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That is, getting excited between the pages of a magazine
Until a decade ago the world was full of them. Patinated or not, beautiful or not, but all exciting, all to be kept hidden among the clothes in a drawer or under the mattress, all to be pulled out when needed, accompanied by that thrill of shame, excitement and fear of being discovered, or by spin among friends in the first erotic adolescent grins.
Almost the exclusive prerogative of the male sex, those of erotic magazines it's a world that made porn history. Only minimally supplanted by VHS, but devastated by the prêt-à-porter porn of the internet galaxy, the lustful sector of the erotic magazine was born immediately after the First World War and was definitively cleared by that genius of Hugh Hefner who in the 1950s last century with his "Playboy" becomes the progenitor of the genre, so much so that it survives to the present day. In the middle is history with a capital S: there are gender struggles and the sexual revolution, aggressive marketing and communication that, chameleonic, changes skin according to the era. But above all there is the technology that overturns everything in twenty years, giving us entire worlds of porn, from PornHub to YouPorn via XNXX, but taking away him, the porn magazine to hide from our mother.
The world of indiemags welcomes its bevy of magazines all dedicated to eroticism. With photographs halfway between art and fashion, magazines like Carnal, Extra Extra, Fluffer and others you can find WHO, redefine the boundaries of erotic publication and excite all the senses, starting from the trained eye in search of beauty.
One of the most interesting projects in this sense is Bones, onomatopoeic transposition of one of the most classic moans emitted between the sheets, and among its pages soaked in fluorescent ink, pushy but sensual photos and psychedelic textures, there is something to get lost in sighs. "In each issue a dirty story from worlds that we hope really exist and the photos taken by someone you would like to know you", reads the back cover of the three issues published so far. We chatted with its founder, Alice Sconajenghi, to find out how it came to her mind, in an era in which the internet has sent the publishing and author porn sectors into crisis, to create an erotic fanzine. .
Alice, first of all we would like from you a straightforward definition of Ossì?
Ossì is a well done porn magazine, that was the intention.
Why was Ossì born?
I don't know if it is understood by you too, but for us girls of the 90s the world of porn magazines was not accessible, it was something you barely crossed paths with, perhaps secretly in the park with friends, but you could not own. Here, I wanted to have one, but even if I wanted there was no way unless someone was able to steal it from the older brothers. However, something truly distant remained, not made for us, forbidden. Growing up, since these blessed porn magazines so desired are no longer on newsstands, I decided to create one myself. Then it must be said that I have always liked erotic fiction, on which I also did my graduation thesis, and I am sorry to see it relegated to the romance novel that often adopts a terrible, stereotyped and not at all exciting language. Behind Ossì there is first of all a literary dignity, no "precious nectar" and vigorous member "to the fifty shades so to speak.
Each issue of Ossì contains a story, author's photos, artwork and a playlist to enrich the whole. How do you choose photos and stories?That's right, in each issue there is a story that we commission from a writer or a writer who does not deal with this genre, who we ask to experiment with porn. Starting from the story we are looking for photos and a photographer who seems to us more in line with the story, even if the photos do not have a didactic relationship with the text, that is, they do not describe the story, but have a life of their own. Then there are the artworks made with archive photos by our art director Francesca Pignataro. We are openly inspired by the porn magazines of the 70s which, by rummaging through the archives, we found to be really super pop, ironic and well done.
Ossì is not a simple magazine. With its somewhat underground style, offset printing, the strong smell of ink, it is so aesthetically beautiful and engaging on a sensorial level that it elevates itself to an object of art and a collection. In short, the content almost takes a back seat. Do you believe that this way of publishing, far from rotogravure and commercial magazines, can bring new life to the sector?
This care and attention is certainly the way to save valid content from the sea magnum of the internet in which all the contents are leveled and flattened. Paper is almost a raft on which you take those things that deserve to be saved up. I don't know if it will save publishing, but it is certainly a good path.