As a literary writer who dabbles in erotica, I was intrigued when I encountered Adult Magazine, “a magazine of contemporary erotics and experiences,” on a Dazed list of next generation lit mags. Although the Amazon reviews of Adult claimed that the stories were boring and the images were poor quality, I decided to take a chance and purchase the issue. Sex writing, or rather good, interesting, tasteful sex writing, is incredibly difficult to come by. Sure, there are plentiful cock and cunt confessionals, naughty-girl stories, and lesbian massage parlor fantasies on the Internet for cheap thrills, but trying to find “literary” erotica is like trying to find a travel-sized bottle of lube in a pile of too-large dildos. Why would anyone want to read sex stories for literary value? Maybe it’s a mind-body thing.
The cover of Adult, Issue One: A World in Us, features a youngish freckle-faced woman shading her eyes with her hands and gazing suggestively at the reader (a literal response to “the male gaze”?) The image is somewhat jailbait-ish, but tasteful. She wears no makeup and her hair hangs naturally, not sprayed or poofed. Just a hint of teeth showing through her parted lips--inviting and a little naughty. There is a vintage look to the cover that matches the magazine and website, mostly coming from the dominance of sepia and small-breasted women.
In a letter “From the Desk of Adult,” the editor immediately sets the tone: “If you bought this magazine, thank you. If you stole this magazine, thank you. To inspire even a small or stupid risk is itself the best reward.” In addition to being rebellious, the vibe is intelligent and political. “As teens we never read Foucault, so we didn’t know we were burning with lack, and we weren’t,” the editor states. The line that best captures Adult is the editors’ wish to “have sex be right there in our lives. All the time hot and healthy and messy--like breakfast, even if breakfast is a drink at 5 p.m.” The language and imagery, so far, evoke an intelligent and sexual feminist-hipster rebellion. Not like your typical porn, but definitely just as dirty as it is smart. “Edgy” in all likelihood is what these folks are going for, and in this reader’s opinion, they nailed it.
The contributors’ page is formatted like a page of personal ads, with fun headings like “Humans Seeking Same” and “International Playa Haters,” prefaced with the statement, “We respect our contributors too much to sleep with them. Well, most of them.” The contributors, along with the editorial board are predominantly female, which creates a fun and safe environment to explore sexuality. Male-dominant porn and erotica are not always accessible for women and queer readers because of the rapey vibes and heteronormative themes. One contributor, Samantha Allen, is a self-proclaimed “Lanky blonde transsexual with a penchant for queer women and buffalo wings, both hot and hotter together.” Queer-friendly, and queer fun.
Adult contains lots of playful features like the personals page, including “Open Case” which explores “how to send a dick pic only the recipient will see” along with some tips on packing “essentials” (read: dildos) discretely. “Masticating” features an erotic recipe for an oyster omelette because “you can’t spell ‘Breakfast’ without ‘Breast.’” On the opposite side of the spectrum are an array of political commentary pieces, often with a satirical bite like in the “Communism” feature on police brutality, which ostensibly instructs the reader in safe and effective cop-watching: “In times of crisis, the only antidote to watchedness is SOUSVEILLANCE: when the many (YOU!) watch the few (COPS!).” Another highly political exploration came from Joe Coscarelli, which borrows its title from the piece’s first line: “I’m not gay, but in Florida I’m a faggot” with the subtitle, “The Road to no Joy, Only Faith, in America’s Most American State.”
But who cares about the writing? Let’s get to the pictures, already, right? As promised by the Amazon reviewers, many of the images in Adult are a bit foggy. I wouldn’t call this “bad quality” though, because bad quality is unintentional. The obscurity of these images is intentional and aligned with the themes the images are exploring. For instance, one set of images reveals transsexual individuals in various stages of transition. The subjects of these photos are neither male nor female and the obscurity of the photos mirrors the ambiguity and androgyny of the models. The graininess of many of the photos also rebels against the overly airbrushed and filtered images seen in porn mags with big budgets. Many of these images depict relatively small-breasted women lying in wait for a lover, or masturbating in bed. Some of the women are curvy, if not voluptuous, but all are “natural” meaning not airbrushed, made-up, or pumped up (with silicone); there is one image that even hints at cellulite through the foggy, dreamy filter overlying what we see.
While most of these images depict women or trans individuals, there are a few randoms of bio-men thrown in. I’d say that these are the least successful images of this issue. One man’s hairy half-backside (the other half is still covered in boxer briefs) is depicted with negative erotic response from this reader. Ditto for the pic of the guy masturbating on the futon. Towards the end of the issue, there is one black and white of a man and woman standing before a mirror. The man’s head is just out of view, so all we see are his tastefully sculpted abs and his bright white Calvin Klein briefs, which display a gentle and pleasing bulge. This pic, I like. The rest of the guys, I wish I had never seen.
There are also many sensual illustrations. My favorite by Kathryn MacNaughton, is of two naked women, one olive skinned and black-haired, one fair and rubia, from the waist up. They are making out and embracing, their mouths melting and blending together, alluding to a painter blending colors on a canvas. Evocative, interesting, and yes, hot. So overall, I found the images to be interesting and sexy, particularly because of the natural aesthetic. My one suggestion would be to more carefully curate the guys.
Both prose and poetry are present in this issue. In most cases, the tone and sentiment match that of the editorial letter and the images: evocative, playful, rebellious. In “Cunt Ups” Dodie Bellamy opens with an admission that the inside of her cunt is “a bit sore” and that she is writing this piece “as a child, imagining prayer as merely silence.” Some typical themes and tropes here: a sore vagina (obviously from all the wild sex she’s been having) along with that controversial allusion to childhood sexuality (very Anais Nin.) There is also mention of riding a horse. What is most interesting about this piece is that genders and respective “equipment” blend together. One minute the narrator has a cunt, the next minute, her “cock is spewing apricot and purple clouds.” The poem is a sexual meditation on painter and subject. “Come back to my sea for your subject, my dear. So far your cock is too exhausted even to lift its brush.” In contrast to Bellamy’s sprawling, hyper-sexual language are John Trotta’s stories, which appear throughout the issue, tight and spare, with understated sexuality. In “Accents” and “Attempts” two one-paragraph flash pieces side-by-side on the page, Trotta provides vignettes that manage to be poetic while cutting to the heart of the matter--love and loss.
In a “Dick Lit” feature called “Dirty Books” we learn “before [the narrator] was a card-carrying homosexual, he was a library card-carrying homosexual.” What follows is a very meta, very funny essay told retrospectively about a twelve-year-old finding himself in the card catalog of his local library in 1979: “Homosexuality. There were exactly two cards there. I felt a mixed excitement and sadness. Excited these two were there, sad they were only two.” The author, Alexander Chee, provides an enlightening analysis of Penthouse and mainstream porn. “You may be thinking that Penthouse was marketed to heterosexuals and you are basically right, but there was a kink to them that I think spoke to kink in us all.” This line brought me back to childhood and the time me and my best friend, Fanny (yes, this was actually her name--not just making this up for the porn-allusion to Fanny Hill) stumbled upon her father’s poorly hidden porn mags in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. These mags depicted hairy, overly-mustached men, landing-strip beavers, and assholes that were shockingly dark. Our reaction was a childish mixture of horror and delight. How bad and fun these mags were! They made something stir deep inside of us.
This playful rebelliousness and kink is at the core of all good porn, and Adult captures that spirit and runs with it. This erotic literary mag is smart and sexy, while maintaining an enjoyable level of the dark and sardonic.