Front to Back

The more I read them, the more I am convinced that magazines made for women aren't really made for them at all. I mean what woman in her right mind wants to be told in no uncertain terms that beauty can only be obtainable with the right foundation, the perfect shade of lipstick and the right clothes on the right sized body?

It's all ridiculous. Magazines like Cosmo that fill their pages with shortsighted articles meant to convince the women - ages 16 to 25 - of the world that what they really need to do is change everything they possibly can about themselves in order to live the ideal Sex in the City life, as it it were part of some coming of age manifest destiny.

When I was seventeen, Cosmo was my bible. In its pages, it told me everything I needed to do to attract the right sort of attention from the right sort of guy and then how to keep him interested once he'd been snagged. But what it didn't bother to tell me, or any of its readers for that matter, was that their recycled advice of manipulation, deceit and lies was no way to maintain, let alone start a healthy relationship with anyone.

Instead they wrote article after article of how best to please your man and become a mind reader all at the same time just by observing the shape of his lips. And we bought it up. Hook, line and sinker as we asked for more Kama Sutra, more boys behaving badly, and more stories telling us how girls just like us managed to achieve all their hopes and dreams simply by turning to page 147 to read the conclusion of the story started on page 92.

Ahhh ... Happily ever after.

But now that I'm thirty, I want a magazine that caters to me and not the ideal I should strive to be. I want a magazine that has more relevant articles than advertisements. One that gives sound advice without sounding like a bathroom discussion in-between class bells. One that tells me how best to make myself happy rather than how to please my lover beneath the sheets. One that is reliable, newsworthy, informative and (drum roll please) entertaining all at the same time.