I feel sorry for men because they date women, and women read Cosmopolitan. Now, I realize that I might start seeing a dude, only to discover he's an avid Maxim reader. And I admit, I don't want to compete with "463 Hottest Chicks in Baby Oil and Tiny, Tiny Thongs." But if your lover is a Maxim or FHM fan, the worst that you have to deal with are repeated requests for threesomes and ham-fisted overtures toward butt sex. And hey, maybe you like that! But if you're a dude--how do you deal with this?
Good luck using your 78 brand-new sex tips on a man without testicles, Lydia, 32. No, but seriously, if I was a straight dude, I'd be terrified of Fun Fearless Females. And how ironic is that, given that Cosmo should be titled, The Magazine That Teaches You Every Way To Please Your Man That Doesn't Involve A Delicious Sandwich?
Perhaps you disagree, and you have chosen to date a Cosmopolitan lady. You will be excited to learn that each issue contains a "Cosmo for Your Guy" page that your girlfriend is to give to you to read. Yes. This month's article was on how to anticipate what kind of sex your girlfriend wants (if she feeds you a bite of food, she's feeling experimental! What?). I would have an image of that page here, but it got destroyed. When I showed it to Sean and explained that it was for him, he pretended to punch me in the head and then balled up the page and tried to sexually assault me with it. Needless to say, this is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. Yeah, no, I'm serious.
Even if your girlfriend doesn't try to violate your brain with for-guy advice, she's still getting bizarrely inaccurate information about the male psyche. That can only be bad news for you, fellahs. For instance, in this month's Man Manual (I wonder how long they argued over whether that should be shortened to MANual), she could learn, "What His Down-There Grooming Says." If you're Totally Untamed, you're an alpha male, or sweet but lazy. A man who is Tidied Up is one who "calls when he says he will" (though possibly to ask you to trim his pubes--sorry, I couldn't resist). If you're a Completely Bare man, then you're open to "every other stop on the train to Naughty Town." That's right, the train to Naughty Town. I have a feeling that the first stop you're going to have to make now is Viagra Village.
So concludes Zombiekim's CosmoSUCKStravaganza, by no means an exhaustive study of what's wrong with Cosmo-specific female culture (I didn't even touch on the ads), but certainly long enough for me to have exorcised my fembot demons.
What have we learned?
On the one hand, Cosmo is relatively harmless fluff--it's candy for your brain. I'll grant that. On the other hand, even if all a woman wants is some fashion advice and sex tips, she deserves better. And any magazine that encourages women to rabidly overanalyze their lives cannot be good for dudes. Or, in the words of Beth, 29: "Every time my boyfriend and I have sex, he throws the condom wrapper on my floor. I secretly think he wants my roommate to see that he uses the Magnum size. Either that or he's trying to mark his territory in some weird way!" That's every man's dream girl, right there.
Of course, the article on men's grooming habits reminds me of probably the real reason I loved Cosmo as a teenager: shirtless guys. So, maybe the magazine isn't all bad. Sexist toward both men and women? Yes. But my locker wouldn't have been the same without its pinups. More importantly, maybe I wouldn't have become so charmingly sarcastic if I'd never received a Cosmo education in shallow mindedness and bad sex puns.
Or should I say, a sexucation.
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