Sit back, relax, Climax…

Heibon Punch

To celebrate Climax’s six-month birthday, Isabella Burley, the independent distributor and founder of all things erotic, selects her top picks from the latest release: rare pop culture ephemera, saucy books, Japanese periodicals, a VHS tape and more.

Sex by Madonna

This is the much rarer 1992 Japanese first edition of Madonna’s infamous Sex book. So that it could pass the censorship laws at the time, it was packaged in a plain brown box and then also a more graphic white one – both with the coolest typography. Such an underrated masterpiece, edited by the late great Glenn O’Brien. The photographs of Madonna and Naomi Campbell making out are wild.”

I Like Myself by Yayoi Kusama

We’re lucky enough to have Yayoi Kusama’s radical self-published periodical An Orgy of Nudity, Love, Sex and Beauty from 1969 on the site, but I’ve just discovered her 2007 book I Like Myself (which is part of our birthday new stock). The cover shows Kusama in a fluorescent pink wig with a yellow obi! Inside it features rare, often unseen images from the late 1960s and 70s of her hallucinatory body painting and happenings in New York. Super special!”

Deana Lawson

Just one of my favourite photo books of all time. Captured over the span of a decade, this first monograph by Deana Lawson celebrates her intimate portraiture and her highly stylised scenes of everyday life. Taken in America and during her travels in the Caribbean and Africa, Lawson often works with nude bodies, juxtaposing and animating them against domestic interiors. I also love her interview with Arthur Jafa inside.”

Heibon Punch magazines

I’ve become obsessed with the cult and now-defunct Japanese men’s magazine Heibon Punch – particularly issues from the late 1970s and early 80s. The covers and graphics are so insane, and this cowgirl one is just wow. It was the rival to Japan’s Weekly Playboy, but so much cooler.”

Hardcore, 1994 and 1992 by Richard Kern

So I get that nobody owns a VHS player anymore, but I love these original release tapes of Richard Kern’s Hardcore volumes. We have both the 1994 French edition from Haxan Films and the original 1992 US edition by Film Threat Video. The series of works feature many of Kern’s regular collaborators like Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Lung Leg and the soundtrack is by Sonic Youth, of course!”

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