Kasey Edwards writes of the promotion of male dominance in Men’s Health magazine, of treating women as ‘sex dolls with a pulse’.

Men’s Health, with the help of Yahoo 7, is calling upon its readers to ‘stand up for your rights, man!’

In an article titled 15 Ways To Turn a Good Girl Bad, the magazine laments that ‘female emancipation’ — such as voting and equal pay — has caused a ‘princess-and-the-pea syndrome.’

Women now have the audacity to expect orgasms with the result being that ‘The pea’s demands will eclipse those of your penis.’

Back in the good old days when men were men and women were property, sexual pleasure was something that a woman gave to a man and chicks didn’t have the over-inflated sense of entitlement to expect it for themselves.

But don’t worry, Men’s Health is helping to rectify the situation by enlisting ‘Six sexperts…to make her great in bed (without her even noticing).’

Conveniently overlooking the messy grey area between ‘without her even noticing’ and consent, men are advised to school their princesses in handjob techniques. ‘Be firm and keep going until you’re done so that she can replicate the experience next time.’

Never mind the small detail that women are allowed to stop at any point, even before the man is ‘done’.

There are other tips for what to do if she’s too gentle — tough luck for her if she doesn’t like it rough — and a suggestion to send her off to pilates if, ‘her tunnel of love doesn’t feel as snug as you’d like’.

As well as manipulating her physically — ‘If she’s shy, tires easily on top (or she just doesn’t fancy you), turn her around to face your feet’ — the article also recommends manipulating her emotionally, advising ‘don’t put out’ for up to 14 days.

‘Stop asking and you may find her sexual appetite gets the better of her, revealing a hunger that brings out her more confident side.’

And once men fully understand how to optimise their own sexual pleasure, without any regard for their partner, they’re advised: ‘Make it easy on yourself.’

‘Getting her to the level of orgasm can be a hard slog,’ so the article recommends the use of sex toys to get the tedium of female orgasm over and done with as quickly as possible and with minimum effort.

In the 1950s world inhabited by Men’s Health editors, good girls are frigid, bad girls are horny minxes, and sexual appetite is unnatural for women. Their solution? Use a blindfold so she can explore her ‘naughtier side without feeling self-conscious’.

This manifesto of male sexual dominance sleazily exploits the expert opinions of women to do its bidding. Five out of the six sexperts quoted in the article are women. Presumably the editors think that something can’t be sexist if it’s spoken by a woman.

I’m going to give the sexperts the benefit of the doubt and assume they’ve been quoted out of context and that they don’t give advice exclusively to men, nor do they view women as merely sex dolls with a pulse.

Coming from Zoo Weekly, this article would be unremarkable. But Men’s Health has carved out a niche in the men’s magazine market as a (slightly) more respectable title.

That strategy has been largely successful with both advertises and readers alike. Advertisers have viewed Men’s Health as a safe harbour to market to men without having their products and services tarnished by misogynist rubbish.

Not any longer, it would seem.

I wonder how Coles, Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, Toyota, Westpac, Citibank and Samsung feel about having their branding surround an article that treats half their customer base with utter contempt.

And as the increasing graveyard of Australian’s men’s magazines shows — remember Ralph and Australian FHM  — male magazine buyers don’t go for this kind of thing. And, full disclosure, I was tipped off about this article by a man who happened upon it on Yahoo!7 and was appalled by it.

It’s not the first time in recent memory that Men’s Heath has used its slick machismo to reinforce male dominance. The US edition’s response to the Isla Vista shootings framed the issue as women being weak and passive and encouraged men to act ‘forcibly’ to protect them.

‘How fortunate, then, that with good reason, natural selection has endowed us with stronger muscles, aggressive tendencies, and a certain brute will,’ the article states.

The irony is that if men weren’t encouraged to view women as objects that exist for their benefit — and Men’s Health didn’t publish sexpert articles with a blatant disregard and disrespect for women — then men may be less likely to harm women and we wouldn’t need men’s ‘aggressive tendencies’ to protect us.

Kasey Edwards is a writer and best-selling author. www.kaseyedwards.com