If you think about it, magazines served a useful purpose. They sanitized what is really a seedy business; they were a barrier between the bodybuilder and their schmoe fans. This was good for bodybuilders, many of whom didn’t want to face the fact that the primary audience for their muscle shows, photographs, and flexing sessions were schmoes. As long as they were simply posing for legitimate magazines then it all seemed kosher.
Bay, while I admire your level-headed posts on a lot of threads, you're really out in left field this time pushing your gay agenda.
First of all, if you want to analyze what BB magazines are there for, think about these things first:
1. They're there as an advertising vehicle for the supplement industry
2. They're there to inform, entertain and educate heterosexual males who want to learn from/emulate the big guys they see in them -- not have sex with them
If you want to list catering to gays, it'd be further down on the list.
Matter of fact, there was a great retrospective article a year or two ago in which MuscleMag International Publisher Robert Kennedy said when he put two men on the cover (don't quote me on this, but I think it was before Bob Paris) it didn't sell at all and he even received death threats. You haven't seen a cover like that since.
Go ask any magazine publisher. When there's a hot chick on the cover, newsstand sales do well. That's proof who is buying bodybuilding magazines.
But I digress.
What the real issues here are:
a. How the Internet has changed the advertising world
b. How print media is dying
c. We're in an economic slump
You put all those together, and making any print publication successful is a challenge.
It would be a shame to see Flex, Muscle & Fitness or MuscleMag go away. As much as I see the mags for what they are (a giant supplement ad), there is still some content I enjoy reading. As much as the Internet is nice, I'm still a fan of reading the printed page.
If you stopped trying to relate every single freakin' thing in bodybuilding to being gay, you'd get more respect around here.