Daily archives: August 5, 2009


The Female Gaze

From research we’ve learnt that what most women find erotic does not at all match what is typically thought of as an erotic image of a man designed for women. For example, on average, women prefer:

* men who are not muscle-bound
* men with more feminine face shapes
* men with attractive faces
* images that show the subject’s character and the environment he is in.

We also know that women’s tastes vary quite a lot, and we aim to cater to that variety too.

I should consider this for future erotic comickery, as I want to make stuff that works as well for women as it does for men. This is taken from the site of Filament magazine, which I learnt about through Warren Ellis’ blog about the problems they’re having with printers.

Explicit images of women are available at any newsagent, but Filament, the world’s only magazine featuring male pictorials designed for the female gaze, is finding itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to printing explicit images of men.

Filament only prints explicit images when these are of high photographic and erotic quality, and clearly designed for women – we won’t ever be putting hard cocks on every page. The problem is, all the printers that a small, independent magazine like Filament can afford have said they won’t print images of the male of the species in a state of obvious arousal. Reasons given include that printing these images may cause offence to ‘women’s groups’.

If they get enough pre-orders they’ll be able to take their magazine to a printer that does larger runs and is less squeamish. You can support them here.


How will the USA end? 2

Slate asked the Global Business Network to come up with scenarios for the end of the USA as it currently exists. With Sounds of Soldiers I’ve already put forward my version of the collapse scenario. I have no plans in the near future to examine any of the other possibilities, but I may come back to them in the future.

via io9