I posted the URL for this video in an earlier blog, but here it is again with a little explanation :)



I get chills every time I watch this video. They change absolutely EVERYTHING about her appearance! If you watch closely, you can see that they put several layers of make-up on, insert colored eye contacts, change her hair, and then to top it all off they actually cut out sections of her face, make her neck several inches longer and make her eyes and lips bigger! What the heck!? For every model they do this. This is what women have to look at every day. Women are wondering "why can't I look like that?" and men are wondering "Why doesn't my girlfriend/wife look like that?" It's wrong on so many levels, yet it's accepted world wide and everyone is suffering from the consequences. Women are dissatisfied with their appearance and a lack of confidence causes sensitivity, misunderstandings and bad sex. Men are confused as to why their girlfriend or wife feels so crappy about herself, and they may also be wondering why every girlfriend they date has flaws. :S ahhhh.

Cosmo's Bad Girl Bible

Heitman, Bethany. "Cosmo's Bad Girl Bible." Cosmopolitan Nov 2009: 178-79. Print.

This article gives just one example of the very sexual articles found in Cosmopolitan magazines. The authors give women many different ways to be "bad" successfully. For example, she teaches the reader how to lie well, how to date multiple men at once and how to undress guys with your eyes. The authors uses advice from experts, such as body language experts, communication consultants and dating management sites. The audience of this article is definitely women, since Cosmopolitan is a magazine for women. Article is written in an "in your face" kind of way, making it seem like it is okay to be "bad". The authors gives ways for women to feel powerful and noticed at parties by being obnoxious and crude. This article will work well to show how Cosmopolitan makes women who read it think they need to change their personality, their morals and how they look in order to get attention from guys and other people around them. In reality, it just ends up making women feel self consious and lowers their self esteem because these tips don't actually work and they will never look or feel like the women in the Cosmo magazines. Along with reading the article, women are affected by the pictures going along with the article.

Distorted Views

My previous blog mentioned the fact that women have a very distorted view of sex. For humans, sex has three main purposes: To make babies, to further the emotional connection between partners (love), and for pleasure. It's pretty obvious by reading Cosmo magazines that women have more intentions than just those three. To go more in depth about the subject, I found a Newsweek article that talked about the other sexual intentions women have. Here's just a brief list of some reasons why women have sex:

• To feel better physically ("I had a migraine")

• To feel better about themselves

• Revenge ("I wanted to get back at my partner")

• Anger/sadness/boredom/ loneliness

• A confidence booster

• Money

• Self pity or pity for the man

• To get what they want

• Power
  

The article began with a story about a woman feeling pity for her 25 year old friend who was still a virgin. She decided she would "show him how it's done". By sleeping with him she felt confident as his "teacher" and powerful. Ultimately, she slept with him for selfish reasons. Ya, she thinks she made him feel better, but her real reasons for sleeping with him were to feel better about herself. After she slept with him though, she probably didn't feel good. It was just a short-lived confidence booster that probably trickled into a serious relationship or marriage and caused problems. I'm sure there will be people who read this blog post that don't have the same belief system as me when it comes to sex. I believe sex should be something special shared between a man and a women after marriage, but even with that said, it's obvious that no matter what your morals are, having sex with multiple partners or even with one partner for the wrong reasons is causing problems. Since I'm a virgin and not married, when I read some of the Cosmo articles, I start thinking that maybe the only way to get a guy is to put out. Those are just fleeting thoughts that go away quickly, but I can imagine that girls actually taking the advice of these magazines are thinking along those lines. "If I buy that bra that makes my cleavage perfect, and then I get that Cover Girl make-up that makes my lips look sexy, OH and then if I memorize those bedroom tricks, than I'm SURE guys will like me. And then if I learn all those sex positions, I will be powerful and he'll know that I'm confident." Like I said, girls are taking the advice of these articles, they use these "tips" throughout life on a few men or multiple men, and then eventually they get married. They may wonder why those tips never made guys love them, or never made them feel better about themselves. Then they wonder why their marriage is failing. Instead of having sex to better their marriage, they are using it for all the wrong reasons, and feeling poorly about themselves in the process. This causes arguments. Also, how can a man feel good about sleeping with a woman that is all used up? Or that is constantly trying to overpower him with sex?

Self Esteem

So I forgot to mention in my intro blog that I've never actually opened a Cosmopolitan magazine. I've seen them at the pet hospital where I work (only women work there), but never got the nerve to open one. For the first time, I looked up Cosmo articles, feeling a tremendous amount of guilt while reading them. It could be my "religious" up bringing that made it feel wrong, but seriously in my mind those articles were equivalent to porn. The Albertson's Library had every article from every issue since July 1989. The first few articles I looked at were from the October 2009 issue and were titled "Sexy vs. Skanky", "The two hottest things you can say in bed", and "The ultimate sexy-ass workout," and those weren't even the worst subjects. The few articles that weren't about actually having sex, were about how to look sexier with your clothes and make-up. A few articles were about health (sexual health of course), money, power and some celebrity gossip, but that's about it. Wikipedia says that Cosmo was originally a family magazine, circulation reaching 25, 000 in 1888, but the original editors went out of business so a new editor took over. Sales were declining, but when Helen Gurley Brown became chief editor in 1965, circulation went from thousands to millions instantly. The cover of the magazine usually consisted of a young model in skimpy clothing, and the articles talked openly about sexual issues (and still do). So does this mean sex really does sell? Why are people, women in particular, so interested in reading about sex and how to make themselves look better? I think problems with intimate relationships stem from issues regarding woman's self esteem, way before they enter into a relationship. You've all heard of the dove adds portraying a young girl going through life with the fake models on magazines, billboards and television adds. Fashion, make-up and sex is being thrown in her face everywhere she turns. She's wondering, why don't I look like that? How can I look like that? Why don't boys like me? How can I get boys to like me? So she turns to these magazines with distorted views on sex and how to better yourself, but no matter how hard she tries, she never looks or feels like the models in the magazines. This is because it's NOT REAL. So throughout life she continually reads these magazines, watches the TV shows with the advertisements and looks and the billboards, and what is the result? A confused girl, actually a bunch of confused girls with very low self esteems. Now you might be wondering, how does a Cosmo magazine affect an intimate relationship? They cause low self esteem and distorted sexual views for women. How do these distorted views and low self esteem cause problems in intimate relationships? If you don't have confidence in yourself, you can't give yourself to another person and still feel whole inside.

Check out these dove commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U

Sexy Blog

When sex, yes I said S-E-X is continually thrown in our face as a way of advertisement, entertainment and expression, I feel it is necessary to explore the effects this has on one's psyche. More specifically I will explore the Cosmopolitan magazine, a very sexualized (is "sexualized" a word?) form of pop culture, to see how this magazine is affecting women in intimate relationships. First, I will be really open with you guys and tell that that I don't have experience with intimate relationships. Yeah I've dated and had boyfriends, but I'm still a [big "V"] and happy with that fact. Oh and by the way, I've never blogged. I actually hate the idea of blogging, but maybe if people are actually interested and care what I have to say, just maybe (emphasis on the MAYBE) I will warm up to the idea. This blog will explore the effects of ingesting this magazine. The effects it has on a woman's way of thinking and how she feels about herself after reading it. This woman could be a virgin or not, single, dating someone or married. This project might even morph into another question to be answered. Maybe something like how do magazines such as Cosmo, affect women and girls' self esteem? Either way, there is always an effect to the cause. Something is happening to these women internally after they read Cosmo, whether they realize it or not. Maybe you disagree with me? This..should be interesting...