Saskia Vogel is a US-born author and translator who is also deputy editor of the newly-revived Erotic Review. This storied thirty-year-old British magazine – which has gone through several different iterations – has just been relaunched with a new progressive concept, a new thrice-yearly print format and a new leadership team. Its first issue, which has an impressively Berlin-heavy lineup, will launch at Lettrétage on April 22.
How did this print relaunch of the Erotic Review come about?
The magazine was started in the 1990s. Its original editor, Jamie Maclean, had pushed some really meaningful boundaries in terms of exhibiting erotic art – and it was very much driven by art prints. It ended up, under various guises, publishing basically anyone who’s anyone in the UK. One of our contributors described it as the premier erotic magazine in the West and I thought, actually, that’s maybe not wrong, because it has such a long history and such a buzzy contributor list. Eventually, when Jamie wanted to retire, he passed it off to Lucy Roeber, who had been writing for them.
It turned out that Lucy and I had a mutual friend, someone I’d met on a film set in LA twenty years ago – I was playing the role of ‘whore in background’. This friend said he wanted to introduce us, because he thought we might vibe. And Lucy just blew my mind with her vision and her energy. She’s pulled together an amazing team, notably the designers Studio Frith. We also have specific art curation for each issue – the first issue is by Fatos Ustek – which I think is really carrying on the magazine’s lineage of having strong roots in art. I just touched the physical magazine for the first time yesterday, and I thought, oh my god, this truly is a thing of beauty.
We still haven’t got to the point where sex as a topic is integrated with all the other aspects of life.
What are the new team’s goals for the magazine?
A previous editor, Rowan Pelling, once wrote that the original magazine’s taste was like “schoolboy smut”. And I think she was [editing] the magazine at a time when, like, horn-rimmed glasses and cupcakes feminism was a reference point. It’s a different era now! What we want is to capture some sense of where we are today in terms of erotic discourse and discourse about sex. I’ve personally been working, in some capacity, on the topic of sex since probably 2004, and I’ve watched a lot of things change – an increased presence of queerness in mainstream culture, for instance.
And I feel we’re at a really interesting moment, but we still haven’t got to the point where sex as a topic is integrated with all the other aspects of life. It’s still kept in its separate little area, you know, either as something shadowy or as something cheeky and novel. What really sold me on the project was the idea of treating the erotic as a lens through which to understand our shared humanity. So there definitely is playful, fun, chic erotica – but it’s also about treating the topic of sex with the kind of holistic, intellectual, artistic rigor as you would of any other topic.
And do you have any wildly unrealistic dreams for the magazine, five or 10 years down the road?
I would really like to see the magazine become profitable and self-sustaining. We also want to create a sense of community, while being a place that people look to for great writing on the erotic. And then, in a dream world, well, if discourse really were to shift – and if this magazine had successfully been part of that shift – then maybe the wildest dream could be that the magazine becomes obsolete? (Laughs). Because then the conversation we should be having about sex and the erotic would be happening all over the place, rather than in particular spaces: it would be something integrated with the rest of how we talk about and process the human experience.
Your debut issue – available online and in select magazine stores – has a lot of local talent: Vijay Khurana, Judy Moore, Rebecca Rukeyser and more. Is there a reason for the Berlin emphasis, beyond our city’s overperformance in both literature and eros?
I really like hearing from friends, when they come to visit Berlin and they reflect on how it feels to be here – they often say, ‘This is the queerest city in Europe’. And I think it is a place where sexual expression and sexual identity get explored in a lot of really dynamic ways. There’s a lot of freedom. Lucy and I are in London and Berlin, and we cast our net as far and wide as we could, but it was also a function of our networks and where we’re both coming from.
For instance, Jessica J. Lee’s story in the new issue: I’ve long been really interested in the topic of ecosexuality, so I just asked Jessica if she by any chance… and she was immediately like: “Wall moss.” And I was like, “Okay, yes!” (Laughs). Still, I don’t think it’s a coincidence in a cosmic sense that Berlin is the city I ended up in, having trod this thematic ground for the better part of two decades, nor that many of the people we wanted to hear from happened to be here as well.
What can we expect from the launch?
Oh my gosh, so many fun surprises. We are going to do a short programme of readings, and then it’s just going to be a lovely party. We want to bring everybody together – the magazine will be for sale – but we really just want to introduce the magazine to Berlin. I’m putting together a playlist; a bunch of our contributors will be there, not just from this issue but also from future issues. And it will be a really fun community-oriented night with a really interesting mix of people.
- For more information, visit ermagazine.com.
