The controversy seems quaint now, and my claim wildly inaccurate. Because these days you do see a lot of at least nearly naked men in advertising. On high-profile billboards and in the pages of glossy consumer magazines, they're selling everything from underwear and jeans to aftershave and orange juice. And they're unbelievably hot.

This perhaps explains why they've stripped down to their skivvies: the better to show off those ripped backs and six-pack abs (which is, of course, where the "unbelievable" part comes in-digital enhancement being so much easier than working out at the gym.)

But Photoshop technology can't help the teenage boy who's wrestling with adolescent identity issues. So increasingly, he's turning to anabolic steroids instead. Recent studies documenting this trend have noted the obvious and eerie echo this provides of the generational rise in eating disorders among young women.

The difference is that guys aren't organized around the issue, and macho culture doesn't even give them permission to kvetch about the pressure to their friends. In contrast, the sisterhood among women about the sins of advertisers and airbrush artists is such that Kate Winslet and Nelly Furtado earned loyalty around the globe for exposing the tricks of the trade used to make their real bodies cover-perfect.

But my guess is we'll have to wait awhile for a male celebrity to come forward to complain about the six-pack abs that have been added to his torso by a magazine's graphic department.

In recent years, some publishers have rushed to provide an editorial environment appropriate to the new male vanity being fostered by advertisers of home gyms, protein powder and skin care products.

Men's Health, for example, out-Cosmos Cosmo in its relentless focus on body sculpting and sexual performance. This month's cover headlines follow the tried-and-true formula, heralding "The easy way to hard abs!," "25 flat-belly foods" and new ways to "Look better instantly!" (No doubt these articles also help deliver the "More sex, better sex" promised on p. 146.)

The strategy is working, of course. Because-who knew?-men apparently have egos, too. Egos susceptible to insidious suggestions about not measuring up.

As a result, Men's Health boasts a circulation of 1.8 million, while products designed to help its readers erase fine lines, lose the grey and tighten their pecs are flying off the shelves.

On the one hand, you have to ask yourselves why it took the ad industry so long to target men in this way. On the other, you want to weep. Because the punishing impact of doctored photos and transformation pitches on the body image and self-esteem of women and girls is in no way lessened by the emergence of equally unattainable appearance ideals for men.

Ramping up the male vanity stakes to create an "Adonis Complex" doesn't let those already suffering from the "Beauty Myth" off the hook. It doesn't give us permission to be real, accept ourselves as we are and grow old gracefully. It just gives us more competition for the use of the bathroom mirror.

My sense is that most women would rather have a guy around who regularly tells them how great they look without make-up, than one who's obsessing about the love handles hovering above his own hips.

The way to correct a destructive double standard is not to suddenly start victimizing the folks previously left alone. And just because insecurity appeals are effective, it doesn't mean they're defensible.

SHARI GRAYDON is an Ottawa-based communications consultant and the author of Made You Look-How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know. “