If you bought this book, the answer is probably yes.
more! magazine is on a bit of an infidelity bonanza atm, and I don’t just mean Robsten (I mean, seriously…who gives a fuck? Oh wait, I do.) Obviously the whole K-Stew debacle gives mag hags the opportunity to newspeg that shit and come up with a load of completely redundant features which vaguely relate and make me want to lock myself in a room with the Literary Review until I talk like Will Self. Stuff like asking fitness instructor Shane ‘would you forgive K-Stew?’ (the answer to which is a rather headmasterly ‘that’s just not on!’) which of course involves entering a hypothetical matrix in which a Hollywood actress decides that she quite fancies a committed relationship with an electrician from Bedfordshire, then cheats on him with James, 25, paralegal, who incidentally looks like a total berk. For some reason the guys women’s magazines source for VoxPop purposes always have Euroboy hair and are wearing a freshly laundered shirt a.k.a the kind of guy I wouldn’t fuck in a GAZILLION years, but who is eminently useful for the purposes of playing that classic parlour game ‘Gay or European?’
Anyhoo, that wasn’t the worst bit, because then we move on to ’5 Signs He’s Cheating on you at Work’, in which infidelity expert Rebecca Dakin ‘points out the telltale signs’/ teaches you how to hate other women. What qualifies one to become an infidelity expert in the first place? Do you just have to shag around a lot? Does a certain amount of experience render one an expert? If so, I would like to announce that I am not only an expert in exchanging social pleasantries in the aftermath of a premature ejaculation, but also like, a body language expert, having spent 25 years on this planet standing next to people. Where’s my fucking job?
So how to work out if one’s squeeze is cheating on you at work? Well, more! has all the answers. If he says her name, like, EVER, then he’s cheating: ‘if he knows more about her life than yours, warning bells should definitely ring’. Well, maybe. Maybe he sits next to someone who never shuts up about her cystitis , which is equally plausible, but then I suppose more! would just counter that with ‘he probably GAVE her cystitis from pounding her way hard in the stationary cupboard’. You cannot win with these people, seriously.
‘All friends go out for lunches or drinks,’ says more! which obviously thinks you’re a mor(e!)on, ‘but it’s not normal to socialise with them all the time.’ So having friends is another sign he’s cheating, an inference that’s backed up by ‘when your man updates his status, look to see who is the first person to comment. If it’s a girl, be suspicious.’ The underlying message of this article is essentially ‘all other women want to bone your boyfriend. Do not trust other women. They are devious bitches.’ ‘Facebook is a common place for flirting’, says Rebecca, who obviously thinks you’re a recluse who knows nothing of the social mores of this country, ‘but because it’s public, commenting on statuses looks like it’s innocent.’ MAYBE IT IS BLOODY INNOCENT.
Seriously, none of the guys who comment on my Facebook status want to shag me, and vice versa (probz because I’ve shagged half of them already). I seriously highly doubt that when my ex boyfriend from 2005 or whenever ‘likes’ some smartass comment I’ve made about the district line, it means that he wants us to reignite our, quite frankly, mediocre relationship. And what about Twitter? Following on from Rebecca’s logic, being on Twitter must mean that EVERYONE wants to fuck me, including corporations?
All more! seems to be doing is perpetuating the cliche that women have a tendency to overanalyse, while manipulating the insecurities of their readers by telling them to ‘watch out for excessive texting or calling.’ Basically, if your boyfriend rings a colleague who happens to have a vagina on the weekend it means that he wants in on that vagina and you’re basically doomed.
As if all this didn’t already make you worry that cheating was rife, you then have ‘the diary of an affair’, a (sadly) regular column written by Anna, which is not her real name. A few weeks back Anna started doing cybersex with some doofus (Will- again, not his real name) with a girlfriend (Anna also has a boyfriend) and now things have escalated past the fingerbanging stage to full on rumpy pumpy. There’s nothing particularly exceptional about this but I just felt that I had to share with you the poor quality of the writing, just so that we can all cringe together as part of a warm, inclusive lady love-in:
‘As he spoke, his hands caressed the small of my back. We were naked and in his bed.’
‘It had been a long time since I’d felt so comfortable in someone else’s company. But the gravitational pull that was forcing me towards Will was as strong as the one screaming at me to go home.’
(clearly not, if you know anything about the rules of physics. Because I’m pretty sure that, were both forces equal, she would be suspended, BoJo-like, between Will and home. FYI, Next time you really want to fuck someone you shouldn’t, blame gravity.)
‘Will’s guilt was more obvious than mine, and he struggled to ‘rise’ to the occasion.’
‘Sex with Will was so easy and relaxed. It felt like making love, but I knew it shouldn’t.’
(Five minute vom break)
I read this column to my boyfriend last night over dinner, and he made a very good point. If an editor commissions you to write a column called ‘the diary of an affair’, it obviously becomes in your interests to prolong your shitty behaviour. Calling it off means losing your job. It’s sort of like that girl who writes about being on coke and sleeping with disgusting guys for Vice magazine. If you give someone with a drug problem a column called ‘Amphetamine Logic‘, you’re not exactly acting in that person’s best interests, are you?
So essentially more! magazine are sponsoring some amoral hack to go out and fuck our boyfriends. Thanks, more!
N.B Position of the fortnight update: the more! editorial staff seems to have run out of sexual positions, so this issue’s is ‘a blowjob’. However, said blowjob takes place on a deckchair, thus elevating it to the status of ‘beach blowjob’ and rendering it a WHOLE NEW sexual position.
I came here to comment after the paragraph that ends in ‘Where’s my fucking job?’ just to tell you I want to hug the Vagenda, and then spoon it, and then hug it some more. And then I want you to verbally abuse me in the delightfully hilarious style I’ve grown accustomed to around here. Seriously. This is love we’re talking about.