When I was a very, very young boy my best friend’s family owned and lived in a little boarding house, a holdover from the Depression, catering to those for whom those years were still very real. And sometimes while visiting I’d read the tabloids that were left behind when guests moved on — sensational stories and “common sense” advice for those who’d never finished high-school (back when there was still no real shame in that.) And in the back were advertisements for the most unreasonable products for the insecure but extremely proud poor.
The ads that, better than 40 years later, I vividly remember from issue after issue promised “fake-proof social-security cards: never have your social security card faked again.” Even as an early elementary school student I recognized the inherent absurdity of somehow “fake-proofing” a social security card. For one thing back then there were no photocopiers, or anything like them. For another, your official, government-issued social security card was a simple printed card with your name and social security number hand typed on it! The point being, though, that in the advertisements, and often in the articles themselves, the tabloids of the boarders were designed to increase the financial insecurity of it’s readers without alleviating it, to distract them from ways they might have genuinely improved their security, and indeed to profit from maintaining or increasing that insecurity. Which brings me to…
So there next to the checkout stand in the grocery store this afternoon sits a giant pink copy of Cosmopolitan magazine (August, 2007 issue.)
Cover stories, I kid you not:
- Erotic Sex. – 50 Ways to be Closer to Him – Guys Uncensored – How to Feel More Pleasure Every Day – 6 Skills Sex Goddesses Master – What to Do When Sex Hurts – Weird Sex Questions We’re Asked
(Also, 16 sexy new hairstyles, “True Crime Story: Her Boyfriend Killed Her for Breaking Up With Him” and “Julia Stiles, The Least Bitchy Girl In Hollywood.”)
So…
About that Erotic Sex article. The inside title is a bit more expansive: “Make Sex More Erotic: Amp up the electricity in the bedroom by pushing the boundaries. (Don’t worry, you’ll want to do this stuff.) Sex therapist Ian Kerner, PhD, explains.”
The advice itself seems perfectly fine if also marvelously bland: Get him to think dirty; be creative; treat him to some sexy sights (ok, this is problematic — they just mean new lingerie); catch him off guard; tempt and tease (ok, problem with the terminology but, again, not the actual recommended procedure); be a voyeur (best advice yet, actually — have him show you how he touches himself); switch up the venues (an odd one, the author calls this “shakey-bridge” sex but seems to mean outside the bedroom as in the shower or living room.)
Sigh…
Look, whereas there’s nothing quite as rated for violence against common sense as the woefully false bravado in Details Magazine “demanding anal” article the magazines are clearly birds of a feather, aimed at demographics identical in all respects but gender…
... and aimed at keeping them right there!
C’mon! Perfectly ordinary, not-even-French-Vanilla suggestions promising sex that’s actually erotic, with the extra anxiety-inducing claus no to worry because you’ll want to do that stuff.
Actually on further consideration it really isn’t that far from the Details article is it? Yeah, it might be lies their readers want to hear, but they’re still selling lies — fake-proof orgasms, perhaps, but not fake-proof fulfillment with fake-proof partners.
%#$!$#!~@$
Submitted by 1511 (not verified) on Thu, 2007-07-26 01:59.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
The amazing thing is how little has changed. I am sure you remember, but Betty Friedan started her journalism career as a writer for the "women's magazines". There is a chapter in the Feminine Mystique (i think it's the one called the sexual sell) where she discusses the differences in content and editorial process between men's magazines and women's magazines. She talks about the lack of anything approaching proper political journalism in women's magazines, and the editors' reluctance to include such pieces. She was most interested in documenting the change from the 30's and 40's to the post WWII period, when suddenly the fiction included in women's magazines and the articles changed dramatically.
Most of the things she mentions are still true today, even for the "more serious" women's magazines like Vogue and Elle. One interesting point: she mentions that every women's magazine contains an astrology column but the men's magazines do not; this is still true 44 years later. Friedan says this shows a fundamental difference between how women see their lives (and are encouraged to see them) and how men do. She argues that the need for an astrology column in women's magazines (because it is a need: the readers want them) shows that women do not see themselves as agents in the same way that men are encouraged to see themselves as agents, but more as subject to the whims of fate and to things outside their control. Encouraging such superstitions reinforces powerlessness relative to men. This is entirely independent of whether someone wants to argue that astrology is true. (I myself do not believe that it is.) Her point is that the women's magazines always feature such columns, and the men's magazines do not, and this difference alone is significant.
The tragically funny thing is that she includes lists of the article titles from men's magazines and women's magazines in 1962, and although your list from Cosmo is more overtly sexual, it is very, very similar--frighteningly so-- to the articles she mentioned from Redbook and the like.
Submitted by 1511 (not verified) on Thu, 2007-07-26 02:20.
What to Do When Sex Hurts
How do they get more than a paragraph out of this? "Stop. If it hurts, you're doing it wrong. If you suspect you have a medical condition that's making it hurt, see your doctor. If your boyfriend tells you it's supposed to hurt, dump him."
I don't even have a Ph.D.!
Submitted by 1511 (not verified) on Thu, 2007-07-26 02:41.
My colleagues and I picked up a coffee table mag today advertising "sex horoscopes" - we thought that sounded interesting. Only when my colleague started reading them out they were things like "At work people will show you that you are valued", and after I blinked at the risque nature of these innuendos for a coffee table mag, I realised they weren't innuendos at all, just normal horoscopes repackaged.
I think I agree with Friedan about horoscopes and gender. It would however be interesting to see whether or not the content of horoscopes has changed over time: eg has there been a shift from "A tall dark stranger will walk into your life" towards "If you talk to that person you've been avoiding you'll have a better outcome than you've feared"? My conception of the quintessential horoscope is closer to the former (which is very passive), but I think I more often see them written as the latter (which I think is more active). That might show some shift in attitudes even while the habit of consulting the things may have been kept.
Submitted by 1511 (not verified) on Thu, 2007-07-26 22:45.
Um, I forgot the very important "use plenty of lube" sentence. So they really could've gotten four more words out of it than I said. But still.
[No problem, P. The meaning came through. Thanks. --fl]