When reading big-league magazine profiles of female celebrities, you would be forgiven for thinking they can be on the…inappropriate side.
Remember Vanity Fair's Margot Robbie interview? Author Rich Cohen wrote that the actress is '26 and beautiful, not in that otherworldly, catwalk way but in a minor knock-around key, a blue mood, a slow dance.' She's tall, sure, but 'only with the help of certain shoes'. She can be 'sexy and composed' even - even! - while naked but 'only in character'.
It's all kinds of creepy. Robbie herself said the whole thing was, 'really weird'.
You can read the whole thing here, if you so wish.
As one critique of Cohen's rather intimate portrayal of the Australian explains:
'Another day, another profile written by a crusty old man describing the physical attributes of a young actress as if she was an intricately decorated end table that they found at Sotheby's, or a piece of steak they were looking forward to devouring after a five o'clock scotch.'
Another cover story that notoriously missed the mark was Vogue's Selena Gomez interview.
This time writer Rob Haskill was on the chopping block for making comments such as:
'As I slip an apron over her mane of chocolate-brown hair, for which Pantene has paid her millions, and tie it around her tiny waist, I wonder whether her legions have felt for years the same sharp pang of protectiveness that I'm feeling at present.'
People describe it as 'paternalistic' at best, damn right creepy at worst.
Or like that time David Denicoko directly compared Amanda Seyfried to the Catskill Mountain scenery - 'lovely, but the opposite of exotic' - in her Allure profile.
Read many articles - usually written by a man - and you will note these odd and uncomfortable descriptions time and time again.
Yet now it seems Justin Trudeau may be the first man to receive the lusty-profile treatment.
A new Rolling Stone cover story, written by journalist Dayna Evans, is an amazing ode to the 45 year-old Canadian Prime Minister. The piece waxes lyrical about his political stardom and asks the reader if Trudeau is 'the free world's best hope?'
To put it another way, The Cuthave called the piece 'extremely horny'.
Evans' admiration of Trudeau is clear from the constant comparisons with a certain American President.
'Trump is defunding Planned Parenthood,' she writes, 'Trudeau is firmly pro-choice; abortions are provided as part of Canada's universal health care. (We know Trump's position on that issue.)'
She continues: 'Trudeau reminds me of, well, Obama'
Then we get onto his attire and it had us whispering 'we feel you girl' from behind our screens.
'Trudeau takes off his suit jacket and we settle into two ornate chairs in a corner of his Parliament Hill office. His sleeves are pushed up, his tie blue, his shirt white, his socks festooned with moose.'
And then we see the real Dayna. The Dayna in all of us who would behave in the exact same way if sent off to interview Canada's hunky PM: 'For Trudeau, listening is seducing. … As we chat, he smiles and locks in with his blue eyes'.
The article is informative and clever, but it's the little details we live for. Things such as the PM's inking history: 'Trudeau has a tat of a raven and, sigh, the planet Earth.'
Our favourite line? 'He is always pushing his product: a kind but muscular Canada.'
Kind and muscular, eh? Sure it's Canada you're talking about there kid?
If we're going to keep describing actresses and singers with a relentless physical admiration in interviews, let's at least divvy it out to world leaders, too.
As the Cut so aptly put it, 'Horny profiles for everyone!'
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
