Defending men and Maxim

This month's Maxim: The Pussycat Dolls, starring Carmen Electra! Plus Christina Aguilera and Christina Applegate! How to Score at the Company Holiday Party!

Are you horrified or excited?

Maxim has become the favorite target of women's groups _ and ordinary women _ everywhere, and it isn't hard to see why. The magazine abounds with photo spreads of scantily-clad models and actresses. It also features articles on everything from how to get your girlfriend to break up with you to whether or not sex with twin Swedish stewardesses is cheating (Maxim's answer: it's not). Sure, there are articles about gadgets and men's fashion and barbecues and beer, but it's hard to think of a magazine more tailored to offend women.

(Actually, it's not very hard at all. Imagine a new addition to the men's magazine rack, Misogynist Monthly: Why Women Are Weepy, Irrational Idiots! How To Break Your Girlfriend's Heart And Have Fun Doing It! Getting What You Want And Then Getting The Hell Out! This list could go on forever...but I digress. At least Maxim has video games and shoes in it, too.)

Why don't women like Maxim? I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe, just maybe, it's the wholesale objectification of women. Critics say that faced with these half-nude, come-hither photo spreads, boys and men are encouraged to see women as sex objects _ commodities to be chased, used, and discarded. They tell us that Maxim makes men forget women are human beings like ourselves, complete with histories, feelings, needs, and rights. They say that Maxim exposes men for what we are: beer-guzzling, gadget-loving, sex-crazed, insensitive pigs.

Well, I cry foul. Women objectify themselves. Maxim, as understandably offensive as it is to many women, is a symptom, not a disease. If women want Maxim to go away (and good luck with that), they should start by eliminating Cosmopolitan.

I'm not saying Cosmo should go out of an eye-for-an-eye sense of justice. I'm saying that it's to blame far more than Maxim is. Without the influence of Cosmo and similar magazines, there would be no place for the purported misogyny of Maxim.

Understand some basic principles here. Men want women. Men will do whatever is necessary to get women to want them, too. If women wouldn't put up with being objectified, men wouldn't objectify them. Therefore, if men are objectifying women, it must be because women aren't fed up enough with being objectified. Maybe sometimes, on some level, women like being objectified.

Don't start penning those letters to the editor just yet. This isn't about assigning blame (especially not in the "she was asking for it" sense) _ it's about figuring out where the root of the problem lies. American women are taught to objectify themselves all their lives. Magazines like Cosmo, Seventeen, and YM have taught generations of women to obsess over their appearance, to buy expensive clothes and makeup, to worry more about what men think of them than about what they think of themselves. You think Sex and the City is empowering? I think it makes women greater sex objects than ever. Being empowered largely through your sexuality makes it hard to be empowered through anything else.

Cosmo has quizzes, fashion, advice on sex and relationships _ all tailored towards women _ plus some hot, scantily-clad models. So along strolls Maxim, which finds its own niche with quizzes, fashion, sex and relationship advice for men, plus half-naked women, and all of a sudden there's something to worry about? I'd say that guys finally figured out that women had a good thing going with this magazine idea.

I'm not saying women should like Maxim. I'm saying that if they're bothered by it, they should be bothered more by Cosmo. After all, is it worse to have men think of you as pampered sex objects or to think of yourselves that way? You can't have your Sex and the City and hate Maxim. They're based on the same principles.

And if you don't like these principles, get rid of them. I'll warn you, though, I don't think it would be easy to give up the negative sides of Cosmo without giving up a lot of the things about the female gender role that women do like. Men and women are different, and trying to erase those differences may be impossible. The links may be buried too deep in our genes for us to break them. I think life would get dull if there was no desire connecting men and women, anyway. I think that given the choice between eliminating the morals behind these magazines completely and accepting them completely, most men and women would choose to let them stay.

But maybe you think things could be fairer. Take a long, hard look at the world of Maxim and Cosmo _ and they are the same world _ and if you don't want to take the good with the bad, then start changing the way women look at themselves. The easiest way to do that is to change how young women see themselves. Raise your daughters so Cosmo doesn't affect them, so they don't want to be lusted after and objectified, and this gender-role problem will go away. Getting rid of Cosmo won't help _ what's more, you can't just ban Cosmo anyway _ but getting rid of the market for it might actually get you what you want.

Personally, I don't think that there's anything morally wrong with either type of magazine at this point. No, Maxim makes no great social contribution, but it's pointless, frivolous fun in the same spirit as Cosmo. Besides, I think that by their 20s, men and women should be too set in their ways to be swayed much by a magazine. I mean, if you already respect women, is Maxim going to turn you the other way? And if you don't, is a less-objectifying magazine going to change your mind?

But if you don't like what Maxim says for the up-and-coming generations of men and women, don't bother yelling at men about it because you won't get anywhere. And don't bother trying to eradicate Maxim, either, because you'll be wasting your time on the wrong end of the disorder. Instead, focus on the cause. Start teaching girls that they don't have to listen to Cosmo and Sex and the City. I can't guarantee the lesson will take, but you'll know that if they remain objectified, it's because they chose to remain so.