Citizen Reader

Let's count the ways I love GQ and Esquire magazines:

1. They're total porn for women. I think it's pretty accepted that women don't have the same need to observe the naked male body that men have to observe the naked female body, but who doesn't like a little eye candy in the form of a well-dressed man? These magazines offer page after page of menswear ads and articles featuring, yes, men in dapper suits and ensembles that nobody I know could ever afford or pull off, beautiful cashmere sweaters and tweeds and carefully tailored wool suits (complete with pocket squares), etc. Nice. It's the next best porn-for-women to, well, Porn for Women.

2. No articles on losing weight, craft-making, kids, or how to better your life by having a cleaner house. Also: no "inspirational" articles, and nary an Oprah opinion in sight. All of these things seem to be staples of "women's magazines."

3. God help me, I love cologne ads. I don't really like cologne on men, but I do like my magazines to smell musky and spicy. It's festive.

4. Actually interesting articles. They run the gamut from politics to culture to books coverage, it's great.

So yes, people always look at me a bit strangely when I check out my piles of these "lads' magazines" at the library. I just tell them they're for my husband (although he usually steers pretty clear of them, preferring his copies of Wired and Kiplinger's).