The FHM question (From Gazette & Herald)

The FHM question

For my column this week, I decided to do a little research beforehand to back up my own thoughts on this matter.

"Would you spend precious toilet time reading about any of the following?" I questioned my sisters.

"Ass doctors, the best cut of steak, and how Jordan keeps her assets quite so bouncy?"

They both replied negatively, except Emily who told me she would like to read further about the backside doctor out of a sick curiosity. Exactly as I had thought - I had felt the very same after reading a copy of FHM - a red-blooded bloke magazine - at a friend's house recently (though I won't deny that the arse question and answer page was eye-opening, to say the least).

Is this really the type of literature that the future father of my children, wherever he might be, is reading for entertainment? I shudder as I remember the endless reams about "the best norks in Britain". And I was supposed to have these norks? Now, I'm no expert, but I'm willing to hazard a guess that the magazine isn't referring to Tolkien's creations every time it mentions them.

But I won't make this column another attack on the male race (I'm no man-hating feminist - not that they'd have me, with my Barbie pink room). No, because in my experience of girly magazines - from Girl Talk right up to the dizzying heights of Cosmopolitan - they are full of complete and utter norks themselves (not literally, you understand).

For a girl, especially, magazines are a sort of rite of passage - after Postman Pat's Adventures comes the anything-but-sweet Sugar. As an innocent ten-year-old, it half scared me to death with promises like "Pull that hottie tonight!"

The only hottie I would be pulling at that age would be my security blanket, thank you very much, and that would be firmly over my head.

Well, after them came my current fodder, the likes of More! and Glamour - all of which are completely irrelevant to me (I really don't need to know "How to get him to propose"), yet I carry on reading them out of a cross between desire to be a real grown-up, and, most often, train-delay boredom.

I haven't quite reached the Good Housekeeping stage yet, but who knows - in a couple of years time and with an ever-declining rail network, I might just get there.

I know these magazines are full of rubbish, but it's undeniably entertaining rubbish - so I can hardly criticise blokey magazines for the same offence. Magazines supply a demand and the public demand information on Jordan's chest apparently. Though I can't imagine why - if we were paid as much as she was for her bouncing secret, I'm sure we'd all have FHM-worthy norks...

Updated: 10:45 Wednesday, May 05, 2004