White cover! Nicki Minaj! What the hell is going on with her neck?! Sex secrets, kinky sex... sexify your eyes! I am not sure I want my eyes sexified! I might get conjunctivitis! This image is stolen from the Internet; for some reason the "bigger, better pleasure" headline isn't on my copy! Maybe because "enlarge someone else's penis" is the kind of thing even 3209wjarola@notaspambot.com doesn't promise!
[quiz result] This guy is crazy for you... and crazy intimidated. Men are terrified of rejection, so you have to make it clear that if he makes a move, it'll be well-received.Apparently it's not just men who are terrified of rejection. I'm not even sure how I'd let him know a move was welcome without that being in itself a move, but knowing Cosmo, it probably involves standing with my shoulders at a slightly different angle. Something quietly receptive. Funny thing is, if you think rejection anxiety is bad, it's got nothing on the anxieties that come up when she's thinking "does he not like me or is he just not getting the signal?" and he's thinking "does she not like me or is she sending a secret signal?"
Never even mind more political stuff about rape culture and women's roles as objects versus actors and whatnot--if you follow Cosmo's advice, your dating life is going to be like trying to get asked to slow dance at the seventh grade social... forever.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 65 percent of financial analysts are men. So head to the neighborhood Starbucks during your lunch hour.I will buy a venti triple mocha skinny caramel macchiato for anyone who can explain the connection between these two sentences.
We spoke to experts, who gave us the full monty behind five boner-improving secrets. Obviously, we don't want you to become his penis mommy, which is why we came up with ways to implement these on the sly.Penis mommy. Penis mommy. PENIS MOMMY.
The secrets, if you're curious, are that you should feed him blackberry jam, make sure he had enough sleep, make sure he isn't drunk, make sure he isn't on a full stomach, and have sex twice in a night because he'll last longer the second time. So that's four obvious but decent points to one "blackberry jam? guh?"
Penis mommy.
Run a pair [of your underwear] under hot water, then wrap it around his shaft and squeeze. The heat helps increase his blood flow down there, making him rock hard and explosion-ready.This doesn't say "hot and sexy" to me. This says "oh my God, he's filthy... I have to find some way to sponge him off before I'm going to touch that thing."
Two words: Edible underwear. It exists. Wear a pair and let him devour it....That's twelve words.
My man went to guys' night at his buddy's house. When I called to say hi, I heard a female voice. I asked about it, and he said it was just guys. Later, he called to say he was coming home because a girl started undressing in the room he crashed in! I feel betrayed--why did he lie?I don't have the whole story here, but I'm guessing he lied because he was in a relationship where he wasn't allowed to socialize with other women ever, not even in a group, not even if he was going out of his way to avoid any sexual involvement with them, and that wears down a human soul after a while.
Maybe I'm a fatalist, but I think that if someone wants to cheat on me, they'll cheat. If they don't want to cheat on me, they can go to a skinny-dipping-and-soapy-Twister party with thirty-eight beautiful single women and not cheat. But trying to keep them from cheating by having weird rules (other than "don't cheat on me") about who they can associate with--that falls somewhere between creepy and downright abusive in my book.
[Ways to flatter your guy's friends:] "God help the person who tries to go up against you in Duck Hunt."
"Totally radical Pac-Man skills!" "Bodacious Pong moves, dude!" "Cowabunga, Tennis For Two played on an oscilloscope screen using a room-sized mainframe with vacuum tubes!"
Hey, I can make a lot of you feel old: Duck Hunt came out before I was born.
One of the other suggestions is "Hanging with you guys is like watching a funnier version of Jackass," which is practically a cutting-edge reference considering that show has only been off the air for nine years. (Also it's kind of insulting, unless they're the sort of guys who are really, really into shooting bottle rockets out of each other's anuses.)
But wait, there's more! But you will have to wait because I'm all out of time now. Next week we'll explore "kinky" things you can do with your underwear! Hint: all of them involve "put your underwear somewhere on his or your body, okay, now you're kinky!"
Penis mommy.
you can impress people with words like "cowabunga"?
ReplyDeletei'm going to have to ask my penis mommy about this.
Oh lord! This was quite the frantic and confusing dash through this month's Cosmo! Wait, don't go, I don't know what a penis mommy is! No, ok, it's ok, I don't want to! Hot wet underwear? What? Imagine if a man started mopping your cunt with a pair of soaking boxer shorts? Yes, that would be insulting.
ReplyDelete"Penis mommy" is the most frightening two-word phrase since "human centipede."
ReplyDeleteI donno, the hot compress on the shaft thing actually sounds hot. (Pardon the pun.) Maybe not with the panty fetishism bit for me (not my bag,) but with a washcloth or something it'd be fun to try. Just... Not in the Cosmoland fashion where she springs it on me out of the blue and I'm reeling in WTFness.
ReplyDeletePenis Mommy...oh dear God.
ReplyDeleteAaand now some porn authors I know will use that, just to add extra incest.
I keep thinking penis mommy is some twisted corollary to baby daddy
ReplyDeleteI admit, I have some kind of controlling-seeming rules and insecurities about who my boyfriend hangs out with.
ReplyDelete...but that is mostly because he cheated on me and we're still working things out.
And those rules are things like "Hey, I would prefer if you maybe didn't go to a sexy dance party with the girl who you repeatedly said you wanted to hook up with." Not, y'know, "Don't hang out with anyone with a vagina. Ever."
Ugh...relationships are complicated.
My man went to guys' night at his buddy's house. When I called to say hi, I heard a female voice. I asked about it, and he said it was just guys. Later, he called to say he was coming home because a girl started undressing in the room he crashed in! I feel betrayed--why did he lie?
ReplyDeleteI don't have the whole story here, but I'm guessing he lied because he was in a relationship where he wasn't allowed to socialize with other women ever, not even in a group, not even if he was going out of his way to avoid any sexual involvement with them, and that wears down a human soul after a while.
Actually, the first one may not even have been a lie; if the female voice belonged to someone not part of the group outing but, as it were, adjunct to it (a stripper, for example, is basically what I'm getting at here, because if he couldn't say "oh, yeah, that's the waitress" that itself suggests the girlfriend is a bit controlling) so his answer was not technically false. In any case, if he was setting out to cheat, wouldn't a woman undressing in the room he was occupying have been the intended result rather than his cue to leave? And if he were cheating, why would he have given any indication that his night even involved naked women, even if he claimed to be fleeing them?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 65 percent of financial analysts are men. So head to the neighborhood Starbucks during your lunch hour.
ReplyDeleteEveryone hanging out in coffee shops in the afternoon in my neighborhood is either a student doing homework, a freelancer doing their freelance thing, or unemployed. Maybe you're supposed to go to starbucks to find the hot, 65% male laid off finance analysts writing cover letters and doing practice LSATs?
What I don't get about not hanging out with members of the opposite sex is how single straight people are supposed to find dates if their social circles are same-sex. Don't some of this guy's single male friends want to meet women for cosmo-approved dating purposes? How are they supposed to do that if their coupled friends can't?
"Hey, I can make a lot of you feel old: Duck Hunt came out before I was born."
ReplyDeleteGODDAMMIT HOLLY!
@comparisonnonny:
ReplyDeletewouldn't that make vulva daddy equivalent to penis mommy?
The phrase "penis mommy" is all kinds of Oedipal wrong.
ReplyDeleteFeeding a dude blackberry jam and making sure he's well rested, not drunk, and not too full sounds way more mommy-ish than talking to him about his boner.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "I think that if someone wants to cheat on me, they'll cheat. If they don't want to cheat on me, they can go to a skinny-dipping-and-soapy-Twister party with thirty-eight beautiful single women and not cheat." This. So much.
The whole idea of guys' night or girls' night has always bugged me, because I usually decide who to hang out with based on how much fun I think they'll be, not which gender they identify as. If this letter-writer was upset that she wasn't invited or that her partner wasn't hanging out with her, she should be upset about that regardless of whether or not there women at this party. If she was totally cool with him hanging out with his buds, why should it matter if some of his buds were women, or one of his buds brought a woman?
Bigger, Better Pleasure: 5 Ways to Get Him, Um, Pumped
ReplyDeleteUm? Um?
Maybe this has something to do with why it's not on the corporeal version?
Out of context, I'd think "penis mommy" had to do with trans*. Like a derogatory female version of gestational father. But in context that doesn't make sense, so I got nothing. (And now that I'm in Hunt the Euphemism mode, "I got nothing" sounds Shakespearean.)
@Copcher Your comment on the idea of guys' nights is how I feel too. It also made me think of my favorite incarnation of a "guys' night" ever, which started as a group of guy friends at my undergrad... they called it GEI Tuesday (pronounced as "Gay Tuesday," GEI = Guys' Evening In), during which they would all strip down to their boxers and make fun of each other while playing video games or having nerf wars. One GEI Tuesday a friend and I (both of us girls) decided to jump into their nerf fight in our bras and underwear, and from then on we were part of the "guys". The fact that we were not male didn't particularly matter to anyone.
ReplyDelete...I have a feeling that woman who wrote in would be really upset by something like that. "You had a nerf fight with girls?!? In underwear?!? You must be cheating on me!!"
...p.s. Holly, that bigger better headline was on at least some of the physical copies, I saw it in a grocery store last weekend. I wonder why it's on some both not others...
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, I'd be more likely to cheat on someone who forbade me to have female friends. If I have to sneak around and plot to have lunch with a woman, well, sex is way more fun than lunch.
ReplyDelete@Copcher - This is coming from someone who did not exactly have a nice experience with women growing up, but I always thought that the idea behind a one gender night out thing was being able to be yourself and express what you really feel at least to some degree without having to worry about someone taking what you said the wrong way or thinking that you're evil or something for admiring a woman\man's physic. Growing up I always figured that there's some things you just don't talk about while women were around, like stating that you find them sexually attractive for instance. That's just what I think.
ReplyDeleteOn the post itself, sometimes the best way to make a satire of someone is to just repeat what they say.
Also penis mommy.
Your Cosmocking posts make me very very happy.
ReplyDeleteAlso am now traumatized by "penis mommy".
Love,
Thorn
Goodness you are smart and funny. Your critique of the irrational rules intended to prevent someone from cheating are spot on. Love your down to earth and no-nonsense view of things. More please.
ReplyDeleteAnother insightful post ...
ReplyDeleteI'm also traumatised by this "penis mommy" thing. In my opintion Cosmo has put people on the wrong track and created some really perverse associations.
Speaking as someone...ahem...older...with an older partner ... caring about erection quality is really important, both for mutual enjoyment but also for health.
The quality of an erection is related to the general health of the person bearing that erection - so being observant of penis behaviour and being helpful about maintaining general health is a good thing.
I would imagine younger people could set themselves up for an enjoyable retirement by paying attention to health now and thus ensuring future penis performance.
Not sure about the blackberry jam tho ... way to much sugar I would think...
:-) Candice
Oh my, Holly. You never fail to make me laugh. I saw this issue in the supermarket and wanted badly to know what their version of "kinky" was, but couldn't find it in the quick skim I gave the copy in the store.
ReplyDeletePenis mommy. Seriously!
I can't wait for the next part!
@Conina: I saw Cosmo at the grocery checkout and am dying to see Holly fisk the "kink" article, too!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I didn't even try to flip through and skim the article, I think I can safely predict a few things about it:
1) It will assume that all women are latent submissives and all men will automatically assume the dominant role
2) It will assume that everyone is hetero - but will probably make mention of women fantasizing about other women anyway, not because they're bi but because it's SO NAUGHTY.
3) It will act as though getting tied up (and not with proper restraints, god no - only with whatever shit you can find lying around) is the very pinnacle of kinkitude. Other terribly exotic, badass, borderline obscene things to try will include lighting candles and wearing black lingerie.
4) There will, of course, be no encouragement to openly discuss fantasies, safewords, or limits. If you have a fantasy, you need to just do it to your partner with no warning. Or else make him watch a movie with a scene that you like and then moon over how hot it was until he realizes that you're wanting him to do that stuff with you.
I can't wait to see how right I am. :D
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 65 percent of financial analysts are men. So head to the neighborhood Starbucks during your lunch hour.
ReplyDeleteAll financial analysts drink Starbucks coffee, and no-one else does (Starbucks being expensive and elitist, or, er, something). So if you go to Starbucks at lunch time you will find many financial analysts, somewhat half of whom will be men. Obviously you (the reader) want to date male financial analysts, so here is your chance to pull them...
Of course now Starbucks is full of gold-diggers looking for wealthy male analysts; thanks cosmo!
(This steryotypical "elitist rich guys" notion of Starbucks clientelle has never held up to my actual experience of visiting Starbucks, although my non-US university town location may be something to do with that).
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 65 percent of financial analysts are men. So head to the neighborhood Starbucks during your lunch hour.
ReplyDeleteI will buy a venti triple mocha skinny caramel macchiato for anyone who can explain the connection between these two sentences."
ok, here goes: lots of financial analysts are men. + financial analysts drink lots of coffee to do that super complicated "math" thing all day. + starbucks sells coffee. + going to starbucks and being cosmo-approved "attractive" = rich husband!
or, in south park terms: step 1) go to starbucks. step 2) ????? step 3) profit!
do i get my coffee now? :D
Penis mommy.
ReplyDeleteThat is all.
@ perversecowgirl: I love your predictions. Almost good enough as is, article sight unseen. Crossing my fingers for anyone who identifies as kinky (self included) that you're wrong.
ReplyDeleteBut you're probably so, so right.
Like many of the commenters before me, I simultaneously want to know more about this penis mommy thing and want to know less about this penis mommy thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I am curious about the "awesome confidence boosters" the cover promises, but I can probably just figure it has something to do with losing weight, wearing a bra that makes my tits look huge, and getting validation from men.
Non exhaustive list of forbidden word during sexy times: mommy, daddy, baby.
ReplyDeleteGuys/girls nights can sometimes make sense, if you are not at ease with you own sexuality (eg: a straight teenager afraid of people of the opposite gender. If you're bi, just find people you don't find attractive and vice versa) However, it still important to know why you're doing what you do.
I think "penis mommy" needs to become an Internet meme.
ReplyDeleteI think that thing about Starbucks and the financial analysts may have been some dating tip where only the start and end of that chain of 'logic' were published.
ReplyDeleteR1: 65% of financial analysts are male
R2: Financial analysts are good 'catches' because [reasons relating to income, probably - sigh]
R3: Financial analysts are fond of coffee? Starbucks? Something along these lines.
C: If you want to pick up a financial analyst, go to Starbucks at lunch
Either that or the editor spliced two articles together, one about financial analysts and one about delightful pastries. *shrug*
On another topic, on the next anonymous survey I do, I am putting 'penis mommy' as either my occupation, religion or both.
My grandmother has been sending me home with jars of homemade blackberry jelly for many years. That's as far as I care to examine that one, thanks. Moving on.
ReplyDeleteSuggestions for a meme:
ReplyDeletehttp://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee487/irreverentirrelevantliberal/ANN-coulter-penis-mommy.png
Maybe a penis mommy is like a godfather only their job is to instruct you on the ways of fornication instead of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteActually, that sounds really sexy. I'm going to go suggest this to my girlfriend now. Thanks, Cosmo!
Holly, I think the reason you're so puzzled about those two lines is that you don't consider math to be unfeminine, so you know the difference between “Most financial analysts are men” and “most men are financial analysts”. As soon as you stop making that distinction, it totally makes sense:
ReplyDeleteEither you go to Starbucks because that's where financial analysts go, which means that's where men go, which means you can pick up men at Starbucks. Or you go to Starbucks because that's where you can meet men, which means you'll meet a financial analyst whom you can then entice with your vajayjay and your feminine mystique into giving you free economic advice.
*twiddles thumbs and waits for "penis mommy"* to become a relationship option on all social networking sites*
ReplyDeleteLast night, I had a very strange dream. Not all of it was relevant, but at one point, I was reading Cosmo (or some similar magazine.) There was a two-page article which started out as being about this particular bright pink lip gloss, and somehow ended up being a very informative and reasonable article about BDSM and how to practice it safely. This all made sense in the dream.
ReplyDeleteI woke up, and immediately knew that I had to tell you about it.
I stopped reading Cosmo when they had a small article about what to do after your man has cheated. Part of the advice ran to "figure out what you did wrong," so I contemplated lighting that page on fire and just stopped reading. Your cosmocking gives me the "oh aren't they silly" chuckles while insulating me from the "motherfuckers said WHAT" frothing rage monster.
ReplyDeleteOh! Your tales, in earlier years, of getting past the embarrassment of explicit negotiation at play parties helped me get a first-timer to open up. He'd never played with ANYONE beyond his reluctant ex-wife, so he was not at all used to talking matter-of-factly about body parts and limits and expectations. I coaxed it out, he was adorably red-faced, and we had a BLAST. Much hitty fun.
Cosmo has always been obsessed with telling women that their partner's penis is inadequate in some way or another. I'm impressed that they said something coherent like letting the dude get some rest and not jumping him right after dinner, but that's still not even about getting better sex, just making sure that the guy can get it up. Because, you know, if the guy doesn't have a raging boner 100% of the time then you have to do something about it because it's totally your fault.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to explain this concept of 'penis mommy' to a friend.. He told me no one in their right mind would ever use that term.
ReplyDeleteI guess he's right.
good story. I really like this. I wait your presence on my blog http://skrtu.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the "sneaky" methods of becoming the penis mommy. Like, how on earth are you supposed to ensure that your man gets enough sleep if you're playing Taboo at the same time?
ReplyDeleteKnowing Cosmo they'll probably suggest poisoning his drinks or sneaking up on him with a frying pan...
"I will buy a venti triple mocha skinny caramel macchiato for anyone who can explain the connection between these two sentences."
ReplyDeleteStarbucks is a very succesfull business, which means that many financial analysts will be doing field research!
"We spoke to experts, who gave us the full monty behind five boner-improving secrets. Obviously, we don't want you to become his penis mommy, which is why we came up with ways to implement these on the sly."
PENIS MOMMY! I want to know what this means so bad...
Holly: "The secrets, if you're curious, are that you should feed him blackberry jam, make sure he had enough sleep, make sure he isn't drunk, make sure he isn't on a full stomach, and have sex twice in a night because he'll last longer the second time. So that's four obvious but decent points to one "blackberry jam? guh?""
Black... berry... jam...
"Run a pair [of your underwear] under hot water, then wrap it around his shaft and squeeze. The heat helps increase his blood flow down there, making him rock hard and explosion-ready."
But the squeezing cuts off circulation meaning... I'm confused.
"Two words: Edible underwear. It exists. Wear a pair and let him devour it.
...That's twelve words."
Women are bad with math... DUH!
"My man went to guys' night at his buddy's house. When I called to say hi, I heard a female voice. I asked about it, and he said it was just guys. Later, he called to say he was coming home because a girl started undressing in the room he crashed in! I feel betrayed--why did he lie?"
Here's my favorite part of this story. So in the middle of a guy's night out his gf calls to say "hi." To me, this is basically her saying "I SHOULD ALWAYS BE A PART OF YOUR LIFE!" If you're calling me in the middle of an event you know I've attended, I'm going to assume it's an emergency. Would you call your boyfriend while he's at work just to say "hi"?
But it gets better: after she gets controlling and absurdly clingy, he *reassures* that she has nothing to fear because the minute things start to get in the realm of questionable (mono-boyfriends hanging around naked women is where questions start arising) he calls her, tells her what's happening, and books.
Her response? "WHY CAN'T I TRUST HIIIMMMMMMMM"
"If he says he lied because he knew you'd be angry that women showed up, then you need to have a discussion about how the lie undermined your trust far more than if he'd just come clean."
If he says he lied because he knew you'd be angry that women showed up, either you need to have a discussion about how you wouldn't have actually cared or he needs to dump your ass and you need to start attending therapy to be less of a psychotic controlling and abusive piece of shit. Somewhere in here there's a whole lot of misogyny ("women showing to an event that's only guys are obviously just sex objects and out to steal my man") and misandry ("men can't control themselves and are liars and we need to watch them all the time") and just general bullshit.
"But I feel like this is taking place in a universe where it's reasonable to assume partnered people aren't allowed to interact with 50% of humanity, and that gives me all kinds of the willies."
Welcome to the world as we know it. It's delicious!
"[Ways to flatter your guy's friends:] "God help the person who tries to go up against you in Duck Hunt.""
ReplyDelete*blink* but that game... was easy. I don't even... what? Why not use a relevant reference... i.e. a game that came out in the past twenty years?
"One of the other suggestions is "Hanging with you guys is like watching a funnier version of Jackass," which is practically a cutting-edge reference considering that show has only been off the air for nine years. "
That suggesting is essentially, "you guys are the stupidest people I've ever met!"
The way-out-of-date gaming reference is intentional. Cosmo suggests that you signal that as a woman you have no fucking clue what they're doing, which reaffirms the manliness of it. ("Knowing the names of video games: it's not for women!") Whereas if you know what Gears of War is, they're going to worry that maybe you can beat them at it, and their balls will fall right off. I swear this happens. My wife beat a guy at a Magic tournament once and it took a urologist, a surgeon, and a penis mommy to save him.
ReplyDeleteCorrect, gender-conforming script:
Susie: Can I come into your treehouse?
Calvin: No, you're a girl. This treehouse is for men and tigers only. We're doing man stuff, like making bugs fight each other and drawing plans to take over the world.
Susie: Fine! I don't want to play with stupid bugs anyway!
WRONG! Death, destruction, mayhem!:
Calvin: ... and drawing plans to take over the world.
Susie: That's awesome! Can we have a Zeppelin of Terror?
Mark Z., that comment was so awesome that I want to have SEX with it!
ReplyDelete...er, I mean, I want to MARRY it and make it a SAMMITCH!
Yeah.
If they don't want to cheat on me, they can go to a skinny-dipping-and-soapy-Twister party with thirty-eight beautiful single women and not cheat.
ReplyDeleteSure, but if they do that, I'll be kind of jealous I didn't get invited - it sounds hot.
Ooh wait, I forgot, I'm not allowed to date guys and find women hot at the same time. Silly me.
I don't think a Cosmo girl is supposed to find anyone hot, though she is supposed to recognize that a man who's male, successful, and breathing -- and with whom she has no interests in common -- is a good relationship partner.
ReplyDeleteActually, that wrap a hot washcloth around his dick thing works if you're trying to speed up recovery time.
ReplyDeleteRecovery from the guy's previous orgasm, or recovery from some stupid Cosmo sex tip that was inflicted on him? :D
ReplyDeleteSo... wait. The guy leaves because some girl was undressing in the room he was crashed out in? That sounds like a GOOD boyfriend to me.
ReplyDeleteBut then, this is Cosmo; not to beat a dead horse, but I'll be the girlfriend has some insecurity issues where she forbids her boyfriend from associating with anyone with a vag and boobs.
I realize this is old but I am dying - DYING - at "penis mommmy" and pretty much the rest of this. Like, sitting alone on my couch on a Saturday night laughing hysterically to myself. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteOK, I've read every post from the current one to this one, and the Tennis for Two reference just made me an instant regular. :)
ReplyDelete