Men's magazines: an A-Z

For many years, the term 'men's magazines' carried unsavoury connotations; it meant top-shelf, pornographic titles. In 1980s Britain, it seemed men only read about hobbies and interests such as cars, or porn. Yet, in 1950, Men Only and Lilliput were bought in their hundreds of thousands every month, alongside humorous titles and glamour magazines with pin-ups and girlie features. Many weekly papers, which turned into magazines in the 1960s, also thrived, such as Reveille, Weekend and Tit-Bits. All ran pin-ups. Somehow, though, British publishers allowed these men's magazines to whither, Men Only being the prime example, though some - like Men Only, Tit-Bits and Razzle - were relaunched for the top-shelf of newsagents by the likes of Paul Raymond. These pages cover the following types of men's magazines:

• men's fashion and style (eg Man About Town and GQ);
• men's lifestyle (eg Town and Lilliput);
• lads magazines (eg Loaded and Maxim);
• weekly lads magazines such as Nuts and Zoo, and digital weekly Monkey;
• humour (eg Blighty, The Chap and Viz);
• more special-interest men's magazines covering photography, art or gadgets that use 'girlie' or other elements as an important part of their appeal;
• pin-up, glamour and girlie magazines (eg Reveille and Weekend);
• top-shelf titles with some literary ambitions (eg Penthouse and Playboy).

Adventure titles and overtly pornographic titles are not covered. The 120-plus titles covered are grouped alphabetically in the pages below and indexed on the right; other titles are just shown as covers at the bottom of this page.