When I was a teenager, my father used to shake his head if he saw me reading a Cosmopolitan, but I was intrigued by sex and what men really want, so I snuck it in my backpack when I thought he wasn't looking and read Cosmo on the bus ride to school. Once I turned 16 and was "old enough to read it," according to my parents, Cosmo became the first magazine I subscribed. Man, I couldn't wait to check the mail when I came home from school! After a few years, I started to see a pattern; each month, I read the same crazy spin on sex, just increasingly trashy. Still, I was curious, but I could no longer ignore my father’s disapproval, so I became a subscriber of Maxim, and sure enough, I caught my dad flipping through it. Were the editors at Cosmopolitan just trying too hard? How could such a polished, popular magazine print such outrageous advice in every issue? Were men really that complicated? Maybe that’s what my dad was trying to tell me all along.
I haven’t sat down to read a Cosmopolitan in years, but judging from the October cover, the core of Cosmopolitan is still the same. The word “SEX” is printed three times and in big, bold letters, adding to Cosmo's curb appeal. Yet, according to a writer from last year's Mag Crit Blog, the headline on “Bad Girl Sex,” was used in the November 2008 issue! Are the editors really that dull that they can't think of anything else?
It gets worse. The feature on "Bad Girl Sex" article opens with a scandalous picture of a woman straddling a man, and the caption reads: “Good girls do it in bed. Bad girls do it everywhere.”
The headline, “Get Naughty Tonight,” accompanied by the dekhead, “Almost all men dig a little dirty between the sheets. So these 12 taboo moves should really drive him loco with lust,” made me laugh in mock surprise, but still curious, I read on.
The article, written by Holly Eagleson, first assumes the reader is dating one of these men who likes naughty tricks in bed. Without a Ph.D. or even an area of expertise behind her name, the writer's credibility is questioned. I pictured an inexperienced 18-year-old writing from her dorm room. The very first tip, for example, “Try a Bit of Bondage,” recommended “Getting tied up instantly boosts the sexual energy because it brings in the element of vulnerability.”
For Cosmopolitan, the idea of bondage seems commonplace, but how is the reader supposed to introduce something like that? In the heat of the moment? I’ve overheard men telling stories about the "crap" their girlfriends read in Cosmopolitan complaining how she tried some crazy one-off maneuver on him without talking about it first. This kind of blind advice is not realisitic!
Despite the fact that Cosmopolitan is a magazine for fun, fearless females and the majority of the fashion, hair and beauty secrets are on point and appropriate, the editors at Cosmopolitan must find other ways to satisfy the curious reader, without running the same headlines and pornographic advice. It remains a mystery why the readers of Cosmopolitan aren’t catching on, but then again, maybe therein lies the point.
- Jenn Sheppard
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