From: rizzoe@FASECON.ECON.NYU.EDU (Emily Rizzo)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: International Male Catalogue (from N.Y. Times)
Date: 22 Nov 93 15:04:00 GMT
Organization: New York University
NNTP-Posting-Host: rm706.econ.nyu.edu


The following is extracted from a larger article on mail order catalogues in 
the Sunday New York Times Magazine section of Nov. 22nd, 1993.  It is 
reproduced without permission.

	AWASH IN ROMANCE

	by Holly Brubach

The testosterone level is at a fever pitch
in the pages of the International Male
catalogue.  The models, with their swollen muscles and
bulging crotches, are throbbing with potential.  
From the neck down, they look pretty much
indistinguishable.  It is by their expressions that
we recognize them, and each of them has one; some
of them have two.  their specialties include: 
sultry, scowling, pensive, skeptical, innocent, 
amiable, carefree.  There are few, if any, 
hairy chests, no scrawny legs.  Everyone has a 
prominent jawline and a full head of hair.
While J. Crew has brought us models who look as 
singular and intelligent as real people, International
Male has managed to find real people (a "Los Angeles
surgical nurse" a "new York finance student") who 
look as pretty and vapid as models.

International Male, published quarterly, calls itself a
"catalogue/magazine."  It's cover lists newsstand prices for 
the United States ($2) and 11 other countries.  Even its
format is like a magazine's, with a table of contents
and a masthead.  The pretense ends, however, with 
the text:  there are no articles whosoever, no space
wasted any subject other than what's being sold.
The people at International Male have an advantage 
in that, no matter what they choose to call it, their 
catalog isn't perceived as a fashion magazine -- American
men are still allergic.  Guys who would never read GQ
or Details are willing to leaf through International 
Male when it turns up in their mailboxes.  For novices 
and others who feel somewhat tentative about the urge
to ornament themselves, the catalogue offers 
"temporary tattoos" and hoop earrings that require no
piercing.  Some people contend that for men, the 
freedom to indulge in fashion is a breakthrough that's
long overdue.  Alas, there is not much in the pages of 
International Male that could be taken for progress.  If this 
catalogue resembles a magazine at all, it's some second-rank
women's fashion magazine of 20 years ago.  The jargon-packed
opening letter to the reader, the studied sophistication
of the titles ("Sheer Dram," "The Casbah Beat," "Miami
Moderne"), the gushy, mindless copy that describes the 
clothes, all call to mind the way magazines used to talk 
to women.  The irony of the International Male approach is 
that it puts men in the position that women eventually 
rebelled against --- scrambling to keep up with the 
latest trend, laboring over their appearance in a bid
for affection and sex.

The majority of the items that International Male sells 
are not especially noteworthy, but it's the outrageous
stuff that sticks in the reader's mind: the black
"fingerless" leather gloves, the mauve double-breasted
suit with a Fortuny-pleated shawl collar, the black 
leather harness jacket and shorts ("the ultimate in 
extroverted fashion excitement").  The swimsuits and 
underwear are the catalogue's chief attraction.  Anonymous
male genitalia are shown about to burst from mesh thongs,
from string bikinis, from black lace briefs, from red
jockstraps, from "Target Briefs" with "contrasting seam
tape on on the contour pouch," from "the Sock," suspended
like a harness from a wide elastic.  Bikinis gathered 
into a seam at the center back exaggerate the buttock's
cleavage.

The spirit of these pages is downright priapic, and though
there is never a trace of anything sexual between the 
men pictured, there are definite homoerotic overtones
that make a woman browsing through the catalogue feel 
somehow excluded.  The attention paid to body parts is 
nothing short of fixational.  Like much of the pornography
directed toward an audience of men, International Male 
zeroes in on certain anatomical features in such a way 
that they become depersonalized, anonymous; there are 
entire pages consisting of practically nothing but 
crotch shots.

For me, and for most of the women I know, an excursion 
through this catalogue is uneventful:  Here's a guy with 
a neck like a tree trunk; there's one with nice legs.  So 
what?  Our imaginations require more information.  Certainly,
the thrill that the Victoria's Secret catalogue packs for a 
lot of men finds no parallel here, although it has crossed my 
mind that International Male might be some perverse form of
feminist revenge, inflicting on men the insecurities that
fashion magazines have been accused of inflicting on women.
Guys who think they're entitled to the equivalent of Stephanie
Seymour, the Victoria's Secret cover girl, would do well to 
judge themselves by the standard that the International Male 
models sent.