Cosmopolitan Magazine: Sometimes the Truth Hurts
I Stumbled Upon this last night and got a real kick out of it. For those of you who don’t know, Cosmopolitan is a dreadful women’s magazine that panders to . . . how can I word this without seeming harsh? I can’t. It panders to braindead, oversexed, materialistic, gold digging (is that redundant?), narcissistic, “career gals.” The magazine is beyond superficial–expect for the occasional article on “What You Need to Know About HPV,” etc. and targets the lowest common denominator.
If you’re girlfriend reads Cosmo you may want to flip through it. The relationship advice this mag/rag dishes out will probably explain a lot about your relationship. This illustration is by sandossu via Flickr and Incredimazing:
COSMOPOLITAN: Sometimes the truth hurts.
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I remember Cosmopolitan magazine, my oldest Narcissistic sister and mother read
it. I found the magazine very frightening. I thought for years that my
mother was Bipolar (she passed away 13 years ago) and I am certain my oldest
sister is narcissistic, my middle sister diagnosed with Borderline Personality
and my 1st wife was Borderline (she shot herself to death 2 weeks ago). I am
amazed what insight Tara has about BPD/NPD it is almost as if she has lived
scores of lifetimes with people that have had these problems.
To me the Borderline Personality is a person who is very immature or
childish but has adult rights and power, and may have very high intelligence.
The best description I ever read about this disorder is that a person with
borderline personality is continually reacting to past events and projecting
them on to their current life, they cannot escape the past and set up
people in their current life to work out their problems or even the
score.
Had I access to a site like this 15 years ago I think I would of saved
myself tremendous amount of emotional pain and money and lost time.
Thank you Dr Tara for this helpful and interesting site.
Brian Gard
Great article. Interesting story about this magazine. I used to do private practice counseling as part of a group practice. I complained to the group several times that we should not have COSMO in the waiting area for our clients as the content was more harm than good. I was pretty much laughed at till I framed the cover of an issue that showed a hefty amount of cleavage and put it on the wall of my outer office.
Suddenly there were concerns it would be seen as an objectification of women (which it was even before I mounted it to the wall). It made for some interesting times at work, but in the end COSMO found it’s way out of our practice and my wall was restored to it’s original bare splendor.
Going with the pathology often has its merits.
Haha…that is hilarious. I personally do read cosmo (I am a girl afterall), but I usually flip through everything. I find the “sex advice” postions, etc. more entertaining than helpful. Seriously, I don’t know if some of those amazing positions are even physically possible.
But thanks for sharing. It gave me a good chuckle.
i call them the men-hater magazines. i had a girlfriend many years ago that would read them all cover to cover, and then would use them as an instruction manual. so i started readingthem cuz it was kinda like reading the playbook for the other team, and i’d bust out laughing with the garbage they would put in there!! one of the articles was the top 50 ways to please a man. now i’m a pretty adventurous guy, but at least half of what they put in their top 50 would not be a turn on, it would be an immediate turn off. if ya wanna know what turns your guy on, ask him. he’s probably willing and able to talk about that… especially if she’s been following the cosmo sex advice for far too long.
but then they’d prattle on with mindless drivel disguised as clever relationship advice. again, mostly wrong. it may be true that we men are simple creatures, therefore we should to be fairly easy to please. and these magazines complicate an already complicated subject.
this is one of my favorite jokes…
MEN VS. WOMEN (read the whole thing – don’t skip down)
HOW TO SATISFY A WOMAN:
Caress, praise, pamper, relish, savor, massage, make plans, fix, empathize, serenade, compliment, support, feed, tantalize, bathe, humor, placate, stimulate, jiffylube, stroke, console, purr, hug, coddle, excite, pacify, protect, phone, correspond, anticipate, nuzzle, smooch, toast, minister to, forgive, sacrifice for, ply, accessorize, leave, return, beseech, sublimate, entertain, charm, lug, drag, crawl, show equality for, spackle, oblige, fascinate, attend, implore, bawl, shower, shave, trust, grovel, ignore, defend, coax, clothe, brag about, acquiesce, aromatize, fuse, fizz, rationalize, detoxify, sanctify, help, acknowledge, polish, upgrade, spoil, embrace, accept, butter-up, hear, understand, jitterbug, locomote, beg, plead, borrow, steal, climb, swim, nurse, resuscitate, repair, patch, crazy-glue, respect, entertain, calm, allay, kill for, die for, dream of, promise, deliver, tease, flirt, commit, enlist, pine, cajole, Anglicize, murmur, snuggle, snoozle, snurfle, elevate, enervate, alleviate, spotweld, serve, rub, rib, salve, bite, taste, nibble, gratify, take her places, scuttle like a crab on the ocean floor of her existence, diddle, doodle, hokey-pokey, hanky-panky, crystal blue persuade, flip, flop, fly, don’t care if I die, swing, slip, slide, slather, mollycoddle, squeeze, moisturize, humidify, lather, tingle, slam-dunk, keep on rockin’ in the free world, wet, slicken, undulate, gelatinize, brush, tingle, dribble, drip, dry, knead, fluff, fold, blue-coral wax, ingratiate, indulge, wow, dazzle, amaze, flabbergast, enchant, idolize and worship, and then go back, and start again.
HOW TO SATISFY A MAN:
Show up naked with food and beer.
I have to agree with melove54. The women (and men) that I have known that frequently read that garbage are some of the most insecure and personality-disordered people that I’ve ever met. My sister is one of them! Even when I was a fashion model, I never bought or read those magazines.
About ten years ago, I was stuck waiting for my hair and makeup to be done in a room that was PACKED FULL of those magazines. I was just 22 at the time and studying WWII from an elderly Danish man that had led the resistance movement. (My research paper was on the similarities between methods that the Japanese and German armies used to desensitize soldiers.). The book that I brought with me to read during downtime on set was “The Rape of Nanking.” (Talk about a heavy subject!) Needless to say, this was NOT even remotely similar to the lessons on “How to not look fat in bed” that were advertised on the covers of the surrounding magazines.
You wouldn’t believe the weird looks and strange smirks that I got while sitting there reading that book! Later it occurred to me that some of them might have thought that it was a pornographic romance novel because of the name. My God, that couldn’t be further from the truth!
What a odd memory. It also reminds me how much I hated modeling! I was a “plus-sized” model at the time. Only in the sick world of fashion would a girl that is 5’10” and a size 12 be considered plus-sized! But that is a different subject altogether…
Cheers,
Danielle
Women in a salon thinking “The Rape of Nanking” is porn! Is the salon in LA, Danielle? Kidding, but that’s funny!
Gotta love ignorant people. I had to read “Mandate of Heaven” for my Chinese history class. It’s a book about Post-Mao China, but most people assumed I was an Evangelical from the title.
That’s funny. Another reader shared a similar anecdote. She was reading “The Rape of Nanking” and the women at the salon thought it was porn.
It’s so funny you bring up this subject! My X had piles of cosmo and every damn celebrity magazine that exist!! I’m not shitting you, piles of them! Many months ago, when I was doing some PD research, I came across an article that noted, if you are in a relationship whereby the woman buys such magazines (more than the average woman) beware that she probably has “N” traits. Pay attention guys, it was very true in my X relationship! I truly believe my X longed to become an actress, she’ so good at it! Instead, the courtroom is her stage!
Hi melove54,
I’m catching up on my comments today. You make a good point about these women being natural born actresses. Many of them are. I think it has something to do with the dexterity they have at manipulating the facts and distorting reality and the false self they’ve been crafting since childhood.
It makes me think of a literature and film term called “the suspension of disbelief,” which I believe is a psychological state these women permanently dwell in. Here’s the definition on Wikipedia:
It’s when you can live in this altered reality with them that the real fun and games start. If you shatter their illusions in any way, there’s either and explosion or a freeze out or both—all with high drama.
And the Oscar goes to. . .
I love the Onion. I need to start reading it regularly again. Love the mock CNN web videos they’re doing, too.
This reminded me of one of my favorite headlines from The Onion:
“Cosmopolitan Releases 40-Year Compendium: 812,683 Ways To Please Your Man”