Filament is a quarterly magazine aimed at hypocritical nerdy lesbians showcasing erotic photographs of men. Filament professes, through its tagline, to be "The thinking woman's crumpet". Unlike other magazines for women that have featured solely muscular men, Filament features a wide variety of men. Alongside erotic photographs the magazine also attempts to include discussion on topics not only related to sex, but to other aspects of life. Since, "Men's magazines regularly mixed aspirational and intelligent content with high-brow erotica (...)" Filament attempts to replicate this in a magazine for women.

The inspiration for the magazine according to their website is that:

"Women are 10 times more likely than men to undergo cosmetic surgery and 43 times more likely than men to suffer an eating disorder. Is this because women are ‘naturally’ life-threateningly obsessed with their appearance, or is this in some way influenced by women’s media? Nearly all women’s magazines discuss women’s appearance.

"Filament breaks this Trend by covering a wide range of topics that inspire and engage, and giving you gorgeous boys the way you like to see them."

The magazine is published in the United Kingdom and is available for purchase worldwide through their website.

Topics Covered

Filament is a magazine for women which alongside its erotic aspects (images of men and erotic fiction) attempts to offer coverage on topics related to sex and those that are unrelated to sex. For example the first issue contains an ethical discussion on Hardcore and Softcore pornography, and etiquette tips alongside atheist parenting. This in turn relates to their goal of creating an magazine for women with intelligent discussion similar to men's magazines. It further attempts to distance itself from typical female magazines by not covering topics such as dieting, celebrity gossip, fashion and cosmetics.

According to the Filament LiveJournal, there are three columns that will most likely be in every issue of Filament. The three columns are: "Ask a Feminist", "Etiquette" and "My Dad/Stepdad/Brother/Uncle had me" (for anything related to love, life, relationships, ethics etc.). Participation in these columns is open to the public through the use of their online communities.

The Female Gaze

The Female Gaze is the erotic portion of the magazine featuring semi-nude shots of men. According to the magazine's website the men that are featured in this section of the magazine are based on published research and the magazine's own research through their online community - The Female Gaze. The website states that this research shows that more women prefer:

• men who are not muscle-bound

• men with more feminine face shapes

• men with big schlongs

• images that show the subject’s character and the environment he is in

However, they explain that women's tastes vary and that they attempt to cater to various tastes.

The first issue featured semi-nude photographs of men and explicit illustration. In the second issue Filament included fully nude photography and the first erection pictorial in a UK women's magazine, after a high-profile campaign which enabled them to do so.

Reaction

Reactions to Filament have been both positive and negative. Voxpops with women undertaken by New Zealand current affairs programme Close Up were strongly positive, whereas those undertaken by British chat show The Wright Stuff were mainly negative. Many blogs have been positive in their reception of the magazine citing it as "a highly-researched, beautifully bound publication chock full of both saucy males posing for the camera and intelligent articles", "not just your emaciated pretty boys, they cover quite a range of the male form" and "the articles, interviews, short fiction and poetry pages are top notch".

Erection campaign

In August 2009 Filament magazine began a campaign to try to become the first UK women's magazine to publish an erection pictorial, after the printers of its first issue declined to print the second if it contained such images. Filament sought to sell 328 further copies of the first issue to finance changing printer, and succeeded . The campaign attracted widespread support, including high-profile figures such as Paul Reubens and Anton Lavey, and highlighted a double-standard in the print and distribution industry, where explicit female nudity is widely accepted but publishers like Filament experience "cockblocking".