10 Erroneous Points about Sex or Redbook Is Full of Shit

A few years ago, one of my jackass friends thought it would be funny to sign me up for Cosmopolitan.  I'd of course seen the magazine before, or one of its countless incarnations, Glamour, Redbook, et al, and I might've even flipped through it while waiting at my doctor's or something.  But the joke was on him. Because when Cosmo started arriving once a month and I started reading the damn thing (most likely on the crapper), I soon discovered I loved the thing. For one, it made me more empathetic with the plight of women.  I mean, seriously, you can see why so many of them are sorta nuts.  The mixed messages in Cosmo are hilarious.  You've got all these "love your body" articles, "15 Reasons Why Every Body Is Beautiful" or "Gyno No Nos: Saying No To Plastic Surgery," this real embrace-who-you-are edict, and then on the very next page there's a picture of some emaciated waif with the body of a teenage boy and perfectly formed tits, all pouty, being ogled by men as she hocks some perfume called Desire or Reckless Abandon or whatever, and I'm thinking, fuck, if I was a girl, struggling with how I look, the last thing I should be reading is Cosmo. Which reminds me of this song

and the line, "do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly." Point is, since this jackass friend (and, no, I never found out who, though I have my suspicions) signed me up for Cosmo, I can't get enough of the damn things.  They are so many degrees of wrong, so fucked up, the advice they espouse to women so off base and misguided, they've become fascinating relationship train wrecks. 


But the best part of these magazines is when they take a break from having women filling women's heads with lofty, unachievable romantic/lifestyle goals and have some dude supposedly write from the guy's perspective.  It's always some douche who's going to keep it real for the ladies by telling them what the men out there really think about stuff like sex and dating, and it is rarely what guys really think about anything, least of all sex, and never have I found a more laughable, piece-of-shit article than this one I just read in Redbook called


What He Secretly Doesn't Want in Bed


The author is some guy named Aaron, and he's probably a nice enough guy in real life.  I mean, I'll never meet him, but if I did we might be able to go bowling or talk at a BBQ.  He's bald, short, but he's got a family and kids, and he's probably only doing his job, which is spoon fed (or at the very least strongly suggested by an editorial board), so I don't want to attack the guy personally. But it's hard not to.  Because there is no fucking way he could actually believe what he is writing, or we're not of the same species.  I mean, the one job a writer has is to be honest, write from the heart and all that crap, right?  I can listen to some fanatical lunatic fringe-type spouting politics I don't agree with if it's at least sincere, however misguided, but if you're completely full of shit, what am I supposed to do with that?


Aaron has a regular column in Redbook called "Whys Guy," where he tackles hard-hitting issues in the battle of the sexes with a humorous bent.  This month, he attempts to set the record straight about what guys really like in bed.  


No shit, this is his list.  Remember: these are things men supposedly don't like.


1.) Aggressive Sexy Lingerie
2.) Role Playing
3.) Watching Porn
4.) Making Homemade Porn
5.) The A-word
6.) Threesomes
7.) Bondage


Before the article actually starts there's a subheading, something, like, "If you're guy is like Aaron, he doesn't want anything of these [dirty] things; he just wants a big sweet helping of you."


Yeah.  


This article is so fucking off base and morally offensive, let's take it one by one. Remember, again, these are things that, according to Aaron, men don't like.


1.) Aggressive Sexy Lingerie.  I don't where Aaron's wife shops or what she looks like or what kind of problems he has with zippers, but what fucking guy is ever disappointed with lingerie, especially "aggressively sexy" lingerie? Everything tight and pushed up, silky and shiny, breasteses all up in your face? You'd rather have, what?  Flannel pajamas?  A muumuu?  A barrel and suspenders?  How can lingerie ever ruin anything?  It's like salt, free money, or little monkeys dressed like butlers: it only makes stuff better.


And, trust me, this point is as good as he gets.


2.)  Role-playing.  I don't care if it's Mistress Ramona or Mexican Apple Thief, having your woman hot enough that she wants to play make-believe before you get it on is fucking hot.  

Whether it's the first date or you're ten years into a stagnant relationship, if you walk in and find your girl dressed in latex and stilettos holding a pair of handcuffs, are seriously going to tell me "it's hard to get in the mood"?, as Aaron contends.  He writes that it makes him "feel ridiculous" if he's pretending to be a European football star or an evil clown, and I hear him about the clown, because clowns are fucked up, but half of the fun of this stuff is about getting the other person turned on enough that she wants to play dress up, so if she's getting hot and bothered with the thought of banging an evil clown, then you get hot and bothered knowing she's getting off.


3.) Watching Porn During Sex.  Really?  Given the choice, you'd prefer not to watch porn?  Your girl says, Let's watch hot people having sex while we do it, and you're going to say, "No, no thanks, I'd rather not.  Oh, look, Golden Girls."  Yeah, porn's a terrible turn off.  Hot chicks writhing and sweaty, their long legs intertwined, locked, hips thrusting, the moaning and talking dirty--like a cold shower and thinking of nuns and dead kittens, a total killjoy.


4.)  Making Homemade Porn.  I almost want to agree with Aaron here.  I mean, you make a homemade porn video, you are sort of a jackass, because it's been statistically proven that there is a 97% chance that, at some point, somebody you don't want seeing your nasty bits is going to see them; and considering most relationships fall apart and half of all marriages end in divorce and people are overall pretty shitty (not to mention petty and vindictive when they feel wronged), the best you can hope for in this scenario is that you are A.) not famous and don't have TMZ bidding for the rights, and B.) it's only her girlfriends who laugh at your lack of rhythm and/or muscle tone (but that wouldn't happen to me; I am ripped).  Still...  If a girl wants to make a porno with you?  Pretty goddamn hot.  Maybe you set the camera up but take out the battery, I don't know.  But you certainly aren't disgusted by the idea.  


5.) The A Word.  Because apparently Redbook doesn't let you say "anal." Aaron's argument here is that since he finds it "unpleasant," he can only imagine "how it feels to you."  How sweet.  Seriously, I don't give a fuck who does what to whom.  It's your bedroom.  You can figure that out.  I'm not saying this is every guy's thing, or that it's my thing, just that it's at least some guy's thing.  So don't pretend when the light's go off it's not in the big sexual playbook.  It's a punchline on Family Guy for crissakes (and here would be a great place for a FG link but I can't find it).


6.) Threesomes.   Now this is every guy's thing.  I've been trying to make this happen most of my life, often to disastrous results (once I was asked to leave while they continued alone; and then there was the...seizure incident of '93).  If your girl comes home with another girl and asks you to please fuck them both--it is the Greatest.  Day.  Of.  Your.  Life.   To his credit, Aaron at least admits this, making a joke about how he can't multitask, and it's a mildly funny joke. But it's also a boldface lie.  There are maybe four guys who don't want a threesome.  Three of them are dead, and the other guy, Rodney, works at the caveman/dinosaur exhibit at the Creation Museum in Kansas.


7.)  Bondage.  Maybe some guys don't like this.  Maybe some girls don't.  I don't know.  I don't care.  But I've always operated under one belief when it comes to sex: if you don't feel dirty, you ain't doing it right.  


Now, I consider myself a fairly liberated guy, sexually speaking.  I mean, I'm as fucked up and damaged by my parents as the next guy, but I like to believe that when I enter the bedroom and the girl's clothes come off, that I am up for trying anything.  At least once.  My favorite quote on the subject of sex comes from Sommerset Maugham, who writes, 

“There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.” 

I know there are probably people out there (like Rodney) who call it "fornication" and who believe sexual intercourse is for making babies and that when performed out of wedlock they deserve a Cotton Mather smack down, but they probably live in the Midwest, which I scarcely even acknowledge as a legitimate populace, and they certainly aren't reading my blog, and maybe this is whom Aaron is writing for, and somewhere there are legions of dumpy, balding guys in Topeka who read Redbook, come across this article and think, Thank God, finally, someone speaks for me!  But I doubt it.  Because guys don't read this shit, unless they have jackass friends who sign them up for it, or they spend lots of time at the dentist. Which means, this article was written for women.  Which is what is really fucked up.  It's subterfuge.  And somewhere there is a little hottie, with a fabulous ass and babydoll negligee, who's feeling naughty tonight...until she comes across this asshole's article, and puts down and the garters and whip, slaps on the sweats, reheats the tuna casserole, and checks to see what romantic comedies are playing.  And that's a tragedy that could've been prevented.