Pornographic magazine
Encyclopedia
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s that contain content of a sexual nature. Adult magazines are mainly aimed towards men, and in some parts of the world, many men's first sight of a naked woman has been in an adult magazine. The heterosexual variety typically contains photographs of attractive nude women, and sometimes sexual activities including oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
, sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
, and anal sex
Anal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
.
Similarly, gay pornography
Gay pornography
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual intercourse between men with the primary goal of sexual arousal in its audience. There is also a tradition, and continuing considerable output, of lesbian pornography....
typically contains photographs of attractive nude men, and various sexual activities. Pornographic magazines may contain either hardcore
Hardcore pornography
Hardcore pornography is a form of pornography that features explicit sexual acts. The term was coined in the second half of the 20th century to distinguish it from softcore pornography. It usually takes the form of photographs, often displayed in magazines or on the Internet, or films. It can also...
or softcore pornography. Softcore magazines do not show genitalia or penetration
Sexual penetration
Sexual penetration is a sexual activity that involves the entry into a bodily orifice, such as the vagina, anus or mouth, with a body part or an object....
, while hardcore magazines may.
They primarily serve to stimulate sexual arousal
Sexual arousal
Sexual arousal, or sexual excitement, is the arousal of sexual desire, during or in anticipation of sexual activity. Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are called erotic stimuli, or colloquially known as turn-ons. There are many potential stimuli, both physical or mental, which can cause...
, and are often used as an aid to masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
. Some magazines are general in their content, while others may be more specific and focus on a particular pornographic niche, part of the anatomy, or model characteristics. Examples include Asian Babes
Asian Babes
Asian Babes is a British pornographic magazine which features depictions of women of South Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai origin.The magazine was owned by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell publishing company until its sale in 2004 as part of a package of 45 titles to Remnant Media for a...
which focuses on Asian women, or Leg Show
Leg Show
Leg Show is an adult fetish magazine published in the United States which specialises in photographs of women in nylons, corsets, pantyhose, stockings and high heels. The magazine features pinup style photographs and articles geared towards dominant women...
which concentrates on women's legs. Well-known adult magazines include Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, Penthouse and Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
. Magazines may also carry articles on topics including cars, humour, science, computers, culture and politics.
History
History of erotic depictions
The history of erotic depictions includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, dramatic arts, music and writings that show scenes of a sexual nature throughout time. They have been created by nearly every civilisation, ancient and modern. Early cultures often associated the sexual act with...
. As the technology of communication has changed, each new technique, such as printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, motion picture
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s and computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, has been adapted to display and disseminate these depictions.
In 1880, halftone
Halftone
Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size, in shape or in spacing...
printing was used to reproduce photographs inexpensively for the first time. The invention of halftone printing took pornography and erotica in new directions at the beginning of the 20th century. The new printing processes allowed photographic images to be reproduced easily in black and white, whereas printers were previously limited to engravings, woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s and line cuts for illustrations. This was the first format that allowed pornography to become a mass market phenomena, it now being more affordable and more easily acquired than any previous form.
First appearing in France, the new magazines featured nude (often, burlesque
American burlesque
American Burlesque is a genre of variety show. Derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall and minstrel shows, burlesque shows in America became popular in the 1860s and evolved to feature ribald comedy and female striptease...
actresses were hired as models) and semi-nude photographs on the cover and throughout; while these would now be termed softcore
Softcore
Softcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. It is intended to tickle and arouse men and women. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic...
, they were quite shocking for the time. The publications soon either masqueraded as "art magazines" or publications celebrating the new cult of naturism
Naturism
Naturism or nudism is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism....
, with titles such as Photo Bits
Photo Bits
Photo Bits was a British penny weekly magazine published from 9 July 1898 until 9 December 1914. It is often referred to as the first pin-up magazine. It was mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses.- External links :* , cover image* , magforum...
, Body in Art, Figure Photography, Nude Living and Modern Art for Men. The British magazine Health & Efficiency (now H&E naturist, often known simply as "H&E") was first published in 1900, and began to include articles about naturism in the late 1920s. Gradually, this material came to dominate - particularly as other magazines were taken over and absorbed. At times in its post-WWII history, H&E has catered primarily to the soft-porn market.
Another early form of pornography were comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s known as Tijuana bible
Tijuana bible
Tijuana bibles were pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Their popularity peaked during the Great Depression era...
s that began appearing in the U.S. in the 1920s and lasted until the publishing of glossy colour men's magazines commenced. These were crude hand drawn scenes often using popular characters from cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s and culture.
In the 1940s, the word "pinup" was coined to describe pictures torn from men's magazines and calendars and "pinned up" on the wall by U.S. soldiers in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. While the '40s images focused mostly on legs, by the '50s, the emphasis shifted to breast
Breast
The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...
s. Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
and Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
were two of the most popular pinup model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
s. In the second half of the 20th century, pornography evolved into the men's magazines such as Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
and Modern Man of the 1950s. The decade saw the rise of the first mass-market pornographic magazines. In fact, the beginning of the modern men's glossy magazine (or girlie magazine) can be traced to the 1953 purchase by Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
of a photograph of Marilyn Monroe to use as the centerfold of his new magazine Playboy. Soon, this type of magazine was the primary medium in which pornography was consumed.
These magazines featured nude or semi-nude women, sometimes apparently masturbating, although their genitals or pubic hair
Pubic hair
Pubic hair is hair in the frontal genital area, the crotch, and sometimes at the top of the inside of the legs; these areas form the pubic region....
were not actually displayed. Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
, started by Bob Guccione
Bob Guccione
Bob Guccione was the founder and publisher of the adult magazine Penthouse. He resigned from his publisher position in November 2003.-Early life:...
in England in 1965, took a different approach. Women looked indirectly at the camera, as if they were going about their private idylls. This change of emphasis was influential in erotic depictions of women. Penthouse was also the first magazine to publish pictures that included pubic hair and full frontal nudity, both of which were considered beyond the bounds of the erotic and in the realm of pornography at the time. In the late 1960s, magazines began to move into more explicit displays often focusing on the buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
as standards of what could be legally depicted and what readers wanted to see changed.
By the 1970s magazines started to focus on the pubic area. Paul Raymond pioneered the UK adult magazine market when he launched Men Only
Men Only
Men Only is a British soft-core pornographic magazine published by Paul Raymond since 1971. However, the title goes back to 1935 when it was founded by C. Arthur Pearson Ltd as a pocket magazine . It set out its editorial stall in the first issue:'We don't want women readers. We won't have women...
in 1971, then Club International in 1972, and his company Paul Raymond Publications
Paul Raymond Publications
Paul Raymond Publications is a British men's softcore pornography publisher which releases ten pornographic magazine titles each month; Escort, Club International, Just Girls, Mayfair, Men Only, Men's World, Razzle, Swing Mag, Club DVD and Escort DVD.Paul Raymond had launched his first magazine,...
still dominates the British market today. Some researchers have detected increasingly violent images in magazines like Playboy and Penthouse over the course of the 70s, with them then returning to their more upscale style by the end of the decade. Sales of pornographic magazines in the U.S. have declined significantly since 1979, with a nearly 50% reduction in circulation between 1980 and 1989. The fact that the U.S. incidence of rape has increased over the same period has cast doubt on any correlation between magazine sales and sex crimes. Studies from the mid 80s to the early 90s nearly all confirmed that pornographic magazines contained significantly less violent imagery than pornographic films.
In the 1990s magazines began to feature harder material such as sexual penetration
Sexual penetration
Sexual penetration is a sexual activity that involves the entry into a bodily orifice, such as the vagina, anus or mouth, with a body part or an object....
, lesbianism and homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, group sex
Group sex
Group sex is sexual behavior involving more than two participants. Group sex can occur amongst people of all sexual orientations and genders...
, masturbation, and fetish
Sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
es in the more hard-core magazines such as Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
. In the late 90s and 2000s the market for pornographic magazines declined, as they were challenged by new "Lad mags" such as FHM
FHM
FHM, originally published as For Him Magazine, is an international monthly men's lifestyle magazine.- History :The magazine began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Him and changed its title to FHM in 1994 when Emap Consumer Media bought the magazine, although the full For...
and Loaded
Loaded (magazine)
Loaded, first published in 1994, is a British magazine for men that is considered to be the "original lads' mag". Its motto is "For men who should know better".-History:...
, which featured softcore photos. The availability of pornographic DVDs and above all internet pornography
Internet pornography
Internet pornography is pornography that is distributed by means of various sectors of the Internet, primarily via websites, peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups...
also caused a decline in sales. Many magazines now have their own websites which also show pornographic films. Despite falling sales, the top-selling U.S. adult magazines still maintain high circulations compared to most mainstream magazines, and are amongst the top-selling magazines of any type.
Common features
Several magazines feature photos of "ordinary" women submitted by readers, for example the Readers Wives sections of several British magazines, and Beaver HuntBeaver Hunt
Beaver Hunt was a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was an offshoot of Hustler magazines's longest running feature, "Beaver Hunt"...
. Many magazines also feature supposed stories of their reader's sexual exploits, many of which are actually written by the magazines writers. Many magazines contain a high number of advertisements for Phone sex lines, which provide them with an important source of revenue.
Production, distribution and retail
A successful magazine requires significant investment in production facilities and distribution networks. They require large printing presses and numerous specialized employees, such as graphic designers and typesetters. Today a new magazine start-up can cost as much as $20 million, and magazines are significantly more expensive to produce than pornographic films, and even more expensive compared to internet pornography.They are dependent on advertising revenue, which may force a magazine to tone down its content.
Pornographic magazines are often sold in convenience stores, newsagents and petrol stations. Some larger retail chains refuse to stock them.
See also
- Fetish magazineFetish magazineA fetish magazine is a type of magazine originating in the 1960s which is devoted to sexual fetishism. The content is generally aimed at being erotic rather than pornographic...
- List of pornographic magazines
- Glamour photographyGlamour photographyGlamour photography is a genre of photography whereby the subjects, usually female, are portrayed in a romantic or sexually alluring way. The subjects may be fully clothed or seminude, but glamour photography stops short of deliberately arousing the viewer and being pornographic photography.Glamour...
- Pubic WarsPubic WarsPubic Wars, a pun on the Punic Wars, is the name given to the rivalry between the pornographic magazines Playboy and Penthouse during the 1960s and 1970s. Each magazine strove to show just a little bit more than the other, without getting too crude. The term was coined by Playboy owner Hugh Hefner...
- History of erotic depictionsHistory of erotic depictionsThe history of erotic depictions includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, dramatic arts, music and writings that show scenes of a sexual nature throughout time. They have been created by nearly every civilisation, ancient and modern. Early cultures often associated the sexual act with...