T A B L E__T A L K Jerry Springer: Normal people discuss the skankiest show on tv in the Social Issues section of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Bestseller Hell By Jon Carroll Jon Carroll ponders the best way to read "Babyhood" by TV star Paul Reiser (12/24/97) Merry fiction to all! By Laura Miller The New Yorker's new fiction issue is a like a Christmas stocking full of good, familiar candy (12/23/97) Totally naked book wrestling By David Futrelle Pregnant lesbian strippers and unrepentant impotent bigamists debate the classics on "Jerry Springer's Book Club!" (12/22/97) Hollywoodland By Catherine Seipp Eccentric superpublicist Michael Levine's media dinners are the hottest ticket in town (12/19/97) Not just for wonks anymore By Jonathan Broder New owner David Bradley has lured journalistic stars into his National Journal (12/18/97) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE MEDIA CIRCUS ARCHIVES

__the sweaty-chested hunky-boy rag THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS READERS' NAME. BY CHRIS HAINES | It's not that I wouldn't welcome the Financial Power! Fast Muscle Gain! and Athletic Sex! promised in block type on the cover of every issue. And I've got no problem with the cover hunks, those shirtless muscle boys who leer at me like so many hustlers from their glossy perch in the newsstand (although I imagine that they inspire occasional homosexual panic among some of the periodical's readers). I would even add that the articles on workouts geared for different body types (including scrawny ones like mine), the refreshingly critical reviews of fitness fads and appliances, and factoids about medical research make Men's Health a valuable resource for any guy who wants to pay a little more attention to his cardiovascular-cholesterolic fitness. And the writing is good, unafraid to mock the soul-withering monotony of weight training instruction. It's the other stuff that bothers me. The "tons of useful stuff" -- to quote the magazine's tag line -- that Men's Health tackles in an effort to improve its readers' minds as well as their bodies. When the editorial steps beyond the familiar confines of the locker room or gym, which it does far too frequently, its commentary takes on the unfortunate ring of Tony the weight trainer explaining the theory of relativity. Men's Health is published by Rodale Press, the people who brought us Prevention, Runner's World, Organic Gardening and American Woodworker magazines, among others. Launched in 1988 as a spin-off of Prevention, the magazine has a subscription base that has ballooned like a steroid-juiced biceps in the past decade--from 90,000 to 1.45 million. Half of its readers earn more than $50,000 annually; 43 percent top $60,000. The target audience, according to its press office, is "upscale young men, guys who are in their 30s. Maybe they're married but they don't have any kids yet." The target audience, according to me, may indeed be upscale, but they're definitely not married. Let's come back to that one. Although the ostensible subject matter of Men's Health is physical fitness, its tag line speaks volumes. Departments like Malegrams, Useful Stuff, Man-to-Man and A Man's Life wrestle such complex issues as finance, romance and parenthood and break them down into simple, discrete elements. And then they repeat them -- with slight variations -- every month. Just like exercise. The discourse of exercise is supposed to make sense out of a big, confusing, complex universe. For physical fitness, there is no better approach. What is good for the muscles, however, may not work so well for the heart and soul. Take steroids, for example. (On second thought, don't -- they shrink your balls and give you nasty acne.) This "don't think too hard, dude -- we've already planned your workout for you, let us do the same for the rest of your life" approach reaches its apogee in articles like "Your Life: The Crib Notes." Instructions for handling such complicated situations as breaking up with a lover or asking for a raise are spelled out in easy-to-follow instructions printed on perforated card stock like recipes from a women's magazine. In a more disturbing example, an article on why women are so different from men ("Venus Attacks!"), Men's Health turns to experts to lend credence to what is essentially a list of clichés. An anthropologist explains why women like chocolate; a sensory psychologist confirms the female species' affinity for perfume. Copy like this simply justifies sexist behavior by lending authority (in the form of a lonely Ph.D. horny for a pull-quote) to banalities about why women like to dance and cry and clean. How many husbands wave articles like this under their wives' noses as justification for being slobs? Pick up your own damned dirty socks, sailor. As a subject for a monthly publication, physical fitness is indeed a bit thin. After all, there are only so many abdominal exercises known to man. This accounts for the repetitive nature of the magazine (every issue includes a column, feature or diagram about athletic sex), but not its enduring popularity. That is based, I suspect, on what I call the "cooking show factor." Of the millions of people who watch television cooking shows (and there's a dedicated network for them now), how many ever put spatula to pan? Voyeurism has replaced action in our multimedia-drenched culture. The same phenomenon, it would seem, operates among the 1.45 million readers of Men's Health -- tired and overworked stiffs who hope that just looking at photographs of other guys doing sit-ups will burn as many calories as dragging their own fat asses around the track. For all the training advice sold to American readers, shouldn't John Q. Public start looking a little more buff? And speaking of cooking, food preparation never rises above pizza and burgers (oh, there's an occasional quesadilla) in this men's mag. An article on "fitness pizza" toppings offered best bets for men of various humors (the Peppy-Guy Pie, the Strong-Guy Pie, the Well-Guy Pie). The culinary perspective of Men's Health, no doubt, is based on the publisher's base -- Allentown, Pa. -- where scrapple is king. There's one final thing that I need to get off my pecs. As with all men's magazines (GQ being the most egregious offender), Men's Health is written as if all its readers were heterosexual. Guess again, Mary. Although articles about sex always refer to one's girlfriend -- never simply "partner," and not in Men's Health's wildest dreams, "boyfriend" -- the magazine is clearly produced for a substantially gay circulation. Why else publish an "AIDS Update" column with breaking news about HIV? Could it be that this column is written for all those IV drug users who pull down more than $60K? And why would Merck (never a company to squander its advertising dollars) hawk Crixivan, a protease inhibitor, if the circulation was so relentlessly straight? And what about the cover art? Each month features a new black-and-white photo of a handsome man with a perfectly chiseled (and inevitably shaved) torso in various stages of undress. Visually, the cover shares more in common with men's-only publications like Honcho or Mandate than it does with, say, American Woodworker. When I toted a couple of recent issues to a diner in the East Village to peruse over a burger and a shake (fuck that fitness pizza), every guy in the joint who noticed my reading material looked at me like I was a fag. Can you imagine how I would have felt if I was straight? In fact, it is a little difficult for me to imagine a straight man digesting this magazine with the same enthusiasm that gay men bring to the weight bench. Rather than complain, I should just contact Rodale Press and propose another spin-off, Gay Men's Health. They can leave out all the crap about women being aliens (we've never had trouble understanding the fairer sex) and make recipes for fitness pizza a little more fabulous. How many calories are there in truffle oil, anyway? SALON | Jan. 5, 1998 Chris Haines has never been particularly successful at fitness, although he occasionally tries. He is the editor of Tony Awards Online. - - - - - - - - - -