All for Him: Articles About Sex in American Lad Magazines

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The finding that improving the male reader's sex life was a prominent topic is hardly surprising, yet is nonetheless important. After all, if lad magazines are being used as sources of sex education, what are readers learning? First, as they read repeatedly about how to improve their sex life, they are likely to learn that their sex life is presently inadequate. Otherwise, it would not need improving. Second, readers may learn that they can improve it along fairly narrowly defined lines--lines suggested, for example, by the next most common topics, specifically unorthodox sexual locations and positions, and by other topics frequently mentioned in these articles, such as use of alcohol. Ultimately, these articles seem very clearly to emphasize an androcentric sexuality that emphasizes sexual variety.

To understand the exception to this pattern, specifically the phenomenon that the most common topic of articles about sex in the sample was what women want, we must look beyond the primary topic of those articles and explore their contents further. After all, most of those articles also contained discussion of improving the presumably male readers' sex life. It is possible that such mentions alter the fundamental meaning of the articles in which they occur. Examination of examples of such articles makes this clear. One article in Maxim titled "More Sex Now!" suggested a number of strategies for pleasing a woman and helping her to enjoy sex more. These included talking dirty, giving her surprise gifts, and extending foreplay. The initial paragraphs of the article, however, as well as the title, signal that the male reader should engage in such behaviors in order to increase the frequency and enthusiasm of sexual intercourse. This is echoed throughout the article, as the author promised that the specific behaviors presented as what women desire will result in sexual rewards for men, as when she stated that "we'll go out of our way to express our gratitude (read: blow job), and presto: Your sex life's back." Another article features a discussion among six women about what makes a potential male partner appealing and a present sex partner worth keeping; the article, written entirely from a woman's perspective, emphasized women's wants, yet the opening paragraph encouraged the male reader to use the article as a "guided tour through a first encounter and beyond" in order to "make sure" they get what they want sexually.

Thus, articles about what women want are essentially framed in terms of improving men's sexual experiences. The message is that if you give women what they want, then your sex life will improve. Essentially, then, any such article is consistent with the expectation that articles about sex in lad magazines will reinforce traditional masculine gender norms about sex, as women's sexual experience serves as a pathway to the fulfillment of men's sexual goals.

This is further reinforced by the frequent occurrence of mentions of unorthodox sexual behaviors in articles about what women want. The message of such articles is that women want to engage in unusual sexual behaviors as much as men do, that women are driven by sexual variety just as men are. This is exemplified by articles in which women are quoted as they enthuse over bondage, sex in public, group sex, and the use and imitation of pornography during sex. The implicit message is that women's and men's sexual desires are essentially similar (for discussions of the similarities and differences between men's and women's sexuality, see Baumeister et al., 2001; Oliver & Hyde, 1993; Schmitt et al., 2003).

The finding that 17 articles mentioned lesbianism also, at first glance, seems inconsistent with expectations about androcentric messages about sex. Closer examination, however, indicates that most such references are actually about women engaging in sex with other women while men watch or participate. A few others consist of descriptions of sexual encounters with women by women who claim to be bisexual which, at least in their description in print, could be seen as essentially serving to further men's sexual satisfaction. In short, these references are also essentially oriented toward men's sexual outcomes.

The fact that most of the articles about sex in these magazines are accompanied by images of women depicted suggestively or only partially clothed may reinforce this notion. Regardless of the subject matter of an article, it is accompanied by a sexualized image of at least one woman. This may serve to influence the meaning readers ascribe to any content. The images themselves may function to activate stereotypes about women as sex objects; these stereotypes would then be expected to influence how readers understand what they read. Articles about what women want sexually, for example, may be understood even more in terms of men's pleasure than would otherwise be the case.

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Another unexpected outcome is more difficult to explain. Although it was expected that information about the positivity and negativity of various relationship states depicted as the contexts for sex would ultimately privilege relatively uncommitted relationships, it was found that both committed (steady or serious dating) and uncommitted (strangers) relationships were portrayed ambivalently. This may have important consequences for readers, though those consequences are unlikely to be simple. Readers may learn that no relationship state is a perfect context for sex and that there are benefits drawbacks both to having sex with strangers and to having sex with a committed romantic partner. They may also learn what those respective drawbacks and benefits are, which may shape their own sexual decisions.

Ultimately, it seems that these magazines offer little in the way of sexual information that is different from the broad, stereotypical perceptions of sex as androcentric and men's sexuality as focused on variety. Even articles that seem to contradict such notions ultimately seem to reinforce them. Of course, whether or not this reinforcement occurs, and whether magazine articles such as those included in the present study reinforce or change the attitudes of readers are ultimately questions for experimental studies.

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Written in: 2/05. Last reviewed 11/05.

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