Men's lifestyle magazines are quite a new subgenre of popular magazines aimed at young, single, well-off and pleasure-oriented male readers. Editors of those magazines aspire to 'reveal' a sizable gap between their journals and up-market women's magazines. However, the attributed differences are superficial or even illusory. Being assured that editors possess the secret of hegemonic masculinity, the reader believes that they want to share it with him. Nevertheless, at the deeper level of this media category there are latent processes of male reader feminization. The readers of those magazines are not only asked to succumb to insatiable material consumption but also get encouraged to focus on their body beautification. Moreover, men's lifestyle magazines articulate keen resistance to feminist movement as well as a negative attitude toward gays and lesbians. The readers are asked to believe that the social world is still under the control of men as it used to be in the past. A reader who lacks self-confidence and a sense of security may want to be deceived in that way even at the price of becoming feminized.
The article indicates the role of women's literary 'Bluszcz' magazine (X.2008–…) in motivating contacts with books and developing of reading habits. Its basic task in service of literacy is reinforcing a purely mechanical skill of reading, the effectiveness of reading technique increases and so secondary illiteracy is prevented. But the discussed periodical can also be perceived as a medium presenting various literary and paraliterary texts directly on its pages. 'Bluszcz' is also a significant source of information about books, inspires the interests of the readers, promotes certain names, titles and genres using various types of criticism. That is why especially women's periodicals create bestsellers and form the market of the popular female fiction.
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