Helen Gurley Brown, longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, died today at age 90. She may be the person most responsible for the great "Sexual Revolution" of the 1960s which us young, hormone-infused Baby Boomers embraced with a passion (pun intended).In 1962 HGB published Sex and the Single Girl. In 1962 I was twelve so I definitely qualified as a single girl. Naturally I was eager to read and embrace this opus, the new direction for all the single ladies.
Funny, the messages I remember from the book were not about having sex - her "radical, new ideas" about sex would be considered older-than-old-fashioned today. But they also included such gems as "buy cheap shampoo in big bottles because all shampoo is basically the same" and "nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlepp". That last one gave me the chutzpah to date the best looking boys and apply for (and get!) jobs I was barely qualified for.
Rest in Peace HGB.
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