Sexy Books and Magazine News

On November 24, some of  biggest names in the British adult industry and fans alike braved the hateful verbal abuse from an Object picket to attend the 2nd annual Paul Raymond Awards held at London's Spearmint Rhino gentlemen's club.

The show was hosted by TV personality Luisa Zissman and top comedian Russell Kane and the winners were:

• Paul Raymond Girl of the Year: Lexi Lowe
• Female Performer of the Year: Samantha Bentley
• Male Performer of the Year: Demetri XXX
• Newcomer of the Year: Carla Mai
• MILF of the Year: Rebecca More
• Adult Film of the Year: Benefits Treat produced by PureXXX Films
• Adult Product of the Year: Fleshlight Flight
• Mayfair Cover Girl of the Year: Emma Green
• Club International Cover Girl of the Year: Sophia Knight
• Escort Magazine Cover Girl of the Year: Brook Logan
• Photographer of the Year: Holly Randall
• PaulRaymond.xxx Fan Favourite: Jess West
• PRP Wife/Girlfriend of the Year: Sally from South London
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Steve Colby
• Editors Choice Award: Danielle Maye & Jenny Laird

According to a press release from the moral campaigners of Child Eyes:

Minister for Crime Creation, Norman Baker MP (a not so Liberal Democrat), has confirmed that supermarkets who display magazines and newspapers with sexualized front covers at child height are not observing current legislation in relation to the Indecent Displays Act 1981.

Baker said in a letter to Child Eyes founders:

Child Eyes' concerns about publications with inappropriate or indecent images or text are fully understood and I believe the problem lies with the retailers, not the publishers.

I am grateful to the work of Child Eyes and I am particularly struck by the difficulties and resistance parents have been experiencing when seeking the cooperation of supermarkets who are often not observing current legislation.

Minister Baker has written to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, on Child Eyes' behalf and received a positive reply. David Cameron referred Minister Baker to the Bailey Review into the sexualisation of children, Letting Children Be Children (commissioned in 2012), which made a series of recommendations that shops and supermarkets should ensure that magazines and newspapers with sexualised images on their covers are not in easy sight of children .

Minister Baker said that it is vital that a robust approach to promoting the self-regulation is in place and that the Indecent Displays Act is able to provide for sufficient protection on matters raised by Child Eyes.

The leading men's magazine of the Nineties has rebranded as a glossy lifestyle title, with an agony aunt column from Julie Burchill, a nostalgia piece on analogue porn and an article on the 90's worst cocaine casualties .

Aaron Tinney, the new editor of Loaded, insists that it is not a Nineties nostalgia magazine , but he acknowledges that he is not sure that people in their early twenties buy magazines any more . So the title, given new life by Simian Publishing, is targeted at a demographic that stretches from 25 all the way to 55. It's a mix of a little bit of harking back to the Nineties but also appealing to a younger readership, Tinney says.

He says that the lads' mag tag doesn't sit right any more. Loaded is now a men's lifestyle magazine, the same as GQ and Esquire , he explains.

 

Porn veteran Larry Flynt is celebrating the 40th birthday of his X-rated magazine Hustler. He told AFP:

I'm the largest content provider in the world for adult material, (operating in) 60-70 countries and still growing.

While celebrating his magazine's four decades in print, he admits it is struggling, with circulation down from a peak of around three million during its heyday to a couple of hundred thousand today , according to a Hustler spokesman. Flynt added:

Publishing is not good .. for anybody in America because Internet is replacing print. We'll continue the magazine as long as it is profitable. Then we'll go online.

Hustler's website doesn't make much money either, competing with a tsunami of hardcore porn online which is often free, and made by amateurs. His business' future lies above all in TV porn channels and on-demand videos, but also in Hustler-themed sex accessory and clothing stores and casinos, which he is opening everywhere. In fact so much so that Flynt claimed;

We're having our best year this year.

The relaunched cover of Loaded reveals a distinct lack of cover girls. A spokesman at Simian Publishing, which took over Loaded late last year said:

Yes --- we're going to be far more discerning and sophisticated from now on,

There's one woman in the issue, actress Olympia Valance. The spokesman explained:

She's beautiful but she's fully clothed and it's a Q&A. We're going for substance. We've hired the feminist writer Julie Burchill as a columnist. We're thinking of having a gay column too.

Loaded changed hands after sales figures declined. In 2011 its circulation was less than a 10th of the 350,000 a decade earlier. The spokesman continued:

When the magazine launched in 1994 it was very much of its time but it had got to the point where it was just lowering the tone. We're not going to have any more lewd content. Mostly the change in content has come from our readers saying we'd lost touch with them.

Stuff magazine will also be moving away from traditional cover girl exteriors.

Stuff's editor-in-chief Will Findlater said:

Stuff was launched in 1996 at the peak of the lad mag era. The covers used to help our position on the newsstand but our research tells us this is no longer the case.

Hustler magazine, which began publication in July 1974, is celebrating its 40th anniversary with the launch of a new website, HustlerMagazine.com. Hustler founder and publisher Larry Flynt said:

HustlerMagazine.com offers a treasure trove of unique material from the HUSTLER vault. In addition to providing continually updated content, the site houses a digital archive encompassing every issue in the 40-year history of our magazine, including all of the sizzling pictorials, penetrating articles, in-depth interviews, amusing cartoons, insightful political commentary, scathing satire and thought-provoking features that have been our publication's trademark for two generations. In addition, we're offering classic and contemporary adult videos from the unmatched Hustler and VCA collections.

Lucy Pinder, a favourite of Nuts magazine, has helped bring the publication to a close by crying on the cover of its final issue.

Nuts launched in January 2004, with Nell McAndrew as its illustrious cover star. The final issue -- its 526th edition - went on sale yesterday.

The final editorial of Nuts suggested that readers should now support rival magazine, Zoo :

Our esteemed rival Zoo launched a week after us. It has been an interesting sparring partner over the last ten years, and we were actually quite fond of coming up against the old bastard. Dear reader, much as it pains us to say, may we suggest go and see what they're up to, because they could use the sales!

Feminist comments on the final issue seem somewhat contradictory. Kate Maltby in the Telegraph celebrates that Nuts has withdrawn its rather public depiction of male lust and that the inevitable recourse to more private and more porny internet delights is a good thing:

Feminists should celebrate: Nuts was never pornographic enough

Meanwhile April Peake of Cherwell argues that the very softcore and very controlled nature of lads' mags is probably preferable to the more porny delights of the interent:

Lads magazines have not disappeared, they've just moved

Rihanna shared a picture of her appearance on the cover of French magazine Lui, in which she appears in a hat and a pair of coral briefs. The image was shot by fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti.

However, nudity, partial nudity or sexually suggestive photographs are banned on Instagram and the social media platform temporarily closed her account until the picture was taken down. Instagram's censorship rules read:

If you wouldn't show the photo or video you are thinking about uploading to a child, or your boss, or your parents, you probably shouldn't share it on Instagram.

The same rule applies to your profile photo. Accounts found sharing nudity or mature content will be disabled and your access to Instagram may be discontinued.

Nuts, the weekly lad's mag that along with arch-rival Zoo shook up the men's magazine market a decade ago is to close.

IPC Media announced a 30-day consultation with the 25 staff who work on the Nuts magazine and Nuts.co.uk website about the closure. Paul Williams, managing director of IPC's Inspire division, said:

After 10 years at the top of its market, we have taken the difficult decision to propose the closure of Nuts and exit the young men's lifestyle sector.

Nuts launched in January 2004, and at the height of its popularity had an average weekly circulation of more than 300,000. By the end of 2013 this was down to 62,000 including digital subscriptions.

Covers were toned down in 2013 in response to genderist pressure and the Coop ended sales completely, but the magazine was already in decline, probably to do with vast amounts of porny treats available on the internet.

For the past 16 years, John Stagliano has made time in his busy schedule to produce not only his own movies but also Buttman Magazine.

Now he's moving on to other projects, with the result that the current issue of Buttman Magazine will be the last. Evil Angel Operations Manager Lissa Baren said:

John [Stagliano] chooses all of the layouts for the magazine. ... It's just very labor intensive for him because he's got to get all the production stills from all the directors and he goes through everything and figures out what he wants to use. ... But it was a labor of love---he really, really loved doing it and that's why even in the last six, seven years, when a lot of the brick-and-mortar bookstores started closing down and we weren't doing the circulation that we had been doing, he still continued wanting to do it. And it was a good promotional vehicle for Evil Angel in general.

He just couldn't make enough time to fit everything in, so he decided that this first issue of this year was going to be the last issue. And he's very sad about it.