SOAPBOX | Fusion Magazine's Printing Drama

[obliviousally_lj]

The buzz around campus is that KSU's ~gay magazine~ was refused by three different printers (including the one which normally prints it) due to the most recent 'Gender Fuck'd' issue. I had read about it in the Kent Stater (the daily newspaper on campus), but things weren't really clear. Then, I remembered that there should be a PDF up on the Fusion website, so I went and did some research to find out what all the drama was about.

Firstly, the printers refused to print the magazine because:

Last week, Fusion’s usual printer asked the magazine to remove explicit language and a photo. The photo shows a fully clothed man with his genitalia emphasized. Editors refused to make the changes, and they then approached Hess Print Solutions in Brimfield.

But its Chief Financial Officer Fred Cooper says he had similar concerns.

Cooper says if editors were willing to make changes, Hess would have printed the magazine. But Fusion’s editor Raytevia Evans says the explicit language is necessary.

Fusion was refused by a third printer, before finding one that agreed to print the content, including the photo and headline. Evans says the change in printers cost the magazine more than two-thousand dollars, because publication had to be expedited.

Now, I'm on Fusion's side with the language. There's no reason for the language to be censored, even if it's 'genderfucked'.

HOWEVER.

I am on the printer's side with the imagery they were uncomfortable with.




Clothed? Yes. Can see the outline of his penis? Yes. Also, ew. That could be my dislike for dongs (not men, just penises) talking, however.

Now, I'm a pretty laid back, enjoys nudity, saucy sort of person. I still wouldn't want to open a magazine to see this. Unless it was a magazine about crossdressing males, then it would be expected and I would have no room to complain. The other images of guys for this spread had them in skirts of varying length, mostly. The females, of course, just looked like tomboys because it's pretty hard to be 'shocking' when you're a girl crossdressing. You just end up in that androgynous zone that really isn't offensive.

Not that I'm saying guys crossdressing is offensive, of course. It's not and I have no issues with it. What I have issue with is visible genitalia where I don't expect them. Penises OR vaginas.

Fusion argued that the printers have printed partially clothed models before and males in underwear for ads. Yes, that is true, but the models in the ads are photoshopped so you can't tell where their dick ends and balls begin.


I guess they did find a printer, however. Which I'm happy about mainly because there's a nice article in the magazine about Jake Nash, who runs the local transgender group in Akron and is an all around awesome dude.

Comments

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

Seems pretty darn prudish to me, though the accompanying text doesn't help. I wish them good luck with their new printers.

(Perhaps I'm just bitchy about being turned down for dancing in primary [elementary] school because the dancers would have to wear leotards.)