Five years ago, the launch of a pink, pocket-sized magazine changed the face of gay culture.  Pushing the boundaries of porn, literature and lifestyle writing, Butt, a quarterly based in Amsterdam, created a niche where none previously existed.  A little campy (contributors and readers are called ‘Buttheads’), and a lot queer (subjects must be male, gay or both), the self labeled Fag Mag offers some of the sharpest humor and startlingly intimate interviews out there.  Not to mention provocative photography - often courtesy of art stars like Wolfgang Tillmans.

This fall, Taschen launches Butt Book – the best of 5 years of ‘Adventures in 21^st Century Gay Subculture.’  The equally pink paperback, like the magazine, is edited by Butt’s co-creators Gert Jonkers and Jop Van Bennekom, and reads like a who’s-who in fashion, film, art and music.  Contributors include Bernard Wilhelm, Casey Spooner, Michael Stipe, Asianpunkboy and Viktor & Rolf.  

Eager to fully embrace our status as Buttheads, we caught up with Jonkers in New York.  Sans Van Bennekom (who was missed), and over an orange juice at Les Enfants Terribles in Chinatown, Jonkers granted us premier access to what makes Butt, as he puts it, ‘a really sexy magazine.’ 

What magazines did you love when you were growing up?
I always liked the chitchatting in Interview, because it’s the way people actually talk.  Index too.  I used to read it when I was living in Amsterdam and you’d feel like you were in touch with New York.  It felt so close, yet so far away.

I have that same sensation of being transported when reading Butt…
Each article is like a meeting.  It’s very personal.  We’re not very interested in products. It’s difficult to talk to people who are trying to sell something.  A lot of magazines are unreadable for that reason.

Does it bother you that it makes some people uncomfortable?
We never meant it to shock people.  It’s a certain taste.  Some people take it for camp.  But it’s really just a dry sense of humor.  It’s fine if some people find it offensive. 

How do you pick a Butt cover, like choosing Edmund White over Gus Van Sant for the last issue?
Usually there isn’t much choice.  Like, with the last issue it just had to be Edmund White.  Otherwise it almost feels like a concept - like, ‘they’re only doing celebrities.’ We put Marc Jacobs next to someone who cleans toilets.

Speaking of that, is it difficult to find subjects like the sadomasochistic German toilet cleaner?
It’s extremely difficult to find normal people – bakers, plumbers and so on.  There’s not really a tradition of interviewing them.  People propose normal, obvious things like artists.  We made a clear decision that we wanted something else.  We featured an amateur wrestler from New Jersey and it was an utterly normal, boring interview [Ed. Note: Gert says with significant satisfaction].

Do you ever have to plead for Butt’s subjects to disrobe for the magazine?
We never tell them they have to.  I remember the first issue, when we shot Bernard Wilhelm for the cover we jokingly told him, ‘You know, it’s a sexy magazine.’  We were so nervous.  We couldn’t have hoped for better.  We didn’t expect him [Bernard] to do it.  It was such an amazing surprise.

Do you have a favorite story?
One would have to be Jop’s interview with AA Bronson, this New York artist who is also really well-known for giving massages.  Jop interviewed him while getting his butt massaged.  I could never really figure out whether it was sex, or just a massage.  Well, he told me later it wasn’t sex.  It was a massage, interview and report in one. 

Ever have to edit out certain things?
We do edit out people complaining about Chelsea queens.  Literally everybody can say that.  I mean,  get over it! What I want to know is, where are the real big queens?  They’ve completely disappeared.

Do you see Butt as sexually radical?
It has a funny role in the magazine.  It’s a fun thing to have around the corner.  It can suddenly drop on the table, but it doesn’t have to.  I think Butt is sexually liberating.  But I want to know, what is radical?  

Subversive, progressive…
I think shame is a dirty word.  Nothing should be untouched or not talked about.  We published nude pictures of an obese man and there was something extremely sexy about it. 

Where do you think is the ideal place to read Butt?
 [In the introduction to Butt Book, Bruce Labruce’s bid is for the john.]
In trains, in bed.  It’s a good one-hand read.  We’re not trying to re-write the bible.  It’s about what goes on in their minds.  That’s why we added the index in the end of the Book.  If you look, Bill Clinton’s there.  So are Ronald Reagan and Diane Von Furstenberg.  All these things together are like a dictionary of today’s homosexuals.

What makes you blush?
I don’t blush very easily.  I don’t feel outrageously open about things.  People are usually surprised we’re so normal.  They think we’re going to be head-to-toe in leather with piercings, which is so not what we’re into.  [Ed. Note: when confronted with a camera 20 minutes later, cheeks flushed, Gert responded, “I guess you found what makes me blush.”]

What did you do last night?
Last night I was at The Cock [a gay bar-club in NYC].  I was there too early and it was pretty empty, so I went home and went to bed.  But the great thing is we had this party there last year and we had pasted these posters of pages from Butt all over the bathroom walls.  They’re still there.

 

~Alisa Gould-Simon

Get Yours:

Butt Book, $29.99, currently available in Europe.  It will be available in the US December 2006.  For more information: taschen.com

Butt is available at fine boutiques and chains worldwide. For more: buttmagazine.com

Butt Book photos courtesy of Taschen, taschen.com
Gert Jonkers photo courtesy of Alisa Gould-Simon
All other photos courtesy of Butt buttmagazine.com