ABSTRACT
Women's magazines have a long history, dating back to the first publication of Ladies Mercury in the UK in 1693 and Lady's Magazine in the United States in 1792. Much of the early content focused solely on domestic issues, and outlined ideal domestic female behaviour. The early presence of sexual content was typically indirect and moralistic, valorising women's virginity, with sex positioned as only occurring in marriage. The weight of importance placed on these aspects of women's lives, and the narrow and proscriptive ways in which great sex and looking good are presented, can be interpreted as aspects of postfeminist media culture, with its focus on individualism, choice and empowerment largely achieved through commodification and consumerism, as well as on heterosexuality and hyperfemininity. A substantial focus in the magazines is on achieving great sex, and a plethora of advice for doing so is offered. Women's magazines continue to construct women's primary preoccupations as their appearance and ability to be desirable.
