riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (04/29/84)
I've just discovered a magazine which tickles me pink and which some
of you may be interested in as well. It is called "Yellow Silk,"
describes itself as a "Journal of Erotic Arts", and has as its motto
"All persuasions; no brutality." I've never seen anything like it
before, even though it is such an obvious idea: "Yellow Silk" is a
magazine of erotic poetry, fiction, drawings and photography done by
and for both men AND women.
To date I've only seen a single issue, number 10, and since the editor
is careful to stress that every issue is different, I hesitate to
generalize about the magazine. Still, I'm quite impressed by what I've
seen so far. The layout is absolutely gorgeous, which is somewhat
unusual for a low-budget affair. Even more unusual is the overall high
quality of the writing, a real rarity in the small press publications
of my experience. This issue leans heavily toward poetry but also
includes a couple of short stories (winners in an erotic fiction
contest) as well as several essays and reviews on such topics as
eroticism in Bergman's movie "Fanny and Alexander" and the work of
Betty Dodson, an artist and writer who pioneered open discussion of
masturbation. The visual element this time around consists primarily
of highly stylized paintings by an artist named Dan May, but I gather
from the letters commenting on previous issues that the magazine also
publishes more graphic photography on occasion.
The nature of the eroticism purveyed by "Yellow Silk" is quite varied.
At times it is a barely perceptible undercurrent in a poem or a story;
other works are voluptuous and brazen in their sexuality. Never,
though, is it the glossy portrayal of women and men as objects to be
consumed which we are used to seeing in everyday porn. Beyond their
restriction of "no brutality", the editors seem not to want to stick to
any single party line of what is or isn't "good" eroticism;
nevertheless, the magazine's basic inspiration is clearly and deeply a
feminist one. The editor is a woman named Lily Pond, and the
contributors are more or less evenly balanced between men and women.
"All persuasions" seems to mean a basic openness to diverse varieties
of sexuality rather than a desire to be encyclopedic. One of the
intriguing things about the magazine to me is the way male and female,
heterosexual and lesbian eroticism are interwoven in its pages.
(Conspicuous in its absence from this issue, however, is anything much
in the way of male homosexuality.)
The address:
Yellow Silk
P.O. Box 6374
Albany, CA 94706
"Yellow Silk" only runs to about fifty pages of newsprint, so don't
think you are getting a feminist "Playboy" or "Playgirl" if you order
it. Single copies cost $3; subscriptions for four quarterly issues
cost "$10 to $40 (sliding scale -- pay what you can)". I would
recommend it to anyone with an interest in the erotic who is horrified
by the meat-packer's approach found in the most popular erotic
magazines.
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle