In the world of Cosmo, everyone's boyfriend is a lazy, selfish, messy, unromantic jerk who needs to be "trained" to be, you know, marriage material. Men, in Cosmo-Land, are dogs. Or elephants, horses, or chimpanzees, depending on the situation. Everything that your crappy, terrible boyfriend does wrong can apparently be fixed by utilizing animal training methods: essentially, you need to trick and train him into being the person you want him to be. Mmm, healthy! Sounds like a really mature, open way to build a relationship. Here's an example:

#5 BOYFRIEND BUMMER: He Won't Drag Himself Off the Couch

As Used on Lions. Lions are, in a word, lazy. According to trainers, they sleep for up to 20 hours a day and only move when they see it as beneficial to themselves. "Trying to get a lion to do something when it's in resting mode can be very difficult and even dangerous," says lion wrangler Dave Salmoni, host of Animal Planet's "After the Attack." "That's why we make use of the animal's active time instead of trying to force it into doing something it doesn't want to when it's chilling."

Apply It to Your Guy. A man in veg-out mode is unlikely to move no matter how much you try to engage him. "You have to gauge when he's in a productive mood and then pounce to get him to do what you want," says Riche. If you notice that he prefers working out in the morning, that's a good time to ask him to help you clean when he's finished. If you need something done during his downtime and don't want to wait, bribe him. "Motivate him by making it worth his while," says Riche. When you feel like you haven't been able to have a heart-to-heart but he's in a coma in front of the TV, try plying him with his favorite snack. If his cravings for the food outweigh his interest in the TV, he'll eventually cave.

So...basically you should treat your man like a lion by bribing him to clean up his shit with a delicious snack. You know who else this strategy works on? Four year olds. Look, man. If you need to "train" someone to fit the mold of what you feel your ideal partner is, perhaps you're with the wrong person. These articles are just as gross as the Men's Health articles that give instructions on how to "make her yours," by weird manipulative techniques: there's no emphasis on real conversation as much as how to manipulate the situation for your own benefit. And sometimes, it's better to leave people's bad habits alone. Here are a few lessons I've learned over the years:

#1 Boyfriend Bummer: He Won't Stop Sleeping As Experienced With: Cthulhu
Look, all I'm saying is, sometimes you should just let him sleep. He will wake when he wants to. And if you wake him up, you might not like the results. I had this boyfriend once (you don't know him, he lives in R'lyeh) and I totally woke up him before he was done dreaming and let me just tell you: it was NOT a good move on my part. I mean, it was really bad. Really, really bad.


#2 Boyfriend Bummer: He Wears A Costume As Experienced With: Batman
So I was all about the costume for the first few weeks, because I'm pretty gothy and was all "Ooh, bats, nice." But then he insisted upon wearing it everywhere: to the movies, to the grocery store—he even wore it to my friend Tricia's wedding, which was so embarrassing, because it was in August and it was 102 degrees outside and his pants nearly melted and stuck to the pew at church. But as soon as I asked him to take the costume off, I lost him, and I've missed him ever since. Thankfully I've started dating a nice rich guy named Bruce who, strangely enough, kisses just as well as my beloved bat.


Boyfriend Bummer #3: He's An Imaginary Creature As Experienced With: Figment
Nobody liked Figment, but we were in love. Everyone kept saying, "He's not real, Hortense, that's why his name his Figment!" But I didn't care. I saw him for what he was, not what he wasn't. It wasn't until he stood me up for an anniversary dinner that things fell apart. "You didn't show!" I yelled. "I never show," he yelled back, "I don't exist!" I begged him to materialize into a real thing, but he refused. Sometimes you just can't force an imaginary being to cross into the real world.


Boyfriend Bummer #4: He Is A Bowl Of Cereal As Experienced With: A Bowl Of Frosted Flakes
I tried so hard to make him understand that true love meant never getting soggy in milk. He didn't agree. And now I'm left with nothing but a dirty spoon and a box of empty promises.

6 Ways To Train Your Boyfriend [Cosmopolitan]

Of course, just because some inventor decided to "invent" the perfect woman — as a machine — doesn't mean that the proper response in simplifying and objectifying a woman is to turn around and invent the "perfect man." (Even if The Sun's Sally Brook recommends starting with Daniel Craig's body.)

That said, I would be lying if I said I didn't used to dream about something I called Frankenboyfriend. Not a robot, mind you, but a living, breathing man, made up of elements of the things I loved about my ex-boyfriends. D. was so tender, so sweet, while looking like a scary, tattooed ex-con. I loved that contrast. J. was so smart, and full of surprises; the economics major and accountant who quit to become a motorcycle mechanic. I loved his fearlessness and "fuck it" attitude. B. burned with passion: About music, about food, booze and living large. We loved all the same movies and music, and I loved that we had a shorthand and a best-friend-ish relationship. There was a time when I longed to cut these pieces of them out and stitch them together into a brand new guy. "I know exactly what I want," I thought to myself. I would leave D's stubbornness and take only the gentle-as-a-lamb part; I would cut around J.'s meandering and take his awesome sense of humor and witty brain; I'd snip off the temper and bluntness from B. and carefully extract the fire and zest for life. Is that shallow?

In any case: That was then.

Now, of course, I see more clearly: When I was seeing D. we were both inflexible; when I was with J. we were both too young; when I was with B. his fire and my insecurities were what made us fight all the time. I've had to work on myself since then. And, even more than that: I used to say I just wanted a nice guy who'd take me out for steak and champagne; my current beau is straightedge & vegan. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, but I had no idea. While it's true that all of the elements I was looking for (tenderness, smarts, passion, joie de vivre) are in my new guy, he's got qualities I didn't even know I wanted. Amazing, surprising, lovable idiosyncrasies that you can't concoct in a lab or program into a computer. Take that, Le Trung.

Wall.He [The Sun]
Earlier: FemBot

[Image via VooDoo Babies]

Believe me, we're broken up now. But it was one of those super-stoopid, on-again-off-again, drama-filled relationships. I loved him, sure. But when we were fighting, which was often, I hated him. I wanted to stick a fork in his eyeball and kick him in the groin. Instead I just yelled at him, or hung up the phone. I don't know if it's because of my brain's "hate circuit," as Zeki and Romaya call it. I know that passion is passion — be it passionate hate or passionate love. But how is it that some people manage to flip both switches at the same time? And why is it that some people — not me, but others I know, in similar situations — find that they can't help but be drawn to a love that's got more than a little bit of hate in it?

Thin Line Between Love And Hate? - Science Knows Why [Reuters]

Image via Flickr

Of the dudes I polled for this post, most of them had the same answer: "If I'm into her, that stuff doesn't bother me." Which is the right attitude to have, although when asked if it was more intimate to insert a tampon or remove it, they all said they'd be less bothered by witnessing insertion. One guy actually said, "You know I'm a little crazy about blood and HIV and all that." HIV!!! On a tampon!!!

So when in a relationship do you cross that barrier? For some of us, it's not really a choice. When I was 17, I changed my pad at my boyfriend's house and his dog found it and tore the shit out of it and got it all over the upstairs in his house. We were at the movies at the time, so his brother-in-law had to clean it up. I was mortified and actually, looking back on it, they were kind of asses for telling me about it, just to embarrass me. The silver-lining to that is that period stuff has never embarrassed me at all since then.

Anyway, I've always thought it is bizarre and unacceptable when guys who like anal sex are weird about when girls talk about pooping. It's like, you know what? That hole was actually made for poop to come out, not for your dick to go in. And I think it's equally bizarre and unacceptable when guys are weird about their girlfriends changing their period products in front of them. I understand that the need for a level of mystique to keep things sexy, but it's almost impossible to sustain throughout the course of a relationship: it's exhausting. It's also damaging: trying to mask the reality of our bodily functions from men simply reinforces the idea of women as sex objects, not human beings.

Earlier: How Do You Break The Poop Ice With A New Paramour?

P.S. No animals were drugged in the making of this video.

At some point, we all need to become adults, and in doing so, we need to stop being so selfish. If you want to make a relationship work, you have to do what you should and not what you want. You should make your man feel good about himself, even though you may want to feel ecstasy. Think about it: An orgasm lasts for a few seconds. A relationship can last for decades, if you work at it!

It may sound harsh, but it's true: Our body's primary biological function is not about orgasming. And that's why it's perfectly alright to compromise something like that, especially if it's for a better cause that's bigger than you, like securing a really great boyfriend. Because at the end of the day, that can be so much more satisfying than any physical sensation!

*So, as you probably know by now, Jezebel will be moving in a "new direction." I'll still be writing about sex, but it will be more focused on health/relationships, and have a purpose, rather than just sex for sex's sake. In addition, I'll be spending less time here talking about taking off my clothes, and more time on what clothes I like to wear.

Related: Why Women Should Fake Orgasms [DailyMail]