Cosmocking: August '10!

Pink cover! Britney Spears's head! Someone else's body! I wonder if the body model was still all "mom, I got a cover" proud or if it was kind of embarrassing for her! Although it couldn't have been as embarrassing as it was for Britney! Jesus, the poor woman is only four years older than me!

(Digression: it seems like in the square world 24 is pretty much peaking, whereas in the kinky world it makes you a newborn infant. It's weird being split between "wow, in four years I'll need a body double to hide my sagging elderly frame" and "wow, in four years maybe everyone won't call me 'kid'.")

Also, this is apparently "The Hot Issue." It took me several years to catch on that this was always in August. Because August is hot, but also sex is hot, you see. Cosmo is so very clever. The word "sex" appears five times on the cover. That's pretty hot. Also on the cover: "Inhaled the whole pizza? How not to gain pounds after a pig-out." Could that have really gone from writer to editor to executive editor to printer without anyone noticing the implication there? (I'm just one woman, but the implication is barfing.)

OUT: Camel toe.
IN: Trouser snout.
Trouser snout. You heard it here, folks. Trouser snout is in. Getcher trouser snout.

"My girlfriend and I were taking our first vacation together. She's athletic, so we booked a weekend in the mountains. The first day, we hiked this steep trail. I was struggling, but didn't want to show it. Toward the top of the trail, I started to feel really dizzy. I knew I needed to take a break, so I told her I had to make a quick pit stop to pee. I wandered off, dropped trou... and passed out. I came to with my girlfriend standing over me, laughing. I had been gone so long that she came looking for me and discovered me in a pantsless semicoma."
You're alone in the wilderness, a long steep hike away from the road. Your boyfriend says he'll be gone for a moment. He's out of sight so long you become concerned, and then you come across him lying on the ground unconscious. AHAHAHA THAT'S HILARIOUS HAHAHAHA.

(Also, if she's such an athlete, she ought to know enough to make sure her less experienced partner is staying hydrated and not being pushed way beyond his limits. Taking a loved one on a Death March is actually more of a reflection on your assholery than their wussiness.)

Gorilla salad (n.) When a man or woman has way too much hair below the belt
Gorilla salad and trouser snouts. God I love Cosmo.

1 in 5 men say they'd prefer to be treated by a sexy nurse than by a competent doctor.
See, this is why I wear scrubs instead of a little white dress and weird hat. It's things like this. (Also, the sexiest nurse I know is named Mark. Please bear that in mind.)

Then there's "Our Naughtiest Sex Survey Ever!" Most of the questions are pretty blah and came out 50-50 or 60-40, but some were interesting.
When you're getting busy, how do you want the lights?
On - 63%
Off - 37%
What is it with these people and lights? Seriously. It's not like you ever have sex in pitch blackness (do you? oh god, I don't want to know), so it's a fairly minor aesthetic detail. I guess being under full-on bright lights is a somewhat different experience than low mood lighting, but really, as long as you can see well enough to aim your swings correctly and be aware of whether you're drawing blood, who cares?

What light-level S&M would you want to try?
Being tied up - 73%
Spanking - 27%
It seems like clueless ersatz "S&M" is always implied to be female-dominant. (They don't actually specify in the survey who gets spanked, but there's a caption below that reads "Surprise: He doesn't want a spanking.") I'm not sure why this is, although I've speculated on it before. But it's weird, because my own experience with BDSM is that female dominance is relatively less common, and the person most likely to want to spank you isn't a woman in crazy black leather strappy-stuff but a man in a black T-shirt and Levi 501s.

Who should reach for the lube during sex?
Me - 46%
Her - 54%
Like... whoever's closer? Whoever owns the lube bottle? Whoever has a more interesting plan for applying it? Whoever just happens to do so? I didn't know this was an issue.

(A friend tried to explain to me that this was some complex psychological game about whether it's an insult to the man or the woman to imply that she's a little dry. I guess I can sort of see that, but it never occurred to me. Slippery gooey sex is good, I want to make sex good, ergo lube. This should not be that fraught with tension.)

Whenever the guy you're dating has a few seconds to kill, what does he usually do?
A) Reads or plays games on his phone
B) People-watches
C) Texts friends or updates his FB status
C means he's going to cheat on you. It makes perfect sense, really. A man who talks to people besides you is just a ticking time bomb of betrayal.

There's an article on having sex during your period. I'll refrain from passing judgement (I think it's icky, and as with most icky things, I'll totally do it anyway), but I will note that one of Cosmo's most important tips is that you should tell him beforehand. Solid advice.

Lie flat on your back with one leg straight up in the air and the other relaxed. He should kneel in front of you and enter you. Alternate between bending your leg down toward your chest and sticking it straight up in the air and resting it on his shoulder.
I'm bad at aerobics. It's not an athletic-ability thing, but I just can't follow along with the directions. I always end up where everyone else in the class is on the left side of the step bench with their arms bent and one leg up, and I'm on the right side with one arm up and my legs splayed because I just fell on the floor. (There's actually a depressing neurological reason for this, but let's just go with "Holly is so silly and clumsy!") That is one of several reasons I won't be attempting this position.

One of the others: who can choreograph their movements during sex? I find that pre-arranging positions at all is less fun than "on the nearest surface, in whatever position we happen to land in," but damned if I'm going to carefully alternate my leg movements while I'm getting fucked. I think "squirm all over the place" is pretty much my only Slick Move in these circumstances.

Q: I'm seeing someone new, and his penis slightly curves to the side. What am I supposed to do with that?
A: Use all your powers of imagination to pretend that it's a penis. Treat it accordingly.

I would love to tell you that a woman wanting sex right away is no different from a man wanting sex right away and you should do whatever you want. But the fact is, it's probably not the best way to get on the relationship track.
I would love to tell you something decent and fair, but the fact is that my opinion is studs are awesome and sluts are gross. Also, the whole math thing where a straight man can't have sex on the first date without a corresponding woman, and vice versa, is wayyyyy beyond my grasp.

Grocery-shop... sans panties.
I already... do. It's not a... big deal. I wear... pants.

Drop lusty words like "passionate" and "stimulating" into conversations.
I drop lusty words like "pussy" and "spanking" into conversations. It's more fun and other people actually have a chance of catching on instead of wondering why I'm using words with multiple syllables all of a sudden.

Concede the towel battle in the morning, and blow-dry your hair and do your makeup naked. Chicks who are comfortable with their bods in the buff have better sex lives.
So there are people who do the towel thing when they're alone? Seriously? I always figured the modesty towel was to spare the eyes of roommates or locker-room-mates or whatever. It never even occurred to me that anyone would "battle" to cover everything when they're by themselves.

Tuck a picture of yourself from a favorite vacation (maybe that one of you lying on the beach in a criminally small bikini) into your wallet. Pull it out anytime you need a sexy boost.
Is it weird to carry a picture of yourself in your wallet? I think it's weird.

[On making a sex tape]You know how crappy video quality is when you shoot in a dark room? Use this to your advantage. Opt for a few candles or a shaded lamp with a 25-watt bulb.
The problem is, you're probably not John Alcott making Barry Lyndon here. Making low light look good on film either requires a lot more light than you'd expect (I've worked on film sets where gigantic multi-kilowatt HMI lights were used to create ostensibly "dark" night scenes) or ultra-finicky use of super-fast film stock and lenses. So when you do this with your little FlipVideo camcorder, it's going to come out less "soft flattering glow" than "only known footage of the Chupacabra."

Editing software provides countless ways to adjust the clarity of your video after you upload it. You can blur the image, make it darker, and even turn it into an animation.
The hell you can "turn it into an animation." Maybe there's some filter you can apply, but I don't want any Cosmo girls who know that I'm "good with video stuff" asking me where the button is to make them into a sexy cartoon lady.

Also, I'm not sure I see the point of a sex tape that's blurred and darkened all to hell. Sure you won't be recognizable, but it'll look like a plucked turkey trying to move a flesh-colored sofa. Is that really going to turn you on?