So there’s an interesting op- ed type article in March’s Glamour (yes, the one with a very young-looking Amanda Seyfried on the newly revamped magazine, which looks a little like Seventeen now—brighter, lighter with a teen-looking covergirl wielding a blow dryer). Seems Glamour is itching to bring the Seventeen-reading set over to their magazine’s readership).

Here, they take a stand against photoshopping in the pages of their own magazine with “How Much is Too Much?” They commissioned an independent 1000-reader survey to find out what’s ok for a magazine or a company to do when it comes to digitally altering images.

Incredibly, they find the most amazing and astonishing news is how acceptable respondents find retouching in their everyday lives! Results show nearly sixty percent think it’s A-OK to alter their personal pics before posting to Facebook and 41 percent of those 18-24 already do it!

Glamour tells us women are fine with this. However, in the same vein, apparently it’s not so cool to alter the images you post to a dating site, since we learn the story of one 44-year-old entrepreneur who meets his online date for the first time. Yowsa. It turns out she’d apparently erased every wrinkle from her dating site profile pics. It’s not the wrinkles so much as the lie that is the turnoff, says the potential mate.

So Facebook, yes, Match.com no.

Other respondents say they feel compelled to retouch their own photos especially for blemishes and imperfections—after all they don’t want to be the only without perfect photos since everyone else is doing it. And professional photogs say skin imperfections, stray hairs and whiter teeth are the most common fixer uppers requested by clients, followed by wrinkle erasure, smoother skin and body fat trimming.

But most women do say they have a problem with major retouching and extreme alterations seen in the magazines today. You may want to look like you on your best day for your friends and family, and that’s okay, but altering  a celebrity’s body size is a deceitful no-no.

77 percent say its fine for magazines to erase blemishes

75 percent say it ok to delete stray hairs

75 percent say its fine to remove wrinkles—from CLOTHES.

But only 22 percent are good with making a woman look even five pounds lighter!

Then there’s Glamour’s Big Confession  front and center on the last page of the article. “Yes we do it. So do most fashion publications in the age of digital photography!” Yeah, no shit.

They site things in the current issue that were retouched like lightening the background behind Seyfried’s covershot and keeping model’s nipples from showing through their shirts (clearly important work to which they admit has been done twice in this issue alone.) But they plan to take a stronger role in drawing the boundaries when it comes to airbrushing in the glossy pages of their big beauty book.

Since three-quarters of their survey respondents say they weren’t ok with erasing freckles, scars and beauty marks—things that make women unique—Glamour agrees, vowing to leave these alone from hence forth.

They also claim their policy has always been not to alter a woman’s body size (hmmm, really?) But now they’re going to go even further and tell all the photographers they work with not to manipulate a woman’s shape.

Ugh…isn’t that exactly the same as altering her body size, which they claim there was already a policy against in place? Maybe not.

Confused? Me too. But I’ll keep my eye on Glamour in the months to come to see, if among other things, they stand by their claim of lessening the retouch.  We hope so.

Watch for more scars, freckles and beauty marks among the glossy pages of Glamour–and less whittled waists and slimmed limbs!

In the March issue of Women’s Health is yet another story on for lack of a better word: swinging. I’ve noticed this topic has run in a couple of other women’s mags recently too, one in the January Redbook called “Happily Married…Swingers?”

This one’s titled “Monagamish” and purports that to an increasing number of couples, being committed doesn’t mean being sexually faithful. Women’s Health delves into the provocative new movement of ‘negotiated fidelity.’

Ok, so first of all, provocative new movement? Uh, not so much since swinging and some version of married couples swapping partners got its name in the sixties with the advent of the sexual revolution and reliable birth control (the pill). Not to mention, it’s been practiced without a name long before then. European intellectuals were said to have practiced wife trading in the 18^th century and there is some mention of swapping going back to the 16^th century where formal written agreements were drawn up between participants.

In any case, what goads me about these modern day articles on the topic is that every couple they profile pretty much lays out the emotional landmines involved: jealousy, hurt feelings, anger and resentment abound, and that’s on both ends between couples who agree to mutual unfaithfulness.

This negotiated fidelity can involve everything from allowing one night stands, having continuous hookups, a don’t-ask -don’t -tell policy, a share-every- detail philosophy, or those that allow flings on biz trips or vacations, or only online.

The couple profiled in this piece, Chris and Elizabeth, are married six months, together nine monogamous years before broaching the subject. The wife jumps in first but chooses a man who she says breaks her heart leaving her a weepy wreck after the whole betrayal was over. Um, isn’t the point of this sex, so why is the married woman getting her heart broken from a sexual hookup?

Yeah, that’s the problem. Then the husband has a make out session on a biz trip and the wife has to deal with that. She says things like she was jealous but it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, and that it would have been worse if he had slept with her or if she knew her. You think? Yet isn’t that what you’ve signed up to do in the first place?

The point is this shit doesn’t really work out well for most of those involved. Even the articles on it can’t come up with couples who say this works  for them. Seems everyone has jealous or angry feelings about the situation, and hell, the woman in this piece apparently alluded to having deeper feelings about her tryst–perhaps even falling in love– since she got her heart broken.

By the end of the article, the therapists weigh in and tell us how if you’re really going to do this, you have to have open communication and discuss your fears and worries honestly, and blah, blah, blah. The problem is the people don’t even know what their fears and worries are until their husband boffs the neighbor or their wife beds the cute guy at the party and suddenly, oops, they were more bothered by their feelings than they’d thought they’d be.

But the worse part of this one is the requisite survey at the end in which Women’s Health and Men’s Health readers were polled to see just what they would allow their partner to do in such a nonmonagomous union:

30 percent of women are ok with their spouse having intercourse (that’s a fairly low number but I suspect it’s actually much lower in reality)

27 percent are ok with their guy having oral sex with someone else (you’d think these two numbers would be switched)

And the numbers only go down from there.

22 percent would allow their man a romantic dinner with another woman (ugh, again, isn’t this about sex?)

21 percent would allow gift exchanges (dang, we gotta spend money on this bitch’s gifts, too?)

And only 8 percent would allow hooking up on home turf (in other words, no, you can’t boink her in our bed, dear).

Honestly, Women’s Health, I don’t know who you think is going to introduce negotiated infidelity into their relationships based on the advice here, which doesn’t even really work for those you profiled. I suspect it’s around 1 percent—or less!

So you won’t believe the diet piece in the February issue of Marie Claire. I mean, you really won’t believe they actually covered this.

“Meet the Forkers” on page 166 covers The Fork Diet (or Le Forking) as Parisians refer to it. This quack of a diet debuted in France in a book called Dine Avec Une Fourchette (www.forkitdiet.com).

But honestly, Marie Claire should have left it there. The writer says it’s no crazier than any other diet, though it just might be. No question it’s as whacked as the Grapefruit Diet, the Baby Food Diet or the Vision Diet (that’s where you wear blue-tinted glasses while eating so everything looks unappealing), but no credible magazines are covering those diets!

This one’s lone rule is you may only eat what you can spear with a fork. Oh, it gets better. There’s a wimp and hardcore version. On the wimp plan, you can use a knife to prepare your food, but in the hardcore version, no knives are allowed.

This means no fingers foods: bread, cheese, fresh fruit; no spoon foods: soups, cereal, yogurt, oatmeal, and no foods that must be spread: peanut butter, humus, soft cheese, butter, or that need to be cut: meats.

Aside from the fact that eliminating huge food groups is hell nutritionally (Feel free to weigh in dietitians!), the sheer boredom of eating only stuff you can stab with a fork must be downright inconvenient.

There’s also no snacking, and if you can’t spear it or need to cut it, you can’t eat it.

The writer said she craved um, different utensils. Go figure.

Does it work? Well at the end of two weeks, the writer lost four pounds, which you could pretty much do on any healthy calorie-restricted diet plan. So the point? None.

Worse, the writer speculates at the end of the piece, why not a Chopstick Diet, eating only what you could snag with the wooden sticks? Oh brother.

Why don’t we come up with a Baby Spoon Diet or a No Utensils at all Diet? Uh, cause it’s all quackery, Marie Claire! We thought you knew better.

In the February Cosmo, yeah, the one with Dakota Fanning on the cover causing some controversy over an underage woman surrounded by sex cover lines, there’s a crime piece on page 159 titled “Deadly Decisions: How Smart Women Put themselves at Risk.” The cover line for this story is “Women and Danger: How this Decision Could Cost you Your Life.”

These are just the type of fear-mongering crime stories that tick me off. Unfortunately this one is written by former New York sex crimes prosecutor turned novelist Linda Farstein.

And that probably should explain the scare tactics—more murder-mayhem material rather than something helpful.

The piece starts off by telling us there’s been a number of tragic and shocking savvy, bright young women disappearing  today, many of whom are later found in shallow graves or dumpsters, others who haven’t been located.

The story tells us these were vibrant women with promising lives, which yeah, most any woman abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered usually is. There’s where they draw you in while you think, ‘I’m a vibrant woman with a promising life, too.’ Fairstein claims her goal was to change public attitudes that these women were somehow responsible for their own deaths–because they weren’t. Good so far.

However, she then goes on to tell us about three cases where the women make a misstep, a poorly thought out decision or some fuck up that basically ends their lives. Hence, sort of blaming the victim, no?

Case in point, ditching your friends at night. The first case follows a 19-year woman planning to attend college who is out at a club with friends when she goes to the restroom. Yes, the restroom. She left her purse, keys and belongings at the table with her friends.  Yet she never returns.

The story tells us the alcohol she drank must have blurred her thinking because video surveillance has her leaving the club with one guy. Minutes later she is on videotape at a hotel a few blocks away where she runs into another guy, the killer.

Though the piece says the misstep was leaving friends, I think not. She went to the bathroom for Christ’s sake, and who knows what happened after that to get her out of that club. She obviously never intended to ditch her friends!

The next poor decision is not struggling with your abductor. The second case shows us a 20-year old nursing student who is abducted in her own yard at the edge of a wooded area, and led into the woods by a man in her driveway. Her brother witnesses this from inside but mistakenly thinks it is her boyfriend until he finds blood in the driveway and the woman goes missing.

Farstein assumes the abductor led her quietly away and the woman did not struggle. Yet we have no idea if the woman knew the man, if she was helping him search for something, if she was rendered incapable of struggling via an injury indicated from the blood in the driveway. Again, we blame the woman for not struggling?

The third deadly mistake is storming off after a public fight with a guy, and we are told about a 26-year old model that got into a shouting match with her boyfriend at a Miami club. The bouncers threw out the boyfriend.

Her body is later found burnt in trash bin. Farstein assumes she may have flirted with other guys to make her boyfriend jealous, even though he was no longer there, or that she left with a stranger who offered to bring her to her boyfriend. Uh seems unlikely. But there is no evidence of any of that. The woman could have simply left and fallen victim to any number of situations, and yet her death is blamed on having a public argument.

The story also includes a sidebar on the hidden forces behind these bad choices, which include:

-You feel invincible.

-The media has numbed you to the reality about stories such as these.

-You’ve been sheltered by your parents.

Oy. How about some real advice like not getting too inebriated to take care of yourself, using the buddy system to go out and always being aware of your surroundings instead of these bogus reasons.

And if women’s mags could put the kibosh on victim-blaming, that would be great, too!

Is it too much to ask that we stop writing about how men want us to look? We pretty much expect that from Cosmo, but this time Glamour mag did it, too.

In the February issue with beautiful Rachel McAdams on the cover, page 150 contains a piece dubbed “Guy Pretty vs. Girl Pretty.” The premise of this stellar insight is that women and men have subjective ideas on what they think looks pretty on women. So??

Women, for instance, may like short hair, but guys favor long. Women adore a red lip but guys supposedly prefer a natural looking lip color. And on and on it goes.

A few of these incredible insights include:

EYES:

Guys like just mascara

Girls like a dressing up the eye with liner and color and even a smoky eye (which every women’s mag show us how to pull off, btw).

NAILS:

Guys like a French manicure

Girls like cool designs and bold colors that go all out.

Let me just say who cares what guys like– if you like it, do it!

Worse, we also learn guys are creeped out by eye lash curlers (um, did they want to borrow one?)

All manners of hair removal (yet I presume they don’t like the fuzzy look on their ladies!)

Super-long eyelashes (Hmmm Kim Kardashian surely hasn’t heard any complaints about hers.)

Too much orange spray tan (Calling Snooki!)

Oversize hair bows (hmmm…what guys even see 80’s era hair bows nowadays?)

Really Glamour? Ditch the short hair, red lipstick and eye shadow because guys don’t like ‘em? That’s your advice?

Here’s a thought, why not stick to articles about what women like to wear, Glamour!!

Plug your ears! On page 109 of the January issue of Women’s Health mag, “The Art of Aural Sex: A Brave Male Writer Signs Up for a Serious Lesson in Dirty Talk” deigns to take up three pages.  Nick Scott, a courageous man-writer set out to learn how to talk dirty during sex. Thing is, maybe it’s just me, but do women really even want dirty talk from their partners? I for one can do without.

I mean, honestly, Scott thinks that lewd language can be the “catalyst for sending a woman into the orgasm she’s been teetering on the brink of for the past 20 minutes.” Ugh, not so much. Maybe other women would disagree, but I’m thinking if you’re teetering for twenty minutes, it’s just not gonna happen for you tonight.

In fact, the writer learns that while guys like to hear dirty talk from their partners, they are leery of articulating the dirty speech for fear of getting it wrong and sounding pervy.

Fair enough, but unfortunately, the expert he seeks out for help suggests this winning line: “I want to disrobe you and see your parts exposed and touch them…”

Are you effing kidding? Even Scott recognizes this as cheese. Parts? He says he has three exes that would run screaming from the delivery of that line.

But sex therapist Jacqueline Hellyer simply instructs him on what to do if the dirty talk backfires by saying, “Come here and give me a hug. I hope I didn’t offend you—are you OK?”

After that you can bring over the trash pail for any residual vomiting.

The entire piece is laughable. I applaud Scott for trying, but the expert he turned to was SERIOUSLY lame.

Since the whole piece seems more like a joke than anything women would really want their man to utter during the throes of passion, here’s my take on the crux of the advice from Hellyer for more manly dirty talk from your guys:

1. Gush Wildly. “You have the tightest one I’ve ever had!”
2. Keep it Positive. “I’m really digging these new bedazzles on your vajayjay!”
3. Be responsive.  Yell out things like, Yippee Ki-yay Motherfucker during lovemaking.
4. Expand your Vocab. “I find your dexterity and flexibility an impressive combination of sexual prowess that easily ushers in my ejaculation.”
5. Get Creative. Don’t stop with dirty talk. Try dirty songs, dirty poetry readings, reading aloud from dirty novels and acting out dirty movie scenes!

Oh Redbook. I like the Kardashians as much as the next person but whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, the “What Would Kourtney Kardashian Do?” piece on page 40 of the January issue gives me pause. Really? We need to ask Kourt what she would do?

To be honest, the article really should be titled, “What Would Kourtney Wear?” since it gives three life situations and asks the reader what Kourtney K would wear in such a conundrum!

First up the playdate, though Kourtney is holding her son so I assume the playdate is for him, not for her.

Next up is the party. Though we don’t get any dress code for the type of party she will be attending. And finally, it’s posh, which the last I looked isn’t really a destination, but in fact, simply just a way of dressing when you want to look elegant and classy apparently.

Kourt rocks a legging, blazer and boots ensemble (playdate), a mini skirt and ruffled top (party) and a fur (faux I hope) bolero jacket, dress and knee-high leather boots for the posh look.

Text below her looks gives style examples and outfits readers can put together to achieve all three looks. But really, of all the beautiful stylish women out there, some of whom’s actual job it is to style women (hello Rachel Zoe), why should we ask Kourtney Kardashian?

No idea.

So instead I’ve thought up a few other things we could ask “What Would Kourtney Do?”

1. What would Kourtney do if her live-in boyfriend and father of her child acted like a complete douche, drank too much and picked fights with her family?

2. What would Kourtney do if one of her sisters needed her support after her ridiculously short failed marriage (72 days)?

3. What would Kourtney do if her teen sisters swiped Dad’s credit card and went on a shopping spree? What advice would she give them?

Wouldn’t you rather know what Kourtney would do in those situations? Me too! Maybe next time Redbook!

Oh no, O Magazine, did you really sink so low as “When Bad Muffin Top Happens to Good Women?” Yikes. In the January issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, page 111 showcases “Your Biggest Dressing Dilemmas.”

Now this wouldn’t be so bad except these dilemmas are dubbed Muffin Top, Turkey Neck (ouch), Cankles and Pooch.

Worse, some of the advice is downright lame. For turkey neck, which by the way is that wrinkled, loose skin hanging below the chin and neck area problem, and for that you avoid turtle necks and simple pop your collar up! Ok then. Problem solved.

Likewise for muffin top, you simply stop wearing low risers and put on a high-waisted pair of pants!

What about pooch? Briefs with elastic panels in the front. AKA: Spanx.

Then there’s armpit fat…you know that extra flesh in the underarm area that worsens when you go strapless. Here’s a brain fart: Um, don’t go strapless or better, buy a bra that fits right.

How about bat wings, that flabby skin on the underside of the upper arms?  Well, duh simply wear sleeves? Who’d have thunk it?

The best one though is chub rub, which I wasn’t even sure what that was until reading, but it’s apparently when your thighs rub together while walking causing clothing in that area to become worn out and split the seams. Now, split seams, that’s a real problem.

For this, the brilliant solution is thick tights, bike shorts or again, long Spanx under pants.

Honestly O, this was the most wasted eight pages a tree could have fallen for that I’ve seen in quite some time. Oh, and we didn’t even get to cankles, back fat and double boobs, when your boob cup overflows.

I’ll spare ya how to fix those dressing dilemma, ladies. However, you’ll want to skip this article in January O mag.

Boo-Hiss to the January issue of Glamour magazine for its weight loss piece on page 46, “How to Get to Your Show Off Weight.” The text, a five-page treatsie on six steps to take to reach your goal weight including standard fare such as don’t skip meals, keep snacks snack-size, eat your veggies first, set small goals, move, and quit counting calories. No beef with that.

It’s the accompanying visual that spiked my blood pressure. Six real-live women who’ve lost weight stand in the middle of New York City’s Time Square holding their weight on signs in neon pink numbers. Oh brother.

155lbs, 147lbs., 125lbs., 128lbs., 157 lbs. and 144lbs.

Really Glamour? Must we all hold up our weight on signs in Time Square? That’s the only way to take pride in achieving a desired weight or feel free of our weight struggles?

Bah humbug! Weight is personal and if you’re spot on yours, need to lose a little or a lot, or even need to gain a few, no one need hold up their number in Time Square or anywhere else on their journey.

Would we even think of asking men to hold up their weight on signs in a Lad Mag? Hell no. And you probably wouldn’t find men to cooperate either.

It seems just another way to define women–by their weight, a mere number.

Toss the cards, ladies and get a clue Glamour! No one cares what the numbers are.

No wonder NBC’s Playboy Club was short-lived this fall. There’s just no getting around how lousy Playboy Bunnies were treated. In November’s Cosmo, writer Anna Davies gives us a peak into the bunny tale horrors:

1. Bunnies had to spread their legs for a GYN exam before they could report to work. Seems their gynecological health had to check out before they could dish up drinks.

2. Their shift was grueling. There were no breaks and Bunnies couldn’t be seen drinking so much as a glass of water in front of a customer, less they got 10 demerits (100 and they were out!)

3. Their weight was monitored. Bunny Lili Bee got busted in the 70s for being four pounds up from her 112-pound hiring weight, and was suspended for a week.

4. Playboy Bunny wasn’t just a job, it was an identity. Bunnies had to introduce themselves as Bunny [first name]. If their first name was the same as a girl already employed, they had to choose a new name.

5. Bunnies got fired via the weekly schedule. A bunny would check the weekly schedule for her shifts only to discover her name absent. This meant bye-buh Bunny!

6. Bunnies paid for supplies out-of pocket. Bunnies had to pay for their own makeup, false lashes, tights and dyed-to match their bunny suit pumps. They were inspected before each shift and any Bunny deemed imperfect for a run in her tights or a non-fluffed tail would receive demerits.

7. The Club spied on bunnies. To ensure bunnies didn’t break rules like dating customers, spies were sent in posing as customers to watch them. Bunnies were encouraged, however, to date the Playboy execs. Go figure.

8. Bunnies had to keep their men at home. Bunnies were instructed to meet their husband or boyfriend two blocks from the club so customers would never see them with a man.

Is it any wonder women wouldn’t tune in week after to week to watch this on TV?

Heff’s comment on Twitter: “Ugly Bunny Tales,” in the current issue of Cosmopolitan, is a curious piece of pointless, anti-Playboy pap.”

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