"The guys actually jerked off, but I think the girls mostly faked." Talking shop with Adult magazine editor Sarah Nicole Prickett is stimulating, to say the least. Recently launched, the contemporary erotic literary magazine is "by women, but not necessarily for women. It's just not for men." Born out of a discontented winter fueled by wine, porn and Netflix (amen!) Prickett set about creating a smart rag you can go to bed with.
Published by Paper contributor Noah Wunsch and designed by Berkeley Poole, Adult, as its editor's note in the inaugural issue declares, strives for "a better, more intelligent age." Going for the literary punch that was '60s-era Playboy, but with a decidedly more feminist approach, Issue One features a retrospective of Erica Jong's trailblazing novel on female desire Fear of Flying, a piece on sex toys by Stephanie LaCava and a profile of director Deborah Kampmeier, alongside poetry, short fiction, personal essays and, yes, porn. The masturbation photos in question are from a feature entitled "Auto Erotic," which starkly depicts attractive young things getting off in their bedrooms.
Publishing a new print magazine when most are dying is an ambitious move, but one easily made. "Over the course of working on it, all this stuff came out about NSA surveillance and Google Glass, and these major developments made me think again about all the time I spend on the Internet. It made me feel sort of unsafe. Everything felt too naked, too transparent, and I wanted to take it back to this private, pleasurable place," says Prickett.
This being 2013, there is also an Adult website, which features a literary erotic writing component surpassing the standard set by E L James ("It's not sexy to not have good syntax," says Prickett.), and a second issue is on the docket for spring. Boobs are great, but naturally we wanted to know if we will ever see any penises gracing Adult. "That's the dream," says Prickett. Indeed.
Adult magazine is available on Artbook.com
