Inside Sensored: The magazine that wants to penetrate your primal desires

When curating the latest issue of Sensored, editor Tom Selmon sought out artists and photographers whose exploration of desire was visceral and immediate. His guiding principle was, “Don’t show me an idea. Make me feel an idea.” Now in its third edition, the publication – described by Selmon as “an art book disguised as a magazine” – is dedicated to depicting “the spectrum of sexuality and gender existing outside of the binary”.

The photographer and editor began the project in lockdown. Frustrated by online censorship, Selmon wanted to create a non-judgmental space where artists could feel free to make work expressing desires and fetishes rarely represented in mainstream media. Sensored is about expanding the erotic horizons of print media.

While Selmon recognises a fluid kind of distinction between erotica and porn (“I guess in the conventional sense, erotica is lighter, less explicit and more suggestive, whereas pornography is the opposite”), he doesn’t distinguish between them in terms of their value. “I don’t think these worlds exist separately. I think, as an artist, you can pull from both and execute them with the same level of intention and beauty,” he tells Dazed. “Often when I talk about Sensored, people comment something like, ‘Oh but what you do is tasteful, arty’. Sure, it is, but I don’t like the way they are, in my mind, shaming porn. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”

This issue runs the gauntlet from Ronin de Goede’s study of kinbaku [an intricate form of rope bondage] in a BDSM club in East Tokyo to portraits of performance artist Electric Adam’s fetish of vacuuming oneself in latex. Supranav Dash, who photographed the cover, captures a voyeuristic journal of the bandmaster who spies on his ‘band boys’ while they play out their queer fantasies in the staff quarters. Ajamu X captures the “emotion of cum” and Slava Mogutin’s contribution also features a particularly compelling cum portrait, while Nika Sandler explores still-life erotica through nature, life and death.

While Sensored provides a haven for artists to display and disseminate their more explicit work, Selmon doesn’t feel that the internet is any less restrictive since he began the project. But another impetus for launching the magazine was to kick back against the “heavy shame” that expressions of sexuality engenders. “As progressive and secular as we might think we are now, I believe the judgement of sex and relationships still stems from deeply ingrained religious societal values,” he says. ”It takes courage to step outside this framework and explore with pride what your body actually craves.”

Already contemplating Sensored 04, Selmon plans on exploring the sub/dom community. He explains, “For me, they have figured out life is to live for your fantasies and desires, which is something I would be interested in holding my lens up to.” While he feels he’s exhausted his own particular pecadilos in print form over the first thee editions, the scope of potential contributors’ taboos and fetishes yet to investigate is vast. “I pride myself that Sensored is a space where artists can explore their concepts as freely and explicitly as they like,” he concludes. “Sensuality and the human experience are things I will keep thinking of new ways to explore.”

Sensored 03 will be avilable here from 19 October 2024.