Rumination: Serenity Challenged by Man Boobs

I found myself with a backlog of newsletters last evening and a block of time to catch up.  Admittedly, it does happen that real life interferes with my reading addiction.  I've matured enough to accept this with serenity and am gentle with myself when catching up.  At first, I will confess, I thought I was simply tired, then it occurred to me I was perhaps mistaken, next I was worried I'd opened the same newsletter due to my severe state of withdrawal.  That was a hellofa moment let me tell you.  Quickly checking the facts, I was but somewhat relieved to discover I had indeed opened a different newsletter and was not in some Groundhog Day cycle of repetition, no matter how it felt.



You may be asking yourself what distressed me so, well I'll tell you:   Man Boobs.

I am udderly (pun intended) sick of waxed-chest man boobs on the cover of novels.  Faceless, hairless, meaningless shots of a man's boobs positioned to the left, center or right, in sunlight, shade or shadow does not say "Great Book Here, Buy Me -me -me!"  Those images all say: Lemming, too lazy to come up with original idea.  And since I've ambled by the half-century mark, those boyish images start to make me feel like a pedophile!

I did the math.  It was a random sample, true, but out of 8 newsletters across six genres, over 38% had the Man Boobs cover with the only differences being location on the cover and lighting / background.  I did not count the ones with an actual FACE visible, or the few with a woman's partially naked back arranged so the man boobs are glossily glorified above her (that is the second most common image if you're interested), or the side shots of man boobs thrust in a woman's face that is not really visible.

Naked Man Boobs is the ideal cover image, seriously?

Makes me wonder where are the men, rising up against faceless exploitation?  Where are the women that prefer men in their more natural state? (do they even exist anymore?  Has all fantasy become so sterile now?)  Why is no one well, demanding a little Creativity from publishers, marketers, cover artists? Has the glossy image of the Special Offer really become so much more important than the content?  (yeah, that was a stupid question, my apologies)

Just for the record, I cannot catch up on backlogged newsletters at that Wendy's, at least not until the evening crew leader graduates from high school.  I do not regret my response to his "You should see what granny is looking at over there," but I am a bit ashamed of making him cry....

Note: I did purchased three books from the backlogged newsletters.  Not one had a cover with Man Boobs.