Over the past few weeks I’ve been in contact with Suraya Singh who is the editor of the newly launched Filament magazine for women. She’s been on a PR blitz that’s seen her receive excellent coverage in mainstream media and across the web.
When I first found out about the magazine I must admit to being a little skeptical about its chances, mainly because it’s a print magazine. Already it has encountered a number of difficulties from printers and distributors because of the magazine’s cover and content. In this interview, Suraya reveals her reasons behind that particular decision.
I was happy to receive a copy of the first edition and I’m very impressed with the whole concept, partly because I can see it’s a revival of the ideas and philosophy of my old favourite mag/employer, Australian Women’s Forum. I applaud the fact that Filament doesn’t want to make you feel bad about your body by featuring diets or fashion or cosmetics. It’s great to see something that’s about stimulating the mind – and the nether regions! The photography is artistic and moody. Some of the guys were definitely not to my taste but that’s just me.
So without further rambling, here’s the interview:
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What do you hope to achieve with the mag?
When I stopped reading mainstream women’s magazines, I stopped having body image issues, but why should an entire media format be off limits to women who want to feel good about themselves? I want Filament to provide a genuine alternative for women – to be sexual without your own body necessarily being the subject of that.
I also hope that Filament will present a genuine challenge to the magazine industry, and the erotic market generally. Women have been put in the ‘too hard’ basket for too long, and the market needs to start taking catering to the female gaze seriously. We’re not gay men in skirts, nor are we merely the wives and girlfriends of the heterosexual male market – erotica producers who want to cater to women have to start by seeing us as women.
Why did you choose print?
I wanted to offer a true alternative to other women’s magazine, and offering the hot shirtless men that were literally in amongst challenging articles was important – like 70s Playboy, but for women. If Filament was just photography, or the articles were shorter and chattier, we almost certainly would have gone for web.
What problems have you encountered getting the mag up and running?
We did everything on a budget of basically zero, so everyone involved is giving their time for free, which has its own problems – you can’t pay people to get it done within a particular timeframe, nor can you pay for photographic environments or anything like that. The fact that Filament turned out better quality than a lot of fully professional publications is a huge credit to everyone who gave their time.
Photographing for the female gaze is uniquely difficult because we’re really inventing a new style of photography – there’s no one’s work you can look at and say that’s a perfect example. Getting photography that works on this score is always a challenge.
Distributors have also been really negative about our choice to have a man on the cover. Their view is that women don’t buy magazines with men on the cover. This may be true, but how are things ever going to change if those magazines are never distributed? So right now we’re selling Filament entirely through our website. At the end of each day I print out our order list and put them all in envelopes and send them out, which I quite enjoy actually.
Were you surprised by anything in your online research?
Most of the research we use is published academic research, but we do supplement the finer detail with primary research via our livejournal community. That type of research is pretty unscientific, but it does give us a steer in terms of what to try. For example, glasses on men got an extremely high approval rating – almost 90% of the women we asked thought men are hotter in glasses. Bondage, visually speaking, seems to polarises women – we either love it or hate it.
How do you approach your models?
These days they are approaching us more and more, but I still go up to men that I see in the park or in clubs with a Filament postcard – I suggest they check out the details on the site and if they’re keen, email me some snaps. It’s great now that it’s summer (in the northern hemisphere) as there are more lads around with their tops off. If anyone reading this knows any hot men who they’d like to see in Filament, tell them to get in touch!
What’s your vision for women’s porn?
I’d like to see all those who are producing erotic image of men for women working together to share ideas and cater effectively to different niches. One of the ‘problems’ with the heterosexual women’s erotica market is that women’s tastes are so incredibly diverse – but so are men’s: I think we should share and specialise – I don’t think there’s anything to be gained in trying to compete. I love being able to direct someone who wants something Filament can’t offer to a publication or website that offers that. So far I’ve had great conversations with Syzygy Mag, Shot with Desire and now For the Girlsabout what we do. Long may it continue.
You can get Filament here. Pic of Suraya from the Filament site.