Yes, a focus on love lives still shifts plenty of copies of Cosmo, and its editor is proud of its position on Apple Newsstand – but, as it turns 40, how will it harness the new wave of feminism?
The covers of previous issues, enlarged and stacked up in the offices of Cosmopolitan, show how much has changed since the magazine was launched 40 years ago – and how much hasn't. The first issue, March 1972, features an interview with Michael Parkinson talking about his vasectomy – "the most beautiful thing a man can do for a woman" – which feels quite quaint, though there is also Jilly Cooper rating the bedroom skills of various men including David Niven and Roy Jenkins.
I recognise one cover from my teens and read out the line – "could you handle sex with a boomerang penis?" – with a childish snigger. "It's such an outrageous coverline," says Louise Court, with a laugh. As if any editor of Cosmopolitan could consider anything outrageous. This is the magazine that gave its female readers more knowledge about how to find their way round a man's body (but more importantly, their own) than anything else. And still does.
In the US, Helen Gurley Brown had in the 60s transformed Cosmopolitan from a staid, general interest magazine into something that celebrated the sexual revolution and represented the young women who were living through it. "Her big thing is living big and going for it," says Court. Gurley Brown, who turned 90 this weekend and is still international editor-in-chief (the magazine has 64 editions distributed in 100 countries), doesn't have input on a monthly basis, says Court, "but I'm sure if there was stuff we were doing she wasn't happy with we'd be the first to know, but it hasn't happened yet."
Friendly and approachable, Court still visibly bridles at Cosmo's reputation that it is all blowjob tips and cheeky coverlines. It would be wrong, she says, "to say we're purely about sex – the biggest content, about a quarter, is fashion and beauty – but if you can actually talk to somebody about the most intimate part of their lives, it opens you up to have a conversation about all sorts of things because you've got a thing of trust there.
"We're not purely a shopping manual. Most people prize having a happy relationship as one of the most important things in their lives, and one of the keys is having a happy sex life. The physical side is really important. There has to be newness, there has to be science or a sense of humour [in Cosmo's sex features]. It shouldn't be preachy or po-faced. Every time I read one, I think 'I may not want to try it, but I didn't know about it.' It's about a woman feeling confident she can make the right choices about her sex life, and be in control of what she wants to do and doesn't want to do in the bedroom."
Between the covers
Is she surprised that, 40 years on, there is still much that hasn't changed? "Absolutely. There are still sexual inequalities. There are still pockets of society that judge women's love lives in a way they wouldn't dream of judging a man. The ease of access to so much porn online now is wreaking havoc with a lot of women's love lives, putting them in situations where they may be made to feel prudish if they don't want to do something, although there are other readers happy to explore everything.
"There is a lot of pressure on women in lots of areas of their lives, on their careers and attempts to get ahead at work, and as the readers get older there is still that eternal pressure of how to balance work and children. On one hand, we've got more choices and freedom, but I don't think it's got any easier being a woman."
At a time when more than a million young people are unemployed, and with women hit especially hard by cutbacks, – aren't there more important things a magazine should be focusing on than shopping and relationship advice? "It's a balance," Court replies. "Obviously work is really important, but so are relationships."
She points to the campaign the magazine ran last year called Generation Angry: "All these young women who come out of university, and they can't get the jobs they wanted, they can't get on the housing ladder. We were the first people to really try and pull it together."
The magazine has just launched an online petition calling for the government to make equal pay auditing compulsory and it's addressing the gender pay gap as part of its bigger campaign, which starts next month, to explore what feminism means to its readers.
"We've had these T-shirts printed: 'I use the F word, do you?' I still think there are some young women who don't particularly like the word "feminism". They obviously believe they should have equal pay and the same freedoms as a man, but that's why we thought it was a really good time to get it on the agenda and girls talking about it.
"A lot of young women were brought up with that whole thing – you're the girls who can have it all, if you want that job you can have it. A lot of those opportunities were fought for by feminists in the first place. They've worked hard at school and university, done all the things they were meant to do and the rug has been pulled out from under their feet. I think young women are thinking about feminism again."
Cosmo's competition
She points to last year's SlutWalks, "which I can't imagine would have happened two years before that. I think they thought a lot of the battles had been won, and now they are realising they probably haven't."
Still, with a wealth of rival magazines, newspapers and feminist sites such as Jezebel all covering Cosmopolitan's once-pioneering ground, how distinctive can the magazine be now? And for all its loyalty to its campaigning heritage, the monthly is still reliant on magazine staples such as shopping, celebrities and advertisements for cosmetic surgery: a flick back through old issues, with their wordy reviews of serious films, and extracts from writers such as John Fowles and Cesare Pavese, shows how different women's magazines once were.
Cosmopolitan has a readership of 1.6 million, Court reminds me several times, although sales fell year on year by 5.7% to 377,580 according to last week's ABC figures for June to December 2011, though it fared better than many rivals.
Court is unruffled. "We're the No 1 [women's magazine] on Apple Newsstand – that's the same product you get in print but the girls look at it on their phone or iPad and our sales are 6,000 so we're more or less flat. You'll always have a bit of up and down on circulation, but I think our circulation figures are good."
Has she been set targets by the magazine's publishing company, Hearst? "I don't feel under pressure," she says. "Nobody has told me anyway. I want to put readers on, of course. The biggest pressure is from me."
She is proud of the 1,147,298 unique visitors (the figure for January) the Cosmopolitan website gets, but says she doesn't think younger readers will migrate exclusively online.
"Young women take all the digital stuff for granted but they still get really excited by the physical, tangible magazine."
Cosmo on Campus, a free spin-off magazine delivered to 250,000 university students four times a year, is, she says, as much a part of Cosmopolitan's future as digital innovations, such as a new app that allows readers to scan the fashion pages and buy the clothes online. "Print is still really important to readers, but they want to touch base with their magazine in different ways."
How long will Court stay at Cosmopolitan? She says she doesn't know. "I love it. It's a great job. I get a bit evangelical about it, because of the relationship we have with our readers, which I've never had on any other magazine I've worked on. I know this sounds a bit cheesy, but you do feel we are a force for good."