Pink cover! Britney Spears's head! Someone else's body! I wonder if the body model was still all "mom, I got a cover" proud or if it was kind of embarrassing for her! Although it couldn't have been as embarrassing as it was for Britney! Jesus, the poor woman is only four years older than me!
(Digression: it seems like in the square world 24 is pretty much peaking, whereas in the kinky world it makes you a newborn infant. It's weird being split between "wow, in four years I'll need a body double to hide my sagging elderly frame" and "wow, in four years maybe everyone won't call me 'kid'.")
Also, this is apparently "The Hot Issue." It took me several years to catch on that this was always in August. Because August is hot, but also sex is hot, you see. Cosmo is so very clever. The word "sex" appears five times on the cover. That's pretty hot. Also on the cover: "Inhaled the whole pizza? How not to gain pounds after a pig-out." Could that have really gone from writer to editor to executive editor to printer without anyone noticing the implication there? (I'm just one woman, but the implication is barfing.)
OUT: Camel toe.
IN: Trouser snout.
Trouser snout. You heard it here, folks. Trouser snout is in. Getcher trouser snout.
"My girlfriend and I were taking our first vacation together. She's athletic, so we booked a weekend in the mountains. The first day, we hiked this steep trail. I was struggling, but didn't want to show it. Toward the top of the trail, I started to feel really dizzy. I knew I needed to take a break, so I told her I had to make a quick pit stop to pee. I wandered off, dropped trou... and passed out. I came to with my girlfriend standing over me, laughing. I had been gone so long that she came looking for me and discovered me in a pantsless semicoma."
You're alone in the wilderness, a long steep hike away from the road. Your boyfriend says he'll be gone for a moment. He's out of sight so long you become concerned, and then you come across him lying on the ground unconscious. AHAHAHA THAT'S HILARIOUS HAHAHAHA.
(Also, if she's such an athlete, she ought to know enough to make sure her less experienced partner is staying hydrated and not being pushed way beyond his limits. Taking a loved one on a Death March is actually more of a reflection on your assholery than their wussiness.)
Gorilla salad (n.) When a man or woman has way too much hair below the belt
Gorilla salad and trouser snouts. God I love Cosmo.
1 in 5 men say they'd prefer to be treated by a sexy nurse than by a competent doctor.
See, this is why I wear scrubs instead of a little white dress and weird hat. It's things like this. (Also, the sexiest nurse I know is named Mark. Please bear that in mind.)
Then there's "Our Naughtiest Sex Survey Ever!" Most of the questions are pretty blah and came out 50-50 or 60-40, but some were interesting.
When you're getting busy, how do you want the lights?
On - 63%
Off - 37%
What is it with these people and lights? Seriously. It's not like you ever have sex in pitch blackness (do you? oh god, I don't want to know), so it's a fairly minor aesthetic detail. I guess being under full-on bright lights is a somewhat different experience than low mood lighting, but really, as long as you can see well enough to aim your swings correctly and be aware of whether you're drawing blood, who cares?
What light-level S&M would you want to try?
Being tied up - 73%
Spanking - 27%
It seems like clueless ersatz "S&M" is always implied to be female-dominant. (They don't actually specify in the survey who gets spanked, but there's a caption below that reads "Surprise: He doesn't want a spanking.") I'm not sure why this is, although I've speculated on it before. But it's weird, because my own experience with BDSM is that female dominance is relatively less common, and the person most likely to want to spank you isn't a woman in crazy black leather strappy-stuff but a man in a black T-shirt and Levi 501s.
Who should reach for the lube during sex?
Me - 46%
Her - 54%
Like... whoever's closer? Whoever owns the lube bottle? Whoever has a more interesting plan for applying it? Whoever just happens to do so? I didn't know this was an issue.
(A friend tried to explain to me that this was some complex psychological game about whether it's an insult to the man or the woman to imply that she's a little dry. I guess I can sort of see that, but it never occurred to me. Slippery gooey sex is good, I want to make sex good, ergo lube. This should not be that fraught with tension.)
Whenever the guy you're dating has a few seconds to kill, what does he usually do?
A) Reads or plays games on his phone
B) People-watches
C) Texts friends or updates his FB status
C means he's going to cheat on you. It makes perfect sense, really. A man who talks to people besides you is just a ticking time bomb of betrayal.
There's an article on having sex during your period. I'll refrain from passing judgement (I think it's icky, and as with most icky things, I'll totally do it anyway), but I will note that one of Cosmo's most important tips is that you should tell him beforehand. Solid advice.
Lie flat on your back with one leg straight up in the air and the other relaxed. He should kneel in front of you and enter you. Alternate between bending your leg down toward your chest and sticking it straight up in the air and resting it on his shoulder.
I'm bad at aerobics. It's not an athletic-ability thing, but I just can't follow along with the directions. I always end up where everyone else in the class is on the left side of the step bench with their arms bent and one leg up, and I'm on the right side with one arm up and my legs splayed because I just fell on the floor. (There's actually a depressing neurological reason for this, but let's just go with "Holly is so silly and clumsy!") That is one of several reasons I won't be attempting this position.
One of the others: who can choreograph their movements during sex? I find that pre-arranging positions at all is less fun than "on the nearest surface, in whatever position we happen to land in," but damned if I'm going to carefully alternate my leg movements while I'm getting fucked. I think "squirm all over the place" is pretty much my only Slick Move in these circumstances.
Q: I'm seeing someone new, and his penis slightly curves to the side. What am I supposed to do with that?
A: Use all your powers of imagination to pretend that it's a penis. Treat it accordingly.
I would love to tell you that a woman wanting sex right away is no different from a man wanting sex right away and you should do whatever you want. But the fact is, it's probably not the best way to get on the relationship track.
I would love to tell you something decent and fair, but the fact is that my opinion is studs are awesome and sluts are gross. Also, the whole math thing where a straight man can't have sex on the first date without a corresponding woman, and vice versa, is wayyyyy beyond my grasp.
Grocery-shop... sans panties.
I already... do. It's not a... big deal. I wear... pants.
Drop lusty words like "passionate" and "stimulating" into conversations.
I drop lusty words like "pussy" and "spanking" into conversations. It's more fun and other people actually have a chance of catching on instead of wondering why I'm using words with multiple syllables all of a sudden.
Concede the towel battle in the morning, and blow-dry your hair and do your makeup naked. Chicks who are comfortable with their bods in the buff have better sex lives.
So there are people who do the towel thing when they're alone? Seriously? I always figured the modesty towel was to spare the eyes of roommates or locker-room-mates or whatever. It never even occurred to me that anyone would "battle" to cover everything when they're by themselves.
Tuck a picture of yourself from a favorite vacation (maybe that one of you lying on the beach in a criminally small bikini) into your wallet. Pull it out anytime you need a sexy boost.
Is it weird to carry a picture of yourself in your wallet? I think it's weird.
[On making a sex tape]You know how crappy video quality is when you shoot in a dark room? Use this to your advantage. Opt for a few candles or a shaded lamp with a 25-watt bulb.
The problem is, you're probably not John Alcott making Barry Lyndon here. Making low light look good on film either requires a lot more light than you'd expect (I've worked on film sets where gigantic multi-kilowatt HMI lights were used to create ostensibly "dark" night scenes) or ultra-finicky use of super-fast film stock and lenses. So when you do this with your little FlipVideo camcorder, it's going to come out less "soft flattering glow" than "only known footage of the Chupacabra."
Editing software provides countless ways to adjust the clarity of your video after you upload it. You can blur the image, make it darker, and even turn it into an animation.
The hell you can "turn it into an animation." Maybe there's some filter you can apply, but I don't want any Cosmo girls who know that I'm "good with video stuff" asking me where the button is to make them into a sexy cartoon lady.
Also, I'm not sure I see the point of a sex tape that's blurred and darkened all to hell. Sure you won't be recognizable, but it'll look like a plucked turkey trying to move a flesh-colored sofa. Is that really going to turn you on?
"1 in 5 men say they'd prefer to be treated by a sexy nurse than by a competent doctor."
ReplyDelete... but 1/5 is not ... a majority ... so you're better off ... being the competent doctor??????
Or am I horribly confused?
- Kara
1 in 5 men have never experienced an emergency that actually needed treatment and à la Dean Winchester are confusing reality with porn.
ReplyDeleteMost of the 'stimulating' conversation ideas read to me like the script of an SNL skit.
Does anyone actually plan out sexual positions? How does that even work?
Mmm, flesh-colored sofa.
ReplyDeletehttp://furnitureporn.com/fp8.html
I, for one, get terribly insulted when my lover reaches for the lube before he plows my rear end relentlessly. O wait, no, I get terribly TURNED ON. Sorry, I mis-typed.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I wander around with a towel on after a shower is if I'm going to go use my computer before I get dressed and I'm trying to avoid getting wet butt prints on the couch.
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess I do kind of plan out sexual positions, but it's mostly just a quick confirmation of who wants to be on top or behind or tied up. Nothing as complicated as what they're suggesting. "Get on top of me?" is one way to get (sexy!) enthusiastic consent, too.
Lie flat on your back with one leg straight up in the air and the other relaxed. He should kneel in front of you and enter you. Alternate between bending your leg down toward your chest and sticking it straight up in the air and resting it on his shoulder.
ReplyDeleteThis weirds me out immensely because it is fairly close to how I gave birth.... (More on my side than on my back, but...)
Okay, Holly, this has got to stop. HAS GOT TO STOP. I completely and totally lost it when you said "Use all your powers of imagination to pretend that it's a penis. Treat it accordingly."
ReplyDeleteI was laughing, people were looking at me like I was crazy, I was shaking my head at them and waving them off while I choked on my drink.
You're endangering peoples' LIVES here, Holly.
... okay, maybe not, but that was brilliant.
~Aaron
I would think that people who make a big deal about the Kama Sutra, at least, do sometimes plan their positions.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you're going to be a total prude about your own body even to yourself, why are you using just a towel? Get a bathrobe. (Not that I would recommend being any kind of prude in the first place...)
I find towels more useful than bathrobes; I can wind them around under my breasts so that the skin of the underside of the breast isn't rubbing against the skin over my lower ribs, which I find uncomfortable.
ReplyDelete@Dw3t-Hthr: Yup, I agree. I always wear a towel when I get out of the shower. It's not a modesty thing: I've walked around naked in front of other people, no problem. It's 1) I don't like the feel of my wet breasts rubbing against my ribs and 2) I have a lot of long hair and I HATE the feeling of it dripping cold water on my lower back. So I go straight from towel to thick nightshirt. Forcing me to blow dry my hair (a process which begins only after 2 hours of air-drying have completed and which then takes 40 minutes and involves much swearing) naked sounds like very effective torture.
ReplyDeleteHere's an idea to solve the towel battle: buy two towels.
Also, I believe if you're seeing someone and their penis curves, you're supposed to grab a blowtorch, melt it down and then bend it back into shape.
--Andy
a)I just learned what dyspraxia was like two days ago. Fortuitous trivia for the win. How horrible am I to find the knowledge that a neurological disorder of proprioception exists to be cool?
ReplyDeleteb)I was going to say almost everything Andy just did; when you have really long hair and have a big enough chest to start referring to it as a "bosom" and contemplate cladding it in armor, a towel just makes everything more comfortable and less messy.
I did not think of the last bit that Andy said, but it got me a look for the loud belly laugh.
Andy - Okay, that justifies the towel thing, although it sounds like you wouldn't exactly feel wild and free and sexy without it.
ReplyDeleteLabRat - Cool? Cool? MY LIFE IS A LIVING HELL!
...Actually my life is pretty sweet at this point, I just have terrible handwriting and tend to trip and drop things more than average. (Also, for some reason, I cannot estimate the size or distance of objects. If I tell you something is "fifty feet away," it is somewhere between five feet and a half mile. I'm not being ditzy or silly about that, I literally have no idea.) As disorders that can be described as "I am literally retarded" go, I kinda lucked out.
Well, you can turn video into something cartoon-like with a lot of post-processing, but if you do it with your sex tape you're required by law to call it "Wanking Life."
ReplyDeleteWell, you should be.
I wondered why you kept slamming into vendor gridwall displays at the Flea. I assumed you were just engaging in self-injurious behavior/masturbation in a novel way.
ReplyDeleteThe dysestimational sizability issue will be helpful, though. You'll look at me and say it's a four-inch long, one-inch-around penis, I'll tell you "No, you're wrong, it's actually the size of a telephone pole, but thicker!", and we can both go away happy.
It's not like you ever have sex in pitch blackness (do you? oh god, I don't want to know)
ReplyDeleteThat actually sounds kinda hot as, like, a thing. Like a way people who are actually kinky can spice things up, the way kink is how vanilla people spice things up.
I would love to tell you that a woman wanting sex right away is no different from a man wanting sex right away and you should do whatever you want. But the fact is, it's probably not the best way to get on the relationship track.
I would love to tell you something decent and fair, but the fact is that my opinion is studs are awesome and sluts are gross. Also, the whole math thing where a straight man can't have sex on the first date without a corresponding woman, and vice versa, is wayyyyy beyond my grasp.
Well, the math thing ... it's not about inwardly wanting sex on the first date, er, not that, according toCosmo, women want sex anyway, let me start again.
Sure, on the first date, he'll want sex and you'll want emotional intimacy and try to get it with sex. But you shouldn't ssay this to him or give him the sex he wants, because he hasn't proven himself yet, and we no longer have quests and substitute dating.
I'm not sure I see the point of a sex tape that's blurred and darkened all to hell. Sure you won't be recognizable, but it'll look like a plucked turkey trying to move a flesh-colored sofa. Is that really going to turn you on?
I guess it's fine for peole who are turned on by the process of making the video but indifferent to the result -- people who weren't going to be turned on anyway. Cosmo girls have an utter horror of seeing themselves except under tightly controlled conditions anyway.
Well, you can turn video into something cartoon-like with a lot of post-processing, but if you do it with your sex tape you're required by law to call it "Wanking Life."
A rotoscoped sex tape sounds cool (if not necessarily erotic) as a thing too, but I don't know that it needs to be the default.
"It's not like you ever have sex in pitch blackness (do you? oh god, I don't want to know)"
ReplyDeleteActually, as Hershele says, this sounds like it has the potential to be kind of hot once in a while. A sort of sensory deprivation, kind of like a mutual blindfold...
~Aaron
Grocery-shop... sans panties.
ReplyDeleteI already... do. It's not a... big deal. I wear... pants.
Thank you, Holly. I did not need that mental image of William Shatner dressed in naught but panties. Or in not-even-panties. I'm not sure which one is worse.
2) I have a lot of long hair and I HATE the feeling of it dripping cold water on my lower back
Flip your hair over your head and bend over. Take the towel, and lay it over your hair and head with the end at the nape of your neck. Loosely twist the towel around your hair, then stand up, resting the wrapped towel against your back. No dripping, and it towel-dries to merely damp in about half an hour.
Works for me, but if you have hair longer than the length of the towel you might have to modify.
is, you're probably not John Alcott making Barry Lyndon here. Making low light look good on film either requires a lot more light than you'd expect (I've worked on film sets where gigantic multi-kilowatt HMI lights were used to create ostensibly "dark" night scenes) or ultra-finicky use of super-fast film stock and lenses.
Go with a blue tint to the light, rather than low light. Also, go with large, soft light sources -- spotlights aren't particularly sexy. Our eyes have an amazing range, and we can comfortably see in everything from the brightest daylight to barely-candlelit rooms. No film or camera system yet invented can match that, so don't try with lighting.
Okay, I didn't immediately think of William Shatner re: panty-less supermarket runs, but really that just makes it funnier. I'll never forget the first friend who told me, "Actually I don't wear underwear most of the time." It took me a few years to try it, but she was on to something.
ReplyDeleteA friend tried to explain to me that this was some complex psychological game about whether it's an insult to the man or the woman to imply that she's a little dry.
ReplyDeleteGood lord, can't it just mean "we spent all day on the firing line and now we're both dehydrated"? :)
(Having bonus context for certain of your comments will never cease to amuse me, perlhaqr.)
ReplyDeleteThis bit from Salon made me think of you.
ReplyDeleteWe also discussed the possibility of my testifying to the reasons I make these kinds of films. I think this imagery is important as a contrast to the majority of mainstream representation of women's sexuality. The prevailing message women receive is that sexual aggression is unfeminine, that a woman's primary sexual role is as regulator of male desire — to say yes or no, but not to pursue desires of our own. Women are still often taught that sexy is the same as "pretty," that it means dressing a certain way and then waiting to be approached. These films show women being sexually aggressive and powerful in a way that sometimes isn't pretty, but is definitely sexy.
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/pornography/index.html?story=/mwt/broadsheet/2010/07/19/lorelei_lee_stagliano_trial
Wait -- they give advice on the best way to make a sex tape? Silly people. Haven't they heard that any woman who makes a private sex tape is just a silly girl who will deserve it when the boyfriend she currently trusts turns into an asshole and posts it online?
ReplyDelete/sarcasm
Gotta love that locution that goes "I would love to tell you that X, but sadly, the fact is, Y." It is always used to say something bigoted/old-timey & sexist. No one ever uses it to express something that's just an objective fact, because no one would need to. "I would love to tell you the Iraq war is over. But the fact is, the U.S. is still fighting the Iraq war." If you would "love" to say something, just say it to me, BITCH.
ReplyDeleteI'm at uni and lube is so taboo. Vibrators? Fine. Get a bit kinky? Whatever floats your boat. Lube? 'oh-em-gee, that's for grannies!' Admitting to loving the stuff or trying to explain that Liquid Silk is money well spent is like 'behold, my sandy vagina!' Meh.
ReplyDeleteWho should reach for the lube during sex? Whoever got the spontaneous inspiration for a quickie, I say! ;) (one of many situations I can envision and have acted upon/been acted upon).
ReplyDeleteSarah, when I was in uni and in an engineering program "conducting tribological studies" was a super-nerdism for having sex that went right over the normals' heads :P
Okay so I dated a guy who thought having sex in the dark was just about the hottest thing ever. To me, it's fun. I definitely reccomend it to try.
ReplyDeleteSarah, try keeping a bottle of olive oil handy. Just keep a separate bottle for cooking. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteTo me, having sex in pitch black isn't so much "kinky" as "we've been married long enough that light is no longer necessary to know my way around this body, also sex suddenly seemed like a better idea than sleeping".
ReplyDeleteSarah, try keeping a bottle of olive oil handy. Just keep a separate bottle for cooking. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI've been given to understand that OIL EATS LATEX CONDOMS and you can only use waterbased lube with them. But maybe the sex ed teacher meant "oil" in the "petroleum based" sort of way?
-perversecowgirl
TB, Sarah, perversecowgirl - Oil, meaning any fat-based liquid including olive oil, eats condoms and should not be used with condoms.
ReplyDeleteTennessee, I think if lube is uncool, olive oil for lube may be worse, or no better. I mean, that's a little icky. Sarah needs to be a wild 'n crazy nonconformist trendsetter and make lube stylish.
ReplyDeleteJust put it in a regular old lotion bottle. Make sure no one accidentally uses it, though. "This doesn't feel like Lubriderm..."
ReplyDeleteI caught the cover while in line at the grocery store. It is indeed disturbing. I guess I would have expected professional shit-artists (shitistes?) like the Cosmo staff to be better with Photoshop.
ReplyDeleteHolly, you make me stop and stare quizzically at the cover of Cosmopolitan at the Circle K at the end of a shift (that is to say, at midnight, when I'm the only customer in the store.)
ReplyDeleteThis has complicated my relationship with the gas station attendant in new and surprising ways. Well played.
Sorry, folks, I didn't think about the effects on condoms. Shows what happens when you're monogamous for a long time.
ReplyDeleteWe discovered it by accident--didn't have anything else handy but baby oil, & that increases viscosity with time/heat. Olive oil doesn't.
I don't know if our genitals smelling like Mediterranean food is a feature or a bug.
Lie flat on your back with one leg straight up in the air and the other relaxed. He should kneel in front of you and enter you. Alternate between bending your leg down toward your chest and sticking it straight up in the air and resting it on his shoulder.
ReplyDeleteIt threw me for a loop when I read this, we have sex much like this all the time! But it's both legs not one, and it's not really choreographed, it's more, that's how my man likes to pretzel me when we have sex...
Also, for me personally, having sex in the dark is slightly depressing becuase all I can think of is how close it is to hiding ourselves, like we're some kind of prudish couple. That and I'm a very visual person, and I love looking at my man while he fucks me, it's hot!
Oh, and I have to say, I never new this 'towel battle' thing ever existed! I always put my hair up in my towel after drying off... where's the battle?
Late to the party, hope that's ok.
ReplyDeleteSex on your period? Totally awesome (I don't want to wait a week just because of a boring bodily function) and doggy style is great because you don't get it on the sheets.
I tend to wrap myself up in a towel whether or not someone's there, just because I like feeling wrapped up (similar to my obsession with pyjamas and duvets) - it's not about modesty.
I feel the same way about period sex. I don't think of it as progressive or feminist or some favor I'm doing my partner.
ReplyDeleteI have to have the lights out. The glare makes me crazy.
ReplyDeleteBecause I am between jobs, I'm going through the entire Cosmocking archive, and the phrase "getcher trouser snout" absolutely slays me every time it crosses my mind. Just wanted to share.
ReplyDeleteI'm crazy late to the party, but I wrap up in a towel (and put another one over my shoulders like a shawl) after a shower because it keeps me warm. Also, I lean on the bathroom counter a lot while brushing my teeth/hair and putting on sunscreen, so the towel provides a little cushion and the counter is usually a little cold so I don't have to deal with that.
ReplyDelete