| The Atomic Dog is a weekly feature that isn't necessarily about weight training or bodybuilding. Sometimes it's about sports in general, sex, women, or male issues of some kind. At times it's inspirational, but it can also be informative, funny, and even a little weird, but hopefully, always interesting and a little controversial. We hope it reflects the nature of Testosterone magazine in that, just as no man is completely one-dimensional and only interested in one subject, neither are we. If it makes you think or laugh — or even get angry — it's served its purpose.
I found the following semi-irate letter in this week's batch of Reader Mail:
TC, I have to call T-Mag on its use of the term "T-Vixen" to describe the women you feature in the occasional "Top 10 T-Vixens" articles. I thought the primary criterion for a T-Vixen was this: SHE LIFTS. Apparently I was wrong. According to T-Mag—or should I say the illustrious Mr. Winky's definition—she has to have the great accomplishment of winning the genetic lottery on her physical resume. Either that or have puffy pectoral pontoons implanted in her chest. I don't disagree with much about T-Mag but this is one thing that really sticks in my craw. As such, I've decided I'm no longer a T-Vixen. I'll let you know when I come up with a better term for us females of T-Nation. MD While I understand your displeasure, MD, it's not up to you to come up with a term for the females of T-Nation. Furthermore, it's not up to you to define a T-Vixen. We, the founders of T-Nation, get to do that. You want to name your citizens? Start your own damn country. And while using a simple criterion like "she lifts" would make it tidier, it's definitely not as simple as that. Hell, we don't award the label of T-man to a guy just because he can slap a couple of weights on a bar and lift it off the ground. If that were the case, half the murderers, thieves, and child molesters in the country would be T-men. Sure, and the kid in the mailroom who the court put on probation for sending Celine Dion bushels of phallic-shaped fruit? He lifts too, but a T-man he ain't. Nope, there's a lot more to it than that. A T-man's also got to have brains and integrity. By the same token, we can establish any criteria we want regarding T-Vixen. Quite frankly, you're a T-Vixen if you appeal to T-men on a testicular level. If we want to fuck you for either your body or your mind, you're a T-Vixen. And don't call me chauvinistic or misogynistic, either. If a bunch of women put together a list of desirable men, I wouldn't start lobbying to be put on the list. That would be pathetic, as pathetic as Tim Patterson's yearly campaign to be included in People Magazine's list of the most beautiful people. You too could send in all the pictures you want of yourself playing your accordion while dressed in nothing but your blinding white Hanes' underwear but if you don't have what it takes, you're not gonna' make the list. And sure, maybe T-Nation should be all inclusive a' la Presidential candidate Howard Dean—even appealing to the women who drive pick-up trucks with Confederate flags sewn into their thongs—but what good is a club or organization if everyone can join? So we rely on our balls to act as barometers of T-Vixen-worthiness. When the ancient Romans took an oath, they placed their hands on their testicles because the balls are simultaneously the root of their soul and their most precious possession. What's more, those balls don't lie. And if a Roman woman took an oath? She'd place her hands on the balls of the nearest Roman male, and if she jostled them ever-so-gently while saying something along the lines of, "You can have your advanced system of roads and your aqueducts, I'll have some of these bad boys," he'd most likely give her a few gold coins. But I digress. Most of the bimbos we ogle probably have the brain power of toasters, and not the new-fangled computerized ones that automatically brown your toast to the exact shade of Little Kim's ample brown butt, but the old fashioned ones where you'd have to risk electrocution with a knife just to extract your incinerated bread. Even so, can't we dream that these genetically advantaged women also have brains and integrity too? If we didn't hold on to that slender thread of hope, we'd all do a Jim Jones and commit mass suicide with spiked Kool-Aid, hoping against all odds that heaven was populated with women whose wit and sagacity matched their celestial hooters. And have you considered, MD, that maybe you're discriminating against überbabes? Maybe you saw the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on Wednesday night. All those women are T-Vixens by virtue of them wearing high heels and walking around in front of us while wearing fancy underwear. How could it be otherwise? Should we discriminate against them for not wearing wrinkled, baggy clothes and Ugg boots? No, we T-men are above that sort of thing. Never would we discriminate against a woman for having pouty lips, smooth skin, long legs, perky breasts, and a glorious little caboose. That's the kind of guys we are: noble, principled, and most of all, chock-full of understanding. It could be that once we got to know these women we'd determine that they weren't T-Vixens and after hearing them banter on for endless hours about how they just learned a new way to highlight their cheekbones that we'd want to stab them with an ice pick. Okay, I'm f-ing with you a little bit now, but it's like the old test used by conservative judges to determine what's pornography and what's not: you know it when you see it. Similarly, we know a T-Vixen when we see it. You don't have to be a beauty to qualify as a T-Vixen, but you have to have the right stuff. A T-Vixen isn't a shrinking violet who cringes when she hears a politically incorrect or insensitive joke. Just this morning I walked into a local café for a cup of coffee. Since I'm a smart-ass by nature, I ordered a "Michael Jackson Breakfast Sandwich." The puzzled cash register clerk asked me what that was. I told him, "A tongue on a 12-year-old bun." One woman who overheard me told me I was revolting. Another told me that I had just managed to turn her stomach, but the guys in the café laughed. See what I mean? Humor is often rude, but a T-Vixen understands this. Similarly, they don't sue men in the workplace for making such a joke. A T-Vixen strives to improve herself mentally and physically, asserts her needs, assumes that equal pay is her right, tries to have integrity, realizes that watching sports is man's birthright, and is sexually adventurous and doesn't mind taking it up the poop chute once in awhile. Okay, I'm kidding about that last one…sort of, unless the idea kinda' gets you excited. In that case, I'm dead serious. Call me. Please. She doesn’t wear gloves when she jerks you off; doesn't scold you for coming on the comforter her grandmother knitted her. Instead, she scrapes off some shavings and lovingly places them in a locket around her neck, close to her heart. Or maybe she sprinkles them into her bath water instead of Calgon. But she's not subservient to men, either. She's her own person. If she doesn't come, she whips out a vibrator the size of Barry Bond's bat and rides that hummer instead of saying something hateful like, "TC, you're a pathetic loser who couldn't satisfy a woman if her life depended on it," not that I've ever heard that, especially last Saturday, and if someone named Tiffany Burlbaw tells you she said that, don’t believe it for one minute, no siree. If a woman simply reads T-mag, chances are she's a bonafide T-Vixen. The info and attitude presented here aren't for Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm types. So you see, MD, any woman who has any fine qualities and accepts men's shortcomings while admiring their strengths is a T-Vixen! And if she doesn't have any good qualities, we don't care if she does have puffy pectoral pontoons implanted in her chest, we'll do like the Arabs do when they want to get rid of their wives and excommunicate that wannabe T-Vixen by saying "I divorce you" three times in a row: I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you. Oh, we'd still want to nail her, but we won't invite her to any meetings—unless she wears something really hot. Similarly, when we run pictorials of alleged T-Vixen, we're going to choose the candidates based solely on their physical attributes. While we admire 54-year-old Sheila Terwilliger's 180-pound bench press and her selfless efforts to help the poor, she doesn't look all that great in a thong bikini. A T-Vixen understands this. | 
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