Valentine's Day: Have The Ladies' Mags Lost The Love?
By Kristen Fyfe
February 13, 2007
Page 2 of 2
Cultural corrosion of sexual mores has profound consequences. In a fascinating book called Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student, Dr. Miriam Grossman details the real cost of this sex obsession and doctrine of sex without consequences. Depression, suicide, eating disorders and millions of cases of sexually transmitted diseases -- these are the real and unreported prices often associated with early, casual and frequent sexual activity.
Depression and eating disorders don't tease as well on magazine covers as titillating snippets like "The Sex He'll Die For." Neither do stories about the growing purity and chastity movement launched by young conservative women. Would Cosmo or Glamour run profiles on the Anscombe Society, a student group at Princeton University that held a conference this month to discuss, among other things, abstinence until marriage? Not likely.
No, sex is what sells -- at least in the minds of magazine editors. But is that what women really want? The Feb. 13 issue of Woman's Day includes a reader poll showing that what most women (56 percent) really want is a love letter from their Valentine. If the editors of these women's magazines truly care about what women really want they'd pay attention to that statistic. The drumbeat for sexual satisfaction seems to be less important to women than an expression of real love and tender feelings -- through something as simple and old-fashioned as a love letter. Which was, after all, the original Valentine.
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Kristen Fyfe is senior writer at the Media Research Center's Culture and Media Institute. (web site) The CMI Eye on Culture study on which this column is based, "Valentine's Day: Have the Ladies' Mags Lost the Love?" is available on-line at (web site)
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA. >> Back -- Page 1 2
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