Loaded relaunch: modern masculinity or mid-life crisis?

Loaded, the iconic lads' magazine of the 1990s, is returning after a nine-year hiatus with a self-declared mission to allow men to "ogle beautiful women" once more.

At its peak, the monthly magazine sold more than 450,000 copies. Danni Levy, the new executive editor, said the relaunch is aimed at the original Loaded audience, who are "now living happily at home with their wife and kids". But not everyone is convinced it will work.

'Absolutely trash'

Speaking on ITV's "This Morning", journalist Isla Traquair said the rebrand was "inspiring a mid-life crisis across the country", and, posting on social media, writer Rebecca Reid said the relaunched content was "absolutely trash".

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Writing for the i news site, Reid said that the closure of magazines like Loaded, Nuts and Zoo was a "genuine loss to men because what replaced them was deeply, darkly worse". A "tongue-in-cheek piece about the best way to ask your girlfriend for oral sex" was "positively wholesome" compared to the "Andrew Tates of the world" telling boys that women should "bear responsibility" for being sexually assaulted.

But the Loaded relaunch is bewildering, she said. "It feels like someone wanted to throw a lot of money at doing something countercultural and pro-men, but didn’t bother doing any research at all into what men want."

Two of the men who originally launched the magazine felt the same. A "safe space for ogling" as the magazine has been pitched is "missing the point", wrote James Brown in The Independent, and, writing for The Telegraph, Brown's one-time deputy, Tim Southwell, said he didn't "see anything in the new Loaded to suggest they have the slightest idea about what Loaded readers really liked about Loaded".

'Safe space'

But men "may actually be less keen on ogling women than they used to", said Zoe Strimpel on UnHerd, and "not just because of the shifting sands around 'consent'". Rather the internet has "seen to it that women have become old hat now to the most sexually jaded generation of Western men in history".

As "lad mag culture seized the zeitgeist" in the 1990s, a "sort of mutant feminism took hold that didn't serve us well", said Kate Spicer in The Times. Heavy drinking does not equal "emancipation", and "neither does sleeping around or knowing the offside rule". Women morphed from being "honorary blokes" to "taking all our clothes off", so "I doubt you'll find any intelligent women thrilling over the Loaded shtick in 2024". 

Levy said that her target audience for the reboot will be "the original Loaded audience who are now living happily at home with their wife and kids" but "still reminisce about their nights spent clubbing until 3am, drinking £1 shots, with a bedroom covered in posters of half-naked women".

The Guardian's Pass Notes said this vision was "grim" and made Loaded "the magazine for middle-aged men who can't face up to the reality that they're expected to function as adults in society".

But "in fairness", it added, Levy "made a better argument" about Loaded hoping to occupy a safe space between the "attitude that no one can say or do anything" and the tsunami of online pornography that is "giving youngsters a warped idea of sexual normality".