Cosmopolitan,
often referred to as “Cosmo,” is a
magazine that is geared towards the woman consumer. Cosmo wasn’t always the place one would go
to learn “great sex.” The magazine was
close to closing it’s doors until the company herd a pitch from Helen Gurley
Brown. Brown was the writer of a book
called Sex and the Single Girl. [i]She
wanted to find a way to further reach her curious fans and decided that
responding to their cravings through a magazine was the best way to do so. Brown emphasized that women not only could
be happy without a man, but also encouraged them to sleep with whomever they
wanted to. [ii] Like her book, the women of the sixties were
snatching up the magazine with haste.
The sixties
began to see a whole new kind of women, one that was taking charge of their
sexuality. Women became more
knowledgeable about sex and defiantly more sexually promiscuous. Not only did the magazine encourage
sexuality, it also pushed women to be assertive, and learn to speak their minds
against men.
Women were happily single and
frolicking in a new kind of freedom. One
of the main draws to the magazine was the issue about the “pill that makes
women more responsive. This was implying
that if women took birth control they would be able to better enjoy sex.
Conservative
men and women found the magazine to be threatening to society. Some still even find the nature of the
magazine to be insulting today. Many
thought that in reading the magazine that one would loose the sexual morals
that conservatives have been clinging to so dearly. Worries about premarital sex and spread of
sexually transmitted diseases became prevalent.
In a study
a control group did not read Cosmo and the experimental group was given short
exposure to the magazine. [iii]After
interviews with the women of the study the researchers found that the women
exposed to the magazine were far more okay with the idea of women being
sexually assertive. All in all the
magazine proved to be thought provoking in an way that women may have not had
the courage to think of before. The
newfound liberalism in sexuality did not stop there and could not be diminished
by conservatives. The magazine was front
and center for society to see and skyrocketed in sales. Today the magazine still goes along with the
theme of women being promiscuous in the bedroom and being strong willed. Regardless of if the magazine is controversial
to conservative beliefs it was not taken off the racks in the sixties and
cannot be expected to be taken off of them any time soon.
[i] Moore, Crystal. "The
Sexualized Society." Lecture,, , April 1, 2014.
[ii] Benjamin, Jennifer. "How Cosmo Changed the World."
Cosmopolitan. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/about/about-us_how-cosmo-changed-the-world
(accessed April 30, 2014).
[iii] Mark, Kristen. "The Impact of Cosmo Magazine on Women’s
Sexual Attitudes." Kinsey Confidential RSS.
http://kinseyconfidential.org/cosmo-impacts-womens-sexual-attitudes/ (accessed
April 30, 2014).
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