Submissions Open: The Politics of Touch Issue
The Politics of Touch Issue is an exploration of intimacy in a world where our bodies, desires and relationships are increasingly mediated by screens. This issue looks at what happens to intimacy when s*x, love, work and self-expression exist alongside censorship, surveillance and rapidly changing technology. From dating apps and digital intimacy to s*x w*rk, p*rn*graphy, queer desire and the ways our bodies are permitted to appear online, we’re interested in seeing writing and photography which challenges censorship.
Visually, the issue explores: pixelated bodies, redacted text, hidden folders, and the aesthetics of online censorship. Alongside this we'd love to see skin, lingerie, handwritten notes, analogue photography, Valentine's ephemera and essays. The Politics of Touch issue exists as a time capsule of what intimacy looks like today.
Written feature themes & guidelines:
We are seeking written submissions of 500-2,000 words on:
Intimacy Beyond Romantic Relationships -Friendship, platonic touch, community, chosen family, care-giving, professional intimacy and relationships that resist the idea that romantic partnership should be the centre of adult life.
Histories of Sex & Intimacy-Personal ads, phone-sex lines, sex shops, queer archives, pornography, obscenity laws, erotic photography, historic moral panics, censorship and forgotten or overlooked histories of sexual culture.
Loneliness & the Absence of Touch -Touch starvation, isolation, friendship, ageing, remote working, post-pandemic intimacy, digital substitutes for physical connection and what happens when people simply aren't touched enough.
The Politics of the Body -Who is allowed to be naked, sexual, desirable or visible. Gender, race, disability, age, fatness, beauty standards, bodily autonomy, reproductive politics and the policing of particular bodies.
Censorship & the Internet -Online censorship, shadowbanning, age verification, content moderation, pornography, sexual expression online, payment processors, platform policies, the sanitisation of the internet and who gets to decide what is considered sexual or obscene.
WAYS TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK
You can submit to this issue by emailing your work to submissions@ferocemagazine.com
Or submit your work via Kavyar (Images Only)
reimbursement
Main contributors/copyright holders will receive a complimentary copy of the publication.