Rant about Cosmopolitan Mag.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-19-2003
Rant about Cosmopolitan Mag.
13
Sat, 11-25-2006 - 10:43pm

So I'm on a business trip and I decided to run a bath and flip through a Cosmo I picked up on the way here and unwind. I used to subscribe but cancelled cause I got sick of all the sex articles. Well, I noticed one more totaly annoying trend that is truely making me consider writing to the editor myself: the whole magazine appears to cater exclusively to coupled women or women who are in serious relationships.

I kid you not, page after page is yet another article about pleasing the man in your life.

Cover stories: 4 Facts Men Wish Their Girlfriends Knew, How to Keep Your Guy Totally Turned on by You, The Sexiest Things to do After Sex. There's a special section call Man Manual with the article, How to Tell if He's Into You and on nearly every single page is a reference to a boyfriend:

p.22 The Big O: find some of your favorites
p.30- Reading his body language
p.64- Guy Spy: Will your chemistry sizzle or fizzle?
p.66- His Point of View: he hates when you nag about...
p.70 Cosmo for your Guy
p.123 Couples How to Bond Across the Miles
p.124 Cosmo's Most Creative Sex Positions
p.128 What Smart Girlfriends Never Do
p.132 CopyCat Couples
p.136 How things to try after Sex
p.144 Love and Lust: Ask him Anything (couples Q&A)
p.148 Bedroom Blog
p.171- 10 Signs you Need a Vacation (with photo of a women draped on top of a man gazing at him lovingly)
p.180 How to Scare off a Man Eater
p.201 The Hottest Couples Spa Treatments
p.206 Cosmo Weekend- You & Him
p.224- Red Hot Read- Tis the Season for Seduction

Not to mention nearly every pic or photo features a woman with a man. This is the Dec. 2006 issue and it left me feeling like everyone must be coupled up but me.

I really think they should feature more single-friendly content and maybe some features on what its like to have never been in a relationship, to be 30+ and single, to be perpetualy dateless or meeting only the wrong guys and how to cope when you aren't getting any sex, having to deal with long-term singleness and can't get a date to save your life. I know tons of women facing this and I know we can't be that unusual. I'm just so sick of seeing all these images of women couples up like it is really that daggone easy to "snag a man"or like most of us have one.

So I was thinking of writing up something with these examples to the 'You Tell Us' editorial section. What do you think? Will it just make me seem like a bitter, angry single or is there something to be said here?

I mean I know plenty of beautiful, successful, well educated, fun loving women who haven't had boyfriends or real relationships in years. Where are our articles???

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-01-2005
Tue, 11-28-2006 - 12:01pm

That's why I don't subscribe to that mag, either. I tend to go for pubs like Self, Redbook, Woman's Day because they have more articles about life in general - decorating, cooking, exercise, travel...

All women's mags will have articles about men, relationships and sex, but some know how to tone it down a little.

AJ, enjoying life with C.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-01-2005
Tue, 11-28-2006 - 12:34pm

Ok, I have one little women's magazine rant I have to add...

Why do both men's and women's magazines have half-naked WOMEN on the front? Why don't they give us some half-naked men to look at, and to balance out the covers of Maxim, GQ, etc.?

Even Fitness, which I read and like, ALWAYS has a woman in a bikini or something similar on the cover. Even in November! I know it's about exercise - but exercise is not all about looking good in a bikini. Self, which I also read and like, always has photos of half naked, very young women throughout its pages. If I see one more size zero chick in her underwear bending over a bathroom scale, I will scream. I have written to them about that in the past.

Check out their Web site to see what I mean: http://www.self.com/ The chick covering her assets with shells from the beach is a perfect example.

So, these mags are all for married/coupled women who are apparently also 15, and have perfect bodies and skin. And there's not a man in sight.

AJ, enjoying life with C.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-27-2004
Tue, 11-28-2006 - 4:24pm
I agree these mags are pointless and brainless. I look at them sometimes for the pure entertainment of it all but I do see what you mean about cosmo having nothing but couples articles. It does get old. I do think there needs to be something written somewhere in a book or a magazine about single women who value themselves too much to settle and have a life of their own and don't need a man, but also have to deal with biological clocks ticking and possibly not meeting that right one in time to have a family. People always say "don't dare settle that would be making the wrong decision" but then others turn around and say "when are you going to get married, I hear that clock ticking". It's an annoying predicament to be in. I find it very difficult to deal with. Knowing that I'm 31 and never married but never wanting to settle either because that's not an option for me. No one really understands until they are a woman who really wants children in her 30s who just hasn't met the right one and will not settle so have to face the possibility of maybe never being a mom. It's not easy and I got the rapture for even bringing that topic up with people sometimes saying that I was needy and desperate to find someone but no one knows until they have been there. Ok, I know I went on a tangent here but it's something that has bugged me for a lont time :-)

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