IT is a long way from Bunty to Bliss. One gives the reader the Four Marys, a smattering of slang and, taped to this week's issue, a packet of heart-shaped sweets. The other talks about foreplay, masturbation and how to put on a condom, complete with cartoon diagram.
Both British publications have healthy sales in Ireland. Both are aimed at young girls. The oldest Bunty reader is likely to be about 11, the youngest Bliss reader 12 or 13 years of age.
This week a Conservative MP in Britain put forward a Bill which, if enacted, would require teen magazines to carry labels stating recommended reading ages. Gay Byrne took calls from parents who had discovered what their children were reading and were less than thrilled.
But sex sells. The publishers of women's magazines have played on this for years, with much of their formula based on infinite variations on the theme. Bliss and its main rival, Sugar, have appeared on the shelves in the last two years. Like a teenage Cosmopolitan, they make their money as shop windows for the latest cosmetics, spot creams and lurid green lycra numbers.
In between are some stories which would tax a tabloid headline writer's skills. The front cover of Bliss advertises a sealed sex section, "Boys and you - what he really thinks about sex, his bod and you!" Above this teaser is a real-life story entitled "I was the school slut."
Inside, it is splashed across two pages, written in the style of a picture story without the speech bubbles. "She sleeps with lots of boys but should you hate her? Katie tells her story of what it's like to be known as `the school bike'."
Bliss sales are about 12,000 a week in the Republic, compared with 7,300 for Booty, which is part of the D.C. Thomson stable. A Thomson spokesman explained that it had replaced the schoolgirl stalwart, Jackie, with Shout, a more trendy magazine aimed at girls between 11 and 16. D.C. Thomson was not keen on the sex stuff, he said. "It's a million miles from what we'd do." But Shout did print one reader's letter about oral sex.
Dr Rosemary Troy, a Dublin psychologist, says that, at its worst, teen-mag sex "emotionally brutalises" young minds. "It sexualises young people and sets up sexual expectations for them .
Kids start to feel that if they're not involved in a sexual situation then they're not normal."
In its "sex special", this month's Sugar explains the stages of menstruation and the importance of contraception. The "16 sealed pages" (the reader has to break a perforated seal) also contain the results of a "massive survey", although we are not told how massive.
Almost three-quarters of the sample were said to have had sex under the age of 16; 21 per cent were 13 or younger. Only 26 per cent of those surveyed said that they were confident about saying no to sex; 84 per cent said that they had not learned enough about how a sexual relationship would make them feel.
While there is a token "boys' column" in most of the teen mags, they are primarily aimed at female readers. "Girls are two years ahead of boys in terms of maturity", Dr Troy says. "But part of that is because we have higher expectations of girls. With boys, there tends to be a more lax approach. I think that we teach girls about being responsible. But we're not as good at doing it with boys."
A two-page spread in My Guy, one of the more established teen mags, proclaims: "Remember the first time!" In it, celebrities describe losing their virginity, with varying degrees of charm. Tony, from the pop group East 17, says: "I had sex in a park. We were just lying on a bench and it just sort of happened.
Damon Albarn, lead singer with the band Blur, tells it like it was a Blur song: "I lost my virginity at the age of 15 in a semi-detached house at the back of my school in Stanway, Essex, to a 17-year-old girl called Jane. We lay down on a very clean bed, did the business, and then I walked home and had a nice cup of tea and a fancy bun."
Dr Troy says that sex education should be reformed. As part of a biology class, it is just about where the bits go, she says. As part of religion, it is about "thou shalt not".
"I think parents need classes in terms of how to present these issues", Dr Troy says. "When it's presented in a sealed section of a magazine, it sells the idea of collusion, with the whole secrecy of doing something behind the adults' backs."
Dr Troy believes that the trend is towards an earlier loss of innocence.
