May 22 2007
things i learned from this month’s cosmo
So, I picked up the latest issue of Cosmo Sunday at the store. Do you know how embarrassing it is to buy Cosmo? Because it’s kind of embarrassing. You know, because there’s Ashlee Simpson and her plastic-surgery-o-matic face on the cover, and it says, “75 SEX TRICKS. Warning: They’re So Hot, This Magazine May Burst Into Flames” and “Feel Sexy Naked” and it can make one feel sort of like her life has derailed at some point, and she’s only two steps away from telling the teenage boy cashier how glad she is that tampons were on sale and oooooh! chocolate! But then, upon flipping the magazine over, one notices that Clive Owen’s obviously Photoshop-enhanced green eyes are staring at her from the back cover and life is bearable once again. At least if one is me.
Anyway, yesterday Caryn sent me this article, The Five Great Lies of Women’s Magazines, and it’s all pretty straightforward, and nothing that anyone who has ever hated on this type of media hasn’t already considered, but it does make fun of the fact that this month’s Cosmo has a cuddling tutorial in it (it so does, and I will totally be getting to that later), so it endeared itself to me.
First Order of Business: Master of the Obvious Edition
– Camel toes are apparently skanky. Thanks, Cosmo, for pointing that out. If you hadn’t, I’d never have known.
– Newsflash: all women do not want to have babies! Gasp!
Love, Sex and Relationships
– What to do after sex? There are several (okay, four) tips: don’t stay too long (have a cup of coffee, sure, but no breakfast for you!), resist saying “Oh, I never do this” (because he already knows you’re a ho, I guess), never tidy up (so resist the urge to rearrange the kitchen cabinets), and finally, don’t leave before he wakes up (so, you know, wake him up! before you go-go! Jitterbug.).
– 75 Sex Tricks. Okay, first of all, we are not going to go through them one by one. But here’s what I wonder about sex tips in magazines like Cosmo. How many of them are actually original? Are there truly a limitless number of ways to blow his mind or are these mindblowing techniques actually finite? It is my hypothesis that no matter how creative you are, and if you never had sex the same way twice for a really long time, eventually, you’d have to start repeating yourself. Someone ought to conduct a study over a number of years. This study should, of course, involve graphs. So this month there are 75 tips and next month there are 12 and the following month there are 37 and the month after that there are 101 and so on and so forth, and someone should see how long it takes for there to be repeats. And then that someone should publish the definitive list of the 150 (or whatever number it actually is) ways to have the hottest sex EVAR and make, like, a gazillion dollars.
– The Power of Cuddling. Um, I am so not kidding. There is a cuddling tutorial in this month’s issue. It is illustrated with spoons. How hard is it to cuddle? I thought it was probably pretty simple, like, if you’ve got to cuddle, then, you know, um, go ahead. But where would we be without Cosmo and its infinite cuddling wisdom? Because when you need to bond, you’re going to cuddle differently than when you need to make him feel manly. (To bond? Cuddle face to face. To make him feel manly? He should be sitting up and you should be lying down with your head on his thigh, and perhaps also your hand on his knee.) The other four cuddling moves suggested here are to spoon when you want to connect after sex, to lean in when you just want to show the love, to put your head on his chest when you’ve had a hellacious day and you just want to calm down, and when you want to get it on, the article pretty much suggests dry humping, which I never really thought of as a cuddling move before, but I guess this is why Cosmo is the expert and I am not. Ahem. In the sidebar, we are warned against cuddling too much (especially without putting out) because that’s just a turn-off, ladies. Also, the article quotes someone who is a clinical sexologist, PhD. Clinical sexologist. PhD. Where the hell do you get that degree?
– The next article is about sexy things to do with food (like, say, tying him up with licorice), but they include Rachael Ray quotes in some cartoon speech bubbles. Yum-o! Not sexy.
Special Report! What’s Going On With Guys These Days?
Apparently men in their 20s are immature. Who knew? I think that’s the point of this article; I can’t say that I’m actually reading it. But anyway, to find love, either lower your standards or date an older guy. Thanks, Cosmo!
Cosmo Peeks Inside His Pants
Ahem. First of all, this article contains the NAUGHTIEST photo Cosmo has ever run. What is it? It’s of a dude in some some Calvin Klein boxer briefs that really, uh, accentuate his package. Whee! Anyway, this article contains a sidebar about famous underwear models, such as Ashton Kutcher and Mark Wahlberg. Remember when Marky Mark used to drop his pants on MTV? Yeah, me too. The article also explains what different underwear styles say about guys’ personalities. In case you were wondering, low-rise underwear are “ideal for the metrosexual man.” In a Cosmo web poll, 45% of women said they prefer boxer briefs. So now you know.
– Fun, fearless way to meet a guy? Keep a stash of fortune cookie fortunes in your purse, and cross out the lucky numbers, writing your phone number over them. Then pass them out at will. Tee hee!
Fashion, Beauty & Health
– Okay, there’s a fashion spread about wearing bright colors, titled “Flash Your Brights,” and the model on the front page of it is in some sort of weird twisty open-legged fuck-me pose, so the title has this definite double-entendre thing going on. Also the dress she is wearing is hideous and has a zipper pull on it that looks like a bling-covered barrel favored by St. Bernards. I dig the strappy silver Manolos, though.
– To get gorgeous, glowing skin, EAT MORE CHOCOLATE. Apparently it has an antioxidant in it that helps create smoother skin. Or, wait. I guess it’s pure cocoa powder. Whatever. Have a Snickers.
– There’s an article about things you don’t know about The Pill, and it includes a drawing of a uterus. I just thought I’d mention that.
– If you want to get pregnant, eat your spinach.
– To beat PMS breast pain, cut out the caffeine. Right. Because what you need is caffeine withdrawal and PMS at the same time.
And there you go. Until next month!
*avoids spinach*
If I cut out caffeine every time I had PMS (or PMS symptoms) I’d simply perish of witchiness.
yeah, though your plea for graphs, jam, is heart-driven, the non-caffeine breast pain remedy is the scariest thing in this month’s wrap-up.
Also, i wanna thank you once again for putting yourself on the line and being the one to buy the Cosmo for us all.
So. Much. To. Say. A cuddling tutorial? With illustrations? You did NOT just go there, Cosmo. Except they totally did.
Ladies, we should all start referring to our lady bits as our Brights. “I’m off to have my Brights waxed before swimsuit season starts!” “Damn, Britney, everybody did not need to see your Brights. Cover that shit up!”
i hate cosmo. i am so grossed out by all of it that i can’t think of anything else to say. but, jamelah, i like it when you “read” cosmo to us. it’s like you’re the wacky babysitter who does the funny vioces while reading the goodnight story. i like that. now i am picturing you as peter falk reading fred savage the princess bride. except you don’t have peter falk’s eyes. or eye. yeah.