''BUTT'' is a biannual magazine that features photography and interviews about alternative gay and queer culture and sexuality. Historically, the magazine has been marketed as for gay men. The magazine, originating in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, features interviews, photographs, articles, and advertisements that document trends and lifestyles within the gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer community.

History

''BUTT'' was founded in 2001 by Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom. Its first issue showed German fashion designer

Bernhard Willhelm Bernhard Willhelm (born 3 November 1972 in Ulm) is a German fashion designer. Education and first season Bernhard Willhelm studied fashion design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp), Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, during which he a ...

in nude portraits taken by

Wolfgang Tillmans Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German Fine-art photography, photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. Tillman ...

. The magazine is available worldwide. In the United States and the United Kingdom, it was available at

American Apparel American Apparel Inc. is a North American clothing retailer. The brand began with operating retail stores between the late 1980s and late 2010s. Its operations are based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Canadian businessman Dov Charney in ...

stores, among other places. It ceased print publication in 2011, and relaunched in September 2022.

Content

''BUTT'' has featured artists such as

Casey Spooner Casey David Spooner (born February 2, 1970) is an American musician and artist. He resides in Paris, Los Angeles, and New York City. Early life and education Spooner was born in Athens, Georgia. He attended University of Georgia and later went ...

Michael Stipe John Michael Stipe (; born January 4, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter and artist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Stipe was born in Metro Atlanta in January 1960. Due to his father's militar ...

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...

, Arca,

Heinz Peter Knes Heinz Peter Knes is a photographer. He is born in 1969 in Gemünden am Main, Germany. Heinz Peter Knes studied photography on Fachhochschule Dortmund, from 1993 to 1999. Since 2001 Knes has lived in Berlin. His work has been published in several ...

Leilah Weinraub Leilah Weinraub (born 1979) is an American filmmaker, conceptual artist, and the former chief executive officer of the fashion brand Hood By Air. In 2018, she was named a Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow. Biography Weinraub was born ...

Edmund White Edmund Valentine White III (January 13, 1940 – June 3, 2025) was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. A pioneering figure in LGBTQ and especially gay literature after the Stonewall riots, he wrote with ra ...

Terence Koh Terence Koh (born 1977 in Beijing, China ) is a Canadian artist who has also worked under the alias "asianpunkboy". The artist's work spans a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, video, performance, and the internet. Originally workin ...

, Walter Pfeiffer,

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yo ...

, and

Slava Mogutin Slava Mogutin (full name Yaroslav Yurievich Mogutin, b. April 12, 1974, Kemerovo) is a New York-based Russian artist and author, who works across different media, including photography, video, text, installation, sculpture, and painting. Life i ...

. Readers submitted interviews, letters, photographs, or articles. Subscribers were referred to as "Buttheads" and could join the Butthead community officially through the magazine's website.

Reception and impact

In 2005, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' named ''BUTT'' as one of its top twenty magazines. , it had an estimated worldwide circulation of 24,000. In 2014,

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt Taschen and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Tasch ...

released ''Butt Forever'', an anthology of some of the magazine's highlights since its inception. ''BUTT'' has been praised for its unabashed sexual and non-sexual portrayals of men, which emphasize equal opportunity in depictions of all people in print. The magazine has been lauded for its unique, candid approach to interviews, which may be conducted by anyone.

References

External links

* {{Official website, www.buttmagazine.com Gay culture in Europe Gay men's magazines LGBTQ-related magazines published in the Netherlands Magazines established in 2001 Quarterly magazines published in the Netherlands