The Printed Word: Diets and Diaphragms

Do you read Cosmopolitan? No? Well then, who does? Because somebody sure does. Its circulation is allegedly around 1.5 million, but that looks low to me. I see stacks of it at every newsstand. Sometimes I see women buying it. But I seldom see anyone actually reading it.

Cosmo is the female counterpart of Playboy. Not because it features nude men—it doesn’t, and the magazines that do probably appeal to homosexuals as much as to women—but because it serves to define sexual aspirations. Its real subject is manners, and it offers roughly the same guidance to young women that Playboy offers to young men. It tells you what to do with that crazy sex drive of yours: how to dress it up, make it presentable, satisfy it, and still satisfy the craving to be (and feel) normal. It encourages, cautions, consoles. It shows you that other people have the same problems and desires. It is frank and specific.

JS

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Joseph Sobran

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Do you read Cosmopolitan? No? Well then, who does? Because somebody sure does. Its circulation is allegedly around 1.5 million, but that looks low to me. I see stacks of it at every newsstand. Sometimes I see women buying it. But I seldom see anyone actually reading it.

Cosmo is the female counterpart of Playboy. Not because it features nude men—it doesn’t, and the magazines that do probably appeal to homosexuals as much as to women—but because it serves to define sexual aspirations. Its real subject is manners, and it offers roughly the same guidance to young women that Playboy offers to young men. It tells you what to do with that crazy sex drive of yours: how to dress it up, make it presentable, satisfy it, and still satisfy the craving to be (and feel) normal. It encourages, cautions, consoles. It shows you that other people have the same problems and desires. It is frank and specific.