Comments

1
I've always liked this review of Cosmopolitan's useless and idiotic sex advice:

http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/1273/cosm…
2
You could take the word "sex" out of your headline and it would still be 100% true.

3
Cosmo is apparently a gold mine for stuff like this. Examples: (1) (2) (3)
4
Or he's a zoophile...
5
cook topless

ouch
6
I'm not convinced the sex-advice interns aren't in on the joke on a lot of these.

That's not to say publishing terrible, terrible sex advice is socially responsible, but I don't feel like we should be impugning the sexual abilities of the interns behind this cenotaph to sexual incompetence.
7
I can't think of anything less sexy than having ice cream on my person. it's the worst fucking feeling in the world. that might go for nearly most every other food, but especially ice cream.
8
They missed the "put his penis in your armpit to get him hard" tip. That's my all-time favorite bad Cosmo sex tip.
9
@8 Armpits. The NEW place to fuck if you want to stay pure in the eyes of the Lord. Thanks, Cosmo! (Next week in the advice column: Dear Cosmo, my boyfriend refuses to fuck my armpit if it's not freshly shaved....)
10
No, worst ever was to blindfold your partner, then while giving him head slip an ice-cube in your mouth.

Really? Ever know anybody who tried that and it didn't end badly?
11
Honey?!? Wow. That has got to be the worst idea on the list...
12
isn't the hole in a donut a bit small? I have either been looking at the wrong dicks or the wrong donuts
13
Sounds like tips from someone with a 'feeder fetish".
14
The doughnut example scares me, nothing like watching someone bite something with their teeth next to your junk.
15
I never got into food and sex. I get how Americans are totally into it though. I mean just look at our waistlines and I can see how people equate sex and eating.
16
I think they're all just hungry over there. Aren't they all over-obsessed with weight and looks? Maybe they're so starved, they'd rather eat than have sex.
17
When I saw this I was hoping Dan was linking to http://pervocracy.blogspot.com, which dishes on each issue of Cosmo but offers a lot of other interesting commentary from a feminist and pro-kink perspective.
18
@18: Thank you! I was thinking the same thing. I love that blog!
19
I mean 17
20
Something tells me that Cosmo readers don't own rubber sheets, either. How on earth is anyone supposed to deal with that mess?? Wake up covered in flies?

Still, nothing will top the tip about boning "your man" in the woods and putting a cold stone you collected earlier in the day on his taint. Yowza.

I think #16's on to something: maybe chocolate won't make you fat if you eat it off a penis? Science should look into that.
21
We need metardtard to weigh in on the ice-cream suggestion.
22
As an undersexed individual, I thank you for this information, Mr. Savage. Paraphrased from Dave Barry, "The only thing necessary to drive a man wild in bed is to be in it with him."
23
aw, but they gave my favorite sex advice ever.

Q: "what's the best way to give a hand job?"
A: "use your mouth"

24
TWO posts in one morning involving breasts and painting... did Mudede hack the Slog?
25
Oh my goodness. Thank whatever I am old enough for Cosmo to not have any hold on my fevered mind. It bugs me to recall that I once in awhile read Cosmo freshman year of college, soon before I discovered Savage Love. Happily I never *tried* anything they suggested. Their lauding of honey as a freaky bedplay aid is far from new.

Whenever I go to a grocery store in a more conservative area of the country, & I see the black plastic 'cover sheet' protecting people form seeing the 'filth' that is Cosmo, I sigh to myself. Yes, protect the young..not from talking about blowjobs, but from the awful, awful advice in Cosmo.
26
As silly as cosmo is, a lot of what people do in bed sounds silly when you're not doing it.

We tried the chocolate syrup thing once when the bed sheets needed changed anyway, and breast-painting was a surprisingly sexy side-effect. Seemed silly afterwards, sure, but in the moment it was hot.
27
@21: Lolz lolz lolz.
28
I cannot think of anything more gross that covering yourself in food. I mean, I get ice cream on my fingers and no matter how hard I lick it off, it's still sticky. And not in a good sticky kind of way. But annoying. Nothing gets in the way of good friction like ice cream/honey/chocolate residue.

This is sort of reason number 572 that I am glad I'm gay . . .
29
I'm with @16 - it just sounds like they are hungry.

I've tried the whole whipped cream, chocolate sauce thing in bed and didn't like it. It's sticky, messy, gross, and I found it actually impeded my sex drive.

Personally, I think suggestions like these are for people who don't really like sex and are looking for ways to "make it fun." I love sex and have no problems making it fun without food or a lot of other props (although some props can be very fun).

Now that I think about it, maybe @13 is right - sounds like advice from somebody who has a food fetish.
30
cooking naked doesn't really work. If it's not from the grease splatters while frying up chicken or fries, it's getting hair follicles in the pastry dough.
And ya might want to try using an eclair instead of a doughnut. It makes the shame feel decadent!
31
The sexiest thing that ever happened to me was being staked out naked over a bunch of fire ants and being covered with honey! Hoo baby! Hotcha hotcha!
32
@30, for their target audience, "cooking" means "standing in front of the microwave".
33
There is room for ice cream or doughnuts in sex. After you're done.

After you've exhausted yourself from sex -- if some dude brought me either along with a towel, I'd be tempted to propose in the haze.
34
Oh, those interns know just how stupid this advice is. You try coming up with some new list-style suggestions to make sex hot that applies only to straight, non-fetish-oriented, easily-freaked-out people month after month, year after year.

I can hear the meeting now:

Sex Tips Editor to unpaid intern: "Betsy, we need a list of 'things that will drive your man wild in bed' for the August issue. We did chocolate in April, and honey in May. Any thoughts?"

Betsy (writing her grocery shopping list: toilet paper, mayonnaise, dog food, peanut butter, ground turkey, dried red chili pepper flakes): "um, how about 'slather your man with mayonnaise and lick it off him?'"

Fashion editor: "too fattening. We can't have that in the same issue as the 'Ozark Diet,' it's contradictory. And we're showing the 'barely-there body-skimming shapes for fall' in that issue. How can someone fit into them if she's eaten a lot of mayo?"

Photo editor: "Tip number four on that list is always 'have sex outside in some uncomfortable natural setting. Mayonnaise will spoil in the sun, and we'll get sued for causing a case of food poisoning."

Other unpaid intern: "Who wants to eat mayonnaise? That's gross!"

Sex Tips editor: "Betsy, can you come with something else?"

Betsy: "What about 'cover your guy's tool with crushed red chili pepper flakes and . . . can we tell readers to lick red chili pepper flakes? What if someone goes to the hospital? Is the lawyer here?"

Managing editor: Forget that! Red chili pepper could be construed as a suggestion of something kinky. We could lose 65% of our readers, most of whom are young, shy, giggly unexperienced girls. We don't want to appear too non-mainstream."

Besty: "How about peanut butter?"

Sex-Tips editor: "Perfect! And we can work in sexy double entendres involving 'Skippy."

Someone else: "Didn't we use that 'Skippy' pun last October?"

Sex-Tips editor: "Okay; make a double entrendre with 'Jiff.'"

Diet editor: "I think I can work in a diet-related angle."

Managing editor: "let's see if we can get some advertising revenue from Jiff if we do a tie-in."

Sex-Tips editor: "Good job, Betsy! Trina, start think of the list for the September issue."

Trina (another unpaid intern): "Umm . . . 'Lick cottage cheese off your man's nuts to drive him nuts?'"

Sex-Tips editor: "Trina, you're a natural! Keep this up and there might be a job here for you."
Betsy (thinking): Good think I didn't have Liquid Plummer on my shopping list!"

35
Isn't it obvious? These people are starving, and looking for an excuse to eat something besides the undressed lettuce and raspberry leaf tea they live on to achieve a proper "Cosmo Girl" body. If it's sex, it's not technically eating, right?
36
Hey, don't knock ice cream when its 98 degrees and the apartment isn't air conditioned. Mostly though, it's the cold spoon that helps. Cold spoon, warm mouth. Good stuff....
37
Tried licking chocolate sauce off my GF's tits once. Just made the next half hour or so sticky and uncomfortable.
38
Well, after 17 years of marriage, I have finally learned what to do to drive my man wild in bed (I make no promises about other men). No food involved at all. The problem is that these interns at Cosmo are dieting or writing about dieting so much anything involving food triggers some sort of pavlovian arousal response.
39
Sugar & vaginas & penises shouldn't mix. (Hello, yeast infection!)
40
@6

You've got "beta" written all over your fucking face.

Error has no rights.
41
Hmm! Wonder if someone @ Jezebel reads SLOG for article ideas. ;) Or maybe the anti-Cosmo vibe is just in the air today.

http://jezebel.com/5919206/cosmos-44-mos…

42
How about tips like "Don't be a cock tease" and "Learn to give yourself a fucking orgasm before you expect him to"?

43
Sounds pretty good to me!
44
@41, the Jezebel article is a reprint of the Nerve piece this Slog item is quoting.
45
I've always maintained that the sex advice in Cosmo is proof that hot girls suck at sex. Most of the "never heard before" advice on pleasing a man involves "touch his penis" or "put his penis in your mouth" or "touch his balls." Seriously, if you've been fuckin' this long in life and you haven't figured out how a dick works, and your sex life involves dicks, you're a hopeless ass case.
46
My favorite was always "call out his full name in bed." Like, including his middle name, like he's in trouble with his mom or something.
47
Ya, Fnarf @ 44, I caught that after hitting save. See what happens when I try to survive a Monday without caffeine? Bad news. :/
48
If Cosmo were really interested in getting people to do kinky things to each other, they'd be telling couples to do coke off their partner's tits, ass, taint, etc. That would actually be hot.
49
Helen Gurley Brown's book "Sex and the Single Girl" published in the early 1960s was an important precursor to the feminists a few years later by saying flat out that women can enjoy sex, have multiple partners (even out of wedlock!!) and be successful in business. (Google her if you don't believe me.)
She was editor in chief of Cosmo in the late 60s to 70s and as I recall the magazine was much less dippy--still some advice on how to make your man happy in bed--but that wasn't the only focus. I certainly don't remember any advice about putting spaghetti sauce on one's nipples, or I may have tried it.
Anyway, just trying to fulfill my duty as the historical perspectivist.
50
Makes sense when you consider that a disproportionate percentage of their readership probably suffers from various combinations of eating disorders and food fixations.
51
"Feed each other ice cream [in the dark]. Not being able to see means more spilling, which means more licking up the mess."

Which actually means you will be stuck cleaning up much more mess while he sleeps.
52
@ crone @ 49: note that she didn't mention birth control, abortion nor STDs once in the entire book.
53
@52 Sex and Single Girl came out in 1964. The pill was new and wasn't legalized until 1965. And then only made legal for single women in 1972.

Brown started writing it in the late fifties and it was advocating one of the first sex positive feminist stances for mainstream women. The criticism of her omitting abortion and the pill is rather silly and mostly a talking point originating from Friedan who accused Brown of promoting "wanton promiscuity."

54
I don't read (or even touch) Cosmo, so I don't know if the examples cited are representative of the typical Cosmo sex tip, but what is cited is repulsive and preposterous. Donut around the penis? What?! lathering the body with food? What is with the food obsession? I would HATE to have food on me!
55
Oddly enough, my husband is the one with the odd food/sex fixations, his favorites including 1) using sugar-free popsicles/fudgesicles on/in various sensitive spots (variant of the cold spoon/warm mouth mentioned above) and 2) rubbing my clit vigorously with the flat side of a half-sliced peach (pit removed) before eating it.
56
The only way I incorporate food or drink into sex is to have a bottle of Vitaminwater nearby so I can take a swig after doing oral sex. Otherwise, eew, gross, no way, I need to take a shower.
57
This reminds me of Dan's column from about a million years ago in which he said licking food off people was a "vastly overrated, faux-naughty, boring breeder kink." Some turns of phrase just stick with you.
58
While I have never taken any of Cosmo's advice, I have done one of the "second opinions":

35.Then, later, during oral sex, pause and say, “OM NOM NOM NOM.”

My boyfriend and I are silly :P
59
Dan,

I believe you once referred to this BS as "bullshit breeder faux-kink"
60
Should I feel weird because I am surprised that so many people are repulsed by the idea of having food on them? I have never used food as a sex toy but I don't see the problem. I found a jar of "body chocolate" in my parents room once, I was embarrassed because it belonged to my parents but I never thought it was gross.

Cosmo definitely seems to have some hangups about food though. "Avoid anything that'll cause hearty belly laughs, like Superbad — a jiggly tummy won't make you feel good." Yeah, don't laugh, it will make you remember you have a stomach. WTF?

"As you're eating dinner together, say something X-rated like, 'See how I'm devouring this piece of meat? That's how I'm going to devour you.'" Apparently when Cosmo thinks "X-rated" they think "cannibalism fetish porn."
61
I read Cosmo in the checkout line just to laugh at the bad sex tips. My favorite recent one was an article about "30 super kinky things your man wants you to do!" or similar. The article turned out to have a list of "kinky" things (blindfolds, greeting him naked at the doorway, wearing a black bra under a white t-shirt, blowjobs), and how often "your man" wants you to do them. One of them was "use one of your toys... on him!" and it said he wants you to do it "NEVER!"

I was just like, "Okay, well I guess I can't explain, then, why I bought my husband a dildo that he'd been eyeing for months, and that he doesn't want me even using."
62
@ 53 tkc: I did not know that Friedan had brought that up. To me it was a real shocker when I read the book. I collect what I call etiquette books -- aka cultural behaviour instruction manuals. I think of them as fascinating and telling artifacts of the time they were written. One I own is a paperback copy of Sex & the Single Girl. I'm 45, so by the time I acquired it, it had been part of 20th c culture for a while. When I read it, I was shocked that no mention was made, especially as (1) "gentleman's manuals" since the early victorian period at least have had (frequently hilarious or horrifying) descriptions of ways of preventing pregnancy and disease and (2) my mother had a diaphragm in 1952. She was married at the time, so it was legal, but, when she got divorced and was Single, she still had a diaphragm because she had a doctor who thought the Comstock Laws were ridiculous. She managed to find more than one doctor w/ this opinion in more than one city.

Birth control didn't start with The Pill. And, frankly, although HGB brought a *version* of sex-positivity to the mainstream, in my reading of the book, I still found it a vaguely nausea-inducing, new-spin-on-it, How To Bag Your Man instruction book. (IIRC, she even says at one point something about how there are even women existing who prefer other women rather than men, "poor things".) I'm not on Friedan's side, either. I've got no beef with Wanton Promescuity. I love it, as a matter of fact. But, no, I don't feel like I've gotta give HGB loads of props. I used to give her more *before* I read the book.
63
I'd say food kink is largely kink for beginners. I once read a book where all the characters were into food kink and I found out later the author is a virgin. Mystery solved!

It's no surprise they are all hungry, you should see the diets the magazine recommends.

64
Hahaha. This reminds me of the worst blow job of my life. She had a cosmo strategically opened to an article on how to give good blowjobs and she kept stopping to read surreptitiously and would then do what the article said, in an awkward, wooden manner. Of course, being a gentleman, I pretended it was great. I might have been convulsing with laughter, but she thought it was pleasure. I broke up with her and then dated a personal trainer dude who gave a great blowjob. Apparently she thought he was hot too because after we broke up she tried to hire him as her personal trainer.

Hmmmmm. where was I going with this? Oh yeah, cosmo sucks and does a disservice to women who would be better off exploring on their own.
65
@ 53: Hey guess what, birth control existed before the Pill!
66
@65 Hey guess what, most of that birth control relied on the responsibility of men and was still technically illegal in most places.
67
@64: NO, you dumb sod, now she's going to give the same crappy blow job to the next guy she dates, under the impression that it's great.
68
The real low point
was when some Cosmo airhead intern
tried to convince America's kids
that anal and oral were 100%Foolproof&Safe....

what a bimbo.
69
Daniel.
Have you checked in on how your fav homo-retailer is doing?

JC Penny stock peaked at over $43 a share in February.
Currently it is $21.
ouch.

The old CEO bailed yesterday.
The new CEO, Ron Johnson, blames Penny's problems on its marketing.

maybe they haven't featured enough gay dads in their advertising?

couldn't you be a darling and run out and buy some more of those dingy Tshirts you so love?
70
69

wow.....

Back in February,
the department store chain faced criticism
from the American Family Association's One Million Moms project
for its hiring of Ellen DeGeneres to be the company's new spokesfaggot.

Back in February.
When the stock was at $43.
instead of $21......

In a direct response to the boycott campaign of One Million Moms,
JCPenney ran a Father's Day ad featuring a same-sex couple.

gutsy.
and very trendy.....
Danny gushed and slobbered about it all over the Slog on May 31.

His exact words were: "Well done, JCPenney. Suck it, haters."

Well Done, Indeed!

One Million Moms say, "Suck It Yourself, Danny......"
71
What you have to realize is that Cosmo is beholden to the chocolate/doughnut/laundry soap advertising cartels. Then this kind of "advice" makes perfect sense.
73
Cosmo is for teenage girls who are just figuring out how to be hetero women and looking for some guidance on satisfying men and looking pretty. Don't read too much into it.
74
That's how you get ants.
75
Mixing food and sweets was fun when I was 20. I do remember a great time involving my BF and a cake... But as I got older I came to realize that I didn't need the excuse of cake to have sex (or the excuse of sex to eat cake!).
@58 you actually made me guffaw out loud. But I think you've ruined oral sex for me for the next month.
76
As a person with Asperger's, I have to say, the very idea of sticky totally turns me off. Ew! Ew! Sticky! So food kinks are pretty much out. I've done a couple photo shoots with whipped cream, and discovered why photographers use shaving cream instead. a) it's not as sticky, and b) whipped cream melts under lights in seconds.

Most of their advice will lead to raging yeast infections, too. For crissake, if you want a sex tip that's actually useful, have a gay man teach you to give proper head.

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