You Are the More Cupcakeable for Being a Cosmopolitan Girl

I knew nothing about Helen Gurley Brown until undertaking to write about her Cosmopolitan. But as often happens in such situations, the moment I embarked on the project —suddenly all the world became a gathering system and for a week or so it seemed that there was never a conversation anywhere in which her name didn’t figure. And then I was given to read a trunkload of articles from a year of Cosmopolitan, articles which were Distinctively Helen Gurley Brown. Half way through reading them, I found myself rejecting the common suspicion that HGB (as she often signs herself) is putting us on. I was absolutely certain that she was not, until I came on one paragraph from Cosmo’s monthly Editor’s Column, which are pure HGB, wherein the editor introduces the reader to that particular issue, and chats. Great God, I found myself wondering. Could it possibly be? (as she would put it). Read it carefully . . .

“In her article, ‘How Sexually Generous Should a Girl Be?’ (p. 138), Gael [Greene] tells some of the right and wrong reasons, in her opinion, for going to bed with a man. Do read it! Gael and her husband, Don Forst, New York Times culture editor, have renovated a church for a weekend house (they’re photographed there).”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

I knew nothing about Helen Gurley Brown until undertaking to write about her Cosmopolitan. But as often happens in such situations, the moment I embarked on the project —suddenly all the world became a gathering system and for a week or so it seemed that there was never a conversation anywhere in which her name didn’t figure. And then I was given to read a trunkload of articles from a year of Cosmopolitan, articles which were Distinctively Helen Gurley Brown. Half way through reading them, I found myself rejecting the common suspicion that HGB (as she often signs herself) is putting us on. I was absolutely certain that she was not, until I came on one paragraph from Cosmo’s monthly Editor’s Column, which are pure HGB, wherein the editor introduces the reader to that particular issue, and chats. Great God, I found myself wondering. Could it possibly be? (as she would put it). Read it carefully . . .

“In her article, ‘How Sexually Generous Should a Girl Be?’ (p. 138), Gael [Greene] tells some of the right and wrong reasons, in her opinion, for going to bed with a man. Do read it! Gael and her husband, Don Forst, New York Times culture editor, have renovated a church for a weekend house (they’re photographed there).”