More Real Men

It's 1973 and there's an air of desperation about the cover of this March edition of Real Men - men's magazines were on the wane and attracting newsstand readers required promises of ever more lurid content.  So here we have a number of screaming headlines encompassing sex, violence and international intrigue.  But, in truth, it's the same old mix of content, only slightly updated.  When it comes to Comie-bashing, China seems to have replaced the Soviet Union as the favourite target, (not surprising, as China was very much in the news at the time, thanks to Nixon's visit there).  Otherwise, it is all familiar territory, just presented even more sensationally than before.  'Vice Lotteries - Where You Can Win a Girl for a Week' and 'How Much Do You Really Know About Sex?' fly the flag for that staple of the men's magazine - the sex story. 

 'Inside the Sin House Where the Commies Plotted the Takeover of Peru!' mixes foreign intrigue, Commie-bashing and sex.  Three for the price of one!  This also seems to be the story the cover painting represents, although the Commie soldiers look distinctly Cuban, with their Castro beards and caps, indicating that it has been recycled from an earlier issue where it illustrated a Cuba-based story.  The best headline, though, is the last: 'Murder in Our Hospitals! 1200 Innocent Patients are Electrocuted Every Year'.  Which, obviously, begs the question as to whether this was a means of clearing the wards of the uninsured, a therapy gone wrong or evidence of shoddy wiring in the healthcare system.  Moreover, were the victims' insurance providers billed for these electrocutions?  At least here in the UK you can be sure that if you are electrocuted in hospital it will be free on the NHS...