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Welcome to Scarlet Letters! One of the longest-running women-owned,
women-run sex-positive webzines on the Net, we've decided to celebrate
the beginning of our fifth year by expanding our mission and our
borders beyond the sexual to include creative work of all flavors
and kinds. Begun as a sex-positive, woman-positive erotica and
sexuality information website in 1998 by founder, publisher, and
editor-in-chief Heather Corinna, and joined shortly thereafter
by co-editor Hanne Blank, Scarlet Letters has grown in size and
scope, currently encompassing three related sites: scarletletters.com,
scarleteen.com and femmerotic.com. We've weathered the rise and
pop of the Web bubble and both the emergence and demise of many
a competitor website. And we're still here: independently owned
and operated (by the same people who started it!), with a desire
to continue to push the envelope in terms of exciting, invigorating,
creative expression that is politically, socially, and artistically
progressive.
As part of our goal to help eradicate sexual taboo, bias and stigma
through creative expression and education, and to open a forum
in which our readers and colleagues can come to understand sex
as sacred, vital and positive, we have recently broadened our
artistic and editorial mission to encourage and support our readers
in their quest to integrate their sexual lives with the rest of
their lives: the artistic, intellectual, professional, cultural,
and personal. Our pages continue to include sex, and plenty of
it, but in addition to the erotic fiction, sexuality features
and reviews, and deliciously titillating visual art you've come
to expect from us, we now include work from a range of styles
and genres that goes well beyond erotica even as it includes it.
We've developed a new term to describe our new approach to sex-positive
literature and art that defies the usual boundaries of "erotica"
and "not erotica": we call it genrefuck.
As part of our new vision, we've begun an Artist in Residence
program, a program we believe is presently unique in the so-called
"new media." Our Artist in Residence program is designed to give
selected artists, writers, poets, and visionaries -- many of them
chosen from among the nationally and internationally-known creators
who have graced our pages in the past -- a chance to create whatever
kind of astonishing, eye-opening, human, progressive, visceral,
affecting, delirious beauty the spirit moves them to create, and
to share it with us and our readers. The continually expanding
roster of Artists in Residence will provide us with a constant
influx of new and exciting material, offering opportunities for
experimentation, cross-pollination, and inspiration to readers
and creators alike. We like to think of it as a 1920's artist's
colony for the twenty-first century.
Our sites are updated frequently via the Internet. Scarletletters.com
publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essay, commentary, visual
art, and other material that both entertains and educates. Scarleteen.com
furnishes young adults and teens with vital sexual education and
information. Femmerotic.com is an Internet portal for online resources
which address and explore healthy, literate sexuality. All three
sites were founded by Heather Corinna, who continues to design,
edit, and maintain them with co-editor Hanne Blank and the help
of a small volunteer support staff.
Scarlet Letters furthers the aims of our mission by also providing:
- Appearances and public addresses. These include conventions, interviews,
readings, workshops, and public speaking engagements. Both of
our editors are experienced and acclaimed public speakers who
have spoken before audiences as diverse as writers' groups, Planned
Parenthood clinicians, Internet business owners, GLBT organizations,
the Illinois Library Association, and medical school students,
in addition to numerous bookstore and other events.
- Advertising with a conscience. Scarlet Letters does not accept
advertising which conflicts with its overriding editorial mission.
We accept advertising for companies and businesses whose practices
are either outside the genre of erotica and sexuality, or who
address both in a positive, healthy vein
- Interactive discussion forums in which readers, writers, artists,
and staff participate to further expand and explore issues pertaining
to human sexuality.
Scarlet Letters remains one of the only sexual publications of
its size, scope and circulation independently owned and operated
by women. We are not owned by any larger corporate entity, nor
are we beholden to any other organization's political, artistic,
or other agendas. We network extensively to support other like
businesses and individuals doing similar work through cross-content,
web-linking, interviews, announcements and other assistance.
As we evolve and change, Scarlet Letters' editorial mission remains
the same: to support and explore creativity, feminism, sexuality,
and artistic expression that positively enhances and enriches
the lives of our readers and our culture. |
