Boyz 2 Men: Themes of Lad Magazine Beyond

Aubrey & Taylor's 2009 study, "The Role of Lad Magazines in Priming Men’s Chronic and Temporary Appearance-Related Schemata: An Investigation of Longitudinal and Experimental Findings," explores the effects of the content of Lad Mags on college age heterosexual men. They find experimental evidence that the content in Lad Mags is related to greater attention paid to one's body, increases in anxiety about their appearance and decreases in romantic confidence. Notable themes in these magazines related to these effects are sexually idealized women and fashionable, well-groomed men. Aubrey & Taylor also note that "images of men conforming to a muscular ideal are conspicuously absent from these magazines." I am curious to see if these themes exist in two popular (non-health) magazines targeted to adult men, implying similar effects in an older male audience. I look at the websites for GQ and Esquire.

Immediately apparent while scrolling through the home page of Gentleman's Quarterly is the same conspicuous lack of muscular men found in Lad Mags. The majority of features revolve around what clothes to wear and celebrities providing advice on topics like how to dress or "win at the office." Moving into specific subsections, it's clear that the magazine puts most of its emphasis on "style" aka fashion or grooming, which Aubrey & Taylor found to make men less likely to exercise for appearance-related reasons. Where GQ shows considerable likeness to Lad Mags is its Women section. Just like the articles described in Aubrey & Taylor's analysis, this section features (usually) celebrity women in sexualized poses wearing varying amounts of clothing. These articles feature typically short interviews asking the women questions about themselves, ways to impress them or what they're wearing; the majority of emphasis is placed on the woman and her body. Such representations in Lad Mags were found to increase college men's anxiety and concern for their appearance while decreasing their romantic confidence. The rest of the website features entertainment and political commentary and videos containing similar content to the articles.

At first glance, Esquire seems to feature much of the same content as GQ. However, upon looking a little closer, Esquire seems to promote masculine ideals in a different, potentially more threatening way than GQ and Lad Mags. As you can see in the screenshot of the homepage, one feature covers the top 25 toughest guys on TV, while another describes a mother's will to keep fighting ISIS after they beheaded her son. This appears to indicate a different conception of masculinity which privileges the tough, hardened man and places less emphasis on personal refinement. While I was browsing the site, I encountered a pop-up encouraging me to subscribe to Esquire's expert-curated Ultimate Sex Guide. While Aubrey & Taylor find that Lad Mags emphasize sexual variety and frequency of sex, Esquire seems here to reinforce the expectation of considerable sexual experience and sexual dominance/leadership required to fulfill a masculine role. This conception of male sexuality would seem to fit squarely in the male sexuality script as defined by Kim et al. (2007). Esquire's Women section is also different from GQ and Lad Mags in that it places even less emphasis on the featured women's thoughts and articles often forego the interview in favor of more pictures of  sexualized women. This would presumably increase the negative effects of these images on men because it removes any human attributes from these women and simply positions them as objects to obtain.

It seems that Aubrey & Taylor's analysis would apply to more media than just Lad Mags because of the commonality found in these men's magazines. The effects however, may be less pronounced in older men, but this would of course require specific study. 

References

1. Aubrey, J.S., & Taylor, L. D. (2009). The role of lad magazines in priming men's chronic and temporary appearance-related schemata: An investigation of longitudinal and experimental findings. Human Communication Research, 35(1), 28-58. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2008.01337.x
2. Kim, J., Sorsoli, C.L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B.A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D.L. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research, 44(2), 145-157. do: 10.1080/00224490701263660