I had a very nice weekend. There were robots (pictured above), dinosaurs, ice cream, and sex. The only thing it was missing on the list of "things that make Holly go eeeeee" was spaceships. The real world is such a strange contrast from Cosmo. There's so much more in it.
But I didn't finish last time, and so, because of my sick little self-imposed challenge, I have to dive back into Cosmoland, into the bare white box of a world where there are only two kinds of person, only one kind of love, and you're usually doing it wrong.
Our new obsession: ipickupsports.com. It's like Craigslist for sports--you search your zip code, and it pulls up a map with all the pickup games (like basketball, football, and even tennis) going on nearby. Translation: it pinpoints exactly where you can find sweaty, shirtless eye candy at, oh, 2:30 in the afternoon this Sunday.
In other news, this fall's hottest fashion accessory is a knee-length stained trenchcoat!
I guess it's not considered creepy if you're a woman? If you were less feminist than me, you might say that the guys probably like it as long as it's a hot chick leering at them; if you were more feminist than me, you might say that their male privilege means they aren't as sexually vulnerable to her as women would be to a man. But I'm just feminist enough to say no, that shit is fucking creepy.
"My girlfriend told me that I had 60 minutes to use whenever I wanted and for (almost) whatever I wanted. I definitely used all my 'rollover' minutes on her that weekend!"
...is she doling out sex by the minute?
If it's "all about him" sex, that makes some sense, sort of. (Although I think your relationship's in trouble if that looks very different from your everyday ordinary sex.) If it's sex, period, that he's accumulating rollover minutes on, then... well, if it was me I'd be shooting myself in the foot by giving him a limited timeframe, wouldn't I?
At a club, you notice a hottie across the room has been eyeing you shyly all night. To help him along, you:
a) Walk over and say that you saw him looking and now the ball is back in his court.
b) Get your friends to relocate to the opposite side of the room, close to where he is.
c) Write down your name and number and ask a bartender to pass them on.
If you chose "a," you were too "bold." The correct answer was "c."
And even "a," the option described as "so forward, it's intimidating," only barely involves talking to him. Apparently saying "I saw you looking, and I figured I'd say hi--what's your name?" would be just unthinkably man-devouringly slutty.
The new dude you've been seeing waits until the day of to ask what your Saturday-night plans are. You answer:
I'm not going to bother typing out the answers. I'm just going to point out that none of them are "by telling him what your plans are." Regardless if you're Cosmo-bold or Cosmo-shy, artifice and manipulation are the only options.
After happily dating your man for two months, you're itching to be exclusive. You nudge him to kick it up by:
a) Making a flirty comment on a guy friend's wall--jealousy will spur him to talk LTR.
b) Changing your relationship status on Facebook--when he sees it, he'll just go with it.
c) Swapping your profile picture to a cute shot of you two together--it'll plant the seed.
The "correct" answer is "c." (Am I the only one who's annoyed when people do that? I mean, even if they're married. Your profile pic should either be just you, or something devastatingly clever. Otherwise it's less "I am in a relationship" and more "Personality Merger In Progress.")
What is it with the not-talking? How can you have an entire relationship that way? What does a relationship even mean in this universe--the person you silently stand next to most often? Why does it matter if you do that exclusively? If you can't even ask your boyfriend if he is your boyfriend, what chance in hell do you have of asking actually difficult things?
Here's two from the sex advice columns that I didn't go over in detail because I've done it a million times:
I want to handcuff my husband in bed, but I feel weird initiating it. What's the best way?
When my guy wants oral, he does this thing where he pushes my head down--not a turn-on! What can I say to explain how unsexy it is without ruining the moment?
The answer, in both cases, is anything besides "freaking tell him."
If you start a relationship by not talking to the guy, make it official by not talking to him, and have sex without talking to him--well, no fucking wonder so much of the relationship advice is about coping with the fact that you have absolutely nothing in common.
You want to conduct your entire relationship on Facebook? Great. Try a private message--"so am i like ur gf now? lol."
You know, when I read the bit about the pick-up games, I was like, "Huh, actually encouraging women to join a pick-up game could be cool and fun, what's the problem? ...Oh."
ReplyDeleteLike, the option of the women joining the game doesn't even exist.
Also, everyone knows you can't talk to men because feelings are their kryptonite. /sarcasm
I guess it's not considered creepy if you're a woman? If you were less feminist than me, you might say that the guys probably like it as long as it's a hot chick leering at them; if you were more feminist than me, you might say that their male privilege means they aren't as sexually vulnerable to her as women would be to a man. But I'm just feminist enough to say no, that shit is fucking creepy.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Ragnarok: can a woman use this to find a game to, um, play in?
(I fence, which doesn't lend itself to pick-up games, but I like the actual idea behind the site.)
" (Am I the only one who's annoyed when people do that? I mean, even if they're married. "
ReplyDeletenot at all - even creepier is one email address.
I want to handcuff my husband in bed, but I feel weird initiating it. What's the best way?
ReplyDeleteWhen my guy wants oral, he does this thing where he pushes my head down--not a turn-on! What can I say to explain how unsexy it is without ruining the moment?
What strikes me the most about this passage is that the second question demonstrates that "pushing" and "hinting" for what you want in bed is annoying and a turn-off - but I'd bet any money that the Cosmo's answer to the first question (the handcuff one) is "You should push/hint for what you want instead of asking for it directly! No, really, it'll be awesome."
@Hershele I don't fence, but I am still swooning at the idea of walking through the park and encountering a pick-up duel.
ReplyDeleteAlso - if the Oral Sex Headpush is a turn-off for this girl, THE MOMENT HAS ALREADY BEEN RUINED*. She might as well just say "Dude, don't fuckin' push my head."
ReplyDelete*At least if we're assuming the sex act is something they both want rather than a performance she puts on solely to make him happy.
What does a relationship even mean in this universe--the person you silently stand next to most often?
ReplyDeleteBy which logic, I actually did have a relationship with that hot girl I sat next to in my Holocaust class but never worked up the nerve to ask out because I'm me and a class on the Holocaust kind of puts a damper on everything.
A good friend of mine, and her now ex boyfriend, once had the same 'couple' shot for their profile pics on facebook.
ReplyDeleteI finally wailed at her until she at LEAST re-centered hers so that HER face was in the middle.
That being said, my own Icon is actually Green Arrow scanned from one of my many comic books. So maybe I shouldn't judge. But at least an 'obviously not a picture' profile icons doesn't make your brain go 'hey it's jimmy!.. Why is Jimmy talking about make up? Jimmy is not that intersting- Oh. It's my friend."
As I was first reading about ipickupsports.com I thought, "now what's wrong with this," until of course I saw that Cosmo doesn't share this obsession so that women can go play, it's so they can go ogle the men who are playing. I forgot... I might chip a nail or trip in my heels while playing basketball. How embarrassing would that be in front of all those sweaty men??
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in your scale of feminism. It seems to go: sexist against women --> gender egalitarian --> sexist again men. A traditional feminist skips step 2. Feminists who respect the inherent masculist component of a fight for gender equality don't go to step 3 (though they may favor women slightly, as women are their primary focus). I'd argue it's not a matter of how feminist you are, but what kind of feminist you are.
ReplyDeleteTo help him along, you: act like you're in junior high, apparently. I'm guessing the answer is B because of its 'subtlety,' but either way makes me wonder if Cosmo's target audience isn't 12/13 year old girls.
"What does a relationship even mean in this universe[...]?" The person you do "Um you know what, tee hee!" with in the bedroom because you know how to eye flirt like you forgot to change your contacts when they dried out last week?
I'm a little new around here, but does anyone else want to read Cosmo based on these Cosmocking articles? Cause I totally do. Not because I'm interested in their wonderful relationship advice, but because I could just hear Holly in my head as I'm reading it. And I think that would be fun.
ReplyDeleteHeh, great post, great comments. Even if the whole thing is just depressing.
ReplyDeleteAmanda Jeanette - "What kind of feminist" is probably a fairer description than "how feminist," it's true.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that more radical or more academic feminists than I am would say that although aggression against men is still wrong, sexism against men is not possible because it doesn't have the systematic and historic basis that sexism against women does. Leering at a man is just leering, whereas leering at a woman is participation in culture-wide objectification and intimidation of women.
I don't agree with that viewpoint exactly, although I see where they're coming from; I'd rather take a more gender-neutral view and say that leering at anybody is pretty damn skeezy.
Here's how you "explain how unsexy it is without ruining the moment". You go up to your darling man sometime when you're alone together but not 'in' a moment yet, and you say "By the way, I like sucking your cock, but I don't like it so much when you push my head down. Could you not do that?"
ReplyDeleteand he says "Sure. Sorry about that. Please do say something if I'm doing a thing you don't like," because he is a nice man, you wouldn't be dating him if he wasn't. Right?
That whole rollover minutes of sex thing is really weirdly phrased, but it jumped out at me as being unusually functional and happy for cosmo.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like there's something he wants to do in bed, which she's not into, so they don't normally do it. But, despite being limited by the constant requirement to be cutesy and passive-agressive about everything, they managed to agree that they could do his fantasy on a regular but somewhat infrequent basis, and he's happy with that. I think it's kind of sweet! Two people allergic to communicating in plain English have worked out their own totally workable code for negotiating sex!
"Apparently saying "I saw you looking, and I figured I'd say hi--what's your name?" would be just unthinkably man-devouringly slutty."
ReplyDeleteBut showing up randomly to ogle strangers trying to enjoy their Sunday sports is....fine?
And yeah I'm with everyone else on that one - I mean...it's totally laughable that a girl would ever use those to actually play a sport, right? Hahahaha......
My profile picture on facebook used to be a cute couple shot of me and my boyfriend. Right now it's a picture of me with all the women on my dad's side of the family. I don't limit my pictures to just me - I'll put up group shots if they're nice. So I don't really see the problem with a couple shot, whether it's of me and my boyfriend or me and my sister.
ReplyDeleteAnd agree with PerverseCowgirl about the head-pushing - but I'd take it a step further and say that, if you leave the profanity out, this works even if the moment isn't already ruined. My boyfriend used to try to initiate oral sex from on top of me, when I was lying on my back. I didn't like it. I told him to stop. It was really easy. I was like, "Whoa, don't do that, it makes me feel smothered." and he was like "Okay." There were like, one or two other occasions where he forgot, and each time I was like, "Yo, I told you not to try to fuck my mouth" and he was like "Oh, right, sorry!" It was not dramatic and the sex proceeded. I feel like this can't be that weird.
"I don't agree with that viewpoint exactly, although I see where they're coming from; I'd rather take a more gender-neutral view and say that leering at anybody is pretty damn skeezy."
ReplyDeleteYes! Although
"you might say that their male privilege means they aren't as sexually vulnerable to her as women would be to a man"
is true on average, it's still wrong to ogle anyone who doesn't want to be ogled. Objectification of men is less deeply ingrained in this society and is usually less intense/damaging, but it still occurs and is still wrong. And, of course, it is possible for a man to be sexually assaulted by a woman.
I'm with Respexy on the profile pic issue; I don't really see what's identity erasing about using group shots. Only ever having pics with your significant other might be weird, but I don;t think that many people do that. My current profile pic is just me and the one before it was me with my bf, but before that I had me with my dad, and before that was me with two of my best friends.
ReplyDeleteI also find it interesting/odd that at this point it's considered weird and creepy for a couple to share an email address. Everyone in my family has their own email now, but our first email address was shared between me and both my parents; I feel like it wasn't that long ago that generally households had one shared landline phone and one shared mailing address. Now it's expected that everyone will have their own private email, cell phone, etc.
Even when I shared an address and landline phone with my parents and sister, we didn't listen in on each others' conversations or read each others' mail. Those things were shared for logistical reasons, not because people liked each other in the good old days.
ReplyDelete* * *
I wonder if Holly and we Pervocrats are in the minority: if I'm available I will enter into negotiations, at least, with pretty much anyone who hits on me who isn't subjectively unattractive, but I suppose there are people who will change their answer based on the precise form of the question
I rotate profile pics of me or me with different people depending on what's going on (me and my husband on our honeymoon for our anniversary, me at age 9 with my sister on her birthday, my newborn baby on her birthday). Right now it's me with my dad and niece in head-totem-pole style. So to me that may or may not mean anything. What kills me is the joint FB account "JoshAlice Smith." Then JoshAlice comments to me and I don't know who I'm responding to.
ReplyDelete@ Joe, I just read some inane web article (for some reason) that was totally Cosmo, and I was hearing Holly mock it in my head the whole time.
When I was single I hated couple-pictures as Facebook profile pics, specifically because of their "personality merger in progress" vibe.
ReplyDeleteThen I met my boy, and although we aren't a "merging" couple at all, I was still really happy to be in love for the first time in umpteen years and kind of wanted to show it off.
But because I don't want us to look like one of those annoyingly cloying couples, I always crop couple pics so my head is in the center and his is mostly cut off. :P
"At a club, you notice a hottie across the room has been eyeing you shyly all night. To help him along, you:
ReplyDeletea) Walk over and say that you saw him looking and now the ball is back in his court.
b) Get your friends to relocate to the opposite side of the room, close to where he is.
c) Write down your name and number and ask a bartender to pass them on.
If you chose "a," you were too "bold." The correct answer was "c.""
C seems like the most bold... but it's also presumptuous. I know a girl came into a bar with what I thought was the most hideous gold lame dress I've ever seen. I kept staring at her just out of sheer amazement that she was wearing such a thing. Yes, yes, creepy I know. It just kept catching my damn eye! If she'd walked over to me and was like, "Hey, I saw you looking." and flashed me a wink and a smile... I'd probably just get embarrassed and feel really bad and apologize. If she continued to say "Nah, you're cute too" I'd be like, "... ok. I have to be honest that I wasn't looking at you, I was looking at your dress. I don't really like it. In fact, I really DON'T like it. I was being rude and I'm sorry."
Of course C would also make me think, "What the fuck is this fifth grade?" I would put a small box underneath it, label it "maybe," and have the bartender send it back.
"And even "a," the option described as "so forward, it's intimidating," only barely involves talking to him. Apparently saying "I saw you looking, and I figured I'd say hi--what's your name?" would be just unthinkably man-devouringly slutty."
To be fair, it would also just be unthinkably awesome and make me want you so very much.
Isn't it sad that modern sexuality is such that if a girl walks up and says "Hey I noticed you" it's like the most awesome thing ever?
"After happily dating your man for two months, you're itching to be exclusive. You nudge him to kick it up by:
a) Making a flirty comment on a guy friend's wall--jealousy will spur him to talk LTR.
b) Changing your relationship status on Facebook--when he sees it, he'll just go with it.
c) Swapping your profile picture to a cute shot of you two together--it'll plant the seed.
The "correct" answer is "c." (Am I the only one who's annoyed when people do that? I mean, even if they're married. Your profile pic should either be just you, or something devastatingly clever. Otherwise it's less "I am in a relationship" and more "Personality Merger In Progress.")"
1) I'm not annoyed by that. I have neutral feelings on that.
2) I thought my profile pic of the first Earthrise photo (taken on the first pass of the moon by Apollo 10 I believe) was clever, and I think my current Ninetales is so cute and so me (manly but in a feminine way) that it's worth it. I do have pix of me kissing one of my girlfriends though... but if it annoys you that I have a prominently displayed photo of a fond memory of my life well... yeah.
Oh also: either these ones don't need moderation (because maybe they're recent enough and you thought I was spamming?) or I annoyed you enough to get immediately past the moderation XD
ReplyDelete"...if you were more feminist than me, you might say that their male privilege means they aren't as sexually vulnerable to her as women would be to a man. But I'm just feminist enough to say no, that shit is fucking creepy."
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I kind of think both of these things. If I'm being 100% truthful then no, I don't think a woman leering at men is *exactly* the same as a man leering at women, and there is an added level of vulnerability when it's a woman being stared at.
But to me, "not exactly the same" doesn't translate to "totally okay and not creepy at all!" Because anyone leering at anyone IS pretty creepy. Also, two wrongs don't make a right. I think everybody should be allowed to play sports without having to worry about creeps (of either gender) treating them like objects the whole time.
Also, yeah, I'm with everyone who doesn't get why women can't use the site to find games to play in, too. :/ Ugh.
ReplyDeleteMay I respectfully suggest that part of the joy of Cosmocking is laughing at Cosmo's terrible multiple-choice options? They never involve open and honest communication, but seeing how they want people to wriggle out of it this time, along with your wonderful snarky responses, is hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the people who write this actually take it seriously, laugh at it as much as we do, or are they just actually sexist enough to believe that this is what their market wants? Are there people who Cosmo and actually take it seriously? It's sort of like watching soap operas, in my mind.
ReplyDeleteLOL superglucose. I just wrote a reply to you on a whole other blog!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your gold lamé dress story actually sounds a lot like how my boyfriend and I got together. We had been acquaintances for a bit, but then we both ended up at the same costume party. I was dressed in the most ridiculous green sequin dress, green tights, and green platform wedges. A friend of mine who is a couple sizes smaller than me had dressed me in her clothes and this was in no way a legitimate costume, just the most appalling combo of clothing we could put together on a short notice while drinking an entire bottle of white wine.
Anyway, my future-boyfriend and I were talking and he finally couldn't hold back a question: "What are you even dressed as!?" Apparently this counted as a pickup line because we started making out.
I really should've posted this on Holly's positive narratives post but I felt like it's just too silly!
"The new dude you've been seeing waits until the day of to ask what your Saturday-night plans are. You answer:"
ReplyDeleteHeck, if my boyfriend asks at 7 or 8 at night what I'm doing with the rest of the night, and I'm available, I'll head over to his place. But then I'm a gay trans man, so I don't exist in Cosmoland anyways.
What is it with the not-talking? How can you have an entire relationship that way?
ReplyDeleteBased on what I've seen of families in my area, I'd say it's the norm (at least, in the USA Northeast, which is where I've always lived.) When I see people at school events (like football games), I mostly see women talking to women and men talking to men. When men & women talk to each other, it's mostly for a short time, about practical things (like, who's taking who home), but then they go back to their same-sex groups for real conversation. I wonder if they even know who their spouses really are underneath the roles.
I remember when I was taking my first child to the local cooperative nursery school, it took about 6 months before the mommies (word choice intentional) stopped looking at me like I came from Mars. I don't think they were ever comfortable with having me around.
I also find it interesting/odd that at this point it's considered weird and creepy for a couple to share an email address.
ReplyDeleteI know one couple that has a shared E-mail address, and it doesn't seem creepy. However, I mostly see it used for church-related communications, where it's probably actually more convenient if both of them see everything. I suspect they also have individual E-mail addresses for work-related stuff.
Somehow, it's just this post that's managed to force the sheer amount of "Don't talk about it!" that Cosmo doles out. I've seen how often it suggests using non-verbal mind-reading suggestions before, but only now am I looking at it and realizing.. they seem to expect *every* exchange to be like that. Holy hell.
ReplyDeleteI know one couple that has a shared E-mail address, and it doesn't seem creepy. However, I mostly see it used for church-related communications, where it's probably actually more convenient if both of them see everything. I suspect they also have individual E-mail addresses for work-related stuff.
ReplyDeleteOr it's 21st-century coverture.
On a different note, my weekend had a robot dinosaur, lapsang souchong ice cream, and, arguably, rocketships.
ReplyDelete@F.:
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy your responses! I'm a little saddened to hear you're spoken for but very happy that you're happily with someone ;-) (This is me trying to say "You're awesome" and "LOL that guy sounds awesome too.) Plus I reached this blog through that blog and etc. etc. XD
"Based on what I've seen of families in my area, I'd say it's the norm (at least, in the USA Northeast, which is where I've always lived.) When I see people at school events (like football games), I mostly see women talking to women and men talking to men. When men & women talk to each other, it's mostly for a short time, about practical things (like, who's taking who home), but then they go back to their same-sex groups for real conversation. I wonder if they even know who their spouses really are underneath the roles."
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, although I think sometimes that situation - grown men and women splitting along gender lines in public - can be a reflection of what you're saying - that the couples are just the outgrowth of the Cosmo-never-talk-to-your-partner thing, I know that when my husband and I are in public, we frequently talk to other people and not each other, mainly because we're out and there are other people to talk to. We live together all the time; we can talk to each other at home. We can talk to each other in the car on the way home, at which point we will gossip about all the people we were just talking to in public.
And the reason that tends to involve splitting down gender lines is, if all the people at little Polly's soccer game are heterosexual couples and you are more acquaintances than friends, you never know who's going to interpret your singling out their spouse for conversation as you hitting on their spouse. With friends, you don't have to worry so much, but at school events, it's a different thing.
you never know who's going to interpret your singling out their spouse for conversation as you hitting on their spouse. With friends, you don't have to worry so much, but at school events, it's a different thing.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood this idea. Then again, so many of my friends are bi that if this logic worked there, nobody could talk to anybody.
--Rogan
Hi Holly,
ReplyDeleteThis post was really funny, as your Cosmocking posts tend to be (I've been a lurker). But for whatever reason, this one struck me particularly hard. The way of life described here is just... alien. I actually have trouble envisioning living like that. There's a level of constant deception and doublethink that sounds exhausting.
Why do people do this, do you think? Does anyone actually do this all the time?
As for myself, well, apparently my boyfriend and I are a couple of overly-forward super-sluts. Our relationship started with me going up to him randomly and asking if he liked a certain band, and we became official around when he drunkenly said to me "Hey NotHer, we're a couple, right?"
Wow. Because the bartender doesn't have a fucking thing to do other than play relay for people too dumb or socially awkward to exchange phone numbers directly?
ReplyDeleteI've just discovered your cosmocking series, and wanted to tell you how excellent it is. I'm also kind of surprised by just how much fail you manage to find within the pages of this magazine - I'm sure I recall it being vaguely more sensible than that. Maybe it's a pond difference and UK cosmo isn't quite as ridiculous? Certainly, the UK one does manage to carry articles that contain actually-useful tips on things that have nothing to do with seducing a man: I've seen one on how to avoid identity theft, and another one that included CV-writing tips.
ReplyDeleteHolly, Brit Cosmo has sexy man pics in. And also there was some sensible advice in it and everything.
ReplyDeleteHolly, Brit Cosmo has sexy man pics in. And also there was some sensible advice in it and everything.
ReplyDeleteI actually think giving your number is more bold than walking up and saying high, and it's especially rude if you give him your number without saying a /thing/
ReplyDelete