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Buried in the many news tabloid magazines at any given grocery store or department store is a little magazine called Cosmopolitan. A women’s interest magazine that makes Maxim look like The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan is the ultimate in trashy, low-brow reading, and its harebrained attempts at teaching women about sex and dating are so cringe-worthy that they make Double your Dating look academic. With no further ado, here are some direct quotes from Cosmopolitan (straight from their magazine, with links) that you wouldn’t believe women are believing.

The Horrors

Hand Symbols

Okay Sign – When a guy is happy with how things are going, he’ll often make this sign of approval without realizing it. For example, he may rest his hand on the table this way if he feels a date is going well.

Love Signal - Even if your guy hasn’t dropped those three little words yet, his fingers might have. When a man feels a strong connection, he’ll subconsciously create the love sign-language gesture while doing random things

For the former, he could just be picking his nails, or making the Japanese hand symbol for okane [money], as in “pay the bill yourself and stop looking at my hands”. For the latter, he could just be messing around, or trying to figure out if you’re into Star Trek. While there is some general validity to interpretations of the way someone physically behaves, no normal person runs around subconsciously making the “I love you” hand gesture (I had to look it up too) if they like someone. If applied logically, the “hands indicate the heart” supposition falls apart quickly. If he forms an “OK” sign with one hand and thrusts in the hole with the other hand, does that mean he wants to screw? If he forms a gun, does he want to kill you and/or rob a bank?

Guy Gallery: Decoding His Sleep and Sex Positions

Missionary – Men who prefer missionary tend to do things by the book, making them faithful, loving boyfriends who won’t let you down, says body-language expert Jan Hargrave. [...]

From Behind – You’ll always feel looked after by this confident, take-charge stud. Still, he can be standoffish at times. “In this position, you can’t make eye contact, so he won’t feel like he’s exposing himself emotionally,” Hargrave explains.

… or he could just have a fetish. Or, in the case of cowgirl, he could just be lazy or tired. There is some general validity to interpreting emotions in sexual positions (men generally connect certain positions to certain types of sex), but in all honesty, inferring someone’s entire personality based upon their favorite sex position is ridiculous. This article also goes on to explain the details of his position afterward — something that means very little, because typically the guy is too tired to care what position he sleeps in, just so long as you don’t crush his arm.

7 Sex Toys That Are Already in Your Bedroom

Bobby Pins - These seemingly innocent hair tools can give some serious pleasure to his ultra-sensitive nipples (and they work on you, too). [...] Then take his tingly sensations up a notch and use the bobby pins as mini-nipple clamps—since the area is already primed for action, the slight pinching will actually feel good and intensify his pleasure.

No. No. No. No. No.

Decode How He Handles His Drink

If he grips his long-neck loosely… Lightly encircling the top of his beer bottle with his thumb and index finger reveals that he’s confident. Not only does the relaxed gesture indicate he feels in control of the situation, but it’s also a bit of cocky posturing — it gives off the vibe that he’s too cool to be concerned with the risk of dropping his beer.

If he pushes the drink near you… Your guy will do this over dinner or at a bar when he’s feeling the urge to bond. Men subconsciously put their stuff in your space when they’re trying to get closer to you.

According to Cosmo, even the way men drink a beer matters. This comes as a surprise to me, as I have yet to determine what would be a normative way to drink a beer, except for possibly just chugging it immediately to avoid being analyzed by a Cosmopolitan-reading date. I’d need the buzz anyway.

First-Date Red Flags

“I never move this fast on the first date.” – Yeah, right! Truth be told: He can’t believe you’re letting him move that fast. “It’s the woman who dictates how far things go,” says Anthony, 23. “I’m always up for action, but I’ll play the prude card just so my date doesn’t think I’m a player.” Bottom line: If you hand a guy a piece of ass on a silver platter, he’s going to take it.

This was inevitable: a comment regarding men being basically sex fiends and taking anything they can get. This, of course, is complete and utter crap. Men turn down sex for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to actually taking a date seriously, not finding the date in question attractive, being hyper-careful about not being too assertive about sex, and simply not wanting sex. Reducing all men to a generalization like “they take sex when handed to them” is just as bad as saying something like “women belong in the kitchen”, and it belies an attempt on the author’s part to reduce men to a compartmentalized, controllable, and ultimately submissive role in male-female relations.

5 Annoying Things Guys Do on Facebook

They Hide Their Relationship Status - The beauty of Facebook is that we can instantly find out if a guy is available or off-limits. No 30-minute talk in a bar, trying to suss out if he has a girlfriend waiting for him at home. But if that info is kept a secret, we’re forced to look through and analyze his photos and wall posts to figure it out — which makes us feel like stalkers. Guys: If you’re single, do us both a favor and make that info public knowledge. And if you’re part of a twosome, own up to it. Especially when we’re one of the two.

They Block Their Photos - We can understand a guy wanting to keep certain people from viewing his pictures. But seeing as how we’re not his mom, boss, or pastor, it bugs us when we can’t see a dude’s photos. Here’s the thing: We always imagine the worst. So when we’re kept in the dark and can’t click through a guy’s albums, we imagine he’s blowing lines, hooking up with two girls at once, or running around naked at a party. Unfair, but true. He’s not saving his reputation by blocking his photos. In fact, not being able to click on them makes us think a little less of him.

I had to keep these in their full text to properly show how absolutely stupid these statements are. Spoiler: Facebook is a massive security risk, and a crappy social networking nightmare. There are very legitimate reasons other than hookers and blow to hide pictures and relationship information online — I personally hide information (or rather, simply do not post it) because I have absolutely no desire to have people I work with sift through images of my personal life. It’s much more efficient to ask anyway. If I or any other guy was doing blow and sleeping with lots of girls, do you really think we’d post pictures of it on Facebook?

What can we learn?

Here’s the moral story of bad Cosmo advice: much like men’s advice in books like Double your Dating and The Pickup Artist, women get bad advice too, and they act on it. The realm of sex columns and sex tabloids has been predominantly ruled by women, but this does not somehow grant them expertise in the field whatsoever. Veritable Carrie Bradshaw wannabe readers of Cosmopolitan are being taught a lot of really dumb, outright ridiculous ideas that give them wild misconceptions about the dating and sex world — and while some of the advice in Cosmopolitan seems perfectly innocuous and reasonable, a good portion of advice in Cosmo and similar magazines (not to mention similar blogs) is just pop psychology half-baked crap.

Thus, like I have always said, be careful what you read, advice-wise. It’s not hard to write articles giving wild advice about dating and sex — it’s a topic most people are interested in that few know enough about to really critique properly. Critique me. Critique other men’s interest magazines. Critique what girls read. Don’t ever just accept what you are told: critically evaluate it and challenge it before you adopt it as fact. Otherwise, you might do some equivalent of using a bobby pin to clip a guy’s nipples.

I can’t possibly show my friends your articles on how PUA books suck, they won’t read em. Can you give me just the cliffs notes version so they stop paying cash on classes?

I’ll try to keep this as humanly short as possible:

PUA books work for two reasons: they get you trying and they get you confident. The actual material in them is useless. PUA books, be they “Double your Dating”, “The Game”, or anything similar, all usually have advice that only works for clubs, and even then only rarely. What they are effective at doing is, in a nutshell, convincing you that you can pick up women so you go out and try a lot. Trying is 99% of the game, for the most part, especially since the books convince you failures are just learning experiences. You don’t need to have special lines, graphs, the ability to “peacock”, or any of that crap to get women. You are much better not deluding yourself, developing real confidence, and ignoring $300+/wk seminar classes designed to profit off of your insecurities.

What do you think of “yellow fever” (the stereotypical attraction of guys to Asian girls)? Is it okay?

I wouldn’t say it’s “okay” or not per se, but I will try to explain what I personally think it is, and the difference between normative attraction to Asian women and obsessive fetishistic creepiness.

The best way to understand “yellow fever” is to understand it as an amalgamation of the following in the Western context: the natural inclination of guys to certain types of women, and Western stereotypes of the East (that is, Orientalism, and a few other things).

First off, Asian women are stereotypically viewed as attractive, mainly because of their exoticism and subservience. In the physical realm, Asian women tend to be smaller and, as some would argue, more fragile — something many men find attractive to assert their own masculinity. In a somewhat similar vein, the typical Asian household tends to place women in a position of subservience, which many men find attractive for dominance reasons. Some argue that Asian woman also have a higher rate of being educated and having better skin and all manner of other things — baseless assertions in my mind, but still running stereotypes in Western culture. While these don’t really manifest themselves much in reality, one can see these really present in photoshoots of Asian women, of all places — it’s very clear that the message of Asian women to Western men is one of exotic subservience, sexual availability, and weakness. In the total Said-esque sense, the West views the East in a variety of stereotypical ways that can make it both subservient and attractive — which not only boosts the West’s view of its own power, but also provides it illusory justification for taking control over Eastern culture (via military force or, in this case, dating). In dating terms, this often manifests itself along the lines of the aforementioned presumptions about Asian woman — the assumption that they are subservient and beautiful, tied with the implication of exoticism, makes them highly desirable by men. The sheer fact that Asian women happen to be (relatively) unique in Western culture even plays a part in it — it makes Asian woman a kind of rare breed, a unique exotic object that many men seek to attain. These stereotypes are usually entirely false, but they contribute to a kind of mindset that guys pick up that fuels the kind of “yellow fever” you speak of.

On top of that, I’d personally argue there’s a positive psychological component to it — that is to say, men actually can excuse some of their attraction on psychological grounds. Consider it an extreme application of the Westermarck effect — men may have a psychological imperative to go after Asian (or otherwise “exotic”) women to avoid inbreeding.

But let me stop ranting here and address a perhaps bigger point: the difference between normal attraction and obsessive fetishism. The former, normal attraction, is something normal that you can feel free to foster nicely — for example, some guys prefer girls with blond hair, others brunettes. However, the latter category differs from the former in that it is obsessive, demanding, and unyielding — it is not “I prefer blond but I’ll be open for anything”, but rather “I must have ____”. Put simply, it’s perfectly fine to be attracted to certain kinds of women, pending you don’t take it to an extreme.

So there you have it. So long as you can have “yellow fever” and still behave healthily, do so without guilt. Just don’t let it dominate you.

My girlfriend really wants to do a sex tape together. I’m not up for it. Should I give in?

No. No no no no no no no no no.

If the internet has taught you anything, it should have taught you that sex tapes of anybody anywhere do not remain private, no matter how boring or un-sexy. Opening yourself up to potential ridicule (at minimum) is really, really stupid. I’m not entirely sure why she would want to make such a tape (blackmailing you? a misplaced desire for excitement?), but you need to put your foot down — that’s just a bad idea, period. That being said, if she’s looking for excitement or something different, try to provide it in another way. Just don’t do anything like that — no pictures, no videos, nothing.

If you haven’t been under a proverbial rock on the internet, you’ve likely heard about Chat Roulette, the website that, as it indicates, allows you to play a “game” by randomly chatting with people all over the world with a webcam. And, subsequently, as you can imagine, it’s anything but clean or normal — filled with strange people doing terrible things for anyone who will watch (and people begging for more of it), it’s basically a cesspit of the internet. However, you can learn a lot from the website — especially about dating. Here are 5.

1. You have to sift through a lot of people to find someone worth it.

The first big thing most people notice on Chat Roulette is the ridiculous speed at which it operates. Likely fueled by a collective desire to be talking to someone better, most people click the “next” button on virtually everyone and everything that is not immediately entertaining, meaning finding someone to even talk to is nearly impossible. Even when you do sit and talk to someone for more than two seconds, many find that the person isn’t that entertaining in the first place. You will almost always find idiot 16 year olds or college students  trying to be “clever” with a mask or a prank, lots of creepy old men, strange people demanding nudity, and the like — it’s all pretty irritating, and time consuming, but necessary to go through if you want to find someone worth talking to.

It works in exactly the same way in the dating world. It takes a long time to sift through all the creeps, desperate girls, and strange women in order to find a good date. The thing is, it’s obligatory — avoiding it entirely results in you possibly losing a good opportunity. Remember, even when you have one or two bad dates, or even if you have to spend hours finding someone even worth talking to, it’s all part of the refinement process — there’s no reason to be depressed.

2. You are never as cool as you think you are.

Another thing you learn quickly on Chat Roulette is that a lot of 14-to-25 year old guys seem to think they look good in tank tops, sunglasses, “club” shirts, or shirtless. Some will have guitars, knives, guns, backwards baseball hats, or other blatant attempts at seeming “cool” or “amusing”. Lazier ones will simply drink copious amounts of alcohol. All seem to operate on the presumption that they look “cool” and “interesting” — that dressing in a certain way and doing certain things will get them female attention.

The truth is anything but. Most of them all look the same: that is, universally stupid. Sure, you can manipulate a web cam all you want, but nothing entirely hides being a try-hard. The same very much happens in the dating world — you can try to act “hardcore” all you want, but most people can spot a fake easily. Be yourself — it’s ultimately more realistic, not to mention rewarding.

3. Rejection matters little.

As I mentioned above, Chat Roulette moves fast, and you’ll get rejected, even when you think you look normal and try to be polite. It happens — people are looking for certain things, and will even go so far as to lie to try to get what they want. Long story short? You will be rejected.

And, like the above, don’t be depressed by it. Rejection happens — it’s part of the refining process, and really an inevitable byproduct of dating. Those who learn to accept rejection and move on are the best kind of daters — they understand they can learn from it, and don’t become too emotionally torn. The worst daters obsess over it, wondering “what if” and obsessively trying again and again. Be like the first group — be willing to learn from rejection, and ultimately accept it as part of the process.

4. Presentation matters, a lot.

Presentation matters, period. In the context of Chat Roulette, it matters in that it is the first thing people see about you — and it determines if they want to chat with you or not. Clothing, hairstyle, the way you are sitting, the first words you say — everything matters.

Real life, especially the dating world, works in the very same way. Though many may claim they don’t care about looks, they do (to some degree), and looks matter — not exclusively in the “handsome” or “ugly” context, but rather how you present yourself, your movements, the way you speak, where you look, and the like. Everything factors in to the construction of the gestalt of your image in their eyes — and you need to manage your image in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. People can and will judge you based on your clothing, your haircut, your shoes, the gestures you make, your mannerisms, the speed and way in which you speak, and everything else possible — it all matters, even if people do not actively realize they judge based upon it. Long story short, work on the way you present yourself, as it matters a lot in the dating world.

5. No-one wants to see you naked. No, really.

This is, by far, the biggest lesson you can learn from Chat Roulette: no normal woman, in any frame of mind, wants to see a random guy naked, pretty much regardless of how good he looks. Certainly, if you have a nice body, she may notice it — but as I’ve mentioned before in other articles, women are not as visual as men, and chances are you’d do leagues better simply wearing clothes than you ever would being naked.

This issue really spawns from an issue with how guys typically think women get turned on. To men, a naked woman is incredibly sexy — so many men think that, to a woman, a naked man is just as sexy. However, it doesn’t entirely work like that — women are much more cerebral about their turn-ons, and the simple availability of a naked man does not a turn-on make.

So, with that being said, the message for real-life application is just as it is online: don’t expect your naked body to be some sort of insta-turn on. Learn to do things more than just strip naked. You’ll be much better off.

I recently moved to Canada from a Latin American country. Back home I was used to greeting all women with a kiss on the cheek, but here I’m confused as that seems to be too forward. However, I’m not satisfied with simply standing and waving. How do you greet women in different situations? (e.g. a female friend, a girl you’re meeting for the first time, an acquaintance, the mother or sister of a friend, etc.)

Yep, in both America and in Canada, for the most part, a kiss on the cheek is considered too invasive of personal space. The long story short is, unlike in many other countries, most people in Canada/America have a pretty wide area around themselves they don’t like invaded by even friends — a kind of implied distance (their “personal space”) that everyone keeps from one another. It’s strange, but not too difficult to get used to once you realize it exists.

The best thing you likely can do, other than waving or whatever, is probably just a very simple hug. Even that may be considered too much for some girls — many feel much more comfortable just waving or saying “hi” without any physical contact whatsoever. Don’t feel as if a wave is impersonal or insulting — it isn’t, at least in the minds of most here. Still, at the most, I’d go for a hug — a handshake is obviously too professional, a kiss would be generally viewed as too invasive, so a simple, short, as-nonsexual-as-you-can-make-it hug would be best.

As for each girl? For friends, a hug or a wave, depending on the girl and how close she is to you (and how comfortable she feels with the hugging/whatever). As for a girl you meet the first time, unless you are on a date or something clearly set up for romance, don’t give a hug — a wave will do, or just saying something nice. As for the mother or sister of a friend, similarly, keep it to waving or saying something nice — let them initiate any sort of hugging/whatever, not you. Basically, keep that implied distance unless you know the person pretty well, and if you do have to play it by ear, err on the side of caution.

Good luck!

Recently, I asked a girl out who I thought was interested in me, but she said no. I’m normally over these types of things, but she is very special to me and I really want to win her back. Is there any way I can do this?

While I obviously can’t guarantee you success, I can tell you it’s possible — but you’re going to have to be patient.

The thing is, we can safely presume you were turned down for some reason — however, it doesn’t always have to be because of you specifically. You can be rejected for a bevy of reasons that can be ultimately fixed — she may have someone else she’s dating (or wants to date), she may be in a bad position in her life, she may not know you well enough, or she may have just had a bad day. Frankly, there is a possibility it is related to you (in the she-just-isn’t-that-into-you sense), but there’s also an almost equally valid chance you just chose the bad time or the wrong opportunity.

The best thing you can possibly do is simply take a breather. At best, it’s the wrong time for her for whatever reason, and you simply need to wait it out. At worst, she’s not into you, and you need some time to re-fashion your image in her eyes, or at least let her get used to you. Going back to her and trying to push the issue will unquestionably backfire on you — so patience is really gonna be the game.

Wait it out. Date other people. Relax. Work on yourself. Don’t become excessively focused on her. With some girls, all it takes is a display that you don’t need her to make you more worthy in her eyes. There’s nothing you can really do to make her want you other than to make yourself more desireable — so work on that, don’t try to force the issue with her. One of the biggest issues the typical guy has when he’s really into a girl is that he makes himself too easy — in other words, he makes it too easy for her to pick him. Doing so actually is somewhat of a turn-off for most girls — they don’t want the “easy” pick, and they think you’re desperate. If you make yourself scarce and show that, though you asked her out, you’re not terribly torn up by it, you’ll make sure this is not an issue.

In any case, distancing yourself is probably the best option. Again, it’s pretty impossible to know why she won’t date you, but either way, the best thing you can do is  take a hands-off approach and try much later down the road.

What are some quick rules for determining if a girl’s worth talking to on a dating site?

I hate doing these sort of things because I often sound somewhat misogynist/cruel/obsessed with stereotypes, but here you are:

• If she’s showing her breasts in any photo, including deep cleavage shots, she’s likely not worth your time. This also applies for any sexual shot, bikini shots and corset shots included. These also sometimes mean that she’s overweight and clever with angles/photoshop.
• Any mention of an ex-boyfriend early on is always, always trouble.
• Any mention of alcohol, sex, or drug use in her profile is always, always trouble.
• Any “problems” she mentions — emotional or otherwise — are most of the time five times worse than she lets on.
• The older they are, the more bad history they have. Ex-husbands included. Expect it.
• Tineye any girl that looks good. She’s probably fake.
• Never expect more intelligence than what you can tell from the profile. Always expect less formal employment than indicated. “Model”, “Photographer”, “Designer”, etc. usually means “Unemployed” in the real world.
• Those into goth, emo, indie, hipster, or other “subcultures” can sometimes be a little unbalanced or empty.

And the most important rule?

Never expect anything. For every 10 girls you message, expect only one to respond. This is not a reflection on you.

In any case, good luck in your search. Don’t take anything I said above too seriously — there will always be exceptions — but I hope they help you to identify common issues.

My girlfriend is pressuring me to wear really crappy clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch. What do I do? Should I just give up and buy some of their stuff?

It’s up to you.

On one hand, this may just be her attempt in a general sense to get you to dress better, or dress normally. If you’re doing something ridiculously out there (too-skinny jeans, dressing like  slob, wearing cheap worn clothing, etc), you might find it a good choice to upgrade your wardrobe- not necessarily at A&F, but at least somewhere. On the flip side, if you’re dressing well enough and she just has somehow gotten into that whole A&F aesthetic (which would make her really really late to that party), then it’s up to you- fight it or just suck it up and suffer.

I read in a textbook that women have a natural desire for muscular, strong, masculine men for sex. Is this true?

Yes, to a large degree. Sexual preference is also supposedly loosely correlated with their menstrual cycle, among other things. But in the larger picture, it doesn’t matter.

In modern times, things of this nature are pretty much unimportant. In my opinion (as more of a passive observer than a legitimate anthropologist/sociologist), sociocultural influences affect female sexual preference MUCH more than basic instinct. Certainly, instinctual desires do exist- and  girls do tend to prefer certain types of guys, particularly masculine ones, over others- but it’s really more of a vestigial drive, one that only briefly makes its presence known, and one that is overwhelmingly trumped by the forces of television, photographs of models, and childhood experiences. Just as much as women supposedly have a drive for hyper-muscular hunter-types, men supposedly have a desire for slightly chubby wide-hipped women who can easily give birth to children- and we know that’s really not a universal truth (Christina Hendricks notwithstanding). Also, there are plenty of interesting studies indicating that men and women have a drive to find partners who are not of the same race as they (or at least people who look sufficiently different), as it was a way to avoid inbreeding- but we know that’s not the case either, and a huge percentage of the world marry straight from their same race.

This can be put into application only in understanding women’s general tastes. For example, if you are tall, muscular, and generally masculine, chances are you will have a better time finding a woman sexually attracted to you than someone who is short-ish, weak, and effeminate. This means, for example, that if you do somewhat increase your chances of being considered attractive by falling into somewhat stereotypical roles. However, as I’m sure you’re already thinking, there are indeed exceptions to this rule, and no matter how you look, chances are there is a section of the female population that will find you sexually attractive.

So basically, what you’re reading is, much like a lot of things in the social sciences, interesting in the white tower, somewhat useless outside of it. Don’t stress over it.