Turning off the Cosmo Guy
Think guys endorse Cosmopolitan Magazine? Interview after interview on Georgetown’s campus will make you think otherwise.
Hey, all you young women! Would you like to know how to get any man you desire? Do you want to tantalize him with your sexy looks and make him ache for you? Do you want to do things to him in bed that will make him putty in your hands? Now you can find the long-awaited answers to all these questions and learn everything you’ve ever wanted to know about men, sex, men, and even more sex in just one magazine!
Cosmopolitan magazine (commonly known as “Cosmo”) targets women in their mid-to-late 20s and it is quickly circulating around the freshman dorm rooms of college women. It’s a 200-page magazine filled with love and sex, stories about inadequate or even horrific sexual encounters, lists of ways to improve your sex life, and pages upon pages of ads—mostly related to sex. Many adults might look at a Cosmo as degrading to women and encouraging sex among young people. Many college women do not take the magazine seriously and actually see through the trash that the authors of Cosmo sincerely try to promote.
When asked to skim some of the articles in the August 2008 issue of Cosmo, a 19-year-old female freshman at Georgetown University in Washington, DC began to laugh and commented, “I don’t think real people are like this … I don’t think this is real life.” Another female freshman said that reading Cosmo is “a waste of time.” In fact, many students who have subscriptions to Cosmo say that the magazine if anything is only a source of entertainment. It is not to say that freshman women are not curious or interested in questions about sex and men, but it seems that most know where to draw the line. Beyond that line it becomes just plain funny like an article in the August 2000 issue, “Take His Lust to the Next Level” and which begins with the first step “Practice Suggestive Hellos and Good-byes.” While reading the article, women do not earmark the pages like many Cosmo authors would hope. Instead they laugh.
And what does the Maxim generation of college men think about Cosmo? The reviews are mixed. Amazingly enough, the men I interviewed do not buy into the risque articles. As one 19-year old Georgetown freshman comments, “I don’t know any girls who do this stuff. … No self-respecting, intelligent female would take this crap seriously.” One male also admitted that he likes to look at Cosmo because of the pictures of “scantily clad women.”
…to be continued…