{"id":238387,"date":"2021-01-19T17:41:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T23:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=238387"},"modified":"2021-01-19T17:41:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T23:41:09","slug":"cosmo-girl-killed-two-children-destroyed-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/cosmo-girl-killed-two-children-destroyed-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the life of the ‘Cosmo Girl’ killed two of my children and nearly destroyed me"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I can proudly state that I have never read a single issue of <\/span>Cosmopolitan<\/span>\u00a0in my entire life. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever so much as picked up a copy. Nonetheless, they helped create a mythos that has permeated our culture, and I was undeniably formed by it. In fact, in my 20\u2019s and early 30\u2019s, I could\u2019ve been their cover girl any given month.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Cosmo<\/b> Girl” on Steroids<\/b><\/p>\n

According to Sue Ellen Browder, author of “<\/span>Subverted”<\/span> and former <\/span>Cosmo<\/span>\u00a0writer, the magazine\u2019s<\/span> philosophy<\/span><\/a> is \u201chard work and sex without the kids will set you free.\u201d Not only did I osmotically absorb that messaging, I took it one step further by merging the two: I made childless sex my profession, and I worked at it very hard indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n

From 2002-2009, I sold sex by the hour at an exorbitant rate. I took my work seriously and honed my craft so successfully that I was San Francisco\u2019s top-rated escort for five of my seven years in the business. My clients were the sort of men “<\/span>Sex and the City”<\/span> characters slept with gratis \u2014 CEOs, politicians, journalists, athletes \u2026 some with names you\u2019d recognize. There were Average Joes, too \u2014 even an occasional struggling college student. One of the latter paid for 2 hours of my time with student loan money disbursed at the beginning of each semester. He\u2019s probably still paying interest on my insincere kisses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Off the clock, the party continued. I spent my weekends in nightclubs and at rock concerts, downing cocktails and partying backstage and on tour buses with big-name musicians. I lived my life at the speed of light \u2014 I made more money in less time than most people can imagine, and spent it even faster; I accumulated \u201crecreational\u201d lovers almost as quickly as I did \u201cbusiness associates\u201d; and the designer-label contents of my closet exponentially grew such that, after a mere handful of years, I could\u2019ve given Imelda Marcos a run for her money.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Three reasons Michelle Williams\u2019 Golden Globes abortion speech hurts women<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Love\u2019s Lies and Little Girl Lost<\/b><\/p>\n

But I did not evolve into the perfect embodiment of the “<\/span>Cosmo<\/span> Girl” in a vacuum. I grew up in the post-Sexual Revolution era, and it showed. My mother, who\u2019d divorced my father when I was 3, had a revolving door of overnight male guests. She once confessed that she couldn\u2019t sleep unless there was a man in her bed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She used to blast Prince\u2019s \u201cDarling Nikki\u201d when I helped her clean the house on Sunday afternoons, and its messages \u2014 along with those of the culture at large \u2014 shaped my six-year-old mind. The song is emblematic of the lies my parents\u2019 generation sold mine about freedom, power, and happiness, and how to achieve each \u2014 namely, via sex. Casual sex \u2014 indeed, virtually anonymous sex. Sex without commitment. Sex without love. Sex without a second thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

And sex without consequences. They insinuated this was not only possible, but presumable. My parents\u2019 generation\u2014the original sexual revolutionaries, aptly dubbed the \u201cMe Generation\u201d \u2014 discreetly took girls of my generation to the doctor to get us put on birth control pills as early as age 12, whether we asked for them or not. But they never bothered to tell us the Pill isn\u2019t foolproof.<\/span><\/p>\n

I discovered this the hard way when I got pregnant at age 16. This was when I acted upon my good-faith acceptance of another pack of lies I\u2019d been told by my parents\u2019 generation: the idea that having an abortion was an act of control over my own body and destiny, which didn\u2019t \u2014 and needn\u2019t \u2014 involve anybody else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, there was clearly cognitive dissonance there, as I spent the night before my \u201cprocedure\u201d begging my baby for forgiveness. <\/span>Please, sweet girl, know that I love you, and that I want you. But I know that I would be a terrible mother, and I don\u2019t want to hurt you like my mother hurt me \u2026<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n