men's magazines

Fantasy
a product of the imagination?

Put Billie Piper on the cover of Loaded, or Maxim, or Arena, and what do you have? A girl who could be Cat Deeley or a Hollyoaks clone. Slap a Minogue on the cover - same thing.

There's a word to describe these women - quite a few words might spring to mind - but the one I'm suggesting is 'homogeneous'.

They all look the same. Same pose. Same vacuous 'I'm all yours Big Boy' expression, head tilted slightly, tits pushed up, one or two hands splayed towards the pubic area - an area waxed and buffed of a single ofensive hair. Eyebrows plucked into a vamp's arch, flat stomach, straight hips.

Little girls with breasts.

It would be easy to get side-tracked, to get angry about the blatant objectification of women, to get hung up on the continued reduction of women to sexual playthings.

It would be easy.

It would be missing the point.

They all look the same the way a can of Diet Coke looks like another can of Diet Coke, and the analogy doesn't stop there. These are not the 'real thing' - these women are the Diet Coke of sexual imagery. Artificial, they lack the body and sustenance of a full-sugar can. They are a sanitised, 'safe', market-approved version of female sexuality (and thus male sexuality). They quench your thirst without rotting your teeth.

There is no danger, no threat from these women, because like all branded goods, they fall within a safe parameter of expectation. An assertion of genuine individuality would be a breach of 'brand trust'.

Individuals, it seems, can only be acknowledged if they are contained. Cerys of Catatonia appeared on the cover of one of the men's magazines (Arena, I think, or GQ). Now I tend to think of Cerys as a full sugar can, so to speak; outspoken, physically individual, recognisable as Cerys.

Not on this cover. Oh no.

On this cover Cerys had magically transformed into a sleeker, vampy-eyebrowed, pouting lip-glossed, slimmer version. Cerys Lite.

Cerys herself might well have been delighted with this picture - not many women (myself included) would be able to resist the chance to look prettier and thinner - but I felt horrified. This was not Cerys - this was one of them.

And all of them are actually people - dare I say it - individuals. However tempted I am to think it, however much they treat themselves as products (Caprice), they are not cans of Coke, Diet or otherwise. Neither are they simply brands.

But they are packaged, by the industry, by themselves, by the consumers who buy them. Doesn't it make life easier to buy a McDonald's hamburger, a Nike trainer, a Nokia phone? Isn't it comforting to know exactly what you are getting (tell me the constituents of any one of these things if you can), to know exactly how it will taste, feel, perform? To know that you'll fit into the niche that your mates fit into.

Isn't it just such a relief to be able to treat people in the same way?

But that's ridiculous of course. The women in Loaded and Maxim are being presented ironically as Fantasy Women. Objects of desire.

But isn't the function of fantasy to provide variety? Isn't fantasy a product of of imagination - a form of creativity?

Isn't creativity about self-expression?

Isn't self-expression about individuality?

Take down the March issue of Loaded from the shelf (it's not a high shelf - so don't be afraid - she's available to everyone) and study Gabrielle Richens on the cover. Can you see who it is yet? Then turn the magazine over and look on the back cover.

A human hand stamped with the Orange square.

On the front cover is a spoon-fed image of homogeneous 'desire'.

On the back...

We brand farm animals before we fleece them and lead them to slaughter...

I'm being melodramatic aren't I? Of course I am, but do me a favour, stand in the middle of your living room and look at all the things you own. Look in the fridge, at the magazines you buy, at your car, if you have one.

Look at all the things you own, and then ask yourself, who owns you?

Who regulates your desire?

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