ELSKA WANTS YOU TO LOVE THEM, NOT F*CK THEM… WITH BASTIAN C

As editor of Elska, I learned quickly not to read comments. Most are pretty flippant, uninformed and often tinged with crazy; there’s little reason to respond to them. Sometimes I sort of accidentally read them though, and most go something like this:

“That guy’s too skinny and not even handsome”

“These models are all just plain ugly”

“The men look straight out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue”

If I was to respond, it would be to say that Elska isn’t driven by looks, so if you think the guys are “too pretty” or “too ugly”, that’s not really the point of what we do. We have no political agenda to showcase guys who aren’t “perfect-looking”, but neither are we like a traditional gay magazine trying specifically to feature guys who we are traditionally hot.

Elska is about simply exploring a new city each issue through its resident men. That includes guys of different ages, races, sizes, etc., but we also don’t intentionally say “oh, we need a fat a guy, oh we need an Asian guy, oh we need a muscled guy”… it’s much more organic than that. Furthermore, while we don’t hire professional models, if a model living in Berlin wanted to take part in the Berlin issue, he’d be as welcome as anyone else.

Bastian C, pictured, is one of the guys featured in the Berlin issue. He is incredibly handsome, but that’s not why we chose him for Elska. He just happens to be hot.

Ok, so probably no one is going to believe me on this, so let me put it this way. When I myself leaf through Elska, I do find some of the guys attractive and some of them rather unattractive physically. I bet that if you leafed through the same issue, your fit-list would be different.

Some of them don’t turn my head physically but then after I read their story and get to know who they are a bit, I kind of want to snuggle up to them on the sofa and chat the night away. That really is what I want to do with Elska – to make you want to know these guys, to love them, not to make you want to fuck them.

Elska Boy: Bastian C

Photographer: Liam Campbell

Location: Berlin, Germany

Elska Magazine: Issue (02) Berlin + Elska Ekstra 2.1

#BerlinGermany