Sex Themed Magazines Tilt Artistic
性主題雜誌改走藝術路線
By Ravi Somaiya

Pornography used to mean Playboy or Penthouse or another of the hundreds of glossy magazines kept on high shelves and purchased furtively.
以往色情出版物指的是「花花公子」、「閣樓」或其他數百種印刷精美的雜誌，放在很高的書架上，被悄悄買走。

In the not too distant past, Playboy and Penthouse each sold five million or more copies a month, and were so much a part of the culture that in 1986 an American judge ruled that denying blind people a Braille version of Playboy violated their rights.
在還不算太久以前的過去，花花公子和閣樓每月各能賣出500萬本，甚至更多，成為文化的重要部分，以致1986年有位美國法官裁定，花花公子不出點字版侵害盲人人權。

But traditional pornographic magazines have falling victim to boundless quantities of nudity online and rapidly declining print sales. Last summer, Larry Flynt, the founder of Hustler, acknowledged that the print version of his magazine was not going to be around much longer.
但是，傳統色情雜誌也成為無以計數的網路裸照的受害者，銷售迅速下滑。去年夏季，「好色客」創辦人佛林特承認，他的紙本雜誌撐不了太久。

A newer breed has taken their place in specialty magazine stores and independent booksellers. About a dozen newer sex-themed magazines, often with predominantly female editorial staffs, are blending nudity with art, fashion and philosophy. They include Adult and 25 from New York, Irène from Paris and Extra Extra out of Rotterdam.
一種新型態雜誌在專門雜誌店和獨立書店已占有一席之地。大約有十多種新創、以性為主題的雜誌，通常編輯群幾乎全為女性，把裸體和藝術、時尚、哲學融合，這些新雜誌包含紐約的「成人」和「25」，巴黎的「伊海娜」，以及鹿特丹的「極度特別」。

Though they remain focused on the naked body, these magazines are seeking to move sex in print periodicals from under the mattress up onto the coffee table. In stark contrast to online pornography, with much of it free, these niche publications sell for a premium – often more than 17 euros, or $20 – to thousands of people, or tens of thousands, rather than millions.
雖然這些雜誌仍聚焦在裸體上，它們也尋求把紙本期刊中的性內容，從必須藏在墊子下變成可以堂堂放上咖啡桌。和網路色情截然不同，網路色情大多免費，這些小眾雜誌卻售價不菲，大多超過17歐元或20美元，賣給數千或數萬人，而非數百萬人。

Penthouse, which sold nearly five million copies, now sells about 100,000. The biggest of the newer magazines, a French publication called Lui, has sold as many as 350,000 copies in France.
閣樓銷售量曾經接近500萬本，現在約只剩10萬本。新型性雜誌最大的一家、法國的「他」曾在法國賣出35萬本。

Despite their relatively small audience, the magazines are influencing the direction of the pornography industry, according to Theo Sapoutzis of the trade organization Adult Video News. “They have an elegant style,” he said.
情色出版業組織「成人影音新聞」的席奧．薩布吉斯認為，這些新雜誌雖然讀者群相對小了許多，卻正影響著色情產業的走向。他說：「它們有優雅的風格。」

Sarah Nicole Prickett, one of Adult magazine’s founders, said, “The difference between porn and erotica is the lighting,” quoting the former sex actress Gloria Leonard. Ms. Prickett and Berkeley Poole said that in founding Adult they sought to create an atmosphere that is very different from online pornography or the sex advice in women’s magazines. Adult, for example, recently published an account of a straight man’s youthful dalliance with homosexuality. There are photographs by John Edmonds, an employee of a public library in Washington who takes nude portraits of young men, some of whom he knows, and others whom he persuades to be photographed.
「成人」創辦人之一莎拉．妮可．普里基，引用前色情女演員葛洛莉亞．雷納的話說：「色情與色情藝術的差別在於燈光。」普里基和柏克莉．普爾說，創辦「成人」時，她們試圖打造和網路色情或女性雜誌的性忠告專欄非常不同的氣氛。舉例來說，「成人」最近刊載了一篇異性戀者年輕時短暫遊走於同性戀者之間的報導。雜誌也有約翰．艾德蒙的攝影作品，他是華府一家公立圖書館的員工，拍攝年輕男子裸照，這些人有的他認識，有些則是經他說服後同意讓他拍照。

A print magazine “has the power to make you stop and look at an image and consider it,” Ms. Prickett said.
普里基說，紙本雜誌「有種力量，讓你停下來，注視一張照片並思考。」

In Europe, Frédéric Beigbeder, a French novelist, recently revamped Lui, modeling it after Playboy in its heyday, when it was known, in part, for featuring writing by the likes of Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov and Joyce Carol Oates. “We chose to do something very glamorous,” he said.
在歐洲，法國小說家費德利克．貝格岱最近改造了「他」，以全盛時期的花花公子為榜樣。當時花花公子出名的部分原因在於作家的特稿，像是索爾．貝婁、弗拉基米爾．納博科夫和喬伊斯．卡洛．奧茲。他說：「我們選擇做一件非常有魅力的事。」

At Casa Magazines, a store in New York, traditional pornographic magazines used to be big sellers. Now, instead of stealth buyers seeking only nudity, the store gets unapologetic browsers of magazines like Adult, said Mohammed Imran, a store employee
在紐約的卡薩雜誌店，店員默罕麥德．伊姆蘭說，傳統的色情雜誌曾是暢銷書。現在沒有鬼鬼祟祟只想買裸體雜誌的客人，取代的是大大方方翻閱「成人」的讀者。

“Mostly,” he said, pointing toward a stack of the newer kind of magazines, “they buy these ones for the photography.”
他指著一堆這種新型性雜誌說：「他們大多為了雜誌的攝影而買。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/business/media/as-playboy-and-penthouse-fade-newer-pornographic-magazines-tilt-artistic.html

2015-02-03聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 莊蕙嘉譯 原文參見紐時週報七版下