Archive for August, 2008
FHM Singapore Hits Ten
SINGAPORE : Best known for its sexy pictorials that get the blood pressure rising, FHM or “For Him Magazine” which turns 10 in September, is set to celebrate its anniversary with a bang.
Packed with “the sexiest, funniest and most useful information”, FHM is Singapore’s top selling magazine for men with a readership of some 56,000. Its global publication reaches out to around 10 million men in 31 countries.
If you thought FHM always had skimpy-clothed women on its covers, think again.
Before the onslaught of the Internet, covers were conservative and believe it or not, everyone was covered up. As society became more liberal, the magazine also evolved to become more risqu and pushed the boundaries.
Mandy Soong, the newly-crowned champ of FHM’s Girl Next Door, has no qualms about being associated with a men’s magazine, in fact, her nonchalant attitude seems to be working for her.
The 19-year-old student took part in the contest to gain more media exposure and now she’s one step closer to a career in showbiz.
But FHM Senior Editor David Fuhrmann-Lim will have you know that the magazine is not just about hot looks and bodies. “We don’t really set out to objectify anyone, the pictorials glorify the women and they are always accompanied by a very FHM-style interview which in a way showcases the girls’ personalities.”
Besides the beautiful women, which only take up 30 per cent of the magazine, FHM also carries features that cover a wide array of topics, from health and fitness to travel.
However, Fuhrmann-Lim admits that the sexy pictorials tend to overwhelm the magazine, causing people to overlook the other content.
But this very aspect is also part of FHM’s winning formula, which can be summed up in three words - sexy, funny and useful.
“Sexy will attract the people. Funny will make them continue reading, and useful will make them stay as fans,” Fuhrmann-Lim explained.
Part of FHM’s success also boils down to tantalising events held in conjunction with the magazine, which serve as an incentive for readers.
“We tend to be very event-centric because it gets the branding out there and it gets the readers a chance to meet the people at work and of course, the FHM girls. And they know what is going on and it is kind of like a reward for them and for being with us all this time,” said Fuhrmann-Lim.
For FHM’s Girl Next Door, finalists were supposed to come up with a campaign promise which they will fulfil if they won. The more outrageous the promise, the higher the likelihood of garnering more votes.
Unlike other unoriginal suggestions such as letting people lick chocolate off your body, Soong came up with this - making sushi along Orchard Road in her lingerie.
FHM will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in September, and will combine the party with the its signature cover of 100 sexiest women in the world.
In the meantime, you can catch the FHM team and Soong in her sushi act on Friday, 5pm at Tangs Orchard Road.
- CNA/yt
Channel News Asia
Diaz Wins First Gold For Dominican Republic
POCKET pitbull Felix Diaz claimed the Dominican Republic’s first ever Olympic boxing gold at the Beijing Games yesterday.
Diaz was at times wild but he never let up his frenetic attacking as he easily outpointed Manus Boonjumnong of Thailand 12-4 in the featherweight final.
Manus was the reigning champion but he struggled to contain the Dominican, who stands only 5ft 5in tall.
The pair were level at 2-2 after the first round but Diaz dominated the third, scoring eight points to just one as he swarmed all over Manus and never stopped throwing haymakers that one way or another found their target.
“We spent all day yesterday watching videos of Boonjomnong because we knew that there has to be an effective strategy to fight him, nobody else could find the right stratgey but I guess we did,” said Diaz.
“This is so important for me but also for my country. I don’t have a coach, I have a magician.”
Manus, a reformed playboy, may have lost but there was better news for his teammate 33-year-old veteran Somjit Jongjohor, who beat Andris Laffita of Cuba 8-2 to win flyweight gold.
The 2003 world champion held up a picture of his country’s king Bhumibol Adulyadej after the victory.
“All my life I’ve been waiting for today. I went through so much, hurt so much,” said Somjit.
Laffita admitted Somjit had been too fast for him, particularly in the first two rounds during which the Thai opened up a 6-0 lead.
The most contentious fight of the evening was the middleweight final between James DeGale and Cuba’s Emilio Correa, which the Briton won 16-14.
But he was roundly jeered after the bout by a pro-Cuba crowd — seemingly mostly Russians — who felt that Correa had been hard done by.
The Cuban, who was trying to emulate his father, who won gold at welterweight in 1972 in Munich, was penalised two points in the first round for biting — a charge he denied — and found himself 10-4 down at the halfway mark.
He closed things up to 12-10 at the end of the third after Degale was penalised for holding but the Briton’s counter-punching impressed the judges more than Correa’s aggression and punch output — although there was no doubt who the crowd thought should have won.
There were even murmured jeers at the beginning of the British national anthem.
“That’s disrespect. I don’t know where they’re going with that,” DeGale said of the booing.
In the heavyweight division Rakhim Chakhkiev of Russia gained revenge on Italy’s world champion Clemente Russo.
Chakhkiev was beaten by Russo in the final of the World Championships last year but he scored two unanswered points in the final round to eek out a 4-2 victory.
The most one-sided bout of the night was at light-welterweight where Ukraine’s Vasyl Lomachenko stopped France’s Khedafi Djelkhir in the first round.
Djelkhir was totally out-gunned from the start and took three standing counts before the referee waved off the contest. — AFP
New Straits Times
News Focus: Sex And The Young Ones
Prof Dr Low Wah Yun says youth sexuality is still a sensitive subject, not just in Asian countries but in all cultures.
Once, it was puppy love. Today, being adolescent is no longer the age of innocence. Boys and girls as young as 12 have gone more than just ogle at each other, writes NURRIS ISHAK.
AT a time when many girls are still thinking that boys are pests, 12-year-old Ani (not her real name) was already sneaking off to meet her 15-year-old boyfriend.
But Ani’s puppy love took a different twist when she became pregnant.
At an age when her friends were looking forward to secondary school, Ani was breast-feeding her baby boy.
Adolescence, defined as between 10 and 19 years old, is no longer the age of innocence.
When once boys were “icky” and girls “yucky”, upon reaching puberty, the opposite sex suddenly becomes objects of curiosity.
This is the time when the hormones begin to kick in, and ogling at the opposite sex becomes an exciting pastime, says University of Malaya psychologist Prof Dr Low Wah Yun.
“Girls start having crushes on adults, like a teacher or a parent’s friend. For boys, this is the time when they have stronger sexual impulses and fantasies,” she said.
It is ironic that adolescents and youths — the latter defined as those between the ages of 15 and 24 — are the least informed on the importance of sexual health at an age when they are the most curious about sex.
A 2004 national survey on Malaysian youths shows that two out of five had their first date between the ages of 13 and 15.
Conducted by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN), the survey also revealed that four out of five started holding hands, kissing and petting between the ages of 13 and 18.
Due to a widening age gap between puberty and marriage, there will be a higher prevalence of adolescents having premarital sex. Out of 13,971 survey respondents who have had sex, 38.2 per cent had it before the age of 20.
The group is most likely to have multiple sexual and casual partners, have unprotected sex, become pregnant accidentally and contract sexually-transmitted disease.
Young males tend to lose their virginity out of curiosity or for the sake of sexual pleasure, while young women associate it with love or a long-term relationship.
Adolescents living with single parents have a significantly higher rate of having sexual intercourse than those living with both biological parents, as found in another study done in Negri Sembilan.
“Their risky behaviour is caused by the lack of sexual and reproductive health information.
“They are not taught the necessary skills in negotiating sexual relationships and how to deal with peer pressure,” says Dr Low, who presented her findings at the National Population Conference: Youth and the Changing Demographics on Monday.
In her paper entitled Youth Sexuality: A Psycho-Social Perspective, she noted that youths do not get proper access to youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services.
And the facts tell a grim story. Each year, one in 20 adolescents globally would contract sexually transmitted infection.
Every day, over 7,000 youths aged between 10 and 24 are infected with HIV.
Statistics by the World Health Organisation show that 4.4 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19 undergo unsafe abortions each year, and 60,000 die due to complications of an early pregnancy and childbirth-related problems.
Still, around the world, policy makers, community members, parents and teachers shy away from discussing sex and reproductive health with teenagers.
Most of the time, the youths have to resort to getting their information from friends, the Internet or magazines, which may provide sensational and inaccurate information.
The LPPKN survey found that one out of two adolescents aged 14 to 15 have read pornographic materials.
Forty-four per cent have watched pornographic images, some having done so at the age of nine.
“Education programmes on adolescent sexual health are rather scanty.
“Although a family health education programme is endorsed by the Education Ministry, teachers are seldom equipped and are uncomfortable in teaching the subject,” says Dr Low.
In Malaysia, sexuality is a taboo subject which parents are least likely to discuss with their children.
The LPPKN survey revealed that parents would rather talk to their children about education and spending habits, and most would skip the subject of boyfriends and girlfriends altogether.
Studies have revealed that the society is more tolerant towards boys losing their virginity before marriage.
The society’s gender-biasness towards premarital sex leaves the adolescent females to be more vulnerable to the negative consequences of premarital sex.
“Youth sexuality is still a sensitive subject, not just in Asian countries but in all cultures,” said Dr Low.
“Programmes that offer sexual and reproductive health services to youths can expect to encounter some resistance from the community.
“Sex education is not ‘training for promiscuity’, it aims to increase the individual’s responsibility in a normal healthy sexual relationship.
“In countries which have sex education, the youths tend to delay their initiation into sex. When they actually have sex, more of them took the necessary precautions.”
When Dr Low and her colleagues did a study on the sexual activities of Malaysian adolescents, they found that only 37 per cent of sexually active teenagers use any form of birth control.
“One-third of those who don’t use any form of contraceptive say they didn’t expect to have sex, and another third say that sex wasn’t as much fun with it, or that they find it difficult to use.
“It could also be because they are scared their families would find out,” says Dr Low.
Turning a blind eye towards sexuality among adolescents is no longer an option. With things going the way it is, sexual education is a vital necessity.
“Both young women and men need sexual education. They need to be taught issues relating to sexuality such as contraception, healthy and responsible relationship, marriage.
“They need to be educated on sexual orientation, reproduction, abstinence and gender roles as well as other sexual health-related issues. Sexually active adolescents need to understand the risks involved.”
In this case, ignorance is not bliss.
New Straits Times