Cosmo With a Grain of Salt

By now most people have heard about the problematic portrayals of women in the media. The disproportionate objectification and sexualization of females on television, on film, and in magazines is finally being noted and hopefully will soon be addressed.

When I peruse through magazines, I know to take their content with a grain of salt. The flawless models and celebrities are most likely photoshopped and not a realistic standard to compare myself to. This, too, is relatively common knowledge.

But an issue I never really thought about as a media consumer was brought to my attention recently through this video. Two talented poets, Desiree Dallagiacomo and Kaycee Filson, call out the mainstream media, specifically magazines, for not just showing women as objects through photos but for instructing women to view themselves this way, specifically in the advice sections.

Whenever my friends and I have read Cosmopolitan or anything similar it never occurRed to any of us that the sex tips focused exclusively on the male's personal experience. Often times the suggestions are elaborate and absurd, as the spoken word artists  demonstrated, but always from this very one-sided perspective and focus.

How can magazines written for women dole out tips as unusual as "sprinkle pepper under his nose" and other intricate novelties yet neglect entirely to mention any tips on asking for what you like or how to make sex more enjoyable for the vast majority of the readership- women themselves?

It alarms me that I never noticed this because I usually am pretty perceptive to injustices against females (hence the blog). My obliviousness shows how pervasive this male-pleasure-centric view of sex is in our culture.  It is one thing to be selfless but it is another thing entirely to disregard your own needs, possibly losing any sense of self in the process.

Women should not be cultured to view their worth as entirely dependent on their ability to please their male counterparts. And while we're on the subject of objectifying women, they close with the profoundly logical, "I am not 'asking for it' unless I am actually asking for it."