I see you're getting flamed for this assertion, but as a woman, I agree with you. If women were as interested in seeing the opposite sex naked as men are, there would be a whole slew of Playgirl-type magazines. In addition, I just did a google search and found an article in The Advocate about how many gay men read Playgirl. I'm not going to post it, because it's a bit raunchy, but it proves your case.
Thanks. I didn't want to get into it much with some Freepers, since at least one jumped to a conclusion I didn't even suggest. No idea what that's all about.
Of course women can (and do) admire handsome and well built men. However, there clearly isn't a high level of interest in supporting women's magazines that celebrate male nudes from a purient perspective.
This is probably because of a lot of reasons. Only the conclusion is important here - women tend to not buy magazines like Playgirl.
There are numerous men's magazines of nude women that are dedicated to legs, chests, different ethnic flavors, etc.
Women make up a little more than 1/2 the population of the USA. Yet there is no significant industry for women's magazines that feature nude men. Interestingly, there is a significant interest in men's magazines that feature nude men. Go figure...
The sex industry is odd, and very focused on men's desires. There is lots of straight porn directed at males (and to a lesser extent, couples), there is lots of gay porn directed at men, but there is almost no porn directed at women. Prostitution is another aspect of the sex industry that demonstrates this dynamic - there are no shortage of female prostitutes that appeal directly to straight men, and to a much lesser extent, couples. There are male prostitutes, for sure, but they tend to serve the needs of, you guessed it, gay men.
Women, historically, have little need or desire for that kind of stuff - that may be because of many reasons, but only the conclusion is important here. Women don't hit the bar at the Bellagio at 1130pm looking for what male prostitues are available tonight. The 1/2 inch thick 'Entertainers' section of the Las Vegas phonebook similarly targets the male client, and not the female client.
Getting back to Playgirl's readership, there is info on the web that supports what I said, and you found some of it with ease. I just checked out some web pages quickly - for example, Playgirl publically concedes that 'at least' 25% of their readership are (presumably gay) men. Other data (primarily intended for advertisers) supports that 'at least 53%' of the readership is 'male.'
I suspect the number is even greater than that (my guess, based on nothing in particular, is that probably close to 3/4 of the readership are males, and the remaining 25% is a mix of curious female young adults/older teens, amd women of all ages without a sexual outlet who are feeding their more base desires - I also suspect this 25% rotates much more than the other 75%, that is to say that they might pick up an issue here and there for a spell, and then never go to it again).
The basic premise that Playgirl is largely a gay men's magazine is also fairly common knowledge in the publishing industry, which I have had some presence in. Why any Freepers would dispute this relatively obvious and 'not-so-secret' secret is beyond me.
But they only read it for the articles, right? Right?!?!?