By John Costello
Boobs, balls and beer. It was a simple enough recipe that kick-started the lads' mag revolution back in 1994. The launch of Loaded 15 years ago quickly saw a plethora of titles, such as Nuts, FHM and Maxim, flood newsstands with their own mix of soft porn, soccer and bar-room humour.
While the 1980s had given us New Man - the sensitive, compassionate, sophisticated male - the New Lad danced on the grave of what he simply saw as a New Age wimp.
Everyone was left wondering how did Mr Right turn out so wrong.
"While the New Man was apparently a fairly pro-feminist, if still narcissistic, invention, the New Lad represented a return to reactionary pre-feminist values of sex, sport and drinking," writes Tim Edwards in his book, Cultures of Masculinity.
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In this culture, chivalry and caring were out; crudity, cursing and curvaceous sex kittens were in. But now it seems men's love affair with lads' mags has come to an end. Nuts is being squeezed; Loaded has witnessed a landslide in sales; Maxim is no more.
And just this month the UK edition of FHM, which has seen its figures slump from over 750 000 to 235 000, has lost its position as the best-selling men's monthly to fitness magazine Men's Health.
While the success of lads' mags was built on cover shots of scantily-clad nymphs, the average cover of Men's Health features a ripped Adonis.
So why are men suddenly more interested in reading about how to get bulging biceps and awesome abs rather than looking at boobs and babes?
Well, apparently a strict diet of fantasy female models has had a negative impact on men's body image. Blokes who ogle sexy svelte females in lads' mags, such as FHM and Loaded, suffer more body-image problems than their pals, according to research. While women have constantly battled to feel good about themselves in a media world that has been objectifying women's bodies for decades, it appears guys are also suffering from looking lustfully at the lingerie-clad women in their favourite mags.
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