Porn Mags - Still Sustainable?

[Deano!]

Does anyone here know how the circulation figures of mags like the UK's Men Only, Club, Mayfair etc and the US titles like Hustler, Swank, High Society, Genesis etc are going?

The internet has now been in place long enough and is widely available enough to have killed off the porn mag industry I would think. Yet magazines seem to be holding up and I'm wondering if things have stabilized by now.

By far the biggest reduction in porn titles came during the late seventies/early eighties when dozens and dozens of titles went under in a super-saturated market. Some of those mid-seventies mags were truly wild for the day.

[Dave Wells]

They are all virtually dead, have no budgets or very little money to buy sets in. And they are run by idiots. There was a survey done I believe by one company OK and the express result apparently was that ALL there 15 or so titles put together sold less in one month than Gardners World ! Just about sums it up really.

[Arginald Valleywater]

In my city there are far less porn mags around than before. Partly due to a lot of the independent newsagents being swallowed up by convenience store chains and also the internet. There are one or two newsagents who still sell HC stuff like High Society and Cheri but these are close to bedsit land or the truck parks!! As for the tame stuff I'd rather buy a copy of GQ or Loaded as it has flange and some decent reading matter.

[Deano!]

That's going to be a shame when they go under then. From what you say, they probably deserve to disappear now but it will still be sad to think it's come to this.


I remember about 15 years ago - when the net was not yet the threat it has become - wondering why Swank in particular had such shoddy print quality. Other mags in the same price range had far superior picture reproduction and I could never work out why Swank wouldn't change printers.

There was also a period in the late 90's/early 2000 when quite a few of the US mags in bought here in Oz had stupid black dots over any insertion bits or cum splatter. This wasn't our censorship but how they'd supplied from the US. I guess these were originally destined for states with strict rules about this.

And then, at the other end of the scale, the US version of Club had a few issues around 2001 with full juicy bits right on the front cover.

[belfast_birty]

Agreed.Even the PR organisation mags were sold,for not very much,after PR's demise.I was speaking to a well known photog this evening,telling me that the new owners of the PR publications,pay about ?300 for a set,with a short video!!!

[spunkie]

Say what you want but the local independant newsagent near to me has a top top literally creeking under the weight of girly magazines! That said the porn mag must be a dying enterprise. Its rather sad really as when I was growing up the top shelf held an almost mystic fascination! How I used to love looking up and seeing the glossy and colouful covers adorned with the teasing shots of sexy girls, not naked of course, but in their knickers or with their hair covering the nipples. Ocassionally you'd glance up and see your favourite model or page 3 girl on the cover..... or the words 'Joanne Guest reveals all inside' Oh great days! Then there was the thrill of having to buy the magazine, particularly if the assistant was an attractive female. Getting the magazine home and finally being able to have a proper 'read'...124 pages of smut, and there was always one girl in every issue that really did it for you! Would I like to swap those days for the 'free internet porn-everywhere-you-look' era we have now? Probably not but Im sure im not the only one who is sad to see the demise of the porn mag!

[Marino]

I have just a great deal with the new guys that have taken over PRO and they seem to have the wind in thier sails.

And I for one much prefer to sit wanking with a mag in my hand then on a computer.
Although I am pretty happy wanking anywhere.

[frankthring]

I must agree with Dave Wells.... the mag market is a dead duck.
This is sad. I, for one, find wanking around a hot computer staring
at a laptop image quite awful. Nothing beats a quality magazine, like
the old Clubs or High Society when you wanted a wank !!
The prices mags now want to pay make it impossible for the likes of
Harrison, Colby and Thomas to shoot just for print purposes. Of those
3 only Viv Thomas has a big website....
The stars and splats over hardcore images in mags like Cheri years ago
was usually for the Canadian market....Gold Star Publications, the main
British importers did not give a hoot where the mags came from so if a
wholesaler in the USA sent them a thousand Canadian issues instead of
American ones it hardly mattered so long as frustrated British punters
bought them.
And Swank was indeed always worse paper quality than the rest. This
was part of Maverty Publications, a really sleazy New York outfit who
never wasted a cent (their long key offices were a zillion miles removed
from High Society`s 29th floor skyscraper ones). Funnily enough, one of
the few mags holding its own is "Leg Show", a Maverty publication. It
is thinner than years ago and does not have the quality of a decade
past but it remains one of the main fetish publications in the world !

[Marino]

Okay Mr Wells a new business oportunity.

Classic Mag wank parties. no girls just a load of old great mags and plenty of tissues in a luxury flat.
And maybe on special nights we can get the super 8 out and mix it up with a touch of vhs.

[Deano!]

spunkie wrote:
> How I used to love looking
> up and seeing the glossy and colouful covers adorned with the
> teasing shots of sexy girls, not naked of course, but in their
> knickers or with their hair covering the nipples. Ocassionally
> you'd glance up and see your favourite model or page 3 girl on
> the cover..... or the words 'Joanne Guest reveals all inside'
> Oh great days! Then there was the thrill of having to buy the
> magazine, particularly if the assistant was an attractive
> female. Getting the magazine home and finally being able to
> have a proper 'read'...124 pages of smut, and there was always
> one girl in every issue that really did it for you!

This is almost exactly my experience too. I can even remember distinct favourite covers that I haven't seen for over 30 years. I used to smuggle the said mag home in my workshop grey dust coat. Mum would say "Oh give that to me and I'll pop it in the wash". I'd come up with some excuse why she had to wait a minute after I'd taken it up to my room.