Culch.ie

For the Articles

Ladies, have you ever been sat next to a man on any description of plane, train or automobile and glanced over to see that the magazine he’s been reading contains pictures of half naked women?  Have you then instantly judged him to be a perverted sad little smut monger who’d rather look at a girl with staples through her nipples than actually talk to one?  Don’t be so quick.

Men, have you ever sat down next to a woman on any description of plane, train or automobile and glanced over to see a scowl on her face like you’d just handed her a used nappy to sneeze into?  Sure you have, we all have.  Why would you want to start up a conversation with a woman who looked as if she’d skin you alive with her Jedi powers for just asking her the time?  Women in the magazines don’t look like that, they understand you.  Or at least that’s what the publishers, editors, air brushing and ridiculous model “interviews” would have you believe.

I’m starting a series to take a look at the phenomenon known as “Lads mags”.

I read the weekly ones, the monthly ones.  Lads mags don’t focus on one thing in particular.  They feature comedy throw away articles, interesting journalism, sport, fashion, current affairs and of course scantily clad women.  There’s not a lads mag out there that isn’t guilty of having a woman naked apart from the titles and headlines strategically placed over her.  This is, sadly, what most men will have their eye drawn to at the magazine stand.

Women’s magazines don’t play the same game.

Instead they use headlines and pictures of the latest fat and/or drunk female celebrity to attract readers to part with their money and keep circulation numbers up.

Fair enough?

I don’t know.

Whether a woman signs a modeling release to have her form used on the cover or she’s snapped by the latest mobile phone paparazzo, it’s still exploitation.

The fact of the matter is that most magazines are owned by a media group who produce more than one title.  And most of these will produce both men’s and women’s publications.  This, to me at least, shows that they know what they’re doing when it comes to selling the magazines and giving the readers what they want when they get home, boil the kettle and waste the next hour of their lives.

Heat magazine wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the need of the masses to know what celebrities are dieting on or who they’re shagging.  OK! magazine famously and shamelessly released Jade Goody’s memorial issue a week before she died.

I’m trying to think of a single lads mag guilty of such ploys to shift numbers.

Now, I’m not talking about Playboy, Hustler or Penthouse who all offer huge amounts of money to celebrities to strip off to shift numbers.  I’m talking of the ones that I can walk in to any shop in the country to buy and not have to break open a cellophane cover to read first.  Loaded, FHM, Front, Maxim, Zoo, Nuts, Arena, GQ are all magazines aimed at men.  They all have their own share of the market and some are aimed at what they would like to think are more up market audiences, but they’re lads mags nonetheless.

This is just an intro post to the series I have planned to show why I read them and what I like and dislike about each one.  There is a stigma attached to these magazines and I don’t understand why.  Women can read Cosmo or Company magazines (just examples) openly that will have articles about sex, why can’t men?

Yes, the lads mags are full of a lot of shite, but that’s no defense for the league of people who are against them, women’s magazines are as guilty.

The line of “I only buy them for the articles” is one that many men will use and no one believes.  I can say it because I know it to be true for me.  Anyone who doubts my honesty can visit my own blog to see that I have no problem admitting to some seedy behaviour, but I digress.

I do buy them for the articles, and in the next post you’ll see why.  I don’t buy them for the sport articles, I don’t follow sport.  I don’t buy them for fashion advice, anyone who’s met me will confirm that.  I buy them for the articles, the nude pictures are just a bonus.

So ladies who are confused and/or disgusted as to why we would want to read them, stay tuned.

Men who read them on the business end of dirty looks, don’t worry, help is at hand.