Julie Burchill on magazine power lists
Julie Burchill, one of my favorite writers, disses those "Power Lists" every magazine seems to be running these days, mostly because she hates the ideal of masculine power that underlies them.
Well, the whole dirty, neurotic point of these lists is to try to deny any idea of males being judged on a sexual basis - unlike women, of course, who only ever figure in media charts in terms of their sexual attractiveness. . . . There's a reason why Henry Kissinger said, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" because, let's face it, who on earth would have sex with an ugly mass murderer if it wasn't? But the only sort of man who values his "power" over his girl-appeal is a sad, bad lay - and the only sort of woman who values male "power" over personality and/or prettiness is the silliest sort of prostitute; that is, one who doesn't know it yet.
