Why Cosmo is for Lesbians

I've become a fan of Curve magazine since beginning to embrace my sapphic side, and I adore the many aspects it brings together that define my life. Long before I was savvy enough to discover my love of Curve - and discover my love of, ahem, curves - I spent countless hours leafing through "mainstream" women's mags. And still do for that matter. Cosmo is a staple as are Elle, Vogue, Allure, and Glamour. To a lipstick lesbian (and in the words of Elle Woods), Cosmo is the Bible.

It wasn't just the stilettos and couture duds that drew me in though, which brings me to the second installment of Ways the Straight Girl Knows She's Gay (WSGKSG). Sure, most women's magazines contain a requisite amount of male nudity, but even more so they feature quite a bit of female nudity. Everything from advertisements to swimsuit and lingerie spreads. And to a girl who may not realize she's gay yet, eyes lingering a little too long on certain pages should give pause.

She's not even a little nude (sad, I know), but my the first time I can remember looking a little too long and too often at a girl in a magazine was Selma Blair in the August 2002 issue of Seventeen when I was 16.



There was just something so adorably androgynous about her. I put the page up on my wall, and when my mom inquired I told her I was "thinking about getting my hair cut like that." Right.

Fast forward nearly eight years and it's a lot harder to use that line for Adriana Lima in this one:



Finally, there's the article that prompted this trip down memory lane:



Holy Hell. That's all I could say when I noticed this on Huffington Post while at work today, hoping my co-workers didn't notice me go into conniptions. This is for a feature article for Allure's Nude Issue. This is the epitome of what I'm taking about. If Padma Lakshmi doesn't make you question things just a little bit, I don't know what would. Oh, maybe this:



Eliza. Dusku. For real. Am I the only one who's Cosmo sometimes induced induces naughty feelings? I doubt it.

**Update** Last night I was watching But I'm a Cheerleader. How could I have forgotten the lines:
"Everyone reads Cosmo. Everyone looks at other girls, all the time!"
"But you only assume they're thinking what you're thinking when they look, but they're not"
"I thought everybody had those thoughts..."