YNOT – Fourteen years after its debut, venerable gay e-zine Nightcharm has made some dramatic changes to the way it approaches a market typically more than comfortable with adult content. According to the publisher, “Partial nudity is the new hardcore.”
Publisher David K. Mentor said the Seattle-based zine’s decision to eschew in-your-face hardcore content is part of an overall effort to differentiate Nightcharm from the growing number of options readers have in the gay space. The zine’s goal always has been to present sex as an integral part of gay culture, but by softening the approach — at least on the exterior — Mentor and his colleagues hope to surprise readers and hold their attention in more esoteric ways.
“There’s a fatigue factor related to visitors being bombarded with hardcore images nowadays,” he noted. “[Blatant hardcore imagery has] taken the mystery and allure out of sex, which makes it tougher to sell. Although our members area, the Inner Circle, continues to offer explicit feeds, I knew it was time to shift the visuals to up the mystery factor.”
As part of its revitalization, the site received a new look and a new editor. Australian Mark Adnum (pictured) recently assumed the editor’s helm, replacing previous wordsmith-in-chief John Calendo. Before joining Nighcharm, Calendo worked for Hustler and In Touch magazines. Adnum’s style is more intellectual than Calendo’s; in some ways both more and less direct. Between the zine’s reputation and his own, Adnum already has snagged interviews with social icons.
“Mark has a strong, intuitive feel for what’s buzzing for gay men and their relationship to porn, sex, HIV, hooking-up, art, politics and showbiz,” Mentor said. “He understands Nightcharm’s legacy. Right out of the gate he snagged an interview with social critic Camille Paglia where she talked about art as pornography and pornography as art.”
The Paglia interview certainly sets a tone, mixing smart editorial content with a relaxed, sex-positive approach to hardcore porn — not coincidentally, an ethos that plays equally well with gay men and socially progressive women. Paglia told Adnum she sees pornography as a key in significant societal evolution over the past fifty years.
“The anti-porn campaign died suddenly, of course, with the rise of the web in the 1990s,” Paglia told Adnum. “Now the hysterical feminist vigilantes were pathetically powerless. They could get Playboy and Penthouse out of the convenience stores, but they were helpless against the all-pervasive reach of the web, where pornography is flourishing all over the world. Pornography is now where it should always have been — within the instant reach and personal choice of the free individual.”
Nightcharms is all about choice. Behind the zine’s soft exterior, members may sate their desires with any number of bawdy pursuits. The company takes a harder-core approach on related websites LuridDigs.com (a parody site bearing the subtitle “Horrifying Gay Amateurs”) and Nightcharm’s Inner Circle, a membership destination offering content from prominent gay adult studios.
“From the bottom-line perspective, this approach works for us regarding retention and repeat visitors,” Mentor said. “Our regulars stay on the site longer and are more likely to purchase a membership to Nightcharm’s subscription area. Plus, the site now has [safe-for-work] status, which allows all sorts of media outlets to feel comfortable about linking to our editorial content.”
Not to leave anyone out of their new world-domination strategy, Mentor and his crew also provide webmasters with a reason to recommend Nightcharm and its sister sites: The cleverly named Pay for Gay affiliate program offers a 50-percent recurring revenue share.
