Men's Health

Have you, the reader, ever had the misfortune of visiting the magazine stand at the local supermarket and, while looking for the latest copy of Sports Afield or Saga, come across a publication called Men's Health? And have you ever had the misfortune of picking up said publication and leafing through it?
This writer, because of forces beyond his control, has been forced to look through several issues of Men's Health and has come to the conclusion that, despite its title, the magazine is really about gay men's fashion and style. There are a few articles concerning health and heterosexual relations, but much of the magazine is taken up with photographs of men that are intended to appeal to gay men. i.e. muscular men wearing whitey tighties with their crotches aimed at the camera or men of somewhat dubious sexuality wearing clothes that no regular straight man would wear.
The magazine seems to be obsessed with the idea of muscularity as an appearance instead of a tool. In the past men wanted strength that did something instead of looked like something. This writer remembers a time when it was more impressive for a man to bend a length of rebar in his bare hands than it was for him to look like a muscular freak. When this writer was young the obsession for muscles for appearance was considered freakish. No man wanted a pot belly, but few men aspired to a six pack. Strength was a function. Not an appearance.
Men's Health magazine is a kind of Cosmopolitan magazine for gay men. Real men (and this writer holds to the idea that real men are men who like women and are not homosexual) want to look at attractive women and not men. Real men want to know how to get from one day to the next instead of what type of tea to drink.
Back in the day when your faithful correspondent was a young man and a boy the traditional men's interest magazines were Esquire, Sports Afield, Hot Rod and Playboy. Then the ads were directed towards products such as Edgewood pipe tobacco,Remington shotguns, Hooker Headers and Old Spice after shave -- all featuring photos of young lovely women wearing not much instead of some crotch shot of a half boy/ half girl.
Times have changed. And not for the better.