Loslyf is a South African Afrikaans-language pornographic magazine. The magazine was founded in 1995 by J.T. Publishing, a South African subsidiary of the American Hustler.[1] It was the first Afrikaans-language pornographic publication. Launched only one year after the end of apartheid, the magazine was greatly controversial as it posed a clear opposition to the conservative Afrikaner nationalist morals that influenced the apartheid government's censorship of media[2]
Loslyf Magazine
Under Hattingh's management, the magazine took on a critical tone. Along with the nude spreads, Loslyf also featured a number of intellectual articles from well-known and respected writers. It also contained controversial political cartoons by Joe Dog and Konradski of Bitterkomix.[4]
Since its debut, Loslyf readership has levelled out to around 20,000 copies sold per issue. This has been attributed to its loss of novelty factor.[4] Also, after coming under the management of editor Karen Eloff, the magazine's first female editor, the magazine has changed direction toward a more sexually oriented magazine, dropping its critical and intellectual features. She claims that "people buy Loslyf because of the sex, and there is a place for everything, but Loslyf is just not the place for intellectual stories."[8] However, readership did increase by 30% following Eloff becoming editor and posing nude within the magazine in a 2005 issue.[9]
Namibian-born Afrikaans singer Juanita du Plessis sued the magazine for "doctoring" a picture of her and including a vulgar headline insinuating that she was addicted to oral sex in the October 2004 issue. Du Plessis made a R200,000 defamation claim against the magazine. In 2007 the Pretoria High Court ruled in favour of Du Plessis and J.T. Publishers was forced to pay her R60,000.[11]
In December 2004, Loslyf published an image of a woman's breast and claimed it to be that of local South African singer-celebrity Amor Vittone. Inside the magazine, there also appeared six other photos of breasts with captions implying that they were Vittone's. Following the issue's publication, Vitonne denied that any of the photos were legitimate and filed a R1,000,000 lawsuit against the magazine. The publisher eventually publicly apologised, pulled from issue from the shelves, and privately agreed to compensate Vitonne.[12]
In 2005, a Loslyf reader was removed from a Nationwide Airlines flight for refusing to put away the magazine. After being told he was not allowed to read the magazine on the plane, businessman A.C. Hoffman bluntly refused and was eventually removed before takeoff. This raised controversy particularly because Hoffman had purchased the issue within the airport.[13] The magazine abides by the rules regarding explicit content set out by the national Film and Production Board. Though, as Eloff claims, it is about sex, the magazine refrains from depicting images of sexual intercourse as well as other sexually explicit acts. This allows the magazine to be sold at cafés and airports, not only in sex shops.[8]
Are you going to change anything in the magazine? No, I like to stick to the same format. I would like to put more local models in and less intellectual stories. We had stories about the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] and abortion, but that just has nothing to do with sex. People buy Loslyf because of the sex, and there is a place for everything, but Loslyf is just not the place for intellectual stories.
I would like to see a porn-movie industry in South Africa. There are only three porn magazines I can think of: Loslyf, Hustler and Cape Town-based Red Hot Pages, which is not really porn. I would actually like to see the whole [porn] industry developing. 2ff7e9595c
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