Letter from the Publisher: Nailed Sexual Content
“I want to help develop a creative world where women own their bodies”
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I always knew that the sexual aspect of Nailed would be an area of the magazine that is difficult to explain and is easy to argue against. When Matty and I were concepting the magazine, we were inspired when researching the way Playboy Magazine began, how the goal was to break all rules and push the boundaries of freedom of speech and expression. This included sexual content but also addressed race and expunged racism within the reach of the magazine, in the name of art, music and writing. Both of these were boundaries that riled the public when pushed. Obviously sex, as a topic, still riles the public, but at Nailed we are looking for a furtherance of the evolution of expression.
I believe that the programmed imagery of a woman’s body in media as a thing to be used or disrespected is completely unnecessary. While I agree that sometimes the way women’s bodies are presented in media looks cheap, like when they are used to sell us something or when their purpose is as vacant as an advertising logo, at Nailed we are doing something different. The way we are presenting the female form, as well as many other types of sexual content, is not reductive – it is expansive. We are using our medium, this magazine, to pair a woman’s body with literature, art, and intelligent writing on culture, in order to try to change our collective programming.
We’d like to break this rule, and pose that a woman’s body is a thing to be worshiped, considered as complex and multidimensional as poetry.
As a woman, and one who has been in love and in relationships with other women, I cannot deny the power of the female form, I cannot help but recognize the respect it demands when it is shared as art. Do I also feel exposed or nervous? Perhaps, but I believe there is a programming that I am working on breaking in myself, a rule that says, You are to be kept covered or you will never be seen as more than a body. Or another rule that says, If we are looking at boobs, there must be a man behind this, trying to make less of a woman. I can assure any Nailed reader that the team behind the content at Nailed could not be more in awe of the wonder that is Woman, in all aspects and qualities.
Nearly all of the sexual content on Nailed Magazine has been sourced by women. When I am on Nailed and I look for sexual images, I don’t see a bunch of boobs without context. I see a street artist expressing nude forms as a symbol of freedom; I see our advice columnist teaching people how to treat their lovers, teaching them that sex is more than a pumping motion; I see a graffiti barbed-wire animal kicking another animal in the genitals; I see an honest and explicit account of a Nailed contributor’s first homosexual experience; I see a woman write graphically about her body and the lust she is in with her (now) husband, a woman so proud to share her sex life in detail that she included a photo of herself and a link to her personal blog; I see a nude photo essay that looks a little incomplete because a model who was originally published in it had a “change of ethics” and asked us to take down the photographer’s art, a situation that made my heart hurt when I realized she didn’t see her naked body as artful, but as threatening, as something to potentially be used against her.
Through Nailed, I want to help develop a creative world where women own their bodies. Where an exposed figure is not thought of as exploitation but as choice, empowered by the artist or subject who decided it should be there. Where one person’s sexual experience doesn’t speak for any others, but tells its own truth. Where one woman’s choice isn’t at the mercy of the scrutiny of other women. Where women can live as individuals, not acting on the part of all other women, because, let’s be real, SEX IS NOT BINARY. I want to help break down the boundaries of sexual expression because I don’t believe we were the ones who put them there. Those walls were built by someone else, during some other time, who was unable to imagine the amount of creative freedom that we would be capable of or interested in experiencing in our lifetime.
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[Featured image of the author by Shenyah Klaras]