Blurb:

Based upon a content and discourse analysis of four international editions of Cosmo, it is evident that
there is an interesting disarticulation between what is actually going on in the U.S. versus its global
reputation as “the leader” in all things. Cosmopolitan U.S. is behind the times sexually speaking in that it
avoids discussing homosexuality, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases, while its international
counterparts engage openly with these issues. All international issues of Cosmo are produced by the
same American corporation, Hearst Magazines, International, however. Thus an investigation into these
numerous disarticulations will yield interesting results worthy of further examination.

 Objective or purpose of the paper, panel, workshop, etc.

 Perspective and/or theoretical framework and/or references to relevant texts, research, or
on-going debates in women's and gender studies or related fields
 Results and/or conclusions and point of view
 Relevance to the conference theme
 Discussion of how the session will be structured

While Cosmo is creating “imagined” subjectivities, it is literally creating and legitimizing “real” world
cities and by extension (democratically sexual) nations that are able to participate in the lucrative
endeavor of publishing and distributing Cosmopolitan. Cosmo has become a globalized brand and a
lifestyle for metropolitan women whose ideas, ideals, and identities circulate in global cities making the
Cosmo woman a citizen of the world. Cosmo participates in the globalization of desire deployed through
hyper-femininity earning certain women citizenship in the world’s marketplace based upon their hyper-
(hetero)sexuality and consumerism. Ultimately this research seeks to further explore contemporary
globalized representations of nationalized and sexualized subjectivities through consumer practices,
which are traceable transnationally using, as artifacts, international magazine issues of Cosmopolitan.

Michele Foucault argues that there is a specific way in which we talk about and manage sex through
science, policy, clinical medicine, and photos; these management systems can be considered disciplinary
mechanisms, which operate in transnational women’s magazines through the production of gendered
bodies “as a mode of specification of individuals” (1978: 47). Thus, while Cosmo encourages
heterosexual sex—“How Long Should You Wait to Sleep With a Guy? Finally, a Straight Answer” (Cosmo
U.S. March 2007)—it subjugates hyper sexuality by using “real” stories about women who have fallen in
love with homosexual men: creating the “perfect” unrequited (safe) desire.

Cosmo is important because the Cosmo woman has a sexual agency not available to “just any” woman.
The ways in which this womanhood is actively constructed and perceived in newly developing
democratic nations, such as South Africa, India, Russia, Portugal and Puerto Rico (although it is a U.S.
territory) to name a few, are drastically different from the womanhood shaped by U.S. development
policies in these same regions. These development projects circumscribe the sexual behavior of
Cosmo’s global readership; therefore, it is important to examine the ways in which sexual agency is
framed through advertising and other imagery and through the text of the magazine itself.

Through content and discourse analysis of four international editions of Cosmo, it is evident that there is
an interesting disarticulation between what is actually going on in the U.S. versus its global reputation as
“the leader” in all things. This paper engages with the theoretical work of Michel Foucault and Judith
Butler to explore the regulating aspects of transnational womanhood, while using the work of Jacques
Lacan we explore the ways in which Cosmo women engage in desire that always remains; Inderpal
Grewal’s Transnational America is also key to the framework of this project. Using Cosmopolitan U.S. is
behind the times sexually speaking in that it avoids discussing homosexuality, abortion, and sexually
transmitted diseases, while its international counterparts engage openly with these issues. All
international issues of Cosmo are produced by the same American corporation, Hearst Magazines,
International, however. Thus an investigation into these numerous disarticulations will yield interesting
results worthy of further examination.