23| the lowest common denominator

subtitle: an open letter to all the magazines that haven't gone under {yet}

i hate, with the passion of a thousand burning fires , cosmopolitan magazine.

what i hate even more than cosmo is just about every other so-called women's magazine that tries to make women into a lowest-common-denominator. no such thing. and i understand that in the world of publishing {or the world of everything}, you're never going to please everyone. but as long as you're not repressing people i'm okay with that. i feel as though in the past five years many of my favourite magazines, and many great magazines that i didn't know i loved until they were almost gone {domino} have gone by the wayside, and then enter whatever the so-called most read magazine in that genre to scoop up the remainder of good-magazine's readership.

amanda at first milk was talking about sassy magazine yesterday, which falls under the category of magazines-that-i-never-read-but-wish-i-had. however, when i was 21 {which isn't as long ago as i make it sound} i too lost my first love, jane...also published by conde nast.

in light of amanda's post, i revisited the jane website today, which has been shut down for just over two years. a press release issued on the front page reads as follows:

Dear Jane Reader:
With regret, Jane and janemag.com are no longer being
published. In their place, we invite you to explore Glamour magazine and
Glamour.com.
We think you’ll love Glamour.com. Like Jane, it’s packed with
everything smart, sexy women want to know—about your body, your beauty, your
relationships … and more!
Sincerely,
Jane Magazine

this is the point in the mourning process where one moves from sad, and displaced, to furious that someone could even suggest that you could ever replace your precious hamster, or magazine in this case.

beyond my feeling of mourning over the loss of domino {which, i am presently ordering back issues of, because holy crap, where was this when i needed it}, i feel repressed by women's magazines. the ones directed at style and sex. the glamours, the cosmopolitans, the marie claires of the publishing world.

specifically, i feel repressed about my sexuality, and specifically with regards to the female orgasm {insert gasp here. no boys, it's not a myth}. cosmopolitan ran an article this month entitled "An orgasm almost killed her: We're not kidding". It was about a young girl who had a pre-existing heart condition, and was on the Pill. The Pill led to a blood clot as can happen, and the blood clot moved up to her heart during sex because of an increased heart rate.

so, basically, cosmopolitan is implying that women should not have orgasms, because you might have a stroke. simplified? perhaps. but to title the story "An orgasm almost killed her" is pretty irresponsible journalism. furthermore, the story talks far more about the orgasm's role than the role of the Pill or the woman's pre-existing heart condition. It's not that far {in my mind at least} from someone having a stroke after going for a run, and the publisher claiming that it was the exercise that caused the stroke, not the heart condition, or the clot, or the Pill.

i despise how a vast number of magazines have made women into some sort of lowest common denominator, and assume that none of us will ever give up the so-called freedom that comes with the Pill, so to blame someone's death on it would be media suicide.

i digress.

mostly, what bothers me about cosmopolitan, and glamour, is how blantantly hypocritical they can be. they talk about the empowerment of women such as marianne pearl and drew barrymore. they talk about how far women have come as a gender, and what womanhood means. but then, they turn around and offer forward a list of 75 ways to please your {male} lover. without getting into the sexual identity politics in america, why is it that the ratio of article on male pleasure to those on female pleasure is nearly 3:1? i would place sexual pleasure alongside the voting and property ownership as rights for which women have struggled on some level {political or personal}. that's not to say by any means that i think the sexual pleasure of a woman is more important than their right to vote. but given how far we've come on a lot of other fronts, i find our discourse on sexuality and pleasure to be incredibly antiquated.

21| persephone

the greek god of fertility.

"as she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below... torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. so all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Persephone go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. so it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. ... as wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."

i came across the name yesterday, overhearing a conversation between two women at the coffee shop. in addition to being a really interesting myth, it's also a planet in firefly {geekdom} and a musical work by stravinsky. furthermore, one of the women said that the girl went by the nickname percy. who could go wrong with that name?

| credit openlearningcenter |

15| shameless.

if there is one thing that i love about my program at school, it is the ability to take something completely wonderful, and turn it into a history lesson. i adore that my professors encourage this in us. what? you have an interest in comic books? why not study how comic books record history? oh, you like david bowie and the rolling stones? why not talk about the shamelessness of sexuality in popular music in the 1970s and 1980s?

why, i think i just might.

once i have finished my cultural studies midterm tonight, i can turn my focus to the lovely and amazing david bowie and all of his 1970s glam rock splendor. i could not be more excited to get to talk about mr. ziggy stardust himself for a whole 25-pages. even if it means i also have to talk a bit about the pet shop boys.

so, professor evans {because we are facebook friends, and we follow one another on twitter...so i do not doubt for a second you will one day come across my blog}, thank you for encouraging me to look to uncommon relics of sexuality for inspiration.

as much as i love cultural studies {with the exception of margaret atwood and northop frye}, i love bowie`s queen bitch even more.

| credit galaxyfm |