Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Cosmocking: May '12!

Man, I wish I could write more often. :(
But Cosmo's here, and Cosmocking stops for nothing!


Pink... um, tomato?... er, salmon? ...reddish cover!  Some sort of Kardashian!  Featureless black dress presumably pitched as "slimming" but coming off more like "black hole"!  It's the Sex Issue, although it doesn't have particularly more or different sex than any other issue!  "Feel Great Naked--9 Foods That Burn Fat While You Eat!"  I feel great naked just as fat as I am, thanks!  Also I don't think you will burn fat by eating unless maybe you're eating a lot of ice but I really don't recommend that!
The one word a majority of dudes wish you'd say more during sex: "Harder."
I used to have this problem.  When I was a teenager, I watched too much porn, and I got the idea that "harder" was this generic expression of enthusiasm.  So I'd be having sex and moaning "harder, ohhh, harder," until the poor guy was dripping sweat and crying "for God's sake I can't go any harder."  Took me a while to figure that one out.

Anyway, their poll says 45% wanted to hear "harder," so Cosmo could use a little help with the concept of "majority."  I guess they weren't sure delicate ladybrains could handle "plurality."



There's an article in here by Sandra Fluke about "Why Do Women Need to Speak Up About Birth Control?"  It's awesome and I'm not going to make fun of it.

...And shortly afterwards there's an article about how if your boyfriend is having a bad day you should ask him to open a jar of pickles for you.  Oh Cosmo.

I guess if I don't have a pickle jar around I can just come up and hug him and say "Hey, I know you're feeling sad right now, but your triceps are statistically likely to be slightly stronger than mine."  That'd cheer anyone up.
Make a Hottie Hit on You
[The steps to making a hottie hit on you:]
Rock bold earrings or a shirt with an eye-catching graphic
Do the Cosmo heel dangle
Give him sexy eyes... twice
This issue does have a theme, as it turns out, and it's not sex.  The theme is "the alternate universe where men are incapable of hearing women's voices."

...Wait, that's the theme of every issue.  Shit, they even made it explicit in the last one.  But the "don't meet guys, present yourself for them" thing is really bad here.  Bad to the point where they suggest standing in front of the bar's men's room, because all the guys walk there at some point, therefore you're sure to get picked up.

This isn't socializing advice.  This is product display advice.
How should semen taste and smell? 
Slightly sweet and a bit chlorine-ish.
I think Cosmo's just fucking with us now.
Is there a move I can do to get him extra hard? 
Grab the base of his penis and give it a few firm pumps while talking dirty to him.
Isn't this just the time-honored method of getting a guy regular hard?

And you know, there's nothing wrong with that.  Nobody's born knowing how to work a penis.  A lot of Cosmo readers are pretty young, and learning some basic "works for most people" sex tips might not be the worst thing for them.  (Kinda breaks my heart to think of them getting the "stand outside the bathroom and your Mr. Right will find you" advice, though.)  But why package it as ultra-super-duper-mega-kinky secret sex secrets?

Maybe if Cosmo could admit to their readers (and themselves) that a lot of what they do is actually basic sex ed, they could do it more responsibly than this.
If I don't want to kiss my BF right after he performs oral sex on me, what should I do? 
Kiss other parts of his body--his neck, lower stomach.
In The Terrible Universe Where People Ruin Everything By Talking: "I don't want to kiss on the mouth right now, 'kay? But I'll kiss you here... mm, and here..."

In The Cosmoverse: [turns head away from kiss] [turns head away from other kiss] [tries to kiss boyfriend's neck while he's trying to kiss her, bashes their faces together] [ends up holding boyfriend by the face to try to muscle away from him] [finger accidentally goes up his nose]

I will never understand people who think that talking isn't suave.  Shit, you should see the stuff that happens when you don't.
Why does he always tell me he loves me during sex? 
Chemicals released in his brain make him feel attached.
This is the saddest thing Cosmo has ever printed.

I mean, okay, technically it's correct, although it's also a valid answer to "why does he tell me he loves me during a long serious discussion?"  But I don't think Cosmo meant it like that.  I think they meant it like... God, Cosmo.  That's fucking terrible.
How can I get him to slow the pace when he's on top?
Press your hand against his butt to slow him down.
He's not a horse, Cosmo.

116 comments:

  1. However, giddy-up is successful at speeding shit up about 50% time. The other 50% it just confuses the hell out of men, though.

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  2. Cosmo really knows nothing about sexy. Because moaning out slower isn't totally hot.

    How do people have sex without talking?

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    Replies
    1. I kind of want to provide the same answer I was given when I pondered how porcupines have sex.

      '...carefully?'

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  3. It should say "he forces air across his vocal cords while shaping his mouth teeth and tongue to produce a series of sounds determined by patterns of associated neurons in his brain."

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    1. I adore pedantry. <3

      /not-sarcastic

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    2. Then boy howdy do I have some people at MIT to whom I ought introduce you...

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    3. "These sounds then cause hair cells at varying locations in your cochlea to release acetylcholine, triggering electrical signals of varying frequency which are integrated and processed by various neurons before and upon reaching the brain, eventually reaching synapses in language-processing centers, causing you to perceive words."

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    4. The Untoward LadyMay 2, 2012 at 1:36 AM

      Actually... cochlear receptors release glutamate which then synapse on the cochlear nucleus in the brainstem. From there it goes up the lateral lemniscus to the inferior colliculus which is responsible for spatial isolation of the audio stimuli. From there the information gets filtered based on attention by the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus before it goes up into the primary auditory cortex. Once in the cortex it works its way over to Wernicke's area where the sound data is converted into concepts. THEN it goes back down into the association areas of the temporal lobes, eventually finds its way into the hippocampus and generalized limbic system causing an activation of the ventral tegmental area which floods the majority of the cortex with dopamine, reinforcing your behavior!

      Of course... all of this is in response to his vocal chords, diaphragm, lips, muscles of mastication, and tongue working in consort which are in turn being controlled by his vagus nerve, pherenic nerve, facial nerve, trigeminal nerve, and hypoglossal nerve (respectively) which are all under control of the primary motor cortex (with some feedback from the cerebellum and basal ganglia). The primary motor cortex, in turn, is being fed instructions by Brocca's area. All of this is because Wernicke's area is translating concepts into words and passing them along associative pathways to Brocca's area to be actuated.

      But that's over 20 words, isn't it?!

      (yaaaay, studying for my final AND reading a sex blog!)

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    5. So long as we're being pedantic... all the stuff about ears is why you perceive him to be telling you that he loves you, not why he tells it.

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    6. You have answered how. The question was why.

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    7. Not necessarily, chingona. There are theories of consciousness that make the chemical and neurological processes behind human action the "why" as well as the "how," with conscious rationalization following every action but being reorganized by the brain as preceding the action. (They're kind of scary, disconcerting theories, but I understand they have at least some empirical support.)

      Delete
    8. I seriously love you guys so much.

      But that's just my neurotransmitters talking.

      <3

      Delete
  4. Asking me to open a jar of *anything* is a good way to make me feel far less masculine. Not that I've built up my identity around masculinity as a central part of who I am or anything, but at some point, it just comes off as mocking the weakness that I've come to accept as my body in all its weirdness and awesomeness.

    ... I guess what I'm saying is that you can open your own goddamn jar of pickles, 'kay?

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  5. It's a little weird not to want to kiss someone after they go down on you. Not so weird that I'd say "do it anyway" -- I don't think that level of weirdness actually exists -- but a little.

    Speaking of which, is it possible that the person who attempted to describe the taste of semen had never tasted it? I should think people who haven't are in the minority of people sexually interested in men.

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    Replies
    1. It's not weird. Some people don't like the taste, or some, god forbid, think it's gross. To be polite for my boyfriend, I keep a bottle of water on the bedstand so after I go down on him, I grab a quick drink, then kiss him. No big deal, takes an extra couple seconds.

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    2. Not really a parallel case between men and women, is it? I've always heard that semen has a way stronger taste in general, even to people who unlike me don't mind it much. (I'm an outlier, I hope: to me it's utterly vile.)

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    3. I'd be cautious about calling it "a little weird." Sure, a lot of people feel that way because of some very questionable, or even very terrible, reasons, but I think it can be a benign preference. I don't think anything should ever be 'expected' sexually, other than respect for consent & etc. Personally? I'm a woman having sex with a man. I don't like tasting myself. It's not terrible for me or anything, but I'd prefer not to. I'm still fine with kissing him afterwards because my desire to kiss him outweighs my mild dislike of tasting myself, though. Also, because we're kinky and I'm okay with him making me do things and it's not at all a limit for me.

      And about the taste of semen? I've actually heard a lot of people describe it as having a chlorine-like or bleachy taste. In my personal experience, some guys taste that way more than others.

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    4. I don't like kissing at all. Guess I'm King of Weird.

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    5. "A little weird" and "benign preference" are not mutually exclusive. When I say "a little weird" that's not a call for torches and pitchforks, and I'm not trying to say I don't do anything weird.

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    6. Different people also have different flavors. One of my lovers when she climaxed ejaculated some of the nastiest tasting fluid it was my misfortune to imbibe. Didn't stop me, I adore oral and I was more than willing to go there.

      I also did get used to it, since doing what I loved with whom I loved helped put it in perspective for me. Plus a bit of tip for tap helps as well.

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    7. There's other interesting "tit for tat" methods there, too. Like fingers.

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    8. To be honest, and I know this isn't fair, I find it really strange that there are people who don't like kissing someone after they go down on them (regardless of gender). I would have thought that most people would form a Pavlovian association between those smells and tastes and the pleasure you just gave or received. I'd even always thought of people being uncomfortable with the taste of a woman (or man) as being indicative of their overall comfort level with sex.

      I'd never even considered that some people just don't like the taste, rather than having an "eww, gross!" reaction.

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    9. For me, it's not a taste/flavor issue so much as a tactile issue. (My partner doesn't have that much 'flavor' overall, but it 'feels' weird.)

      On the other hand, I don't like kissing ANYWAY (to the point that I have only semi-jokingly called it a hard limit; it's more of a 'fairly firm but I guess if you keep your mouth closed it's OK' limit), so I'm an outlier...

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    10. For me it's the smell more than the taste. I'm very scent-oriented, and things like B.O., bad breath, cigarette breath, and, yes, the smell of myself on my lover's mouth is not just off-putting, it can completely kill my sexual desire to the point where continuing sex after that becomes a "lie back and think of England" scenario. So yeah, the rule is, don't kiss me after that. Something really, really enjoyable just happened, don't kill it please.

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    11. I agree with Mary. I consider myself very comfortable with sex and bodies in general and am more than willing to give oral. But I dislike being kissed after someone's gone down on me so much that I'd rather just never be the recipient of oral sex than have it happen. When it does, it kills my mood entirely. Not sure why and you can think it's weird all you want, but we do exist, even among the not-repressed-and-fairly-kinky crowd.

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  6. You crack me up.

    But, I'm sad, because I'm so bad at opening jars. Maybe Viagra will help? I can see the TV ads now...

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    1. Meh, I open stubborn jars by breaking the seal a little with a table knife. You can do that too and women will marvel at your ingenuity :)

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    2. Unless you were planning to advertise Viagra with someone opening jars with their PENIS, that would be quite entertaining, alright.

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    3. Double ingenuity points if you remember to put a piece of plastic wrap under the punctured lid when you close it to seal in the freshness!

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    4. I thought plastic wrap and penises didn't work together?

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    5. In my head, there is now an image of two superheroes: Penisman and The Incredible Plastic Wrap! They both fight crime and keep the city streets safe at night, but they can't work together because of their differing views on capital punishment.

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    6. aw, we need like buttons :)

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    7. But wait, you don't have to puncture the lid, just put a table knife under the edge and push it out a bit. It still closes fine.

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    8. Henry WellsbournMay 5, 2012 at 7:09 PM

      If you use a teaspoon you don't run the risk of damaging the tip of the knife.

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    9. The 'opening the jar with the penis' conversation had me thinking of that 'Penis Mom'...debacle-thing from a while ago. Heh.

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    10. turn the butter knife around and give the edge of the jar a firm tap in 3-4 places around the edge. if its a new jar, it should loosen it up nicely.

      if it has been previously opened, and you've let the contents spill over the edge, then closed the lid on the residue creating a supervillainous glue-like layer under the lid, you are screwed. Call Penisman.

      and then you'll likely be screwed again. (i think these commercials are only going to be on HBO and Playboy TV....)

      Delete
  7. "Also I don't think you will burn fat by eating unless maybe you're eating a lot of ice but I really don't recommend that!"

    Agreed. Many women also have this weird idea that you save money by spending it: "On Special! Save 12%!" Nooo, it's inly a "saving" if it's something that you would have bought anyway. If the reason that you buy something is that it's on special, then you have not saved money, you have spent it.

    Pretty basic, but seemingly beyond many people.

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    1. Oh those women, always womening.

      No, seriously, I think you're confusing "Women who kinda wanted to buy it anyway and are glad for an excuse" with "women who think math works backwards."

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    2. Hmmmm....I think that's a people problem, not a woman problem. For some reason, this (lack of) logic works on the slow of brain because advertisers use it a LOT. The main place I see it is on TV commercials for cars..."May savings alert! Get $1500 CASH BACK on selected models if you buy before June!" If you're spending $20,000 on a car and get $1500 'cash back", you really just spent $18,500. Duh.

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    3. In some cases here I believe you have taken out a loan for $20,000, spent $18,500 on a car, and gotten the other $1,500 in cash. Of course, that means you're spending more in the long run than if you'd just taken out a loan for $18,500, but if the loan rate is low enough that might be advantageous depending on your situation. But still kind of misleading.

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    4. @marcmagus: Sure, a $1500 cash back deal may or may not be advantageous to a person who's already decided to buy a car. I think Kaija24's point, though, was that a man who decides to buy a car he doesn't really need because $1500 CASH BACK is just as foolish as a woman who buys a shirt she doesn't really need because SPECIAL! SAVE 12%!

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    5. Sometimes I'll want something, but deliberately wait until it's on sale so I don't spend as much. I did it with the 3DS--I didn't think I'd spend $75 on DLC, so I waited until the price came down. The only thing I can think of recently that I bought on sale, that I wouldn't have thought to buy otherwise, was a Kindle steampunk compilation. Because $3 steampunk.


      On a related note, I buy a lot of Lego sets, as does one of my boyfriends. Since TRU is having a Lego sale this week, we're planning on going by Saturday and spending/saving some money. Because any excuse for more Lego is a valid excuse.

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    6. Laura - agreed. Like most people, I have a running list in the back of my mind of "stuff I eventually want to buy." At which point it's just a race to see whether it'll go on sale before I reach the point where I really need it and can't put it off any longer. So yes, in a way the sale really is saving me money, because the damn thing was gonna be bought eventually, one way or another.

      Delete
  8. Fuck, they always go for the no talking option, don't they?

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    Replies
    1. Yep! It's like they think everything will come to a grinding halt if a single word is uttered mid-coitus.

      -CoronerCountess

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    2. Hey, this is sex we're talking about. Grinding ain't a halt, it's a feature :-)

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    3. XD

      - CoronerCountess

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  9. "How can I get him to slow the pace when he's on top?
    Press your hand against his butt to slow him down.
    He's not a horse, Cosmo."

    Oh my gosh Holly. You're killing me with that comment.


    And y'know maybe if we had proper sex education even in the form of a magazine like Cosmo, maybe fan fiction writers would find out that things like peanut butter are terrible lubricants. I need to stop reading fan fiction.....Not that that thought has ever stopped me from reading it.....

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    Replies
    1. Especially the "extra crunchy" stuff.

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    2. Yeah, I was enjoying this whole thing, until I got to the part about the horse, which made me laugh out loud at work.

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  10. >>>It's a little weird not to want to kiss someone after they go down on you.

    Some people are weird about bodily fluids.

    >>>Speaking of which, is it possible that the person who attempted to describe the taste of semen had never tasted it?

    Yeah, 'sweet' isn't really it. 'Salty' makes more sense. It sounds like someone half-assedly remembered something about semen having sucrose in it or something and they extrapolated. As for 'chlorine', I guess I can understand that. A part of the smell reminds me of chlorine a bit, but it doesn't really *taste* it, in my experience.

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    1. From what I remember of biology, the sweet/salty thing varies according to the sperm-to-seminal fluids ratio of the stuff. So that one individual's emissions might change over the course of a day depending on the number of them. Might have been bullshit though, the source escapes me.

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    2. To me, it's salty, with a hint of sweet, and a tiny bit of fishy-taste. Maybe it's just the guys I've been with, but it always seems to taste the same, it's just different textures sometimes.

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  11. Peanut butter as lube?! That sounds horrifying. (especially if it is chunky style)

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  12. I do love to mock Cosmo, hence my religious reading of you Cosmococking, and also recognise it's ridiculousness. But I'm really glad that you wrote: "Maybe if Cosmo could admit to their readers (and themselves) that a lot of what they do is actually basic sex ed, they could do it more responsibly than this."

    For me Cosmo was my basic sex ed. I grew up in a atmosphere which treated as something that women shouldn't enjoy, as something that men almost 'took' from women (yeah, it was a bit conservative in the worst possible way)Cosmo introduced me to the basic mechanics of sex, the existence of the clitoris, the idea that sex could be pleasurable for women and, most importantly, that it was okay to for women to enjoy sex, which I am incredibly grateful for. I did move on from Cosmo fairly quickly, but without it and possibilities opened up to me by the revolutionary idea that sex was pleasurable I don't think that I would have ended up living in the wonderful world of sex-positivity, kink and feminism which I now inhabit.

    Yes, Cosmo is ridiculous, completely oblivious to the power of speech, clueless about what 'kink' actually means, unable to grasp basic science and prone to perpetuating heteronormative ideas in some of the strangest ways that I have seen; but it's a hell of a lot better than some stuff out there and it's not too bad at basic sex ed which a lot of people need.

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  13. "Isn't this just the time-honored method of getting a guy regular hard?" This made me laugh more than regular hard. Thanks for that.

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  14. opening a jar of pickles = masculinity? i thought it just ment you wanted some pickles.

    "he's not a horse Cosmo."
    lol!!! i nearly did a spittake after reading that!!!

    as for not talking, i was once with a guy that didn't want me talking during sex. not only was sex not enjoyable, but when i did tell him to do something or move a different way, he would grump at me for "cramping his style". he dumped me because i "wasn't adventurous in bed". whatever.

    i still have no idea who the Kardashians are, even though a friend of mine tried to explain the show to me. i think i'll just stick to mythbusters. i'd rather watch Adam and Jamie try to cut a car in half with thermite than a bunch of women i cannot relate to.

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    1. What are they famous for, anyway? Were they in something before that show? Or is this another Paris Hilton thing where they're famous because Daddy has a lot of money?

      Delete
    2. Vanessa Emma GoldmanMay 3, 2012 at 10:41 AM

      yes, the Kardashians are basically a bunch of Paris Hiltons, famous because they were born into a rich family and are conventionally attractive and charismatic.

      their late father, Robert Kardashian Sr., was one of O.J. Simpson's attorneys and i think that is basically how the whole family got into the spotlight. R.K. Sr. passed away in 2003, and his widow has since married Bruce Jenner who was a United States Olympic track athlete in the 1970s.

      So, yeah, the younger Kardashians were pretty much born with silver spoons in their mouths, and have used their family connections to become famous for being famous, just like Paris Hilton.

      Delete
    3. oh!!! well then, i feel better about watching mythbusters then. not only am i avoiding pointless drama, but i get to giggle when they blow stuff up for science!!!

      Delete
  15. In my experience, the secret to the whole "jar of pickles" thing (or jar of anything that is sealed tight and often doesn't open easily) is not "let a man do it" but "let *someone else* do it". Why? Because your struggles to get the jar open loosen it up enough that someone with full strength could get it open easily, yet the effort depletes your strength so that you can't do it anymore without a lot of rest. Give it to someone else who hasn't depleted their strength struggling with something, regardless if they're a man or a woman, and it'll usually open easily. That's assuming, of course, that waiting awhile to recover isn't a good option. The supposed male jar-opening superiority is an illusion caused by the fact that it's usually the woman who starts opening it.

    While the "burn fat while you eat" title is *technically* incorrect, there's this idea going around that if you eat certain types of foods it will discourage the storing of excess carbs as fat in one's body, making it easier to lose weight. I don't know if this is actually true or if it's just another fad backed up by rather shaky science. So I'm assuming that this is what they're talking about - but I'm not really inclined to read Cosmo, so I'm not going to bother to check if they got even that much right.

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    1. Interesting theory on the jar thing. I can't say I've noticed that effect, but I'll watch for it now. Another reason the first person who attempts a jar is less likely to succeed is that they've often been doing other things in the kitchen that have gotten their hands wet or oily.

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    2. Since pickles don't have a lot of calories, now I'm wondering if you could exert enough effort opening jars to make them calorie-neutral.

      Next month in Cosmo: the Every Meal Is A Whole Goddamn Jar Of Pickles Diet.

      Delete
    3. >Since pickles don't have a lot of calories, now I'm wondering if you could exert enough effort opening jars to make them calorie-neutral.

      Provided they're dill pickles and not sweet pickles, you almost certainly could. If they're sweet pickles...well, maybe if it's a really tough jar?

      Delete
    4. Sweet pickles are yucky. Garlic dill ftw!

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    5. I think men are usually better at opening jars because they tend to have bigger hands / longer fingers. I'm a petite woman with small hands and therefore I can't get as good grip around the jar lid as people with bigger hands. My husband is a very thin nerdy guy with basically no muscle while I'm a sporty girl with some nice biceps, but still he is much better at opening jars with his long, long fingers than me and my very short fingers.

      Delete
  16. "Make a Hottie Hit on You
    [The steps to making a hottie hit on you:]
    Rock bold earrings or a shirt with an eye-catching graphic
    Do the Cosmo heel dangle
    Give him sexy eyes... twice"

    Better advice: you want someone to find it easy to hit on you? Hitting on someone starts with striking up a conversation. Wear something that's easy to start a conversation about. I don't think I've ever felt compelled to walk up to someone and say, "Man, those earrings are fucking BOLD!"

    Replace those BOLD earrings with a pair of DNA molecule earrings, and we have something to talk about. And if all goes well, later there might even be DNA helicase jokes.

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  17. Not directly related to this Cosmocking, but I'm in the UK and saw an edition of our Cosmo that looked vaguely familiar. So I looked back through your Cosmockings and found that the same photo had been used on the August 2011 edition of US Cosmo.

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  18. Ugh, magazine sex ed. A summer camp I staff has a Health Topics Day. Little seminars on various health topics. I keep offering to do a sex ed one.

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  19. @Not Me: Good point. Another way you can accomplish this all by yourself, however, is to tap the lid against the floor. Once you've ascertained that the lid is stuck (doesn't take too long), then upend the jar so you can tap the lid lightly against the floor, turning it so you're tapping all around the edge. The counter would probably work, too, but the floor echoes less and isn't quite so bangingly loud. Anyway, this loosens the lid much like your continued, increasingly futile efforts might loosen the lid, so that YOU in fact are the one with the full strength opening the loosened vessel. Works for me like a charm.

    Note: Does not work on carpet.

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    Replies
    1. You can also use the flat side of a knife against the rim of the jar for this trick, but you might accidentally stab yourself. I'm clumsy.

      Delete
  20. I always look forward to a new month because it means new cos-mocking :D

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  21. Glass jar, metal lid?
    Run some hot water over the lid; give it 2 mins to expand a little; remove lid.

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  22. Jamming a knife between the lid and the jar breaks the vacuum seal and makes it very easy to open.

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  23. The socialized passivity is a killer...of friendships, relationships, libidos, careers...you name it. Yet another reason why Cosmo sucks.

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  24. We've got a metal pick with a wooden handle in our kitchen drawer, I know no other use for it than to ram a hole into a jar lid. Through that hole the vacuum is destroyed and the jar opens like a charm.

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    1. yeah, i've always had success with just stabbing the lid open with a knife

      which is incredibly masculine! you hand me a jar you can't open and not only do i get to use a bladed weapon on it but i get to rain destruction down upon it as well like some kind of knife-wielding sky god

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    2. I can usually wedge jars open with a flathead screwdriver. As soon as you break the vacuum they usually come off pretty easily.

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    3. On really stubborn jars I pry the edge of the lid just slightly with an upside-down triangular opener (in other words, the tip of the triangle inserted between the jar and the lip of the lid, rather than as if to poke a triangular hole in the lid).

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    4. I use the handle of a (dull butter) knife and tap it medium-forcefully like a drum stick on the edge of the jar while turning the jar. I think it's the same as the floor method, but without bending.

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  25. That horse comment reminds me of a friend of mine when we were in our early teens and bought Frida, a Swedish teen magazine with sort of similar advice. It was always articles on how to interpret a guy's body language and how to send the right sort of signals with your own body language etc etc. My friend pointed out the similarities between the articles in Frida and the articles in "my horse". "My horse" always had articles on how to understand the body language of a HORSE, and how a HORSE might interpret this or that signal you uncousciously send out when you do this or that... And, you know, you might actually need these kinds of articles on HORSES. Because HORSES are a completely different SPECIES and can't TALK. Unlike, eh, men.

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  26. I have literally spent three minutes trying to work out how to describe the taste of semen and ended up with "...hot?"

    English needs better taste words.

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    1. Well, I have plenty of words, but you don't want to hear them (they start with the chlorine bit and get worse from there). I really am glad (no sarcasm) semen doesn't taste that bad to other people.

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    2. I'm surprised Cosmo doesn't have the tasty spunk smoothie recipe I've seen around the interweb. Pineapple juice, and no smoking, fellas.

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    3. This was probably the one thing in there that wasn't absolutely ridiculous. I could see "sweet and chlorine-y" being true in some circumstances. "Salty and bitter" is probably how I'd describe it in general.

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    4. I'd go with "oily" myself. Like, a really, really mild warm oil. Which isn't even a taste so much as a texture.

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    5. The texture is definitely a huge, huge part of the problem for me. Um. As it were. (Hur, hur, you said "huge, huge part"...)

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    6. To me it tastes like bleach and baking soda. @Irene I suspect we are not the only ones, many people do complain after all and there is a product that is supposed to help. I think it may be because I am a supertaster and things taste so bitter to me.

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  27. I can open jars better than my husband can. I think it has something to do with my grip. Maybe for some things smaller hands are actually better?

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  28. Fool who bears the name FreedomMay 2, 2012 at 12:19 PM

    I just noticed the bottom line on the cover, reading "The smile that makes men hit on you." There, in a nutshell, is Cosmo.

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  29. ..Chlorine???

    Interesting note: semen taste different depending on what your mouth has just done. I have always found that if I have just cleaned my teeth it tastes sweeter than if I haven't. And I hear it also tastes different if a man eats certain things, like pineapples or something. But anyway, my point is, it varies. You can't be like 'it should taste like this' because that implies it should taste like NOTHING but that, and if it does taste different then hell, must be something wrong!

    It's a real shame Cosmo can't teach the younger sections of their readership that talking during sex is not the wrong thing to do. :( After all, in films and stuff they always depict the 'best' sex as sex that involves no talking. We need another perspective here! Mind you, if Cosmo believed in talking most of these questions would be answered by 'tell your boyfriend you want to do this/don't want to do that' and then the magazine would quickly seem a bit redundant. I'm just glad I never read this mag when I was a young teen, I'd have got some weird ideas.

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    1. I've always thought that semen tastes kind of like the seaweed they use in sushi rolls... kind of salty but also sweetish and "dry" tasting like the aftertaste of beer.

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    2. Oh, if only that were true for me. I could totally go for that.

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    3. It smells like Irish soda bread, which I find... weird.

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  30. my favorite part is how they call it "The Sex Issue" as if that's not what every single other issue is about

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    Replies
    1. Eldritch AnchovyMay 4, 2012 at 1:05 PM

      About a decade ago, I walked past a magazine rack and something felt... off. I walked back and looked, only to discover an issue of Cosmo with no sex advice or sex survey cover stories whatsoever.

      Apparently my subconscious checks Cosmo covers for sex stories, possibly to make sure i haven't been dropped into some alternate universe. I now wish I'd bought one for posterity.

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  31. Cover color suggestion: grapefruit?

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    Replies
    1. This colour has a name: carmine AKA crimson.

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  32. HAHA. I can't actually reach his butt because he's tall. o.O

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  33. Thinking of the taste of semen I wonder what the effect would be if you had some miracle fruit right before giving a blowjob?

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  34. what if I'm a guy and I want my girlfriend to slow down? does the same cosmologic apply, or is there a different signal I should use? Also, if I'm on top, it's hard to reach my hand all the way to her butt. Should I put it on her boobs or something?

    Please advise.

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  35. I knew I couldn't be the only one! The second I read that tip, I was like "Wouldn't that be interpreted as a sign to go faster/harder?" I've done that knowingly before, so I would know (mmm, good times).

    And I agree with Holly: How can talking during sex be not-suave? Unless you're really bad at it. In which case, PRACTICE, DAMMIT.

    - CoronerCountess

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  36. Woah, miracle fruit blowjobs. While Cosmo never seems to have genuinely novel sex ideas, Holly's readers do!

    (If you haven't encountered it, miracle fruit is this weird herb that makes things you eat subsequently taste sweet. People have miracle fruit parties in which they serve up miracle fruit tablets followed by a plate of very sour foods--we had grapefruit, lemon, limes and onions. It's truly an odd experience.)

    As for the talking, I basically can't get off without it. You might be able to forbid me to talk as a D/S ploy, but then *you* had better talk, a lot, all the way through. I'm a big proponent of the theory that the brain is the real sex organ and all the other parts are just accessories.

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    Replies
    1. oh MAN now I want to have a miracle fruit party and only invite stoners. That would be hilarious

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  37. I thought the same thing.

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  38. Rubber bands- the nice flat ones like on asparagus bunches- are great for opening jars too, because you get a much better grip by just putting them around the rim of the cap. On really stubborn jars, I'll put one around the glass too.

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    Replies
    1. when i get blood drawn, i keep the flat tourniquet, wash it when i get home, and use it to open jars. not only are you reusing an item that will just get tossed, but it will fit every lid.

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  39. I like to pronounce the title of this series as "Co-Smocking". I'm not sure what it means, precisely, (Two people wearing one smock? Two people sharing a smock as it gets passed around?) but it's funny to me.

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  40. He's not a horse, Cosmo.

    That, or maybe Cosmo is a lot kinkier than we thought...

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  41. "How should semen taste and smell?

    Slightly sweet and a bit chlorine-ish."

    I realize I'm a month late to the party. I realize that I'm a female virgin who thus might be missing something. But... isn't chlorine... poisonous? And therefore, wouldn't something coming out of the human body redolent of chlorine be... worrying? Like, "maybe we should get you checked for poison" kind of worrying?

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