WTF were you thinking, Boink Magazine?
Yeah, so I was in Newbury Comics earlier today and saw that they had a copy of the much-talked about first issue of Boink magazine on sale.
For those who are unfamiliar, Boink is the controversial porn magazine created by some students at Boston University. The magazine calls itself “the college guide to carnal knowledge.”
Not being much of a porn connoiseur, but being a graduate of BU, I figured it was my responsibility to purchase the magazine and ensure that my alma mater was producing nothing but fine quality XXX product.
Whoa… I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Boink magazine’s first huge mistake: there are lots of men in the magazine,. I’m not talking about the obligatory presence of some guy in the penthouse fantasy scene. I’m talking about man-on-man “pictorials” scattered in between photo shoots of women undressing. Umm….. there’s no mention of this anywhere on the outside of the magazine.
The extremely provocative girl-on-girl cover photo should have, in my opinion, been more of an indicator as to what was inside of the shrinkwrap.
My first thought was somewhere between “uhhh….WTF?!” and “Alright, so maybe the editors are trying something new that has something to do with “sexual liberation” and all that crap.
Bottom line though, is that when someone buys a porn magazine they don’t like to be surprised. At least not the Crying Game kind of surprise.
Second mistake: This is the lamest porn magazine I think I have ever seen. In terms of stimulating material, this is right up there with late night commercials for exercise machines & the lingerie section in the Kmart flyer. This doesn’t qualify as soft core.
Third mistake: The writing style of the articles…. HA! (Who am I kidding… I didn’t read the articles. Nobody who bought this magazine bought it for the articles. Yet there are still pages after pages of words.)
Fourth mistake: putting the best photo on the cover. From there on it’s all downhill.
Bottom line: Even if you think the $7.95 is worth it for the curiosity factor alone, resist the temptation. It’s not worth the attention it has already garned, and it definitely isn’t worth any more attention. Go visit suicide girls instead…
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Too many man-on-man “pictorials”? Sounds like a recommendation to me!
I was actually not thinking of buying the Boink mag, but now that you mention it, maybe I might! Are there more pics of girls than guys? Would you say this combination is a failure for anyone but a Kinsey 3 bisexual? I bought the first issue of H-bomb (the Harvard sex mag, also at Newbury comics) and I found it artsy and tasteful, but nothing to write home about. I take it Boink doesn’t even have that to offer? The cover is awfully nice.
While I haven’t actually calculated the male-to-female ratio, it seems pretty even. I could be biased too, since “just a little” is really still too much.
Your point about a bisexual audience is likely true. I’m not sure who the target audience is here, if there is one at all.
A friend of mine summed it up with the following: “That’s what happens when a girl tries to release a porn magazine. They just don’t get it.”
The absolutly funny part about these comments is that Boink Magazine wasn’t created so horny post-graduate homophobic males can “get their jollies” from the pictures. If one would read about this magazine a little before thinking with a head other than that sitting upon ones shoulders, they might realize that this magazine was created as a sort of forum magazine where BU college students can freely talk about sex. If the editor of the magazine herself wouldn’t have described the magazine as “porn” herself, I would have myself ventured to call it something totally different. Needless to say, if you are one of the latter talked about alumned males and can’t appreciate anything but a dirty magazine and some Jergens, don’t buy Boink…you obviously don’t know why this magazine was created…stick with your pathetic monthly issues of Penthouse, Hustler, or Playboy.
Because everyone knows overly oppressive BU just needed a “forum for freely talking about sex.” Except with pictures. Of naked students.
Perhaps if all the media hype and “controversy” surrounding Boink had been a bit more representative of the content contained therein, we wouldn’t even be discussing this.
Discussions about sex? I’m all for it. But let’s not be totally naive about Boink. Playboy might think of itself as the “intelligent” adult magazine, but nobody solely reads it for the articles (well, nobody who has a monthly subscription).
I’d argue that if Boink wanted to be more of a “forum for discussion” about sex, they’d probably be more successful if they removed the photos… at least then potential buyers would know what they were getting. (Oh wait… but a text-only version wouldn’t cause any controversy/media hype, would really suck, and result in even less sales).
Put simply: Yes, I get it. Boink wants to do something new, yet achieve that by riding on the coattails of porn. Good luck to them, they’ll need it.
Male to female ratio: 1.00. That’s 85 nude or semi-nude males, and 85 nude or semi-nude females. I’m counting ads, since these include some of the most graphic images in the magazine.
This is something new under the sun, a mag with guys and girls looking sexy for both guys and girls. College kids these days, maybe they’re much more open about sexual things. I think it’s pretty cool. And c’mon, it’s much more than a K-mart ad. Look at page 83. That’s full frontal.
But now, to your defense:
Anonymous, please know that Jarrod’s bad rap on Boink is less about “horny post-graduate homophobic males” and more about honesty. The editors of Boink chose the cover photo for a reason…to get lots of people to buy it. Two girls getting it on, something that is trendy among some college girls these days, something some college boys like, will get more buyers than, say, a cover photo with two guys. The editors knew this, and knew of the potential response. Just see the interview in Bay Windows. It just reeks a bit of false advertising. Imagine a gay man paying his good money for the latest issue of Freshmen magazine, with a photo of a strapping young lad on the cover, only to find 50% of the pics inside are of women. Unless the gay man has some latent curiosty about women, he’s going to be disappointed. But maybe that’s Boink’s target audience: the sexually flexible youth of today. Maybe a cover with girls is the perfect “cover”, allowing open-minded straight guys the comfort of buying Boink at the store without feeling too self-conscious. I don’t know.
Jarrod, you’ve prompted me to start an entry on this subject myself.
We all recall when we made earnest rationalizations about the seriousness and social significance of talking about sex, Anonymous. I find it charming that undergrads still talk this way, but…
fifteen years from now you will bury your face in your hands that you wrote this.
Hopefully sooner.
Well put, Village Idiot. Thanks.