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THE NOT-SO LATEST February 22, 2000

YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, DUDE

Used to be, discussions of sex in men's magazines was limited to the "I never believed this sort of thing could happen to me until I met the twins..." variety. And generally men were happy with this. However, to get any real discussion of the reality of sex, a guy was forced to turn to his friends. And then when one wanted information that didn't involve hand gestures and the words "Dude" or "Man" at the beginning of every sentence, one was forced to saunter into the back of the bookstore when no one was looking and try to randomly grab a title out of the "Health" section. If you were lucky, you grabbed, say, "The Gentleman's Guide to Body Parts He Doesn't Have and What to Do With Them" before anyone caught on, and not, say, "Sex After Ninety: An Illustrated Guide" or "1001 Menstrual Cycle Puns."


"Oooh, mama!"

Bookstores had to do a lot of upkeep on the health section in those days, because there were always stray pre-teens kidnapping those books and holing up in some secluded corner somewhere to oogle the uterus diagrams. And embarrassed men were always abandoning the books in random shelves near the cash register should there be -- gasp! -- a female manning the register. If said male did make it to the register, the book would inevitably be carefully sandwiched between Kissinger's "Guide to Third World Diplomacy" and "Flower Arranging for Non-Majors," neither of which would ever actually get read, though they did make nice bachelor pad accessories.

(The Sandwich Trick -- if you can legitimately call something that fools no one a "trick" -- is a time-tested and respected part of the masculine repetoire, which, curiously, is never directly taught but somehow instinctively handed down from generation to generation through genetics or careful insinuation. Apparently, men feel the need to demonstrate that they are not just porn-mongering horndogs with credit cards. Either that or they think that someone will be too busy ringing up "Bambi" to notice the copy of "Naughty Nurses 8," when in fact it's the other way around.)

On the other hand, women's magazines, again proving the belief that girls mature earlier than boys, have been trumpeting sex in every possible manner since Helen Gurley Brown was in diapers. (Funny how things come full circle, isn't it?) "10.6 Billion Ways To Improve Your Orgasm" screams the headline ("Number One: Have one.") over the photograph of a woman with breasts so disproportionately large that they have their own planetary classification.

Is it really wise to take beauty advice from this woman?

Yes, you could say that women are light years ahead of men when it comes to preying on insecurities. Except that men edited these magazines for years, but I digress.

Today, the "Health" section is sadly neglected. In its place, we have seen the rise of the Men's Magazine, with capital M's. (Capital letters are very masculine and so we Men throw them around like baseballs so as to insure that no one doubts our Manliness.) Used to be, "men's magazines" (and I mean the ones without the gynecological focus) were equally divided between investment tips, witty fiction that no one understands, and photographs of snotty, effeminate male models wearing clothes you could never hope to afford. Sure, there was the Varga girl, but she was a tease and never returned your phone calls.

These gentlemen's magazines (sans capitals) have been around since the Russian Revolution and have proven about as successful. But over in England, where sexuality has actually evolved since Pilgrim times, someone hit upon the idea of writing a magazine for Men. Not just any man, but the kind of man whose primary form of communication is an elaborate series of punches and passed gas. In other words, a magazine for men who don't read.

To some, this might seem like creating a cheese for the lactose intolerant, but I suppose if you made that cheese aesthetically pleasing -- say in the shape of a nearly naked supermodel -- you could probably put Wisconsin into backorders for millennia. It's not such a strange idea in hindsight: Men like to look at women. Put a pleasing one on your cover with little clothing and you create the possibility in a man's mind that she might be wearing even less inside. Manage to keep most of those clothes actually on the woman and you can bypass all those pesky ultra-feminists and religious-types that Hugh Hefner is always tangling with. Money in the bank.

But we live in risk-averse times, so we needed one guy to take the lead. That guy was Maxim, which hit the stands back in 1997, and things haven't been the same since. The stands are now littered with cover photographs of nearly naked women who are apparently completely ignorant of the room temperature at the time that the picture was taken. And so it's become practically impossible to tell the women's magazines from the men's. About the only way I've found is to pay attention to pronouns.

Creative Names for Magazines 101

And this month we can add another Men's (grunt) Magazine to the mix. FHM ("For Horny Mimes") hit the stands this month, featuring actress Rachael Leigh Cook in a gfjslkdYUINljljnnn flfaHIOAuliu8988jklm

Sorry, I was looking at the cover for, er, reference and my tongue got all over the keyboard. I must say: These guys really know what they're doing. It's like they've stumbled on some secret drool switch in men's minds. So excuse me while I put the magazine away so as not to provide further disaHHKKHio89sa21uiuyi%$^&%^kjkhui

Full disclosure: I happen to subscribe to two of these manly magazines. Back in the day, I used to pick up the occasional issue of the British import of Maxim, but it really wasn't for the jaw-dropping hottie on the cover. Okay, that's a blatant lie. It was the babe that got my attention, but what kept me coming back was the sense of humor. I usually couldn't care less about most of the subjects that preoccupy these magazines -- sports, fashion, unusual seeping wounds -- but at least they read more like an actual human being is behind the keyboard, as opposed to old-style men's magazines, which make The Wall Street Journal look lively.

And yeah, I hope that at least some of the readers of these magazines are at least marginally concerned about being condensed so easily down to the caricature of masculinity that these magazines rely on. But it seems hypocritical to complain when they get more right that wrong most of the time. And besides, it beats sneaking into the back of a bookstore.

 


Patrick Keller now has Retsin, whatever that is. This article is (c) 1999 Patrick Keller, Gern Blansten Productions. You may redistribute this piece, provided the text is unaltered and it contains this notice. As always, if you know someone sick and twisted who might like this stuff, let me know. I'll sign them up. Blah blah blah e-mail me at blansten@iname.com blah blah blah

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