Sexy Magazines: Burning Angel, Jacques, Ligerbeat, and Filament, bringing sexy back to print

August 31, 2:26 PMSex & Relationships ExaminerSarah Estrella

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It might seem like a strange time to start up a new print magazine given the state of the economy and the near-total digital takeover – particularly in the sexy content realm – but several new hip, sexy upstarts are out to buck the trend anyway: 

I've written previously about the launch of Burning Angel Magazine, the new print arm of Joanna Angel's alt-porn empire. Now three more new mags are also out to bring sexy back to print: Brooklyn-based Jacques and Ligerbeat, and London-based Filament. I'm recommending you check out all three (all links NSFW, to varying degrees).

To get a taste of what the new generation of sexy magazines has to offer, start with Jacques: ($9 if you can find it at a newsstand, but go ahead and subscribe to the quartlerly mag for $22).

Jacques is edited by Danielle Luft, with ethereal creative direction and design by Donald Beck and Kate Broydo, and has an arty, retro feel: Everything is shot exclusively on film, sans airbrushing: If you're going to start a print mag in this day and age, might as well do it old-school style, right?

Published quarterly, Jacques celebrates a return to the origins of the pulp title; edgy opinion, arousing interviews and fiery fiction blended with unparalleled pictorials illustrating the real beauty of real women.

For the sake of contrast, go ahead and subscribe to Ligerbeat too: The vibrantly-colored by-women-for-women mag from some of the same people responsible for the feminist magazine Bust pays tribute to 80s-era Tiger Beat Magazine in name and design – imagine Tiger Beat, but full of more boy bits than boy bands – and boasts "All the dicks that's fit to print." The website isn't much – they must really be out to show they can make it as a print mag first and foremost – so check out this crazy interview the Ligerbeat crew did with Vice Magazine for a sense of where they're coming from: Essentially, they're sex-crazed girls objectifying boys in the name of turning the table. Hilarious good fun, tongue planted firmly in cheek, but full of what certain girls are after all the same (full-frontal naked hipster boys, that is).

Ligerbeat is a porn magazine made for and by women who love the d and know that there is nothing sexier than humor

If you prefer your naked boys in a different light, try Filament, a more academic female gaze magazine, this one out of London and attempting to take a research-based and feminist approach to giving women what they want: The 2nd issue is out this month. Don't let the dry marketing on the website turn you off:

The assumption that women and men are chalk and cheese is perhaps what led erotic image aimed at women to be so unappealing to women in the past. Erotic images for men are almost always shot in colour and in recognisable locations, and the models are usually looking at the camera. Meanwhile, supposedly erotic images for women are usually in black and white, shot on a plain studio backgrounds and often, the model’s whole head is out of frame. There was never any evidence to suggest women liked that kind of thing; it arose from the assumption that male and female erotic tastes were oppositional, which is wrong.