Cosmo’s Horrible Sex Tips for Women

My friend just sent me this link, and it had me cracking up. I hadn’t thought about Cosmopolitan magazine in a LONG time, and I had forgotten how downright ludicrous (or should I say lewd-icrous? har de har har) their sex tips are. And that makes up like half of every issue of the magazine!!!

I remember being about fourteen years old and picking up a Cosmo at my older cousin’s house. It was full of sex tips (something along the lines of “100 Tricks to Make Your Man Melt!”). I was a virgin, and not only did I not know a damn thing about what men really like, but I didn’t even realize that (SURPRISE!) men are individuals, and therefore not all men like the same thing. (From the looks of it, the writers at Cosmo haven’t figured this out yet.)

But even though I was pretty clueless, I was nonetheless skeptical–was it REALLY a great idea to suddenly jam a finger up into your man’s rectum without any warning? Did my (hypothetical, future) man really want me to scrape my teeth up and down the shaft of his penis while I (hypothetically, in the far-flung future) blew him? And was a can of whipped cream and a squeeze bottle of Hershey’s Syrup really that sexy, or was it just a sticky cliche?

I’ve since had more than enough time to realize that Cosmo is, of course, a trashy rag full of fluff and ridiculousness. It’s a guilty pleasure not to be taken seriously. And I suspect the writers and editors of the magazine know that the reason women read this stuff is not because we actually intend to try these…er…techniques (some of which, I’m betting, are physically impossible), but because we enjoy the silly trash for what it is. And so, my new theory is that the good folks at Cosmo are just making this stuff up to amuse themselves and their readers. And as the years go by, they’re challenging themselves to push the envelope, to come up with something even more outlandish than, say, tickling your man’s nether-regions with an oversized periwinkle feather while the two of you hang from twin flying trapezes. It’s like an inside joke between women–the writers and the readers. A women’s magazine version of The Aristocrats, if you will. We know you’re just trying to shock us, but we’re nonetheless impressed that you had the balls guts to put it in print.

Or at least, I hope so.

I mean, no one really takes this stuff seriously, right?

Cosmo’s 44 Most Ridiculous Sex Tips (at Nerve.com)