Ridiculous Tips for a Miserable Sex Life

Men's Health and Cosmo get outlandish, with more food-related techniques and a trick with a necklace that'll arouse and bewilder you.

By Ben Reininga

Each month like clockwork, men's and women's magazines hit the newsstands, bursting with terrible sex and dating advice. And each month, we pick out the worst tips and mock them for your edification.

With the autumn comes a certain return to seriousness. School and work are getting hard again, coats are out of the closet, and frigid weather looms. In preparation for the winter to come, our favorite men's and women's magazines are feeling a little conservative this month. Like, have-dinner-waiting-on-the-table-when-he-comes-home-from-work conservative. So, if you assume the men who read Men's Health date the women who read Cosmo (and you know they do), it's going to be a very retro fall.

Cosmopolitan

What better way to celebrate fall than with an ode to that most autumnal of the body parts. You know what I mean. October is the season for apple picking, pumpkin carving, late-summer peaches — decorative gourds, for Christ's sake — that's right, boobs. To celebrate the season (or just 'cause), Cosmopolitan has put together a list of "50 Great Things to Do with Your Breasts." And great they are.

In the true spirit of progress, more than half of boob-related activities involve empowering yourself — by making your breasts gigantic and using them to woo the maler sex:

• "Work silicone bra inserts in a tank top for a day, and keep a tally of all the men who stare at your cleavage"
• "Go braless on a night out, and wear a low-cut shirt so it's obvious"
• "Try Victoria's Secret Miraculous Push-Up — it adds up to two full cup sizes!"
• "When you're lounging together on the couch reading or watching TV, guide his hand inside your bra and have him lightly scratch your breasts with his fingertips"
• "Hide tickets to that baseball game your guy's been dying to go to in your bra, and tell him to go hunting for hidden treasure."

Boobs plus baseball almost guarantees a happy man. And what more could any woman in 2010 want? (Except for new oven mitts, of course.)

By Cosmopolitan's bylaws, each issue must contain at least one, food-and-beverage-related piece of advice that sounds sexy, but would probably be immensely unpleasant to attempt.

• "Overheated at the beach? Slip an ice cube out of your drink, and glide it over your cleavage." Never mind that it's October, and no one is likely to be overheated at the beach — this classic will never die.
• "Draw an attention-grabbing circle around your nipples using rhinestones and body glue for a special night in." 
• "Cook dinner topless, apply a little tomato sauce to your nipple," and ask "your man" to lick it off. (Note you should not attempt these tips on the same night — hot pasta sauce is a known enemy of body glue, and "your man" might choke on a rhinestone.)

Cosmo's also got some tips on that high-school standard: the handjob. Only now, like a pair of bedazzled tatas, the most basic sex act has gotten insanely ornate. Listen up, strumpets, 'cause "here's how to throw his disco stick a party he'll never forget."

• "Give him a sexy stare to let him know how much you crave him."
• "Hold his penis in one hand and lightly slap it with the other... you can tap it back and forth like you're volleying a tennis ball and lightly pinch the skin on his shaft and testicles. Many women make the mistake of being too gentle."
• [And now, for the ninja-level shit] "Alternate between swiveling both wrists in opposite directions and stroking your hands upward, twisting your wrists when you reach his head as though you are turning a doorknob. Rub your thumb in a tiny figure-eight pattern over his frenelum... Or try the windshield-wiper move; glide your thumb from side to side along the rim where his head begins, then move your thumb up and over the top of the head several times."

(If, at any point during this oddly elaborate ritual, he looks confused, toss him another stare and say, "I crave you" — you know, to clear things up.)

Men's Health

Over on the external-genital side of things, October is all about reaffirming another good old-fashioned paradigm: money. More specifically, that men have it, and women don't (but they want it), and so the only way for men to make them happy is to buy them shit. "Make sure to show her that the money you have can be enjoyed, and she's your top priority. If Maui's too expensive, settle for Miami."

Seriously, in an article on twenty-five ways to spice things up in your relationship, about twenty involve buying things — specifically, things that cost thousands of dollars. (The recession is over, gentlemen. Or you're never going to get laid again.) Here are some highlights from "25 Fun Things to do with a Woman:"

• Climb a volcano in south-central Chile.
• Rent private fighter jets and fly them.
• Go to Borneo.
• Go to Barbados.
• Go to Hawaii.
• Go shopping in Beverly hills.
• Go to a "superfancy" restaurant
• Hire a private violinist to follow you and your woman around on the street. (Bonus points for reeking of desperation).
• Spend a night in an igloo. In Alaska.
• And "take a home pregnancy test," which isn't odd at all: impregnation totally fits on a list of "fun things to do with a woman."

Don't believe me when I say that opulence is the new sexiness? In a later roundup of sex tips, Men's Health suggests you take a pearl necklace (don't tell Mother), lubricate it, and, um, "Have your partner wrap the pearls around the shaft and slowly stroke up and down with a gentle rotation. The beads feel warm and smooth, creating a new level of sensation." Relatedly, seventy-three percent of women surveyed would enjoy being lightly spanked by a wad of hundred-dollar bills.