The Care of the Self

One of my favorite internet activities is reading articles which explain how the most banal decisions of everyday life can become part of the perpetual refashioning of my self. A real winner is Men’s Health.

To emphasize the importance of building "protruding pecs,” the experts point out: “Guys tend to measure themselves by three criteria: income, sexual prowess, bench press.” I guess it’s one of those things that is so obvious you have to have it pointed out to you.

The attention to detail is truly spellbinding: "sleeve-busting muscle" is linked not only to the size of your sleeves, but also the “visibility of your cephalic vein, which crosses your biceps… To make this vein pop, you need to drop your body fat below 15 percent.”

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that the delectable nutritional advice is just about fat. Sandwiched between the disgusting recipes, which usually involve boiled chicken breasts and lowfat milk measured down to the half-teaspoon, there are quasi-scientific tributes to secretly transformative grocery-store treasures. For example, from a top ten list of “superfoods”:

Prunes contain high amounts of neochlorogenic and chlorogenic acids, antioxidants that are particularly effective at combating the “superoxide anion radical.” This nasty free radical causes structural damage to your cells, and such damage is thought to be one of the primary causes of cancer.

Wow! How totally incomprehensible yet strangely inspiring. I am sure that equally magical properties are hidden in Milky War Bars and cigarettes. Hurray for nutrition!

Of course, the best of the online advice experience is the girl magazine, Cosmopolitan. I have never had the time to look at their advice on fashion, careers, or fitness, because I have always gotten lost in the vast collection of sex tips. Again, it is the attention to detail which makes everything worthwhile:

the next time you're going at it with your man, let him know just how bad you want him by making the first move downtown. Confidently kneel between his legs and grip his shaft firmly. Then take him in your mouth and slide your mouth and hand up and down his penis in tandem, periodically gazing up at him or moaning with pleasure… First suck him for a while, then slowly lick all the way up and down his shaft, then use the tip of your tongue to titillate the supersensitive tip of his penis, and so on.

An appropriate climax is provided in a response to a reader with ingestion anxiety:

Another way to send him into orgasmic bliss: Let him come on your chest. Start pleasuring him orally, and when he's close to climax put his penis between your breasts… Then, place your palms on either side of your breasts and push them together as he slides his shaft back and forth until he peaks.

Who needs porno when we’ve got Cosmo?


NOTE: This entry exceeds the world limit due to the citations. The first two entries were exactly 199 words. This initial rigor compensates for the excess of the current entry.