The Amorist – review
Let nobody declare that there are places where Rust contributors fear to tread. At a social gathering a week or so ago a group of us gathered to discuss ‘the way forward’ and the proposition was aired – exactly from which source and/or whom remains lost in the mists of time – that, whatever new developments had arisen in the fast-moving 2010s, one had to bear in mind that the biggest genre of interest on the worldwide web remained porn and sex.
Googling for the purposes of this piece, I came upon a March 2017 press release by a website called Pornhub revealing that in 2016 alone it received 23 billion visits, which statistically amounts to 729 people per second or 64 million (that’s the equivalent of the entire population of the United Kingdom) per day.
To put it another way, as the press release lost no time in doing, in 2016 no fewer than 91,980,225,000 videos were watched on Pornhub. That’s 12.5 videos for every human being alive on the planet.
Separately, I discovered the fact that, in 2006 study, it was found that in the previous year – of people aged between 18 and 49 – 82% had looked at pornographic magazines, 84% had viewed a pornographic film and 34% had looked at porn online. It is perhaps inevitable that (in 2006) 68% of those who had watched porn online were men and only 13.6% were women.
Times change, however, or so Pornhub testifies. Apparently, based upon their analysis of 2016, women are now 113% more likely than men to search the term ‘hardcore’ than men and also 105% to seek out ‘gangbang’ and ‘rough sex’. Overall women now constitute one-third of the online porn audience.
Having set out to find a bit more about the world of online sex – purely in the cause of research you understand – over the weekend I then purchased a copy of a magazine now available in all good newsagents – The Amorist, edited by Rowan Pelling – sometimes columnist for The Times and formerly editor of The Erotic Review.
Interestingly, although The Amorist was officially launched in April – published by James Pembroke, who also produces The Oldie – the current issue is the first that I have seen on sale to the general public, which makes its designation as ‘Volume 5, September 2017’ somewhat incongruous and/or misleading … that is, perhaps, unless each issue (the first four of which have completely escaped my attention) is deemed to be a volume.
Now, I’m a broad-minded gal and as interested in every facet of human relationships as the next person, but I have to be honest and state that I found The Amorist a less than satisfying read – but at this stage I’m still not altogether sure exactly why this was.
On one level, an upmarket, erudite and well-written vehicle addressing all aspects of relationships, love and sex: yes, I can see the scheme … and indeed the probable target audience/readership.
But when it comes to the range of magazines one would ordinarily find in a WH Smiths, or indeed the number of websites devoted to any number of specialist hobby interests (which is probably even greater), where exactly does a literary-type magazine devoted to sex in all its guises hit the mark?
When it comes to gossip magazines, or indeed those devoted to railways, steam engines, motor vehicles, overseas property buying, history, any number of sports and pastimes, current affairs, art, the countryside and even sewing, knitting and brass rubbing – one can see how those with keen or special interests in such subjects would go out and buy.
But writings about sex?
In principle, Volume 5 of The Amorist seemed to tick some worthy boxes. A review by Anne Billson of the impact of Luis Buňuel’s classic movie Belle de Jour starring Catherine Deneuve fifty years after its launch. A review of the pleasures of kissing, with five writers recalling their most memorable personal examples. An interview with film maker and photographer Mike Figgis. A feature on the life of Elizabeth Winthrop Chapman (neé Chanier), the American heiress whose portrait John Singer Sargent painted in 1893. Extracts from a novel and a short story. Book reviews.
And yet. Somehow – once you’ve read one gentleman or lady of a certain age reliving in some degree of gory detail some personal glorious bonk … or indeed epic sexual disaster … from their long-lost past, it isn’t long before a sense of ‘you’ve seen (or read) one, you’ve seen or read them all’ tends to kick in.
At best, I found The Amorist something to ‘dip in and out of’. It’s not a publication that I would ever rush out to buy regularly – in the manner, say, in which perhaps a football fan might buy a football fanzine, or a follower of music might buy a music magazine. Or even a train-spotter might count the days down until the next issue of his monthly ‘fix’ hits the shelves.
And that’s my problem with it. Maybe it’s just me. It could be that I suffer from the thought that, with matters related to sex and sexuality, there’s an element of ‘those that can, do – those that cannot, or just don’t have the opportunity, are consigned to reading about it or watching’.
Arguably, I can see the case for a ‘mainstream’ literary magazine devoted to love and lust.
Why ever not, in this day and age?
But – at the end of the day – it doesn’t quite work for me. It calls to mind Samuel Johnson’s bon mot about a woman preaching being akin to a do walking upon its hind legs – “It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all”. Sex is a wholly natural and vital aspect of human relationships. Whatever form it takes, mostly it takes place between consenting adults of like mind, behind doors and in private.
Writing about it – however outstanding the quality of the composition – seems almost superfluous.
An entire magazine devoted to the subject seems a luxury, not a necessity. This reader of The Amorist found reading it from cover to cover nigh impossible. I just hope that just doesn’t consign me to the bin marked ‘dried up old maid’ …
