Berlin is no stranger to bringing alternative porn to the public. The city is home to a growing number of feminist and sex-positive porn makers, the first critical exhibition of the history of LGBT porn, an annual Porn Film Festival, and art porn collective, Pornceptual, who just launched a quarterly magazine blending together the worlds of art and erotica.
“Pornceptual presents pornography as queer, diverse, and inclusive. We aim to prove that pornography can be respectful, intimate, and artistic”, reads the magazine. They began as an art porn blog in 2010, and have since expanded into a Caligula-decadent, monthly party; a website; and racy events with workshops and film screenings.
The magazine was released at the two year anniversary of the gender-fluid Pornceptual party. Not your ordinary techno party, think arty twenty-somethings in various states of undressed fetish, and lots of naked people. “At a sex club, there’s always an expectation, but if you get your dick out on the dancefloor here, there’s no pressure,” a bearded youth in a sequined mini-skirt explained.
In the first edition of Pornceptual magazine, “Pornifesto”, you’ll find photography, illustration, painting, and text that offers a queered experience of porn. In contrast to the single-narrative and misogynist product of most mainstream material, the artists in Porncpetual reinterpret porn’s meaning, with investigations into desire, vulnerability, radical gender identities, and the external gaze.
Since Pornceptual’s inception five years ago, porn has become easier than ever to access, however, the UK has reduced the availability of niche content, by banning things like female ejaculation, spanking, and face-sitting. Fortunately, it’s also easier than ever to produce your own smut, which is exactly what Pornceptual wants.
Pornceptual asks us to think, “What period of pornographic history do we find ourselves in”? There’s a long and dirty road ahead, but hopefully we can look back and see that this was the period of transcendence from tired gender and sexual orientation stereotypes, to openness, aestheticism, creativity.
Follow Pornceptural on Facebook for more information or get your hands on issue one is here. The Pornceptual team consists of: twin brothers Eric Phillips (editor-in-chief and photographer) and Chris Phillips (creative director, photographer, and creator of Pornceptual), and production manager Raquel Fedato
