Maxim and Me - why a nice girl stopped reading men's mags
bess lovejoy, features editor

It started innocently enough. A trustworthy friend, the kind of guy with neon in his hair and plaid on his pants, was chatting with me in the library one day last spring. Somehow the discussion turned to all things guy. "Have you seen that new magazine, Maxim?" he asked me. When I replied in the negative, he began describing what sounded like the ultimate sociological guide into the marketing of male fantasy. That, and a good chance to see some nice T and A.

The fun began when he brought me a copy a few days later at work. While we felt able to keep an ironic distance and laugh our heads off at the thing, some of my co-workers were less enthused. The guys seemed unsure about whether it was okay, in my presence, to like it.

Thus began my curious odyssey into the world of men's mags. And I don't mean Penthouse and Playboy - but the cleaner, funnier versions packaged as hip entertainment without a trace of shame. Maxim, Stuff, Gear; you know the type. I wasn't interested in them as a way to glean "insight" into the male mind, since I don't presume that they reflect the concerns of the men around me any more than Cosmo reflects my own. Rather, I was drawn to them with a sort of morbid fascination - a strange brew of curiosity, lust and concern.

Plus, men's mags were a great way to bond with my 17-year-old brother. We could relax on the couch together, while I picked out linen shirts for him and he panted over brunettes with the faux-innocent phrase "I like her more than a friend." And wasn't it "cool", after all, for a girly-girl like myself to be into something so guy? I seemed to get approval for it, as if guys breathed an inward sigh of relief, thinking "Oh good, she's not one of those feminist types. No need to take down the Pammy posters in the bathroom."

Men's mags also fit in with my desire to explore those areas which are "taboo" for nice feminists. I've always had a deep fascination with porn, strippers, arrogant metal-head boys and tight leather pants. Although unpleasant experiences - break-ups, chafing - have pretty much quenched my thirst for the last two, I still want to know exactly what goes on in the business of desire and exploitation.

So it was an sort of odd fascination which compelled my descent into the throes of glossy guydom. But although the attitude with which my neon-haired friend and I approached the Brut-scented pages was one of ironic, hipster distance, I felt vaguely unsettled from the beginning.

After all, isn't this new breed of men's mag symptomatic of the backlash against feminism; the type of attitude that causes people to use the phrase "politically correct" as an epithet? Don't these mags objectify women, create an unhealthy climate for us, in which we are judged by our "rack"? Perhaps more subtly, don't they oppress men as well as women, by enforcing a stereotype of masculinity as defined by beer, poker, and sexism? Well, exactly.

Maxim definitely offends, and not in a South Park, take-no-prisoners kind of way, but in a gross, and to me, disturbing way. Take this example: In the current issue, there's a feature on pregnancy. A light-pink box explains, with poorly-done pictures, "how her body changes" and what you as a man can do about it.

The subtitle is "On the good side, 'Does this make me look fat?' won't be an issue any longer." In the first trimester, your girlfriend is "new and improved" because she has bigger boobs. In the second trimester, she'll look and smell gross and have PMS. In the third, "your best bet is just to work late and play a lot of poker."

Is this funny? Of course, there's also a helpful diagram which shows a guy how to change a diaper - on top of a bar counter.

But it took me a while to realize all of this. More precisely, it took me a while to realize that my ironic distance was really neither.

In certain moods, I can look at these women with something approaching innocence. There's a beautiful thigh, here a well-oiled stomach, or a gorgeous mane of hair. Great! I like beautiful women. Many people do. And Maxim's babes are infinitely cuter than the fashion mag darlings, who are basically clothes hangers.

Since Maxim girls wear almost no clothes, they can have a bit more flesh (but just a bit.) They're much classier than porn star girls, those of over-moussed fake blond hair and dangling gold earrings. No, these are the kind of girls in ads for wine, not beer. All the better to sell things to the upwardly mobile, or rather, guys who wish they were upwardly mobile, and sit around in their boxers.

In these moods, I am reminded of my prepubescent self, in which the future was an endless sea of pink prom dresses revealing carefully rounded cleavage, the little "v" my friends and I would sketch on our drawings to indicate decolletage. Of course, I have yet to see my breasts make that "v", and I ended up at a crazy artsy school without a prom. No "parking" in daddy's trans-am for me.

But my gaze is complicated. It's a curious thing, admiring semi-naked beauties. I can't approach it as an unaware man might, in pure ogling delight. And I can't approach it as a totally straight girl might, with a dismissive wave and a comment about the chick's hair. It's a double lens; trying to shake off years of cultural conditioning which tells me to get breast implants while admiring an obviously fake "rack." What do I do? Where do I fit in? And what's easier; lust or hatred?

So here's the rub.

While boarding a plane recently I saw a man somewhat sheepishly carrying a Maxim rolled up beneath his arm, so that only the tell-tale "X" and a bit of bronze flesh was showing (that I recognized it is a testament to my fascination). Did my opinion of this man lessen?

Yes. I thought I would be kept safe by my sense of ironic distance, but the moment in which I'm just a regular girl subject to the mindset which Maxim promotes is the moment in which my sense of safety is shattered. I'm not talking only about my physical safety (though that comes into play), but rather the safety given me through the hard work of many tireless feminist women and men. The safety to be a human being, to find people with whom I feel my mind matters more than my rack. Maxim turns back the clock, and I don't really feel safe anymore.

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