Sex With Your Groceries... (Cosmopolitan)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Cosmopolitan
Date:	24/07/01 (460 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It came with a free book in the August issue

Disadvantages: Too much advertising, Too much bulk for too little content, TOO MUCH SEX!!!

I’m not really a magazine person. I mean, I love reading, but much prefer books. I find books more interesting, I get more out of them. A novel is a long, slow, pleasure-filled session; a magazine is quick and often unfulfilling… which really brings me round to the question – Why?

… did I buy Cosmopolitan?

Well, because it came with a free novel!! Yes, one Amanda’s Wedding by Jenny Colgan – just the sort of books I am stuffing my bedside table with at the moment. It had a good cover, nice colours, nice font and looked a good read. It also came with a free magazine – well, that’s how I saw it. I wouldn’t have paid £2.70 for Cosmo, I would pay that for a novel.

So I bought it and took it home. My other half spent a happy hour or so flicking through it. In fact, he must have read some of it, because I was talking for quite a while, before realising his humouring ‘hmms’ weren’t quite in the right place. Funnt, that...

I looked through it myself later, but I really wasn’t impressed. I mean, okay, I’m not a girlie girl, my idea of make-up is buying one lipstick every three years and my idea of a shopping trip is a bargain hunt at Matalan.

Therefore, I am not in the slightest bit interested in fashion, especially when displayed by sixteen year old anorexic waifs, when I am nearly 32 and a size 16 on a good day. So I flick past the umpteen frocks on sticks, the endless beauty ads for skincare products my purse can’t stretch to and the make-up tips for a look I’m too old to achieve.

So what’s left? Well, it’s page 11 before I find anything interesting – and that’s just a reader’s letter informing me that the June issue of Cosmo contained Naked Centrefolds, including Michael ‘Beppe’ Greco (Yum Yum) and Eminem (PHWAW!!). Damn, damn, damn…

It is not long before I realise
that the magazine – and presumably then, it’s regular readers – is completely obsessed with SEX! Let us examine the evidence…

Page 14 Competition – win £1000 by writing an erotic story… (No, Dooyoo, don’t go there!)

Page 16 – “Love and Lust – Your Go-For-It Guide To Getting It On” – this includes handy foreign phrases for things like “You make me horny” and “Tie me up!” (No, really!!)

Page 19 – Confessions – “All dressed up and ready for a sex show?” (Err, no, in baggy leggings at the computer actually…)

Page 41 – “What happens when sex loses its appeal?” (I think it did, around page 16…)

Page 49 – a serious, in-depth article on <sigh> sex addiction…

Page 58 – a so-called fashion makeover type article, but one supposedly to turn on your partner with a ‘definitive seduce-him-tonight outfit’. To save you buying the mag just for that, this apparently means you wear a lilac strappy top with your bra showing, a tight satin pinky skirt and strappy high heels, then you go round Sainsbury’s and provocatively lean over your shopping trolley. Hmm, I don’t think Asda are ready for me in that gear just yet…

Page 77 – “My lawyer boyfriend became a porn star”… (Yes, I know, dear, it happens to all of us…)

Well, you get the idea. I mean, even the book reviews are sex-obsessed! In the middle of the magazine, there’s an 11-page ‘raunchy guide’ that I really don’t think is suitable to review here, so you’ll just have to buy the August issue yourself, if you’re that bothered (and I wouldn’t be, it’s not THAT exciting…)

It's a bit worrying to think this isn't even top shelf stuff, I wouldn't want my daughter readin
g this! Sex with your groceries - stick this mag in your shopping trolley!!

Okay, just to redress the balance a bit, we also have a few non-sex related, vaguely interesting bits in Cosmopolitan – including interviews with Tamsin Outhwaite, Ioan Gruffud (Spellchecker loved that!) and Craig David.

There’s an interesting article on near-death experiences, one on a woman who has been a bridesmaid eight times (beating my own record of four times) but never married (nowhere near challenging my record there!), another on an air hostess who was attacked by a passenger…

But overall, this is over 300 pages of pretty much rubbish. If you love fashion, beauty, loads of adverts and reading about every angle of sex you can think of (and a few you can’t), well, you’ll love it.

Otherwise, buy it for the novel – or don’t buy it at all. I certainly can’t see myself forking (I said FORKING!) out £2.70 on this load of tripe again.

Well, not unless there’s another free novel.

Or another nude pic of Eminem. Yum.

Summary: