Agree with Non Prosequitur. I'm not sure I see what's so bad here, in either concept or execution.
posted by jokeefe at 12:22 AM on August 14, 2009

I personally find it extremely sexist (to both men and women, if that's even possible) and the tone is condescending and fake. It's problematic to me on several levels, with one of the worst being the way it takes the socially constructed concept of gender and attempts to re-analyze it with 'scientific study', and gives us back the new, more damaging binary-blended notion of gender. And worst of all, they justify this new approach, this new look as a response to the media-created problem, and then give us their new media-based solution. It's disingenuous at best. They don't embrace feminism, and they certainly don't understand it! But they feel free to reconstruct and prescribe gender roles as they see fit, based on their new found science. I mean really, just about every single part of that website is focused on gender construction and the male vs. female dynamic; defining what it means, what we now know about male/female, what male/female likes, what male/female struggles with, what filament thinks regarding male/female and on and on. They even go so far as to describe what women want in men using terms that reinforce the binary gender construct, "men with more feminine face shapes; men with attractive faces." And the name of the magazine doesn't escape it either, "the part of a flower that holds the male reproductive stuff." Ick. I'm not going to get into the many other problems with that line.

It's as if a group of people sat down and brainstormed the best way to promote their new, modern definition of gender and radical notion of the 'female gaze' and someone said, "I know! We'll make a magazine! It'll be different from other magazines, because we'll be straight about the evils of the media and how they've promoted stereotypes and pushed an agenda. Everybody wins!"
posted by iamkimiam at 1:15 AM on August 14, 2009 [5 favorites]

I personally find it extremely sexist (to both men and women, if that's even possible) and the tone is condescending and fake. It's problematic to me on several levels, with one of the worst being the way it takes the socially constructed concept of gender and attempts to re-analyze it with 'scientific study', and gives us back the new, more damaging binary-blended notion of gender. And worst of all, they justify this new approach, this new look as a response to the media-created problem, and then give us their new media-based solution. It's disingenuous at best. They don't embrace feminism, and they certainly don't understand it! But they feel free to reconstruct and prescribe gender roles as they see fit, based on their new found science. I mean really, just about every single part of that website is focused on gender construction and the male vs. female dynamic; defining what it means, what we now know about male/female, what male/female likes, what male/female struggles with, what filament thinks regarding male/female and on and on. They even go so far as to describe what women want in men using terms that reinforce the binary gender construct, "men with more feminine face shapes; men with attractive faces." And the name of the magazine doesn't escape it either, "the part of a flower that holds the male reproductive stuff." Ick. I'm not going to get into the many other problems with that line.

Yeh? I kinda missed that. I'm not going to completely disagree with you, except that I can't see how you built such a critique from the website alone. I think part of the 'scientific study' you mention, was just - you know - asking women what they wanted to see.
posted by Sova at 1:50 AM on August 14, 2009

Hey, sounds good to me.

Bring on the hot guys, and yes, I do like 'em thinner, less buff, and more feminine looking than the men featured in most ads.

Men kissing is a huge turn on for me too.

Um, so there.
posted by The ____ of Justice at 1:53 AM on August 14, 2009 [3 favorites]

Non Prosequitur:

I'm all for the female gaze

Until guys have to start kissing other guys at parties to be hot

Coz I ain't doing that

Sry.




Dammit!
posted by The ____ of Justice at 2:00 AM on August 14, 2009

Young boys are my weakness
I just like their sweetness

Famous Australian feminist, Germaine Greer, published a let's get pervy on boys book when she was, like, 70.

ish :)
posted by uncanny hengeman at 2:14 AM on August 14, 2009

Good gravy. I clearly remember the book being released. I never realised the about of bumph and bluster involved. From the above link:

The book generated some controversy because "society is not accustomed to seeing beauty in young males", Greer claims. Greer has described the book as "full of pictures of 'ravishing' pre-adult boys with hairless chests, wide-apart legs and slim waists". She goes on to say that, "I know that the only people who are supposed to like looking at pictures of boys are a subgroup of gay men," she wrote...
posted by uncanny hengeman at 2:16 AM on August 14, 2009

Extremely sexist? Harsh. I'm a guy. I don't find it sexist towards me. Anyway, this magazine seems way too focused on the meaning of its own existence and explaining itself. Heavy analysis is a great way to ruin a skin magazine.
posted by molecicco at 2:50 AM on August 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bah, sorry. about = amount

I'm a guy. I don't find it sexist towards me. Anyway, this magazine seems way too focused on the meaning of its own existence and explaining itself.

Exactly. Way too much navel gazing, ladies.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:01 AM on August 14, 2009

Nobody else has said it, so I will - nice post title, nooneyouknow.
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots at 3:03 AM on August 14, 2009 [5 favorites]

A taste for man-boys is all well and good, up until the day you need to get a couch up two flights of stairs.

Oh please. If I wanted to move heavy furniture upstairs*, I would call a moving company. I am a guy, have never cared for heavy labor, and would rather date guys similarly uninterested. Most of my girl-friends feel the same way; the rest are crazy people who prefer to move heavy things themselves and I do not pretend to grok their thought processes.

* As a renter, I almost never buy furniture. In the rare cases when I do, they're light. I do not need a freakin' couch to waste precious space when a nice chair can help me maintain proper posture.

Man-boys? This must be geared towards curious girls who are 15.

I remember hearing that assumption a lot when I was in college and enjoying the bubblegum era with other college-age fans. A decade later we're all breaking 30 and still finding new man-boys to gush about. It's absolutely fine that you don't find them attractive; don't presume to know anything about those of us who do.
posted by fatehunter at 3:03 AM on August 14, 2009

Men kissing is a huge turn on for me too.

Like, DUH.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:27 AM on August 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm interested to see how the magazine goes, because it's a good experiment to try. But I'm a bit wary of any new mag that introduces itself with a lot of PR speak and not with, say, a really killer feature article that everyone talks about. If they haven't got good content, then their oh-so-shocking contrariness won't sell copies for them past the first couple of issues.
posted by harriet vane at 3:56 AM on August 14, 2009

did you read that etiquette page? what crap. and what the hell is she wearing?
this mag will be gone in 6 months. if women want to see pics of men's erections, there's plenty of that on the market. and those fey male models...i don't think their target audience could handle a real man.
posted by billybobtoo at 4:07 AM on August 14, 2009

Mmm. There was another independent magazine just like this a few years ago called Sweet Action. Don't think they're around anymore.

I don't know what it is -- I'm not particularly interested in looking at a bunch of random nude guys. David Boreanaz? Ok. Someone else? Nah, not so much. Personally, I blame those old school Burt Reynolds-in-Playgirl spreads.

And now -- thanks to free association in my brain, I am now envisioning Norm MacDonald playing Burt Reynolds being naked in Playgirl. Gross. I need some brain bleach.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:14 AM on August 14, 2009

Wow. That's a pretty classy entrance into the thread, billybobtoo.
posted by creasy boy at 4:16 AM on August 14, 2009

Their Twitter feed linked from their website is certainly a bit less solemn.

Should Filament be able to print the occasional erection in future issues? If you think so, cast your vote by getting our first issue. http://www.filamentmagazine.com/fundraise.aspx [note: this is the link to the cock-o-meter from the tweet below]

cock-o-meter: 258 down, only 70 to go! This campaign is rocking, thank you for all your support! http://bit.ly/iOhny about 2 hours ago from web

@bizarremagazine Will you tweet to support our campaign to become the first UK women's mag to publish erections? http://bit.ly/iOhny Aug 10th from web in reply to bizarremagazine

Yay! @warrenellis joins the campaign for hard cock in Filament! http://www.warrenellis.com/ 7:19 AM Aug 5th from web

Is thinking of offering hen party/girls' night packs of Filament mag (6+) at wholesale rates (half-price)... do you think they'd be popular?6:25 AM Aug 4th from web

Had lunch with a gorgeous model boy today. Very much looking forward to organising a photoshoot with him in it.10:34 AM Jun 27th from web

Questions for Filament Issue II Ask a Feminist, Coping Saw and Etiquette by Jene are now open! Details here: http://tinyurl.com/p65k2s 3:47 PM Jun 26th from web

Dammit I was hoping for a quiet media summer so that they could talk about women's magazines full of hot naked dudes!2:28 AM Jun 26th from web

I know I'm not the target audience and am not trying to make a living publishing magazines but I have to say I like the "Twitter Filament" a lot more than the "Filament Filament". The Twitter version acts more as though it believes what the Filament version seems to be trying to say and is having fun. (Or maybe I just like plain and direct better.)
posted by vapidave at 4:19 AM on August 14, 2009

This askme seems germane.
posted by creasy boy at 4:29 AM on August 14, 2009

*can lug furniture up stairs & kiss other guys at parties to be hot*

MeMail's in my profile
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:31 AM on August 14, 2009 [2 favorites]

Mmm. There was another independent magazine just like this a few years ago called Sweet Action. Don't think they're around anymore.

Yes! I was trying to remember their name. IIRC, Sweet Action's photos were very stripped down and "real", though--they seemed just like they were random shots of people's boyfriends. Which was hot.

The blond dude on one of these pages is pretty cute, but he's all misty and (poorly) airbrushed, which isn't. But really, I have no problem with the erotica/photo side of this. I think that their premise (and part of Sweet Action's premise, back in the day) is that, essentially, Playgirl gets it wrong, which I can't disagree with. I think it's great that people are marketing pornie stuff to real women; there's a need for it.

As for the magazine itself, I saw that they were taking poetry submissions and got all excited, but there are no samples and their information on payment is really vague ("we'll pay you if we make money!"), so forget that.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:52 AM on August 14, 2009

If anyone is curious about what Sweet Action's men looked like, here's their myspace.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:54 AM on August 14, 2009

I'm not sure why everyone's being so .. knee-jerky about the deal.

My thoughts exactly. It's not going to decapitate your favorite magazine and wave the bloody stump around in a show of victory; it's just attempting to fill an underserved niche. I'm not going to read it, but I salute the initiative to try something different.
posted by kittyprecious at 4:57 AM on August 14, 2009 [2 favorites]

You have to admit that it is a change of pace to have a magazine for straight women that's not really about man-catching & -keeping. To get that before, you had to just go to the lesbian magazines.
posted by Pronoiac at 5:12 AM on August 14, 2009

MetaFilter: I'm not sure why everyone's being so .. knee-jerky
posted by tushfestival at 6:40 AM on August 14, 2009

Um...has it really taken this long for someone to point out that Filament will be, in the words of SNL's Weekend Update, "the magazine for women, read by gay men"?
posted by jefficator at 6:44 AM on August 14, 2009

For the record, beauty (grooming), diet (grilling), health (work out!), fashion, shopping, men one should emulate and half-naked women seem to be the content of most men's magazines too.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:44 AM on August 14, 2009

She goes on to say that, "I know that the only people who are supposed to like looking at pictures of boys are a subgroup of gay men," she wrote...

From the Erotica Cover Watch Link:

I did some digging and it turns out that Fleshbot has two filters Straight and Gay. If you go to the home page here and click those tabs you can see how they work. Click Straight and all the guys vanish. Click Gay and all the girls are gone.

Wait. What?

Click Straight to get girls and Gay to get guys?

Hands up if you can spot the sexism.

Which of course explains why Filament – a magazine for straight women – was filed under Gay. All the readers of this blog are assumed to be men. Penises are of interest to which kind of men? Oh, yes. Gay ones.[...]
Jezebel passed my complaint to Fleshbot editor Lux Alptraum

Dear Mathilde

Fleshbot.com is a website that covers all sorts of erotica, for all sorts of people. Because we recognize that our readership appreciates the ability to filter out content that’s not to their liking, we offer the option to separate the site into two sections: one that primarily focuses on naked women, and one that primarily focuses on naked men. In the parlance of the larger porn industry, these distinctions are referred to as “straight” and “gay”–though we don’t always agree with that, we’ve adopted that parlance for the ease of our readers.

Oh, well that's all right then. It is for my "ease" that I, a straight woman who likes looking at cock, should remember that on the internet (and in the privacy of my bedroom while watching porn) I am actually a gay man.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:51 AM on August 14, 2009 [6 favorites]

Dammit, I like looking at peens, and skinny goth boys, and musicals, and Erasure, and "Mommie Dearest". I am obviously a gay man.

(No one tell Mr. Arkham...)

I couldn't get most fo the pictures to load, but the ones I saw were...OK. Still a little too soft-focus "erotica" for me. Why does all sex stuff for straight women look like a "Summer's Eve" ad?
posted by JoanArkham at 7:10 AM on August 14, 2009

Wow. That's a pretty classy entrance into the thread, billybobtoo.

I thought that was parody. You can't have a conversation about porn for men without someone (if not several someones) piping up about an inability to handle "a real woman".

Thank you, preview. Originally typed as: "You can't have a conversation about porn for me. Heh.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 7:15 AM on August 14, 2009

This whole things seems very overhyped to me. One publisher was perfectly happy to print a magazine showing guys in various states of undress, but doesn't want to print porn showing male genitals. This is only sexist if you can say that the same publisher is happy to print porn showing female genitals; otherwise it's just a generic anti-porn policy. To me, their statement that female staff might be offended makes so little sense in this context that it sounds like a boilerplate "we don't print porn" response.

Many publishing companies simply don't want their name associated with porn for any sex/gender; perhaps this company is simply one of them? The magazine's own site confirms that several other companies are more than happy to take their business, they just can't offer the same discount as the first.

The complaint about not getting them into WHSmith and Borders seems equally invalid. As the quote on their blog says, the problems start when pictures get "more explicit" and involve "arousal and touching". The "lads' mags" in WHSmiths et al. (FHM, Nuts, etc) are limited to topless pictures; female genitals aren't shown. To see genitals, unambiguous arousal and masturbation, you'd have to buy sealed "top-shelf" magazines from other places, most often licensed sex shops.

It does seem unfair that guys get to look at boobs while girls just get to look at pecs, but it doesn't seem fair to complain that pictures of aroused male genitals can't be sold in a place where pictures of aroused female genitals can't be sold either.

If someone can show that the same printer is happy to print pictures of aroused female genitals or that WHSmith sells these pictures, I'll happily withdraw my comment. But in the meantime this looks a lot like the magazine exploiting a setback to get a lot of thin-skinned people crying "sexism!" and painting their magazine as some sort of feminist crusade.

FWIW I'm male and have no problem with this. I can look at porn and, yes, objectify and project fantasy onto the women in porn, without similarly objectifying women in real life. You know, because I'm normal. So I have no problem with women doing the same thing, and I trust them to know the difference between fantasy and real life.
posted by metaBugs at 7:16 AM on August 14, 2009 [5 favorites]

It does seem unfair that guys get to look at boobs while girls just get to look at pecs, but it doesn't seem fair to complain that pictures of aroused male genitals can't be sold in a place where pictures of aroused female genitals can't be sold either.

And by this you mean: FHM and Maxim don't show Vaginas? Because these magazines do show aroused women's faces and hard nipples, the only two visual indicators of arousal in women. Our vaginas don't look much different when they're aroused, unless you get really freaking close. As for men, your big fat hard on is pretty much the only indicator we ladies have that you are aroused.

I also don't understand what all hehe, snark, snark is about. Their first issue has an article about atheist mommy parenting for crying out loud. That's an under-served market if I ever heard of one.

Honestly, their stance on feminism seems designed to not scare away a lot of women who've been brainwashed to think feminism=bad or feminism=anti-men. Because this magazine is definitely not anti-men. It also doesn't seem as anti-woman as say, Cosmopolitan. Sure, it isn't Bitch/Bust, but it isn't trying to be.

I, for one, welcome our new hot man displaying, interesting article writing overlords.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 7:57 AM on August 14, 2009 [3 favorites]

Women pay for porn? How weird. They must think women, as a group, are stupid when it comes to technology.
posted by Goofyy at 8:03 AM on August 14, 2009

The porn available for free on the internet usually doesn't include pictures of men like this. And if I am wrong, please, please prove me wrong.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 8:10 AM on August 14, 2009

Women pay for porn? How weird. They must think women, as a group, are stupid when it comes to technology.

Goofyy, the porn widely available for free on the internet is often very far from appealing to women. Trust me. I've checked.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:11 AM on August 14, 2009 [3 favorites]

Nice title work.
posted by resiny at 8:48 AM on August 14, 2009

metaBugs: I see a big and obvious problem with treating male genitals as photographically equivalent to female genitals. For many women, you're not going to see a clitoris, labia, or lubrication without a full-on enlarged crotch-shot, and with human diversity being what it is, it's hard to distinguish the aroused and engorged from the naturally well-endowed (it's sometimes difficult to tell on men as well). In contrast, it's pretty hard to do full nude photography with a male subject sans penis, without a lot of arbitrary posing or Austin Powers-esque props.

Photographers of women as the subjects of cheesecake (such as FHM, Playboy, and Maxim) certainly use alternative visual signifiers of arousal that don't depend on the crotch-shot. And it seems like a pretty silly double-standard that you can have Rachel Ray give symbolic head to a strawberry in your mag but you can't have a semi-erect schlong.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:56 AM on August 14, 2009

I don't get the hate. Seems like an interesting attempt to cater to an under-served market.

Yeah, maybe they're guilty of trying a bit too hard, or engaging in some fairly unsexy navel-gazing, and I do question the sanity of someone trying to start up a mass-market magazine when a lot of magazines are in dire straights right now, but I'll wish 'em luck just the same.

Not my cup of tea, but then again neither's Maxim. Doesn't mean I don't think it has a right to exist, if they can find a market.

Any printer that won't print cock---assuming they're willing to print nips-and-lips for a men's skin mag---is a disgusting hypocrite and should be taken to task for their double standard. If they were using a printer that was used to nothing but runs of Family Circle or Elle (or other "women's" magazines), maybe their objection is just a flat 'no nudity' one: that would make them silly prudes, but not hypocrites. Tough to say without knowing the rest of the story there.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:04 AM on August 14, 2009

phrontist: Can you imagine playboy saying something like this?

I don't know what to make of these women seeing the need to employ academic research to compile masturbatory material.

Actually, some of the very sleaziest porn mags from the 70s and 80s often opened with a page of pseudo-intellectual justification from a "doctor". I could never figure out whether that was intended for the purchaser, the sales agent, or the person who finds the magazine under a mattress.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:05 AM on August 14, 2009

stinkycheese: Well, once upon a time, a magazine had to show its artistic, political, or educational merit to avoid getting dinged by obscenity laws.

But it really strikes me as a no-win situation. The common wisdom is that women just are not interested in nudie-pictures, at least not enough to make a viable market. So Filament is in a no-win position here. If they just publish, they will be accused of offering an unnecessary and unwanted product. If they justify their existence with market research, they are taking it too seriously.

Not my cup of tea, but the hatred here is a bit extreme.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:12 AM on August 14, 2009

I'm going to have to 2nd metaBugs on the printing.

Think of the worst most pervy thing you can. Somewhere someone has put it in a magazine. Far more disturbing than a single turgid member for all to see.

They probably are going to a printer of regular ol magazines and when they got turned down they realized they had struck gold. Or, even more interesting, they found the stuffiest printer they could knowing they would be turned down.

So, the printer brouhaha is, to me, 100% publicity stunt. The rest of it I am OK with, prints up what the womens want.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 9:13 AM on August 14, 2009

And by this you mean: FHM and Maxim don't show Vaginas? Because these magazines do show aroused women's faces and hard nipples, the only two visual indicators of arousal in women. Our vaginas don't look much different when they're aroused, unless you get really freaking close. As for men, your big fat hard on is pretty much the only indicator we ladies have that you are aroused.

That's a fair point, although I'd point out that guys can also have erect nipples and daft facial expressions. Maybe my point works better if I skip mention of arousal. From their blog (SFW):

The big chains such as WH Smith, Borders etc do not even carry soft pronographic [sic] titles where arousal and touching are not allowed, the only arousal pictures you have are in hardcore magazines that have to be sold in licenced premises.

My understanding (based on an interview with the editor of somewhat disgusting British "newspaper" The Sport) is that showing genitals is what legally pushes you over the line into pornography. The chains mentioned don't sell magazines with female genetalia, so they won't sell male either. Here I should stress that I haven't been in a WHSmith for months; if I'm wrong and they do sell this stuff, then I'll agree with you that it's a sexist policy.

Showing genitals and suggesting that they're aroused and/or involved in a sex act (masturbation, actual sex, etc) pushes you into "hard" porn which, IIRC, can only be sold in a licensed shop. So I can understand that this creates even more problems for the printers and distributers. Again; IANAL so if someone can point to a source contradicting me, please do so and I'll change my tune.

KirkJobSluder - I think genitals:genitals is a fair comparison. The magazines I used to read in my late teens (mostly FHM) simply didn't do crotch shots. There was always something in the way, be it underwear, parts of the body or various props. From peering over people's shoulders in the Tube, I get the impression that this is still the case in newer magazines. I've always assumed this is to avoid being classed as pornography. From the magazine pages that an old flatmate used to stick up in university, magazines aimed at gay men use the same tricks with aplomb.

And it seems like a pretty silly double-standard that you can have Rachel Ray give symbolic head to a strawberry in your mag but you can't have a semi-erect schlong.
I don't think that's a fair comparison. Magazines for gay men already have guys looking turned on and giving symbolic head to all manner of things, and it's fine because it doesn't cross into the "pornography" laws. But the magazines I've seen on sale in WHSmith etc. wouldn't show a pic of Rachel Ray's crotch, because that does cross the line.
posted by metaBugs at 9:21 AM on August 14, 2009

metaBugs: The whole point is that particular definition of pornography is problematic because of the differences in male and female anatomy. Michelangelo's David is pornography, Cabanel's Venus is not.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:32 AM on August 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Or perhaps more to the point, Trainspotting and The Pillow Book are pornography by that definition, and Playboy is not.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:35 AM on August 14, 2009

KirkJobSluder - Ah, I misunderstood you. Yes it's a weird definition and I could've remembered it incorrectly, but I think that's how it's defined for British publishers/printers. Which is arguably sexist. If it is sexist, then whether the shop chains are sexist for adhering to a sexist law is a discussion that I'll leave to other people. But I still think WHSmiths' apparent policy of "don't show women's crotches and don't show men's crotches" is basically fair.
posted by metaBugs at 9:45 AM on August 14, 2009

This magazine will choke on its own importance. Just show us the cute guys already, damn.

(or maybe it will choke on a bucket of cocks. it would be apropos, you must admit....)
posted by iconomy at 9:45 AM on August 14, 2009

Ok, this is going to sound really, really weird, especially given my earlier rant above, but here goes...I didn't realize that Filament was positioning itself as a skinmag. No seriously, I approached this whole thing as them trying to be a mainstream alternative to fashion mags. Maybe it was their intellectualizing of everything, their 'scientific study', etc. but I thought, "Well, this is a really bad idea. And no wonder they can't get a penis pic in it."

Now, reading others' comments and having a sort of a-ha moment, I still think this mag is a really bad idea, for the reasons I wrote above, but I'm approaching it all from a different direction now. Of course they should be able to print penises, free press blahblahblah, but I think they should ditch their high-art, intellectualized stance, their science approach, and just own whatever it is they want to print. In other words, I'm a big fan of porn, but not in this pretentious, faux female gaze, ambiguous form. And I still think its sexist/misguided, but for slightly different reasons than before.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:00 AM on August 14, 2009

Um...has it really taken this long for someone to point out that Filament will be, in the words of SNL's Weekend Update, "the magazine for women, read by gay men"?

Like how Queer As Folk was a show for gay men, watched by women?
posted by fatehunter at 10:06 AM on August 14, 2009

Dammit!
posted by The ____ of Justice at 2:00 AM on August 14

If it's that huuuuuge a turn-on, at least the reluctance make it hotter when it happens, maybe!

I think it's a bit weird to say that women with aroused faces = men's cocks, or women's breasts = men's aroused cocks. Like a man's body without a crotch shot isn't capable of producing the same reaction in women that a woman's body does in a guy. It's also weird as a general rule coz half the time we want to classify breasts as sexual organs (touching a boob is different from touching an elbow, flashing someone is different from showing them your face) and half the time (as in when we want people to be able to walk around topless) we desexualize them. I do get that a man's body in our culture is so non-sexual though--ie men walking around in just shorts or whatever is not the same as a woman walking around topless--that going for that extra kick requires more than 1:1 mapping between organs.

Secret Life of Gravy, would it be okay by you if instead of straight/gay the filters were "men/women/both"? The Erotica Cover Watch rant on the matter kinda overdoes it for me. This idea that I should have no problem filtering out hawt men in sexual situations coz otherwise I'm some wilting lily. Come on. (And they follow this by complaining that straight women don't get a filter! I guess they're wilting lilies about women's bodies.) Call me the victim of cultural fascism or whatever but I just don't wanna! I even dislike it when the camera fixates on the cock in straight porn. And close-up cumshots make me gag. Wait, let me rephrase that.
posted by Non Prosequitur at 11:51 AM on August 14, 2009

I recently discovered Bust, and quickly subscribed. I'm not sure if Filament is trying to capture the same market (pro-women, pro-feminine, intelligent and sexually open) or if Filament is more "hot dudes for the ladies". I think Filament isn't nearly as sophisticated, well executed or well designed, but for crying out loud, they've had 1 issue! I recently worked with a magazine start-up and I can tell you, that the first issue is like the first pancake.

I think the best bit from those links is this paragraph from the Guardian:

"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."
posted by fontophilic at 11:55 AM on August 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

giving you gorgeous boys the way you like to see them.

Sorry Filament, but you will have to first pry my Dieux du Stade calendar from MY COLD DEAD HANDS.
posted by elizardbits at 12:45 PM on August 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Non Prosequitur: I think it's a bit weird to say that women with aroused faces = men's cocks, or women's breasts = men's aroused cocks.

I'm not saying they are equal. I'm pointing out two problems with treating male genitalia as equivalent to female genitalia in porn, erotica, art, or whatever.

First, there are anatomical differences that make the penis and scrotum much more visible than the clitoris and labia. Hiding the former and exposing the later in photography involves awkward and unnatural positioning of the subject and camera. The "no genitals" rule puts constraints on people working with male models that doesn't apply to Playboy. The sad fact is, the no-penis rule means that most times when we have nude male characters on screen, it's only slightly less ludicrous than the Austin Powers II opening credits.

Secondly, if the whole issue centers on sexuality and prurient interest (more reliable markers of porn than body parts), people working with female models have a rich tradition of signifiers they can use without ever "showing pink." And in fact, quite a bit of cheesecake and traditional porn relied on hinting that the viewer was just about to get a glimpse. The idea that a penis is automatically smuttier than a model imitating oral sex is simple nonsense.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:19 PM on August 14, 2009

Far more disturbing than a single turgid member for all to see.

Not sure what you're getting at here - I think of Turgid Dahlia as one of our funnier members, not disturbing.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:53 PM on August 14, 2009

Like how Queer As Folk was a show for gay men, watched by women?

Or, vice versa, The L Word.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:54 PM on August 14, 2009

I had a pack of playing cards that featured men with erections.

On one of them a grinning chappie was holding a piece of cardboard with a large circle cut out of the middle. You can guess what was poking thru the circle.

Strange, compelling, baffling, humorous. I could not look away.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:58 PM on August 14, 2009