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ORIGINAL: FullCircle
I don't know that's true, it's certainly how it should be, however I assume everyone has their target audience; the people they are trying to get the attention of. Take for example technology or gaming publications these often contain overt sexual imagery on the cover. This imagery has nothing to do the latest HDD technology or gaming release but everything to do with the fact they are aiming it at adolescent males. Organisations have a good idea, from market research, of the demographics interested in certain things and they try to compound that rather than using a non targeted approach.

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I've taken another look, do they look muscular? I don't know.

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ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious
I've no idea of your background (or even your gender), so I don't know how much time you've spent with girls whose breasts are just starting to develop. But I went to an all girls school, and hey! I'm a girl too, so let me tell you, if you don't know: that's what developing breasts look like at the beginning.

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ORIGINAL: FullCircle

It's a difficult position but all you can do is judge it by who he is not what he looks like.

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Otherwise you set a dangerous precedent in terms of how people can express themselves. Should he avoid going to the beach with hair rollers? Where does this end?

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ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious
I'm willing to bet that in person he looks like a man in his early twenties. Without the makeup, the hair, the lighting, the photoshop that's removed his 5-o'clock shadow and lifted his cheekbones and evened up his wonky left eye* there's no problem. The problem is the magazine deliberately selecting to create a sexualised pubescent image. The model himself is not the image.

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*ok, so it might not be his left eye specifically but you get the picture; a massive amount of processing goes into these images, sometimes to the point where several times I've not recognised a friend on a magazine cover the first few times I've looked.

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ORIGINAL: DesFIP

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ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh
I guess it is provocative so I can understand their concern but really I wonder if its more about him being a transvestite in a sexualised image than actually being mistaken for a topless woman?

He's a transvestite? News to me.You would have to know that this was a sexualized transvestite image to be concerned on that account. I bet most customers have never heard of the model nor seen a picture of him. Most will be like me, walk past, see this pic and be affronted.

Because as I said, the image I googled does not appear to be male, judging by the image only I would have been sure this was a female just on the cusp on puberty who had bumps only and wouldn't develop breasts for another year. A nude preteen. And as a mother, I would have been the first to go up to the customer service desk and raise a fuss.

I would not have picked up the magazine and bothered to read the article to make sure I was wrong.

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ORIGINAL: FullCircle

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ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious
I've no idea of your background (or even your gender), so I don't know how much time you've spent with girls whose breasts are just starting to develop. But I went to an all girls school, and hey! I'm a girl too, so let me tell you, if you don't know: that's what developing breasts look like at the beginning.

I'm well aware of how breasts develop but I was referring to the muscular nature of the torso. If your argument is restricted to the development of breasts alone and not the overall shape of the torso then every man without moobs or a hairy chest you could argue resembles an adolescent girl.

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ORIGINAL: FullCircle

It's a difficult position but all you can do is judge it by who he is not what he looks like. Otherwise you set a dangerous precedent in terms of how people can express themselves. Should he avoid going to the beach with hair rollers? Where does this end?

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ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh

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ORIGINAL: DesFIP

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ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh
I guess it is provocative so I can understand their concern but really I wonder if its more about him being a transvestite in a sexualised image than actually being mistaken for a topless woman?

He's a transvestite? News to me.You would have to know that this was a sexualized transvestite image to be concerned on that account. I bet most customers have never heard of the model nor seen a picture of him. Most will be like me, walk past, see this pic and be affronted.

Because as I said, the image I googled does not appear to be male, judging by the image only I would have been sure this was a female just on the cusp on puberty who had bumps only and wouldn't develop breasts for another year. A nude preteen. And as a mother, I would have been the first to go up to the customer service desk and raise a fuss.

I would not have picked up the magazine and bothered to read the article to make sure I was wrong.

To my mind he has the torso of a fairly feminine male so knowing who it was wouldn't matter. For some reason the image actually reminded me a little bit of a young David Bowie circa 1970 or so. It would be harder to tell he wasn't a girl with clothes on. The face also looks too mature to be a girl of ten to thirteen. Maybe I'm wrong. Just how I see it I guess.

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ORIGINAL: FullCircle

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ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious
I've no idea of your background (or even your gender), so I don't know how much time you've spent with girls whose breasts are just starting to develop. But I went to an all girls school, and hey! I'm a girl too, so let me tell you, if you don't know: that's what developing breasts look like at the beginning.

I'm well aware of how breasts develop but I was referring to the muscular nature of the torso. If your argument is restricted to the development of breasts alone and not the overall shape of the torso then every man without moobs or a hairy chest you could argue resembles an adolescent girl.

Agreed, I don't get how he looks like an adolescent girl. He isn't what you could call muscular but looks too muscular and angular to be an adolescent girl. Muscular development is an important distinction between males and females when they mature sexually during their teens.

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ORIGINAL: needlesandpins
i disagree with that statement. anyone walking into the shop and seeing that image as i did is not going think 'oooo hang on a moment, lets look up who that is forst before i really make my mind up that it looks like a young girl with her top off'

I think you got to My point better than I did. 

I have to admit that I'm not much one for recognizing most of the "in" popular actress/models/etc.  I wouldn't have known on sight that the guy was male because I had no clue of who he is or which name around the border of the pic was his.  Very often, the cover of a magazine is of a model that isn't even one of the eye catcher names that is sported on the cover.  I wouldn't have bought the thing to find out the gender of the person on the cover.

I suppose that I'm thinking I can't possibly be the other person who may have mistaken him for female.  If I thought so, others who didn't recognize him may have as well.

Also, I'm still not seeing this muscular bit.  I've looked at the picture several times and even staring at it, the only definition of muscle tone is just above the waist.  The rest is ribcage.

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ORIGINAL: needlesandpins
you'd be very surprised at how different a skinny girl can look. my ex was a bus driver for 13 years. he used to take girls to school and then see them out round town at the weekend. it was only because he knew them from the bus trips that he could warn others away from them as jail bait. it's a horrid thing but these girls are way too old fer their age. some of those girls were very well developed, but some arn't but can still look older. it's only like a woman who can look very young due to being straight up and down.

young girls who do alot of exercise can be very muscular and angular. i certainly was due to horses, running, and cycling. i had a six pack well into my twenties to out do any guy. two of my neices are just the same.

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Considering the abundance of shirtless men on body building and health magazine covers (which is coincidentally leading to a worldwide baby oil shortage), it can be assumed that if Pejic’s appearance fell into this category of overt masculinity the Dossier cover would not be controversial. If Pejic was female, this image would be beautiful or sexy. Because he is androgynous, this image has been framed by Borders and Barnes & Noble as taboo, an object of fetish. Absurd.

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ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious
Several people looked at the image and saw a young girl at first glance. You don't think the magazine was aware of that before they put it on the cover? Do you not realise how carefully they choose a cover image? The cover image of a magazine seriously affects its sales - they consider every possible angle of it, and every aspect of it that makes it to the final version is deliberate. If you see someone waiflike to the point of apparent pubescence, that's what they meant to be there.

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ORIGINAL: ParappaTheDapper

Oh, just for the record, I actually very much agree with VC and others--Barnes and Noble absolutely should insist the image be kept under wraps. I think deciding to carry the magazine but not display the cover in question is the only move that makes sense!

I'm far from old fashioned! And personally I think Pejic is the shit! But the image, even though it is not of an adolescent (singular) does eroticize Adolescence (as a concept, as does so much of our culture) and as such displaying it in a public place where parents bring their kids and where high schoolers (really dorky ones! like me back in the day) wander on their own strikes me as beyond the pale.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: ParappaTheDapper

Oh, just for the record, I actually very much agree with VC and others--Barnes and Noble absolutely should insist the image be kept under wraps. I think deciding to carry the magazine but not display the cover in question is the only move that makes sense!

I'm far from old fashioned! And personally I think Pejic is the shit! But the image, even though it is not of an adolescent (singular) does eroticize Adolescence (as a concept, as does so much of our culture) and as such displaying it in a public place where parents bring their kids and where high schoolers (really dorky ones! like me back in the day) wander on their own strikes me as beyond the pale.

Heh. The blond laddie in the film Death in Venice, Björn Andrésen, was a wow, apparently, with two groups; first, gay men; followed by, second, Japanese women.

I remember a book by Germaine Greer a more recently extolling the beauty of the adolescent male body and arguing for 'more of it'. Called The Beautiful Boy , it had a photo of Andresen on the cover. The latter was furious: he'd complained repeatedly since 1971 and the making of Death in Venice about the exploitation of his image.

Greer felt that this new appreciation was to be applauded. Maybe all that's kicked off a bit and this really is about adolescent boys and not underage girls. But if that last's true, then the question is still moot as to whether it's a 'good thing'.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: ParappaTheDapper

Oh, just for the record, I actually very much agree with VC and others--Barnes and Noble absolutely should insist the image be kept under wraps. I think deciding to carry the magazine but not display the cover in question is the only move that makes sense!

I'm far from old fashioned! And personally I think Pejic is the shit! But the image, even though it is not of an adolescent (singular) does eroticize Adolescence (as a concept, as does so much of our culture) and as such displaying it in a public place where parents bring their kids and where high schoolers (really dorky ones! like me back in the day) wander on their own strikes me as beyond the pale.

Heh. The blond laddie in the film Death in Venice, Björn Andrésen, was a wow, apparently, with two groups; first, gay men; followed by, second, Japanese women.

I remember a book by Germaine Greer a more recently extolling the beauty of the adolescent male body and arguing for 'more of it'. Called The Beautiful Boy , it had a photo of Andresen on the cover. The latter was furious: he'd complained repeatedly since 1971 and the making of Death in Venice about the exploitation of his image.

Greer felt that this new appreciation was to be applauded. Maybe all that's kicked off a bit and this really is about adolescent boys and not underage girls. But if that last's true, then the question is still moot as to whether it's a 'good thing'.

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ORIGINAL: needlesandpins

if he was made to look like an adolescent boy, but posed provocatively then i'd still have a problem about that sexualisation of minors. however, he's not being posed like a male, he's fully made up to look like a female, as he actually is in an awful lots of his shots. even where he does model male clothes he still looks like an awkward girl in boys clothes. mostly i have no probs with him looking like a girl, he pulls it off very well, but i have a problem with him looking like a sexualised adolescent girl.

i haven't read the book you are talking about so can't comment on that itself. however i'm not sure what is meant by appreciation of the adolescent body is actually supposed to mean. maybe it's a lack of context that i'm not getting, but something about that doesn't sit right with me.

needles