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From the Man Issue (Feb 2000):
Max Man Inept pornography of Maxim magazine Billy Q. Fakename After waiting ten chilly minutes while jangling change in a can near a Times Square newsstand, I caught a guy purchasing a copy of Maxim. He leaned through the window with exact change already in his hand, and then walked away with the Real Swimsuit Issue. "Excuse me," I said, "is that a copy of Maxim?" He looked down. "Yeah." "It seems quite similar to Playboy. Reporting for Columbia's Federalist, I'd like to know why you didn't get that instead." "I'm 15." "I see. If I were to buy a Playboy for you, would you trade up with me?" "Yeah! Will you do it?" "I will." Problem solved. My new 9th grade friend no longer has to be ashamed of his half-hearted porn, and I get to figure out the allure of the fastest growing men's magazine in publication. Let's see...fellatio testimony, sex tips, pick-up tips, drinking hints, drinking as it relates to picking people up and then having sex, clothes that will induce women to having sex, sexually posed half-nude women...a certain theme of "sex" emerges here. Compare that to Dec 1999 Penthouse: This one includes sex tips, pick-up tips, clothing good for attracting sex, and sexually posed entirely nude women. Why not just buy a magazine that has pictures of naked women? Why are people denying themselves? Why are these people not buying straight-up porn? The only difference between the two lies in five square inches of nylon, and that 15-year-old kid had to be an exception. A customer service representative at publisher Felix Dennis posed a rather game reply, suggesting that Maxim perates under the premise that cosmopolitan men desire sex, but also a dialogue about the finer elements of modern masculinity. Yes, "Take No Crap from Anyone", as the article states! Affirm your masculinity to that pesky Earth Science teacher! It's a pretty thin veil Felix Dennis throws over its product in the first place. We might as take the trend in articles published to their logical ends to save the publisher much wasted time, so I'm suggesting a table of contents for next issue: That fifteen year old was going to put his Maxim to the same purpose as the Playboy- that's why he traded up so easily. He didn't want that half-hearted porn anymore than I did, but there was some kind of drive that made him want to save face in front of the Indian behind the counter, and the cleaning lady who vacuums under his bed, and his parents who periodically check his room for contraband. Ovid probably didn't have pulpy men magazines in mind when he suggested we know ourselves, but it still holds true. One of Freud's least quoted insights is that "the only thing to be ashamed about masturbation is doing it badly"; if that's so, then Maxim =Shame. Like looking for that perfect money shot in sample pictures on Internet pay-porn sites, reading the half-hearted stuff only leaves a guy short of time. It's addictive stuff, to be sure: a customer back at the kiosk remarked on how he makes sure to get every copy "because each month the models [look better]." He shouldn't kid himself so. It's not for his discretion that the kiosk guy gave an inward smirk when the the order was placed.
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