The Cosmopolitan Club
My guilty pleasure is trashy magazines. I’m talking about scandal oriented, celebrity tabloid, gossip mongering, extra crass journalism at it’s finest. My favorite being Cosmopolitan. I have been stealing my mom’s Cosmo’s since I was about 10 years old and not only were they hilarious to read aloud at sleepovers, but they were also great for making festive collages.
However, I felt like I wasn’t really allowed to read Cosmo and that if I read it in public at my high school or in front of my dad or on the subway that people would think of me as a vapid fraud. After all, Cosmopolitan is a “women’s magazine” and throughout high school I didn’t really consider myself a woman for one reason and one reason only: I had not yet had sex. And when I eventually did do “the dirty deed” my second thought after the initial “Woah! I just had sex for the first time!” was “Now I’m a part of the Cosmopolitan Club!” No joke. My mind went to magazines. I was now allowed to read the articles discussing “How to Please Your Man” and actually use the advice! I could finally discover my g-spot, whatever that is, and relate more to the buxom characters found in the erotica samples at the back of the magazine! I was finally a woman! Right?
I had always thought that Cosmo was silly (I mean, how can you take anything seriously that tells you to “Slip a glazed doughnut around his manhood and nibble it off”?), but reading the magazine for the first time after having sex for the first time made me realize how bizarre it really is. I mean, this is a magazine for women right? So why are all of the articles about men? 9 Ways to Impress Your Man, 8 Times He Wants You to Brag About Him, 10 Ways to Turn Him On! Excuse me Cosmo, but what about us ladies? For some reason my sexually active status resulted in a severe bout of skepticism. I don’t know why I hadn’t realized it sooner. I guess it takes one to know one and I knew that something was really wrong. Not to say that the magazine isn’t an amazing journalistic achievement for women everywhere, but I would much rather read about ways to enhance my sex and state of mind as opposed to some guy’s.
The bottom line is, I no longer wish to be a part of the Cosmopolitan Club not only because it is biased towards men, but it also just doesn’t exist. I don’t know when a girl becomes a woman, but I do know that it doesn’t just happen because some guy puts his penis inside of you. Regardless, you should be allowed to read whatever magazine you want without fear of being called a fraud. As I said before, trashy magazines are my guilty pleasure. I still read them avidly for the funny factor and they’re still great for making festive collages, but there is more to life than knowing the proper way to jiggle a guy’s balls.
-Keiran
