Thank you on your understanding and I look forward to hearing from you really soon
XXXXXX’
The second type of letter was the editorial comment. This was usually just a quick note saying something like: ‘Loved the last issue. Jackie looked fabulous. I’d eat her arse out for breakfast. More of the same,’ or ‘I’d love to see Sophie Raithworth (BBC newsreader) in your magazine, butt-naked with an assortment of fruit up her chuff.’ I didn’t pick Sophie at random by the way, for some reason she was far and away the most popular celebrity fantasy figure we received letters about. Hundreds and hundreds I saw on her, some with crudely drawn pictures of her wearing her ankles as ear-muffs and some featuring her doing a hell of a lot worse. Perhaps this is something Sophie might consider if she ever gets bored of reading the news. Whatever she decides, I always found it quite reassuring that so many blokes in this country took an interest in current affairs.
However, sometimes the requests were a bit more specific, if badly worded:
‘Dear editor,
This is where I have to flatter your mag to bits – and it is a true fact that Bling is the best mag... so other mags kneel to Bling – The master.
I have risen to enough courage to write this letter to you! When you come to read this letter I’ll be 21 (and single!) and I thought... what can make my birthday special? I know... I’ll write to Bling and propose a sexual challenge to all those gorgeous girls!
I like women with long hair (any colour). I feel it makes them more feminine and it brings out their beauty more (especially when their face retorts with pleasure – oooohhh!) Okay! The challenge is where these gorgeous girls get shagged by their racquet (tennis racquet) while shagging another woman with their racquets... If only I could draw!
They must own their own racquet... tennis skirt and the rest of the outfit... Not only are they going to get shagged by their own tennis racquet... by the others too. Not only that! One woman must be, say, the leader... who is the only one to touch me – unless she says otherwise!
To decide who’ll be the leader...
1) Each women will suck my knob – the more times they do it... The more chance they’ll become the leader... OR...
2) I’ll go round-tasting each woman’s pussy... The one I like the most will become the leader...
Okay! I think I got everything covered? Oh! How would you women – part of the challenge – be shagged by more than one racquet? (Or is it... tennis racket? – never mind!)
I hope everything is clear...
Write to me for more info.
I’ll leave it to you.
XXXXX
p.s. The women need to wear the tennis gear for the challenge – if they’re interested!’
Again, there’s a level of optimism here not seen since England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich. However, I think he shot himself in the foot somewhat with his overcomplicated rules and regulations. He should’ve just asked if he could’ve shagged a couple of our models for his 21st. The answer would’ve still been the same but at least he would’ve saved himself some ink.
We also got really moaning letters complaining that Abigail was wearing black knickers instead of white and that we hadn’t had any white knickers for three issues now and stuff like that. Sometimes, they’d compile statistics and have charts showing a complete count of all the white knickers, full-frontal shots, bum shots, big boobs, shaven fannies, blonde girls and Chinese birds we’d had in the mag over the last five years (I kid you not) as proof that we were prejudiced against white knickers. The time and effort that must’ve gone into compiling all these stats is awesome. Again, these got to see how the rest of the world looked from the bin.
The insanest guy however, was probably the bloke up in Liverpool who’d rip all his favourite pages out of the magazine every month, write on them ‘I like this picture, more pictures like this,’ then send them back to us. Sometimes he’d rip girls out of catalogues or newspapers and demand that we got the enclosed girl in our magazine. We could tell he liked them because he’d write ‘lick lick’ next to their privates. Occasionally he’d send back pictures from Bling that he didn’t like with, ‘She’s not naked you stupid cunts!!! Get it right you fucking idiots!!!’ if the girl still had stockings or a hat on or something. A genuinely scary fellow, but then nothing really surprises me about Scousers any more.
The third type of letter I mentioned was very common. Guys, and occasionally girls, would write in and ask if they could be in a photoshoot shagging the girls, or sometimes even just by themselves, oblivious to the fact that there were no blokes in Bling.
‘Dear Bling,
My name is XXX XXXXXXX I’m 19 and have a great ambition to be a part of a porno film/mag I believe my naked body is not disappointing and would be happy to send pictures of my nob or any other area you wish to see. My great ambition is to have people take photos of me naked: please could you help me with my ambition (info on what my next move is would be great)! if you need pictures or more info on this matter please please contact me on XXXX XXXX XXXX.
(I will work for free)
p.s. this is no joke ring the mobile no and speak to me to prove this.
please please please ring me if you can help me.’
or the slightly more simplistic:
‘Dear Editor,
Do you take Male Photo’s Yes or No?
£10 Bum
£20 Front
Details in a Letter Please. Can come at Soho May 11th or 25th 2,00 Night Time because i will be Travelling on Bus to London Plus have to find Bed & Breadfest in a Hotel about £30 or £40.
Mr X. XXXXX
Do you know any Guess House’s it’s more cheeperer’
Of course, there’s a chance that the first of these letters could’ve been a joke simply because he kept claiming it wasn’t and asking us to give him a call, probably one of his mates trying to set him up or something, but the second letter you feel is absolutely genuine. Some geezer wanted us to take pictures of his back and front and pay him £10 and £20 a pop for them like they were in demand or something.
As I said, we got a lot of these, and in fact, we got an even greater number of guys who’d actually send in pictures of their fronts. We had in so many that the female editorial assistants started pinning them up on the wall over their desks as a sort of cock collage. It grew so much that within six months it measured five feet high by ten feet wide and started encroaching on the wall space over Matt’s desk – which he was having none of.
I guess the guys used to send them in because posting them off was almost like a sexual act in itself, the thought of one of the models (because the whole place was staffed with models, right) would open their letter and see their cock and get off on it just as the reader had got off looking at their body. And if that happened there was a chance, just the slightest possibility, that she might decide to visit the cock and its fat, hairy, house-bound owner for a bit of ultimate fantasy.
This is just my interpretation and, again, I don’t know a lot about how women’s minds work but from what girls have told me, they don’t get turned-on in the same visual way that blokes do. Sure they might froth and foam a bit if they see James Bond, the Chippendales or Blue Watch putting out a blaze at a thong factory, but pictures of cocks apparently didn’t press the same buttons in women as pictures of women did for us blokes. Sure, there are always going to be exceptions and some women will moan how there’s no decent porn for women and so on but by and large they’re in the minority. There’s no decent porn for women because there’s no market for it.