I find it irritating that she doesn't care about the past of the magazine.

Whenever I remove scrunchies from my boyfriend's dick with my teeth I feel JUST LIKE GLORIA STEINEM. True story. Thanks, Cosmo!

Come to think of it, shoving things up dude's butts doesn't seem anti-feminist at all.

Fhwaa?
Jez didn't you know?
Cosmo is a sexy sexual feminist. Read the readers letters, yo!

"our reader doesn't care about the past. She's all about the here and now."

Thats great, you cannot improve the future without building from the past. Stupid.

Empowered by the stupid ass sex suggestions, multiple choice quizzes, lists of things "all Cosmo girls" should do, and ten trillion articles on how to trick a dude into being your boyfriend? Totally.

Umm... what do you say to people who DON'T think Cosmo is anti-feminist? Besides asking them if they've ever read it?

Cosmo is one of the main causes of the dumbing down of American women. I am fucking certain of this.

But what exactly can we expect of a woman who writes shit like this?

Okay, but until people realize there is a problem with genital mutilation, they won't go ANYWHERE to learn about it. Sometimes your job as a mass-audience magazine is to fucking inform people of issues like this. Then maybe they can search out a source other than Cosmo to get the details.

it's totally empowering. as discussed yesterday, it teaches you to release your inner dominatrix by dripping hot wax down your bf's back door...and if it goes wrong, it also could include genital mutilation. win, win!

Cosmo is always urging women to stroke men's taints. WHY? I don't wanna! There's poo nearby.

Hey Kate! Ever consider that the reader doesn't judge Cosmo to be anti-feminist because the magazine is so horrible that anyone reading it is unlikely to find anything anti-feminist?

"Readers don't come to Cosmo to learn about the genital mutilation of women in the Third World."

They read it to learn about genital mutilation of their boyfriends with candles, pepper, Windex. Sexeeee!

@formerlyzivah: yeah you cant say something is anti feminist if you dont even know what feminism is to begin with.

Dear Cosmo,

Thanks for empowering me. Without you, where would I put my hot wax? I'm as happy as some people from the past who did something good. Like Queen LaTifa. Or those happy happy people in the fourth universe.

hugs and nipple clamps,
es-ki-mo

@bananastand: Oh, that's your excuse for everything.

"Empowered?" I stopped reading Cosmo when I realized it had nothing to do with female pleasure. It was all about pleasing a man, the right dress to wear to get a man, the eyeshadow to wear to get a man, how to sit in a bar to get a man....

Nobody said that the only way to be feminist is to write articles about female genital mutilation. What an idiot. The magazine is anti-feminist because of all the messages, overt and subtle, that tell women they're inadequate in some way. Recently someone said that an Allure quiz determined that she was an alcoholic. We were like, stick to what your good at ladymags- making me feel bad about my body! Stay away from my drinks!

Her magazine recently published an "informative" article explaining that giving blow jobs is just like licking a soft serve ice cream cone. I read that a few weeks back waiting to get my eyebrows waxed.

Um, yeah...

"So many of our readers write in to tell us about how empowered they are."

I can say I live in Buckingham Palace, but my 1 br in Washington Heights would prove otherwise...

Maybe Cosmo readers only care about the here and now because they are all only 13 years old. Not much past for a 13 year-old to remember, unless you're penning your memoires at 15 like Miley!

@♥ dosido ☮: Dear God....

Guuuuuh, wha? She doesn't even answer the question. Probs cause she doesn't understand it.

Her readers think Cosmo is empowering because they've been fed a steady diet of bullshit equating SEXAYYY with "empowering!" Oh, they aren't actually any more powerful thanks to Cosmo. They just think they are, because they got a good makeup tip & learned how to give a beej in a whole new way.

@rosasparks: Oh, that reminds me...I meant to mention this to y'all. I was in the doctor's office the other day looking through a Cosmo and it had a section on the right amount of cleavage to show for different occasions, including funerals, work, weddings, etc. The funny thing was, in every picture showing the "proper" amount of cleavage for each different setting, the model's cleavage looked EXACTLY the same to me. I could not see any difference between funeral cleavage and date cleavage. Did anyone else see this? It's really pretty fucking hilarious.

@LaComtesse: Deer Cosmo:

Thanx 4 orel sex tips. GTGO, must blow boss under desk nao!

Yrs,
SexySexualDollBabyFU143

I think she is confusing not caring about the past with not remembering the past. Otherwise they wouldn't print the same sex tips every month, with the exception of a few variables like scrunchies and wax.

@♥ dosido ☮: I missed out on the [scrunchies from] part of that sentence, and for a minute I was like "whoa, bonerkiller indeed."

So that's why Cosmo has the same articles every month.

@blackbirdfly: Y'know, I'd probably cut that out & put it on my dresser. I definitely need to know what amount of cleavage I need to show at any given event/situation.

Funeral cleavage? What?

@JessicaLovejoy: I think God put you here to test *my* faith...: What can I say? I am a Doody Avoidance Specialist.

Cosmo: treating readers like goldfish since the 1970s - renew now!

@blackbirdfly: I'm pretty sure the rule for funeral cleavage is: NONE.

UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH

My disdain for this woman is just ridiculous. She sent her assistant to get some clothes from the store I used to work at and she picked out all this stuff and we were supposed to call her back but no one wanted to. We asked ourselves "do we really want someone from Cosmo wearing our clothes?" and before we could answer, there was a random customer in the store and she turned and said "No, you dont" Then she left. We dont know if she was offended or not, but we didnt care, we had our answer.

@JessicaLovejoy: I think God put you here to test *my* faith...: Wait! You forgot your cockring/scrunchie!!!!

I couldn't have said it any better myself... though I would probably through in a few more LOLs or J/Ks, as they tend to cut the level one wishes to be taken seriously (or should I say srsly) in half.

Gaaackadak, reading the entire article made me even more nauseous. KW strikes me as one of those shiny Teflon people who freaks out if a bird shits on their windshield. Outside world? Horrors, keep it away from me! I am in Cosmoland empowering women!

I guess I don't understand empowerment. Silly me.

@bananastand: So like a PhD you're bananastand, DaS?

@BritneyCanadaWhore: like the crackers? because those are delicious.

@blackbirdfly: Funeral cleavage? Did the article have a special pull-out cleavage ruler? I would hate to confuse my Briss cleavage with my Baby Shower cleavage or my PTA meeting cleavage. That's a lot of numbers to store in my brain along with this month's Cosmo sex tips.

Maybe that's a typo? All those readers had just read the anti-shine makeup tips so they wrote in to say "Thanks Cosmo! I feel so empowdered."

Anyway, did she not realise how flip "readers don't come to Cosmo to learn about the genital mutilation of women in the Third World." sounds?
It's like a line from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which I realise is an embarrassing reference to make.

@rosasparks: This is the kind of advice that leads to good guys like my BF thinking they don't really care about receiving oral. Licking it like an ice cream cone? God. Yeah, lick it like you're afraid of it, girls!

OK but but but... aren't we all assuming that ladies who read Cosmo are purely stupid and totally informed by one flimsy glossy mag and nothing else? Isn't that patronising? I don't like Cosmo, I don't like it's coverlines, I don't like any man-pleasing bass-line agenda BUT I don't think women are as easily proscribed to as all that. Even the ones who read Cosmo. A gal can dip in and out of that crap, even enjoy it, look at the pretty ladies and the pretty frocks, and read silly articles on gob jobs without it informing everything about her. When we talk about popular culture dumbing us down, aren't we totally underestimating, you know, erm, US?

@ineffable.me: That's what I thought until a close family member stepped out of the limousine at her own father's funeral with her tits spilling out in a very uncomfortable way. But everyone was like, well, she's grieving, so....

@Topsyjane: Why, yes! I worked hard for that degree, dammit!

Actually, in one of my classes this past semester we had a discussion about the content & influence of women's magazines and how they're anti-feminist and haven't changed at all since the fifties, and this one girl was all "No way! Women's magazines are feminist and empowering and way different now than sixty years ago!" so I emailed my professor a couple of Jezebel Cover Lies features & that post where that chick from the thirties explained what ladymags are all about and he definitely brought them in to the next class to support the point. And I got extra credit. So thanks, Jezebel.

@bananastand: Exactly! Who says ladies don't like science?

@Rose_Selavy: I've believed this for a while and the above article only fortifies my opinion, that 'empower' and 'empowerment' are meaningless words, joining 'gourmet' and 'home-style'.

@rosasparks: @ineffable.me: @AbbyNormal: I'm not making this up. Cosmo really is that stupid. And the "funeral cleavage" photo was showing way more cleavage than I would feel comfortable showing ANYWHERE (well, all the photos were).

@Poppy Muldoon: We're talking about Cosmo and the message it sends its readers, not the readers themselves.

@cinemaddict: Well, everyone does grieve differently.

Actually, I'd be surprised if Cosmo hasn't had that advice in an article about great places to meet men, such as funerals, family court, sperm banks....

@bananastandJessicaLovejoy: I think God put you here to test *my* faith...: i'm with you on the poo nearby excuse. best excuse ever, i think.

@Poppy Muldoon:

I'm almost agreeing with you - except that WE buy the sleazy rag. WE keep them in business, which says something pathetic about our need to be treated like dumbasses by a magazine that talks down to us.

@ineffable.me: But what if the undertaker is HOT? And I hear they make good money - all the better to fund your chosen lifestyle of appletinis and shopping trips once you Land Him With Your Stellar Beej Technique By Making Him Feel Like A Real Man (p. 146)!

@ineffable.me: the only time i showed funeral cleavage was when my ex boyfriend's stepmother passed away. it was the day after i moved into my apartment and my entire life was packed up in boxes. i found the first black dress and went with it.

Sexual liberation isn't a bad thing at all! In fact it's one of the reasons why it's now socially acceptable for us to have soul-searing climaxes and then talk about it on the Internet the next day, instead of dutifully submitting to the missionary position until our husbands are done having their way.

It's when sexual liberation and freedom becomes equated with the pursuit of pleasing dudes that it kind of becomes an issue. Cosmo seems overwhelmingly to be about "OMG, you should totally make him sexily think you're sexy with your sexing!" instead of "HAY GUISE, have some orgasms because it's fun and they make you feel less stabby."

It's not empowerment if you're still buying into the patriarchy. I don't like patriarchy is my Cosmos. It interferes with the cranberry.

@Archetype: Those who do not learn from the past... are doomed to create a really bad women's magazine.

What?! Because women who have orgasms can't possibly be interested in the outside world, let alone think at all. I am now convinced that Kate White is one of those male douche writers Jezebel brings to our attention. How sad.

NOTHING says "empowerment" like the leopard print dress she sports on her website. And by "empowerment" I mean Fran Drescher.