Culture . 03/10/2008 12:22 PM . Alisa Harris

For you, the Kritik reader, I’ve hit a new personal low. This week, I followed the strange vagaries of the male mind through page after page of Maxim magazine. Between these folds, there’s no trace of the sensitive, soy-milk-sipping, tinted-moisturizer-wearing modern man. Here, the tamed male rattles his cage and devolves into a beer-belching boor, finally loosed to sate his cravings for Jose Cuervo, “voyeuristic celebubabe sites,” and pictures of half-clothed Victoria’s Secret chicks.

I learned facts I never wanted to know. (Guess what? The average person produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime.) I got answers to questions I never asked. (What’s the best way to dispose of human bones? Don’t hide them in freezers.) I learned the importance of taking intermittent Guitar Hero breaks to avoid carpal tunnel, I discovered that there are 47,984 drinking establishments in America and I found out you can scare off a shark by punching it in the nose.

Overall, Maxim articles can be divided into three categories:

BLOOD AND GUTS … and sex.

Maxim men love the visceral. There’s “Dangerous Love: The Murderous Odyssey of a Teenage Thelma and Louise”—the gory true story of two teenage lesbians who spontaneously stab to death a set of grandparents. There’s “Guy’s Anatomy,” a user’s guide to the human body, including a “biological blow-by-blow of the male orgasm” and an affectionate ode to The Package: “Your reproductive organ is the love of your life. It’ll never leave you (let’s hope), and, like a woman, despite its ups and downs, it’s still incredibly fun to spend time with.” Biggest surprise: The brain is “man’s second-favorite organ.”

SERIOUS NEWS … and sex

Maxim’s political coverage pits Democrats against Republicans in a “Biggest Badass” contest. Democrats win, despite Ann Coulter’s withering wit and a strong GOP showing in “trashtalking and surviving seemingly insurmountable odds in the fields of battle.”

Under Health, a stoner lets Maxim men know how to score much-needed medical weed: Tell a doctor your anti-depressants are failing and say, “Marijuana is the only thing that makes me feel better.” There’s a helpful sidebar depicting “The cream of the medical marijuana crops” so you don’t waste time on the wrong sativa.

Then there are celebrity interviews. Maxim’s definition of “newsworthy” is “willing to pose as a hitchhiker wearing only a busting bikini.” (String bikinis preferred. Top optional. Extra points for tattoos on your rear.) In this issue, we have Avril Lavigne stuffed into a black bustier, spitting on paparazzi and belting “Frosty the f—-ing snowman.” We have Daneel Harris, “speeding her way to the top of Hollywood’s A-list” in just a leather jacket and underwear. And finally, K.D. Aubert—the ubiquitous Victoria’s Secret model—recalling “some of her fondest firsts,” since Maxim men are so interested in what she actually has to say.

SEX … and sex.

This is a catch-all for every other news nugget, sidebar, tidbit, picture, blurb, and ad. Read “Pervarazzi Nation!” to find sites that document celebrity “nipple slips” and “hoo-ha flashes” for the “bored and horny masses.” Read “The X-Files” for the refreshing news that women love porn—gay porn, girl on girl porn, anime porn – and best of all, women love nothing more than to watch porn with you!

Not sure about women, but the Maxim man’s brain seems to have no choice but to read on when it registers the word “porn.” A sidebar entitled “Brain Porn” disappointingly depicts an alcoholic’s brain and a sidebar entitled “Bacon Porn” encourages men to eat nitrates. Is there something salacious about brains and bacon that I somehow missed, or would my non-alcoholic, nitrate-free girl brain just not understand?

Call me naïve, but if the modern woman demands respect and a fulfilling relationship with a man who’s a cross between McDreamy and Oprah, shouldn’t a men’s magazine help men at least fake sensitivity? David Brooks is appalled at the Maxim man’s lack of class:

These men have not a hint of any quality that might make them attractive to progressive and mature women. Their world has been vacuumed free of empathy, sensitivity, and sophistication. It is as if millions of American men—many of them well educated—took a look at the lifestyle prescribed by modern feminism and decided, No thanks, we’d rather be pigs.

Of course that’s exactly what they decided, says Sean Thomas, one of Maxim ’s first writers. Thomas says Maxim is part of a tough guy’s glorious fight against women who want to emasculate men:

The purpose of the lad mag is to tell guys that it is OK to be guys – to drink beer, play darts, and look at girls. When we started Maxim we consciously felt that we were leading a fight-back against the excesses of sneering feminism. I believe we succeeded.

Or maybe, as Kay Hymowitz posits in “Child-Man in the Promised Land,” “Maxim asked the SYM [Single Young Male] what he wanted and learned that he didn’t want to grow up.” Hymowitz says Maxim is the voice of the culture’s new child-man – the twenty-something single guy who’s swilling beer, hugging bongs, pwning Halo 3, hooking up with major hotties, and collecting big boy toys. In “Knocked Up,” Seth Rogen exemplifies the child-man [ his “business” is a web-site categorizing on-film celebrity porn, natch ] rudely catapulted from eternal adolescence into accidental fatherhood.

It takes a lot to catapult the child-man from adolescent joys because he thinks he’s sexy just the way he is. He’s certainly not changing for the “fairer” sex—especially since he’s been told that she’s, uh, really not all that fair, if you get my drift. The Maxim man subjects himself to none of the breathless self-flagellation the Cosmo girl seems to love so well: “QUIZ!“ “Do guys think you’re sexy? Do guys like tomboys? Are you a great date?” There are no Maxim articles entitled, “How to Tell if She’s Into You.” Of course she’s into you—you reek of Miller Lite and masculinity! The Maxim man isn’t out to please women; women are out to please him. While Maxim tells men they’re fine—nay, fantastic—just as they are, Cosmo tells women to change … so they can appreciate the Maxim man, just as he is.

Fortunately for the Maxim man, the “progressive, mature woman” is a bit short on “empathy, sensitivity, and sophistication” herself. She doesn’t demand much respect, but she gives a lot up. The Cosmo girl will watch porn with the Maxim man, memorize his “favorite mattress moves,” learn how to “make condoms more fun,” and pull every last one of his “nine pleasure triggers.”

Thanks to the Cosmo girl and the lad mag, the Maxim man—in all his gross glory—sneers back at sophistication and tosses his beer and his big boy toys in the face of adulthood.

Alisa Harris is an editor for World on the Web. She lives in New York, and aspires to be a celebubabe.



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