Pro-life video of the day: Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown dies at 90
by LauraLoo
Helen Gurley Brown, who invited millions of women to join the sexual revolution as longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, died Monday at age 90.
Sex and the Single Girl, her grab-bag book of advice, opinion, and anecdote on why being single shouldn’t mean being sexless, made a celebrity of the 40-year-old advertising copywriter in 1962. Cosmo sales grew every year until peaking at just over 3 million in 1983, then slowly leveled off to 2.5 million when Brown left in 1997.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKpMV3Rs4IU[/youtube]
Some of Brown’s more questionable quotes include:
- “You can’t be sexual at 60 if you’re fat,” she observed on her 60th birthday.
- “I’ve never worked anywhere without being sexually involved with somebody in the office.” Asked whether that included the boss, Brown said, “Why discriminate against him?”
- “My own philosophy is if you’re not having sex, you’re finished. It separates the girls from the old people.”
The Browns were childless by choice.
Ladies: Did Cosmo influence your young adult upbringing and, if so, for the better or for the worse?
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Ah, yes, another of the “Greatest Generation” the folks who brought us the Sexual Revolution and the ’60’s.
The only difference between Playboy and Cosmo is Hefner was more honest than Brown.
“My own philosophy is if you’re not having sex, you’re finished. It separates the girls from the old people.”
The Browns were childless by choice.
The irony.
Obsessed with sex, yet don’t want kids.
Ladies: Did Cosmo influence your young adult upbringing and, if so, for the better or for the worse?
Not really. I read it here and there when I was younger and it was around but it always struck me as pretty stupid stuff. I preferred the teen-oriented magazines – there was an editor named Atoosa who made the rounds at a few different teen magazines during my youth who was actually pretty good. She would post totally awesome pictures of her own teen years, in which she rocked her unibrow and bad youth fashion. You don’t see much of that in teen magazines these days. Cosmo et al just seemed really weird and…bizarre. Now that I’m older I still think it’s stupid but some of it is downright HILARIOUS – like a “recommendation” from a few years ago that you “wow him” by tying your hair back with your own underwear…? I only heard about that one due to the public ridicule it got, but my gentleman and I still joke about that. “Those would look great on the floor….or IN YOUR HAIR!!” “Your hair looks amazing tonight! But it would look so much better with some underwear in it.” He wears a baseball hat on weekends when his hair gets too long and almost without fail I suggest that he try some boxer shorts instead.
Now that I have finally aged out of having any friends at all who keep Cosmo on hand, I only come across it on the rare occasions when I get pedicures, and even then I’d rather pick up ANYTHING else. I’m talking, like, gardening magazines. These people have apparently never heard of a sex act that they don’t think can be improved upon by rolling the dessert cart into the bedroom. Whatever.
Helen Gurley Brown never had an abortion. She was never pregnant.
If you’re not having sex you’re finished? I mean, I love sex but it isn’t the center of my universe or the reason for my existence. I have a baby and a little boy so most nights the husband and I fall into bed exhausted but we are happy and life is good. We’re still in-love and our family is our everything…not sex. If you’re only living so you can have sex…well, that just seems sad to me. There is so much more to life!
My older sister loved that magazine and I admit I used to take a peek. Some of the fashions were nice, but generally I thought it was pretty silly. I think HGB was a negative influence. She starved herself to keep slim before it was fashionable (I understand that in the fashion world now, a size six is considered a plus size — a six! To me that’s tiny) and was very pro-abortion, like many child-free people are. She also said something to the effect that every single woman should have an affair with a married man, but admitted that she would have been devastated if her husband ever had an affair. What an idiot.
It’s been written that she was the real-life Carrie Bradshaw, but who really wants to be ANY of the characters from that stupid series?
phillymiss says:
August 15, 2012 at 1:06 pm
My older sister loved that magazine and I admit I used to take a peek. Some of the fashions were nice, but generally I thought it was pretty silly. I think HGB was a negative influence. She starved herself to keep slim before it was fashionable (I understand that in the fashion world now, a size six is considered a plus size — a six! To me that’s tiny) and was very pro-abortion, like many child-free people are.
(Denise) However, as I pointed out, Helen Gurley Brown never HAD an abortion — because she was never pregnant.
Ugh. I tried to be a reader when I was younger, but each issue made me sicker than the last. How “liberated” are we if our biggest concern is “hot moves to make him crazy for you”?! Seriously, is that more modern that the 1950’s “hot casseroles to make him crazy for you”?! Because we were being influenced to despise the ‘man pleasing’ 50’s and everything about it. But all we did was replace the goal of homemaking with sex-making.
Childless by choice. Indeed, and we all know what “choice” really means.
I have to admit, I’m AMUSED by the question.
Did Cosmo influence my young adult upbringing?
No…but The BIBLE sure did! :)
My sister used to read it, so I leafed through it a couple of times, but I couldn’t relate to anything in it. Not the clothes, and CERTAINLY not the over-all “attitude” of it:
“sex/being sexy is EVERYTHING!”…umm..no..it isn’t.
*Just for the record: yes..I very much enjoy sex. With my husband*
That was a nervous moment.
I was practically in shock when I started reading the article, mistakenly read the title as “Pro-Life HERO of the day”, and thought to myself, “… did I miss something?”
In this case, I’m glad I did. :-)
Anyway…
I found this quote to be particularly striking: “if you’re not having sex, you’re finished.”
Well, I would require the assistance of a small-to-medium-sized crowd of people in order to be able to count on one’s fingers the number of people that I can think of off the top of my head who are living contradictions to that delusion.
If I go one step further and include the males … no, I don’t think Subway makes a big enough sandwich to feed all the people I would need to help count on fingers, and I’m not doing this if I can’t feed them; that would be rude.
Also: “I’ve never worked anywhere without being sexually involved with somebody in the office.” Asked whether that included the boss, Brown said, “Why discriminate against him?”
I wonder; did that relationship end when her employment did, or did she simply add that person to her user list?
Phillymiss: “She also said something to the effect that every single woman should have an affair with a married man, but admitted that she would have been devastated if her husband ever had an affair.”
We have long maintained that the pro-abortion mentality stems from something deeper, and unfortunately your sister’s statement illustrates it uncannily; the desire to do as one pleases so long as the consequences don’t harm yourself.
However, you also wrote everything about her in the past tense; has she had her eyes opened since then?
She died, Maestro.
x_X
But yeah. That kinda loosey-goosey sounds…rather sick.
Her mantra was, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.”
I wonder where she is now.
ninek says:
August 15, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Ugh. I tried to be a reader when I was younger, but each issue made me sicker than the last. How “liberated” are we if our biggest concern is “hot moves to make him crazy for you”?! Seriously, is that more modern that the 1950?s “hot casseroles to make him crazy for you”?! Because we were being influenced to despise the ‘man pleasing’ 50?s and everything about it. But all we did was replace the goal of homemaking with sex-making.
Childless by choice. Indeed, and we all know what “choice” really means.
(Denise) WRONG, Ninek! As I previously wrote, Helen Gurley Brown never had an abortion.
She was never pregnant.
I freely confess that I was influenced by Cosmo. I was exposed as a teen, having come from a Bible-believing home. I’d leaf through the magazine that friends brought to school and it was intriguing and exotic and very “grown-up”. I knew it was trash but I was immature and didn’t have the self-control to turn away from it but, in guilt, would keep turning pages. I’m sure I’ll never know how much of my head, heart, and expectations were formed by what I read… but thank God for His transforming me through the renewing of my mind through His Word. My early adult life, with cosmo instincts fueled, was not nearly so joyful.
Hi Denise Noe,
Good points. In an era when “sexual harassment” was supposedly of major importance and Anita Hill reigned, there was Cosmo with advice on how to dress to lure men and drive them wild in the bedroom.
Quite a dichotomy. Even Andy Rooney commented on it and admitted it left men a little confused to say the least. A woman can dress to be enticing, but cry victim if a man looks at her the “wrong” way.
It seems that women could be both a helpless victim and seductive temptress.
Thank goodness I was spared reading Cosmo as a young adult/teen (partly because my mother would never have let me read it and partly because it was ALSO about fashion, of which I had zero-zilch-nada interest).
What a sad, sad woman. Goodness. If you’re not having sex, you’re finished? Are you kidding me? Yeah, I love sex (with my sweet husband) but that’s an enhancement to our relationship – not the end-all, be-all of it. Poor thing – I guess she didn’t realize that there are other types of intimacy besides physical that can be just as fulfilling. :(
Mary says:
August 15, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Hi Denise Noe,
Good points. In an era when “sexual harassment” was supposedly of major importance and Anita Hill reigned, there was Cosmo with advice on how to dress to lure men and drive them wild in the bedroom.Quite a dichotomy. Even Andy Rooney commented on it and admitted it left men a little confused to say the least. A woman can dress to be enticing, but cry victim if a man looks at her the “wrong” way.It seems that women could be both a helpless victim and seductive temptress.
(Denise) Someone directed me to a little film made by the American Life League that is about Planned Parenthood “sex education.” Much in there seems to reduce women to sex objects. There is a lot of confusion because many women in the 1970s wanted to expand our horizons and were against the tendency to reduce women to sexual — and reproductive — function.
However, much in the modern world does exactly that. Everywhere one looks, female exposure is used to sell products. Surrogate mothers could be considered reduced to reproductive function.
One intrinsic problem with the entire “sexual harassment” focus was that it originates with the male victimizer-female victim paradigm. In its strictest definition, this is accurate. If one considers instances in which a boss demands and employer have sex or get fired, the boss will almost always be a man and the employee a woman. That sort of sexual harassment is usually a man harassing a woman.
However, when sexual harassment was expanded to include sexually offensive jokes or remarks, the male villain-female victim paradigm fails. Studies have shown that women talk about sex slightly MORE than men. I’ve asked around and most people I know think that’s true. People of both sexes make inappropriate sexual remarks and jokes; people of both sexes may be offended by them. From that POV, women as a gender are just as guilty — perhaps more so — than men as a gender.
I find it hilariously ironic that you people who enjoy calling yourselves “pro-life” are celebrating yet another person’s death. Way to be consistent, folks!
Xalisae: “She died, Maestro.”
Wow … now I feel like a heel…
Thank you for telling me, Lady Xalisae, before I said something worse.
Phillymiss, if what I said upset you at all, I sincerely apologize. I’ll stop talking about her now.
The closest comment, Coral, I seem to find on this thread to anyone “celebrating her death” is when Praxades writes “I wonder where she is now. ” which is in no way “celebrating her death.” This is a very standard things for pro-choicers to do. Whenever a pro-choice tragedy occurs like a pro-choicer dying and a pro-life site reports on it, the standard knee-jerk reaction of certain pro-choicers is “I can’t believe that everyone is celebrating this person’s death! Hypocrites!” Don’t bother reading the comments, maybe find one or two that seem judgmental, and boom, laugh at those benighted pro-lifers for being hypocritical, make a smug morally superior comment, and never worry about trying to interact with any arguments or substance.
In fact, just today on the “death of Nellie” thread I had to unpublish the following comments:
“Rot in Peace.”
“She reminds me of the Wicked Witch of the West. Good riddens to dog feces.”
“Good riddens to bad rubbish. May she rot in hell… ”
“She’s in hell with Andrew Breitbart.”
At least on this blog, it is (some) pro-choicers who celebrate death. At least these pro-deathers (as opposed to pro-choicers) are consistent.
hippie says:
August 15, 2012 at 12:14 pm
“My own philosophy is if you’re not having sex, you’re finished. It separates the girls from the old people.”
The Browns were childless by choice.
The irony. Obsessed with sex, yet don’t want kids.
(Denise) Both male homosexuals and lesbians may have very active sex lives in ways that cannot lead to pregnancy.
However, I’ve got to grant you a point. The natural, usual result of the typical sex act of a man and a woman is pregnancy.
Yet there’s no connection between the desire for this act and the desire for babies. Nor is there a connection between the desire for the act and talent in caring well for babies and children.
I wonder where she is now?
I made this statement, Coral, to remind myself and others to think about how we live, the daily choices we make and where we will end up after our own deaths.
This is not a video game. We don’t get extra lives or re-dos. I sincerely hope that Helen Brown was right with her Maker before she passed away. I pray to God that He allows me to live long enough to get to heaven in spite of my choosing to remain oblivious for years to the fact that I was on a bad path.
I saw a similar statement written underneath a photo of a group of nazis who were whooping it up at a ritzy party. The statement was written years after all of the folks in the photo had passed: Where are they now?
A question to ponder.
LOL, Cosmo. When I was like thirteen I used to read that magazine thinking it would let me know how to get girls. Bad idea. RIP Cosmo lady.
Maestro,
Any time. Goodness knows I’ve enjoyed more than my fair share of delicious crow here on these threads. And here I thought the extra weight came from living with my own private chef…
At least SOME of Cosmo is compatible with conservative values. Phyllis Schlafly has written that sex gives a woman power over a man. Through it, she can — in Schlafly’s words — “motivate him, inspire him, encourage him, teach him, restrain him, reward him, and have more power over him than he can ever have over her with all his muscle.” Schlafly continues that the way a woman uses her sexual power depends on her “goals” and how she “develops her skills.”
Much of Cosmopolitan is devoted to helping women develop sexual skills so it fits in with what Schlafly advocates.
HGB and Nellie G. both gone in a week. Both sides lost heroines, but only one benefitted from theirs. Brown was as hedonistic as Nellie was a selfless paradigm of virtue.
@ Gerard: 1: see my comment above.
2: Maybe they weren’t so completely apart. Both were elderly women who were childless. Of course, HGB was married. But both were raised in the era when “good girls” were expected to marry and have kids. HGB did one. Nellie did neither.
Denise, Good relationships are not based on power trips.
Gerard, I thought the same thing. Two elderly women have just ended their very long earthly lives. One lived in the flesh and the other lived in the spirit.
No matter how self-satisfied Brown claimed to be, she always came across as a very hollow person to me. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.
Speaking of covers, Cosmo and Playboy were mirror images.
Prax: “I pray to God that He allows me to live long enough to get to heaven in spite of my choosing to remain oblivious for years to the fact that I was on a bad path.”
??
How does how long you live factor in? I don’t get it.
Praxedes says:
August 16, 2012 at 9:13 pm
Denise, Good relationships are not based on power trips.
(Denise) Tell that to Phyllis Schlafly. As noted above, she has written that a man’s sexual desires allows a woman to “motivate him, inspire him, encourage him, teach him, restrain him, reward him and have more power over him than he can have over her will all his muscle.”
It sounds very much like a woman’s relationship with a man is similar to a human’s relationship to a dog.
I should add to the above that I admire Phyllis Schlafly overall and wrote an essay about her entitled “Phyllis Schlafly, Champion of Women’s Rights and American Military Might.”