We are all familar with the local magazines that cater to the different lifestyles of men and women in general. Just basing on the cover, you can see what kind of images the magazine promotes and what kind of lifestyle it 'imposes' on men. It is focused on fitness in terms of having a body closer to the models, with hard-rocking abs or kick-ass muscles. It also contains "guy wisdom" as well as sexual tips or how to please women. The counter part magazine for women Women's Health, contains more or less, the same topics like, weight loss, sex and romance, beauty and style, fitness and diet, how to please men, how to handle stress etc.
Despite the fame of this kind of magazines in the market, interestingly, there are other magazines which cater to another type of readers, the homosexuals, or more specifically, the gay homosexuals.
The ICON magazine obviously caters to gay audience. It talks about issues on sexual relationships of gays with other gays. Everything related to the queer kind of lifestyle.However, despite its position to produce a kind of magazine that is open to homosexuality, it still faces many controversial issues regarding homosexuality. One of the criticisms that the magazine faces is that its focus only on the superficial and stereotypical issues of gays, mainly sexual needs or how to satisfy their partners. Many gay rights advocates believe that it masks the real problems that gay people face in the society;that is discrimination, gay identity, sexual health etc.
OUTRAGE magazine, another homosexual magazine, claims that magazines like this should be concerned about the real issues of the homosexuals, politcally, socially, economically and even personally.
"This coming in the heels of the closure of once-popular Filipino-specific LGBT publications ICON and Generation Pink (GP), and the continuing infamy of semi-pornographic gay publications like Valentino and Coverboy, which leave the local community without its own media. "Gay media, as it developed in the Philippines, focused on the extremes – it was politics versus sex and parties. We used to have a publication for the semi-political in Manila Out, and then, in the likes of ICON, GP, Coverboy and Valentino, we had those largely focusing on more sensationalized, albeit trifle, issues of gay parties and of sex for sex's sake," says Tan, who laments how "we continue failing to merge both, when that is what we should be doing."
Outrage magazines covers issues such as:
-the Filipino gay identity,
-sexual health-discussions on safer sexual practices and HIV and AIDS
-gay rights-morality in sexuality
-recreational drugs and their rampant use concerns of gay travelling in the Philippines
-fashion, and reviews of everything LGBT, from party venues to restaurants, and from plays to films.
Other specific topics include:
-Gay entrepreneurship
-Advocates of GLBTQIA (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer, Intersex and Ally)-Armed and Gay
-Drug use issues in GLBTQIA
-Gay homes
-Queer siblings
-Support systems
-Sexual dysfunctions
It's interesting to see how these parties who seem to be on the same side of the racks, to actually have different concerns and issues they raise. It is important to note that homosexuals are also different people coming from different social classes and economic positions, but it is more important to focus on the real issues they experience, which most of the time, are dismissed because of the stereotypes we have on homosexuals.
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