What's the story?

There has been a long-standing belief that it's illegal to publish erections in the UK. The Independent explains the myth.

It wasn't the debated legality that caught us out, but our printer's refusal to print our second issue after we'd mentioned that it showed men in their full glory, citing that their doing so may offend 'religious/women's groups'. At the time, we were using probably the cheapest printer in the UK, so we needed to raise some funds in order to change to a tumescence-tolerant printer. We needed to sell 328 more copies of our first issue to afford this. A viral campaign grew up out of nowhere, and we made our target.

Thank you to everyone who bought a copy of Issue 1 in support of the campaign, and those who helped spread the word through blogging, tweeting, emailing, bicycle courier and carrier pigeon. Special thanks to the gals of Erotica Cover Watch, whose support and eloquent words are largely responsible for making this happen.

If you'd like to grab your slice of women's publishing history, Filament Issue 2, the UK's first women's magazine to show an erection pictorial, is still available here.

Although many of our men have now raised the flagpole in print, our problem isn't entirely over. Some people in the magazine industry still hold tight to their made-up view that it is illegal to publish erections — but of course, anything involving the female body is fine. As long as popular myth continues to be used to justify double standards and reinforce privilege in our little corner of the publishing world, we will continue to call bullshit on it, and we will continue to publish pictures of men looking pleased to see you.