At Playboy, the storied erotic magazine revived this year, its new editor, Phillip Picardi, says he too is considering the balance between brainy and bawdy.
“On the one hand, I get the feeling from folks that we have either overly analyzed or overly intellectualized sexuality,” he wrote in an email. But with the advent of OnlyFans and A.I.-generated content, he worries “we’ve reduced it to something too crude or even banal.” He added, “I think in order for sex to be fun and interesting, it probably can’t be too much of one or the other.”
Maclean, the Erotic Review founder, appears on the masthead as a contributing editor, but he says he mostly looks on appreciatively as he divides his time between London and Croatia. Readers deserve a “fresh take on sex” free from “any of the previous editorial clutter,” he said.
Still, he sees a through line with the project he began in the 1990s.
“Maybe there’s a difference between the more analytical inquiries into the very nature of desire that Lucy pursues and the more tongue-in-cheek, Rabelaisian, but informed, romp that Rowan and I produced three decades ago,” Maclean, 77, said. “Even so, there are, of course, plenty of overlaps.”
Vogel said one of the pleasures of the job was working with writers who never thought they would publish in an erotic magazine.
“I get excited when I approach a writer and I say, ‘Have you ever considered …’” Vogel said. Some, she said, answer with a version of: No, I feel very far from the erotic and don’t relate to it at all.
“And then,” she continued, “there’s the other person who goes, Well, actually I’ve been thinking about this thing …”
