Cosmocking: December '10! Part One!

Yellow cover! Julia Stiles! I kind of like the dress but I think it's too tight on her! For a December cover this is not very Christmassy! Biggest headline: "Your Breasts Called..."! That's very passive-aggressive; mine talk to my face when they have something to say! Also: "Secrets of Male Arousal"! Touch him on the penis!

No wonder sample sales are so popular. A study from the U.K.'s University of Westminster reveals that scoring a bargain can trigger the same amount of excitement you might experience when drooling over a sexy guy.
I believe it. I also believe the same amount of excitement might be triggered by: kayaking in heavy surf, most films by Robert Rodriguez, unexpectedly encountering a giant robot dinosaur, building your own hovercraft, bouldering off-trail, shooting a Colt Single Action Army, digging in an agate bed and finding an opal, or getting your car up to 115 out in the desert. Sure, boys and shopping can be fun, but so can life.

Oh, and while I couldn't track down the original study (actually, it looks like it's incomplete and hasn't been published, in which case what kind of jerk was writing press releases about it?), other news sources reveal that it specifically compared receiving discounts to watching porn, and that both men and women were tested. But of course men don't shop and women don't watch porn, so Cosmo needed to do some quick revisions to keep things in line with reality.

The New Trend That's Turning Women On
The combination of [Brokeback Mountain's] success and a slew of celebrities coming out as gay or bisexual--from Lance Bass and Neil Patrick Harris to Lady Gaga and Anna Paquin--has opened the door for more story lines involving gay characters and couples.
Oh Cosmo. This is like a couple months ago when you declared that female bisexuality had just now been invented. Gay people exist, Cosmo. They've been existing actually for a while now. They're not 2010's hottest new invention. And, believe it or not, queer cinema and gay porn neither. Actually, according to recent research, gay people have actually existed for the entirety of human civilization. Whoa.

"When females see something that is sexually explicit but that they can't fully understand, it leaves room for their imagination to go wild," says James Colangelo, PysD [sic], a psychologist in New York City.
Oh no you di'n't, James. You did not just do the "females" and the "they love things they can't wrap their pretty little minds about" one-two punch. God damn. And you presumably said this to a female reporter? That takes balls, I guess.

If you find yourself getting turned on watching two guys, um, manhandle each other, it may mean you're wishing sex with your BF would sometimes feel more raw versus romantic. An easy way to turn a tame session more primal is to nip at his lips or neck during foreplay or push him away after kissing him passionately.
Didn't we do the "gay sex is really all about straight sex" and "don't actually say what you want" combo last month? Although last month didn't include the part where pushing a guy away is supposed to cue him--with no explicit communication! that's unthinkable!--to come back at you harder. That part's just a wee bit creepy.

Then there's an article urging women not to browse their boyfriends' call logs or read their email. While this is entirely good advice, the article is written with a "we've all done it, tee hee" tone, which... is frightening.

An important concept here, one that Cosmo doesn't seem to get: Rowdy is "my" boyfriend only in the sense that I work at "my" hospital. The word "my" here indicates "relates to me" not "belongs to me." Deciding to date me means that we'll date, not I've been granted some sort of privileges over you. We're still two people.

Hey! Page 40 is printed twice! But with different ads on the page 41s. I guess that's one way to maximize revenues.

[How to pick up a guy in the supermarket] Find some weirdly named product, like quinoa, on a nearby shelf, and ask him how to pronounce it. He'll love being able to help.
"Kee-NO-wah" and "KEEN-wah" are both correct. Now go start a conversation with someone based on the pretext that you're both competent adults.

Tummy Pooch, Full Balcony, Bunny Slopes, Badonkadonk
These are the four categories in an article on lingerie. You pick your adorably-euphemized bodily flaw and go from there to find your perfect lingerie. There is no category for "actually, my body's pretty good and I have nothing to hide." And definitely no category for "yeah, I have a big tummy, but whatever, I'm not all that broke up about it."

Maybe because if you believed either of those, you could just wear whatever you want, and we can't have that.

Pages 81-88 are also repeated! What the heck.

Here's a surprising move that will get him primed for sex: pop a pair of his socks in the microwave for 20 seconds
This is why I love Cosmo. After all these years it can still surprise me. Oh Cosmo. Never change.

The tip goes on to say that you should put these hot socks on his feet and squeeze them and this will give him a boner because "the area of his brain that registers feet sensation is right next to the region that controls his boners." Sure, and Hoboken is right next to New York, but don't go there looking for the Empire State Building.

Blood flow from his abs travels straight down to his package. And by warming up the area right underneath his belly button, you instantly increase the amount of blood heading south, which will feel good and give him a harder erection.
Cosmo, I want to introduce you to my friend William Harvey. Mr. Harvey discovered that blood actually circulates in the body, flowing from arteries to capillaries to veins. Mr. Harvey made his discovery in 1628 and it is now taught in roughly the third fucking grade.

While Mr. Harvey did not enumerate the blood vessels in quite this much detail, it is now common knowledge that blood flows from the aorta to the common iliac artery, then to the internal iliac artery and then the internal pudendal artery, which leads to the dorsal artery of the penis. All of these arteries except the last are deep within the abdominopelvic cavity, far beneath the muscle layers. (This is so you do not bleed to death from a minor cut on your belly. Your body is sensible that way.)

The short version, Cosmo, is that the body is not just a big bag of blood that gooshes around. Tomorrow we'll discuss the Four Humours theory and hysteria, and the appropriate use of leeches.

The spinal nerve connects directly to his penis, so when you warm it, the heat shoots to his package. Plus, the nervous system that runs down either side of the spine sends arousal messages to his brain when it's warmed up, telling it to propel blood to his package and make his pulse race.
I give up. I just put the anatomy textbook back on the shelf and... I just give up. But I will point out that the concept here is a bit like trying to make a call by squeezing the phone cord.

(Okay, fine. Sacral spinal nerves S2, S3, S4 lead to pudendal nerve which leads to dorsal nerve of penis which innervates penile skin. There isn't a "the" spinal nerve, any more than there's some sort of magical second spinal cord outside the spinal column, any more than nerve fibers are sensitive to touch anyway. You want nerve endings for that, honey, and the ones connected to his penis are... ON HIS PENIS, for Christ's sake, the body kinda makes sense like that!)

Q: When do guys view a relationship as serious?
A: The moment they realize they're not sleeping with anyone else... and that they're okay with it.
My friend's been with his wife for ten years and sleeps with other people. I'll need to inform him immediately that his marriage is not serious.

Moreover, I notice that the "seriousness" of your relationship is defined by the things you don't do. The actual connection between you is apparently a secondary concern.

Q: What screams high-maintenance to a guy when you first meet him?
A: When you put on makeup or check out your reflection in a window or mirror.
That's right, girls, it's not enough to look perfect; you have to look perfect without even trying. Or at least create the illusion. This is related to those tips that tell you guys like a girl who eats steak on dates, as long as she's still skinny.

Q: If a girl is too crazy in bed, does that make her not LTR material?
A: It can. To be safe, get to girlfriend status before completely going rogue.
Yeah, because if you have the wild, enthusiastic sex that you actually want, your guy is going to go "wow, I'd hate to have that all the time."

Q: What's a simple thing that I can say to nip his jealousy in the bud?
A: "Let's get out of here. I'm tired of being around other guys."
"You're right, I should be isolated. Your jealousy is a legitimate concern and keeping me away from all potential threats is a reasonable solution. I didn't want a life of my own anyway."


There's more. Oh so much more. Cosmo is the gift that keeps on giving. Like crabs! If crabs wandered around in your pubes yelling "YOU'RE NOT FEMININE ENOUGH NO NOW YOU'RE TOO FEMININE NO BE MORE SEXY NO BE LESS SEXY NO NO NO YOU DID IT ALL WRONG."