The Use of Sex in Selling Magazines

     It does not really come as a surprise to anyone who has ever passed through the magazine aisle at their local grocery or convenience store that magazines, whether targeted at men or women, usually use a thin, beautiful, often sexualized woman on their cover.  The study performed by Lambiase and Reichert, Sex and the Marketing of Contemporary Consumer Magazines: How Men’s Magazines Sexualized Their Covers to Compete with Maxim, confirms what we see everyday.  This study, which analyzed the covers of men’s general interest magazines from the years 1995 to 2000, links the increase in sexualized women as cover women to Maxim’s American debut.  While scantily clad women gracing the covers of magazines has become an accepted reality during my lifetime, the statistics are still staggering.  According to the study, “images of women on covers increased from 25% to 56% from 1995 to 2000," and of the men who were featured on covers, 84% of them were dressed in everyday clothes as opposed to provocatively, while only 7% of women were dressed demurely.  This dramatic change over such a short period of time illustrates how society has fully embraced the usage of women, and specifically their bodies, as a marketing device.  While this study focused mainly on Maxim’s affect on other men’s general interest magazine, it was also pointed out that many “lad mags” copied their formula not of Maxim, but of women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan.  The fact that magazines targeted at women as well as magazines targeted at men promote unrealistic standards for women’s bodies is worrisome.  In addition to leading to body image issues, especially in young girls, this also gives young boys an unrealistic expectations for women.  This marketing trend, while proven to be successful, is definitely not healthy for our society as a whole.  Unfortunately, it has been proven to be very successful, because as the well-known saying goes, “Sex sells,” and for that reason, I believe it is unlikely that we will see a marked change in this phenomenon any time soon.