Last orders for this year – get Breaking Boy News for free until Monday!

December 2nd, 2011, 17:33 | No comments

The year is coming to an end, and we’ll leave our beloved offices for some winter holiday. Since there’s always only one person handling your order – that’s me, Karl – that means there will be a break in delivery of physical goods, such as Destroyer magazines and books:

Monday 5th of December is the last day to place your order at Ilovemags.com if you want your goods delivered this year!
You can still order things after that date, but they will be delivered to you early January 2012.
Downloads are not affected – they are always available in your Ilovemags account immediately upon purchase.

So you have until Monday at midnight to buy yourself a Christmas present. And if you do, I’ll give you one as well:

All (physical) orders placed from now until (throughout) Monday 5th December 2011 will include a free copy of the world’s sexiest tabloid newspaper Breaking Boy News!

Some recent items in our shop:

Shallow Tourist by Moot: 20 euro

Destroyer Magazine: Issues 3-9: 10 euro. Issue 10: 12 euro. (Issue 1 and 2 still sold out!)

The Appendix: 15 euro. (Or 7,50 if ordered together with Gay Man’s Worst Friend – the Story of Destroyer Magazine)

Breaking Boy News: Included with your order for free until Monday 5th December 2011! (Otherwise 10 euro.)

Category: Destroyer
Tags: Breaking Boy News, Destroyer Magazine, Gay Man's Worst Friend, ilovemags, Shallow Tourist

Rave review of Gay Man’s Worst Friend

November 25th, 2011, 19:37 | No comments

The Dutch bilingual (Dutch and English) gay mag Gay News devotes five pages in their December issue to Destroyer and my book Gay Man’s Worst Friend – the Story of Destroyer Magazine.

The article is written by Hans Hafkamp, who is also the magazine’s editor-in-chief.

Here are some tidbits (I’ve made a few extra line breaks and added bold here and there):

In this day and age it’s asking for trouble if you try to catch the beauty of the Boy in words or images, as someone noted in response to Greer’s book: “We constantly look at very young girls in the media but as soon as it is a boy, we call it pederasty or pedophilia.” The gay community is not any different from the rest of the people. Andersson states – and I think he’s right – that what we think is an acceptable “gay identity” is being narrowed down continually. Shortly after the Stonewall riots in 1969 “homosexuality” meant (almost) all forms of same-sex attraction, but along the way more and more groups were maneuvered to the sideline.”

[...]

Hell broke loose when presenters of the radio program “P3 Homo” expressed their horror. One of them called the first issue “really, really disgusting. I must say I get these ancient Greece vibes, you know this age-hierarchical view on sex and young boys, no it’s disgusting!“

Some time later Sören Juvas, chairman of the Swedish gay rights organization RFSL, for which Andersson also has worked, said in an interview with radio program “P1-morgon” that he couldn’t recognize anything in Destroyer’s philosophy “that a large group of homosexuals think that this is a good thing, that is, feeling sexual lust towards teenage boys.”

A little later in the program he targets Andersson, who’s been taking part in the discussion over the phone, that he “of course sexualise[s] the young teenage boy. [...] I think you’re pushing the boundaries in a way that I don’t think is good. I think this opens up the possibility of abusing young people.”

This homo-bobo criticism stings all the more sharply because it was in orchestra with the Swedish Ombudsman for Children and the extreme right wing. One could expect that Destroyer would be targeted by several neo-Nazi sites, but it still is a surprise that the “professional homosexuals” were up in arms too, and proof of Andersson’s claim that acceptable gay identity has been narrowed down further and further.

Most remarkable – and without any historical awareness – is the criticism on Ancient Greece. A society that was called upon by gay pioneers all through the twentieth century as a paradise, in which homosexuality had a legitimate position. With their objections to Destroyer the politically correct gay spokespersons denounced a large part of modern emancipation history in one single gesture.

[...]

Reading “Gay Man’s Worst Friend” made me think of Sigmund Freud now and then, who once claimed that the aversions most loudly expressed were closest to what was desired in secret. Recent research at the University of Georgia showed that the men who are most vocal about their homophobia, got the most excited sexually while watching gay porn. So one wonders what the Destroyer critics were really so excited about?

[...]

The history and reception of Destroyer [...] raises questions that are not easy to answer. Although “Gay Man’s Worst Friend” only has 128 pages, Andersson presents an overload of material for serious reflection on the direction of the gay community of today. You probably won’t agree with all Andersson has to say, but it won’t hurt to think about the anti-lust rhetoric that surrounds certain topics at the moment.

This was the best review so far (here are the others) – I doubt it can even get better. To have an intellectual and historically aware gay man of the old school read my book and pick up on obvious (but still missed by so many!) references and criticisms was exactly what I had hoped for when I wrote it. All the better when such a reader is in charge of a fag rag!

Still don’t have the book? Order it from me or from Amazon! (Amazon has 5 copies in stock as I write this.)

Category: Destroyer
Tags: Destroyer, Destroyer Magazine, gay, gay identity, Gay Man's Worst Friend, gay movement, Gay News, Hans Hafkamp, Karl Andersson, P3 Homo, RFSL, Sören Juvas, Stonewall

The Destroyer book is now in stock

October 30th, 2010, 13:41 | 1 comment

Karl Andersson: Bögarnas värsta vän - historien om tidningen Destroyer

The book “Bögarnas värsta vän – historien om tidningen Destroyer” (Gay Men’s Worst Friend – the Story about Destroyer Magazine) by Karl Andersson (that’s me!) is now available at Ilovemags:

Buy it here!

And if you want me to sign it for you, don’t forget to tell me so in the comment field when checking out.

The book ships worldwide, but please note that this book is in Swedish. The English translation is scheduled for early 2011.

The book contains no images, only text. It’s a description of the reactions that Destroyer caused during its four years (2006-2010), as well as a personal account of why I started the magazine, who the readers were (you lived in 37 countries!), and other stuff related to Destroyer.

The reception of the book in Sweden has been very positive. Two of Sweden’s four biggest newspapers (Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet) have written long articles about it in their culture sections, illustrated with covers and spreads from the magazine. I will translate those articles for you in time.

I also had a reading at a gallery in Stockholm last Wednesday. It was so popular that everyone couldn’t get in – there was a long line on the street outside. The event was attended by some of Sweden’s most influential writers, including Unni Drougge, who blogged about it (in Swedish). Also read 之乎者也 and Johanna Sjödin (both in Swedish), not to mention Panchamkauns (yes, in Swedish too).

The book is printed in 500 copies.

Category: Destroyer
Tags: Bögarnas värsta vän, Destroyer, Destroyer Magazine, Entartetes Leben, Gay Men's Worst Friend, ilovemags

Destroyer on Twitter

December 29th, 2009, 16:02 | No comments

Our Twitter account has been there for ages, but now we will actually start using it! So if you’re tired of the endless gaps between blog posts, if you want updates on the next issue or if you just want to know what comes our way, follow Destroyer here:

twitter.com/destroyermag

Let’s party!

Category: Destroyer, Links, Personal
Tags: Destroyer, Destroyer Magazine, twitter

Destroyer 09 available for download!

November 3rd, 2009, 14:11 | No comments

Yippee! As of today, the latest issue of Destroyer, D9, is available for download as a pdf file, starting at 4.99 euro (7.37 USD) for the standard version or 7.18 euro (10.60 USD) for the high quality version.

Purchase Destroyer 09 as pdf here.

Pdf versions of previous issues of Destroyer are found here.

Enjoy!

Category: Destroyer
Tags: Destroyer, Destroyer Magazine, download, ilovemags, pdf

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Now shipping: The Destroyer book

"What this slender book does is chart the magazine’s history and backlash, presenting a calm rational response to the hysterical screams of paedophilia. It is, on the whole, quite convincing." -Gay Times, June 2011