This poster was a best-seller in the 80s for Athena Posters, and was the female-targeted equivalent of The Tennis Girl poster of 1977, which hung around on many a bedroom and gym wall for a long time after that. The clothes for The Tennis Girl poster were borrowed for the shoot. I’m guessing the knickers were forgotten on purpose, and I’ve added them here. Not wanting to emulate the Popes of the past, you can click on the picture below to see the original in all its soft-focussed glory. But don’t say I didn’t tell ya it’s not safe for work, OK?

Adam Perry, shown above photographed by Spenser Rowell, probably had at least two good reasons for taking his shirt off for the shoot. One, when you work your torso out to hone it to perfection other people will pay to see you take it off, and two, why get baby sick on your shirt, when you can get baby pee on your chest instead, and not have to put on a wash when you get home? Perry had his problems, though he cheered himself up by sleeping his way through what he claimed to be 3,000 women, and was self-confessed as ‘the world’s most promiscuous man‘. So if a picture paints a thousand words, the story they tell is not always true.

I can’t speak as an authority for men, being from Venus myself, but I think its a widely accepted notion that women are charmed as much by personality as by looks. George Clooney’s appeal lies as much in the urbanity and sensitivity women imagine he possesses, as in his good looks. We feel he’d be willing to listen to our problems over a Nespresso, before whisking us off to a fabulous party to cheer us up, where all the other women would gaze at us jealously, wondering what we have that they don’t. George Clooney, beee-atches.

 

Gosh, why can’t we women just be nice? Poor old Burt Reynolds, who at 79 has just published his autobiography, claimed to ‘sorely regret’ the nude centrefold he did for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1972. In a recent interview he said he ‘got some of the filthiest letters I’ve ever seen’ from women, and is still embarrassed by it, despite the fact it is claimed as one of the greatest publicity stunts ever. If you can stand the hairiness, let alone the nudity, you can see the original image over here.

Those were the days when hairy men were much admired by women. Hardly a chest hair to be seen these days, as it’s just not in fashion now.

 

Women tend to gawk at other good looking women nearly as much as men do; we’re forever comparing, trying to look as good as the stars, and failing miserably, instead of just trying to get our own thing going.

 

Our attempt at achieving the same effect.