Sausage Fest

I have a subscription to ESPN the magazine. I’ll admit it, I love
sports. This magazine is really pretty interesting, but the main reason I receive it is the fact that the ESPN website is fantastic for sports fans, but most of the really interesting stuff is considered “premium content.” Because of that, you need to pay to be an “ESPN Insider” to read it. So what do they use as an inducement to read their web site? They include their magazine for a year with your Insider payment. It’s a pretty good trade-off but that is not why I am posting this.

No, I am posting this because despite the fact that the readership of
this magazine is nearly 100% men, it is littered with the same overtly
homoerotic advertising as GQ, Esquire, and Details. Look, I don’t need to see semi-naked women in all of the advertising in magazine, but since I don’t subscribe to Advocate or any of the other “alternative lifestyle” magazines, why do I want to see effeminate men pouting to the camera for me to buy a watch for $1000? And that is the ad with Derek Jeter in it. It would be nice to read a magazine for real men; how to get into shape reasonably, how to look good from a fashion sense without looking like you are trolling for dudes, and how to further your career/financial opportunities in order to get more stuff. Actually I think that I just described what Playboy used to be, without the nudity of course.

The greater point is this; there are too many media outlets missing the point about men. We are a diverse and difficult to pigeonhole group. We like lots of different things, but mostly we are not looking to act like frat-house rejects, drunken louts, or Haute couture fashionistas. And damn it, when we do we want to feel like men while we are doing it.

Anyway, rant over, I wonder where I can get a manicure and a Movado 800?