• Join The Fed
• Advertise with The Fed

• About Us
• Contact

In This Issue

• Idiotarod: Mushing Fun in NYC
• Desensitization: It Does a Body Good
• Shit Blowing Up is So Patriotic
• Letters to the Feditrix: Hot Pre-Teen Sex!
• Point: There's No State Like a Prostrate, Girls
• CounterPoint: Assloads of Bad Stuff
• I Could be the Spectator's Sex Columnist
• Hardcore CosmoGirls Have Some Things to Learn
• Point: Shocking Apathy for Homeless
• CounterPoint: Solution for Homeless is Lock and Load
• Burbery Scarves, Labia Elephantitis Linked
• Elimidate Plays Cupid, Stupid
• Anti-Life Comics: The Great Cookie War
• Wacky Fun Whitey
• Cowboy Bush
• Uncle PennyBags Gets His Due

I'm not sure who gets more out of the relationship advice that is often given by fashion magazines like Cosmo... the guys who read it for laughs or the girls who actually take the advice to heart. I used to be a hardcore CosmoGirl. Then one day I realized just why guys laugh their asses off at the advice served up to vulnerable teenage girls, looking to better their relationships or to "spice up their sex lives with six sizzling new moves."

In these magazines, it seems anything sexual needs a fancy name. Take "The Triple Impact Orgasm" for example. Sounds intense, doesn't it? But when you read about it, it turns out to be just a fancy name for the shocker. Kind of a let down, really. Know that old saying, "Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten?" Well, here, it's "Everything I need to know I learned in middle school or high school." I don't need a fashion magazine to teach me the shocker.

Sometimes their advice is so just plain wrong it's funny. According to Cosmo, guys really secretly want to be touched everywhere except their cocks during sex; since eyelids, underarms, stomach, fingers, thighs, butt, lips, neck, ears, and nipples are extremely sensitive. So, girls, forget cocks... these are a man's real hot spots. After all, guys don't ever like to just fuck. They really just want to talk about feelings and the sea and the sunrise while you ignore their throbbing erection.

Then there's real relationship advice, which is just as comical, and maybe even worse actually, if you take it to heart. Cosmo would have you believe that when you find a guy who is sweet, sensitive, and completely into you, he will definitely break up with you even though you're totally right for him and he had no good reason to break up with you. This makes sense: obviously when someone breaks up with you, you're still totally perfect for him (but, hey, there's Cosmo logic for you). Cosmo says that guys will only break up with you pre-emptively, breaking up with you before you end the relationship first.

Or he'll give you up to stay sexy and single, since guys are natural players. You might be Miss Perfect, says Cosmo, but if there's another perfect out there, he wants to score her too; then maybe he'll come back to you.

Guys also break-up with girls because they don't want to commit. Because girls are always the ones looking for relationships, right? Girls never just want fuck buddies, right? That's how it is according to these magazines that feed off of the emotions of naïve teenagers.
Why else might your perfect man dump you? Apparently, guys are always fearing the worst. Cosmo says that, even though you're not fat and ugly now, guys see you eating ice cream and panic that you'll pack on the pounds, stop wanting sex, and start nagging them about their weight. Sounds like their relationship solution is anorexia. At least with an eating disorder, the man you love will have nothing to fear. Just don't order only a salad when you go out. That's another Cosmo no-no. Leaves you wondering if you can or can't eat in your relationship, huh?

What it all comes down to is that fashion magazines give bad relationship advice and re-work high-school sex knowledge just to put it in fancy terms. Yet they are undeniably addictive, and despite the fact that they tell me to do things I probably shouldn't and make me believe that my boy friend is thinking things that he probably isn't, I will continue to be a shameful follower of their rhetoric. After all, they make good reading material when you want to have a good laugh, when you need to procrastinate from a big paper, and on a few other occasions (Do I really need to spell out exactly why there's a subscription in each bathroom stall of my dorm?). But as for when you seek real relationship advice. . . "Dear Fed" . . .