By Savannah Sly
On Sunday, January 26th, I found myself flipping through sixty pages of glossy debauchery. I was holding in my hands a comprehensive collection of illustrated pornography and erotica, the sticky stories and carnal cartoons of Salacious Magazine. With a compelling depiction of a “come one, come all” orgy sprawling across the front and back covers (in attractive shades of purple), Salacious is not the type of naughty magazine one can consume on the sly in public. Luckily, I was in the good company of the folks attending the Salacious Magazine launch party in Boston, where I could leisurely thumb through the material, pausing here and there over an especially exciting or obscene page.
I experienced a little bubble of giddiness to see the diversity of the content reflected in the variety of people who had turned out for the launch. All around me, amidst a bit of raucous schmoozing, folks of many ages, colors and dispositions were doing the same thing; hefting the considerable volume and scanning around for something that caught their interest. The nice thing about Salacious is that there really is a little something for everyone. As a queer feminist sex rag, Salacious is intent on depicting erotica for and by people across the gender spectrum, of all shapes, races, and preferences. There’s ton’s of hot trans action, where gender stereotypes and biology gets swapped for thick prosthetics, unpredictable encounters, and some seriously down and dirty fucking. There’s bears, Dommes, Daddy’s, subs, lovers, sluts, super heros, and lot’s a juicy mind-fucks. Roles between characters are established (dominant/submissive, butch/femme, top/bottom), but rarely do they fall within mainstream standards and quite often, there are complexities involved beyond simply getting it on.
When Katie Diamond, the founder of Salacious Magazine launched a KickStarter account to raise funds for the first edition, the dream was to publish a knock-out volume of high-quality smut. SMART smut! Diamond swore to publish porn that not only turned cranks, but that stirred the mind by offering insight to the politics of the profoundly personal. While offering artists and writers a chance to explore any imaginable aspect of queerness, Diamond also stayed true to the lascivious nature of graphic pornography. As a result, the work in Salacious is gritty, steamy, dripping wet and fucking fantastically wank-worthy, yet highly mindful and carefully curated.
Salacious Magazine has been receiving a healthy dose of high praise in print and online, and deservedly so. If you want to check Salacious out, you’ll have to visit the magazine’s website, or borrow a friend’s copy, which may mean gently plying the gummed-up pages apart…careful not to rip it! You don’t want to miss a thing…