How nudie mags can help your sex life
You want to understand your man? Open a nudie mag.
I’ll be honest; I had never cracked open a nudie mag until I started writing for one.
My interactions with them were mainly reduced to the same conundrum that haunted my brain whenever I’d see a teenage boy: he and his neighborhood cronies ransacking dad’s bedroom for some mags before he got home, wiping off sticky fingered pages before placing it ever so diligently back in its secret hiding place.
It’s not that magazines like Cosmopolitan, who Helen Gurley-Brown spent eons building up to be the Bible of female autonomy got it wrong, but men’s magazines are an often overlooked medium that can lend clarity with regard to what he wants.
It’s there, in typeface so painfully phony it makes me cringe. Oodles of quizzes with cheesy titles like “New moves to try tonight!” chock-full of tips like eating a donut off your man’s hardware that somehow possesses the magic answer for what ails you in the sack. I’m here to tell you that a men’s mag probably has what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
It’s not too far of an assumption to say that many women pine for a communal vision of love: a safe harbor, a sense of belonging and above all, to be loved unconditionally. We want to be the one person our partner comes to for all their needs, the answer to their woes and be their respite when life gets too heavy.
But what if that very expectation is the thing that sets us up for relationship ennui?
Read on.
1.) If you want to understand what your man wants, open a men’s magazine.
Okay look. No man wants a sticky, syrupy donut slid down his shaft while you make an admirable but sorrowful attempt to rekindle a banal sex life. When it comes to how content is served up, iconic men’s magazines like Playboy and Penthouse have always gotten one thing right: marrying nude pictorials with thought-provoking journalism. The presentation is altogether different. Beauty is still represented but under a male gaze, one of eroticism and carnality.
Romps won’t be described with flowery jargon but with anatomical parts presented as such: not breasts, but tits. Not making love, but fucking. Or pounding. Without trying to sound crass, nudie mags tap into a fundamental part of being male which is to harbor carnal proclivities, without losing respect for the fairer sex.
2.) The fact he gets hard from another woman does not mean he doesn’t love you.
Men are genetically predisposed to sow the seed, so to speak. So why are you letting a social construct (monogamy) cock block your sex life? Yeah he might get hard from another woman. To expect him to get everything he needs from you and you only for the entirety of his days is a really tall order. Perhaps too tall. If you’re into it, invite someone else into the bedroom.
4.) He watches porn. So what?
Porn’s been the brunt of many less than flattering monikers throughout the years: Satan’s child. Cause of divorce. Gateway drug to infidelity. Does your man peruse oiled bodies in the wee hours of the night? Maybe you should ask yourself why he does this in private. Does he feel he can do it with you? It may not have anything to do with you. Perhaps there’s a side to himself he’s tapping into that he doesn’t get with you. Is that a cause for alarm? Not necessarily. If anything, it should serve as a reminder that he’s simply human. It’s natural to be curious about foreign territory. Perhaps go and explore that territory with him and see what happens.
5.) He has a fantasy that maybe you don’t want to try.
Men are visual, period. Sex with the lights off? That’s a great recipe for a stale erection. And yeah, while you might have some body dysmorphia, understand that he’s indeed attracted to you but he might want you to be a little more open when it comes to mattress gymnastics. That might mean, watching porn. Using extra sex toys. Using a butt plug on him. Relationships are all about compromise right? Don’t be so dismissive that he feels compelled to hide things from you. Turn the lights on, open a nudie mag and let that assist in getting him—or both of you— in the mood, and toss that “20 Things To Try Tonight” bullshit out the window.