Former Erotic Review editor Rowan Pelling has returned to print with new monthly title The Amorist.
The magazine is launched this month, seven years after the Erotic Review went digital-only.
Published by James Pembroke out of the same offices as sister title The Oldie it has an intial print-run of 12,000 and a cover price of £4.95.
Pelling said: “James Pembroke approached me and asked whether I wanted to reprise the Erotic Review. I said it’s actually still going as a website so you can’t resurrect it, but I also felt we have moved on and I would like to do something quite different.
“It is more aimed at women and couples whereas the Erotic Review did seem to be a bit boys’ school smut. We had a conversation and it just went from there. James was remarkably quick at finding backing and there does seem to be an appetite for it.”
The Amorist has an editorial team of four, with a deputy editor, designer and features editor. Pelling said that it will be profitable if it can hit 12,000 monthly sales. Although available at WH Smith, the hope is that it will build a loyal base of subscribers.
Asked why it will succeed in print where the Erotic Review (which appeared from 1995 to 2011) failed, Pelling said: “We are living in quite different political times and feel gloomy about all sorts of things. People want some ‘make love not war’, it is pure escapism.”
She said the Erotic Review was also hard hit by the arrival of the internet and the fact there was suddenly “unimaginable filth everywhere online”.
She added: “It seems to me that all sorts of magazines are doing pretty well at the moment.”
The launch edition includes an exclusive interview with actress Pamela Anderson and pictures from her underwear photoshoot for Coco de Mer; contributions from Howard Jacobson, Giles Coren and Hanif Kureishi; and sex toy reviews by Cosmo Landesman.
The launch press release said: “The Amorist has been designed for readers who want a publication that’s as romantic about sexuality as it’s discursive, philosophical, truthful, wayward, funny and flirtatious. It’s a general interest magazine for those who are generally interested in sex and desire – and an antidote to Brexit.”
It said that the new title seeks to “counter the excesses of online pornography and the tendency to see sex through a functional prism”.
“Instead, the magazine promotes courtship, flirtation, mystery and pleasure.”
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