'How Good is Your Sex Life?'

 

As late as January 1971, Real Men was still sporting a full-sized cover painting, rather than a detail of a recycled cover painting in danger of being crowded out by story headlines, or even a photographic cover, both of which styles were increasingly being favoured by its rivals.  The mix of content is also pretty traditional for a man's magazine, albeit with even more outrageous titles than usual.  'Red-baiting' is now combined with sex in 'Wanted! One Naked Spy to Sleep Withe the Commie Murder King of Guatemala!'.  In fact, this issue seems to have sex on the brain: 'For Rent! An Island - Complete With Your Own Harem!' is another popular adolescent fantasy dramatised for those with weak imaginations.  Likewise 'Snowed In - The Only Man With 100 Eskimo Nymphomaniacs' - whilst I don't want to impugn Eskimo women, I have to say that from the ones I've seen, they're a pretty specialised fetish, so I'm not entirely sure who the target audience for this particular story would be.  Guys who like fish and seal fur underwear, presumably.  

Best of all is the headline proclaiming 'Organised Vice Has Taken Over the Nudist Camps!'.  Bearing in mind that, in the UK at least, nudists tend to be saggy middle aged, middle class, exhibitionists, it is hard to imagine any kind of crime ring 'muscling in' on their action.  The title conjures up visions of protection rackets, with duded in dark fedoras and nothing else extorting money from unwary would be nudists and forcibly dressing them if they don't pay up.  I'm going to assume that it is all connected to the 'Nudist Blackmail Rings' reported on in another man's magazine of the era and works on the basis that people who go to nudist camps are actually ashamed of their activities and the threat of photos of them playing tennis in the buff being sent to their employers would be enough to get them to pay up.  As already noted, though, the majority of naturists are exhibitionists who can't wait to tell you about their activities, (and show you their holiday snaps), whether you want to know or not.  But let's not forget the question 'How Good is Your Sex Life?', for which the magazine promises a simple self test.  Presumably this consists of asking yourself if you are currently having sexual relations with a real live woman, or whether you are masturbating while reading this test.  The former means your sex life is great, the latter that it is non-existent.  I suspect that most readers fell into the latter category.