ABSTRACT
In 1962, Bernard Geis Associates published a self-help book entitled Sex and the Single Girl which, according to the inside book jacket:
e woman who writes with such “shocking candor” is Helen Gurley Brown, the infamous re-designer and editor of Cosmopolitan magazine.¹ Like her magazine, Brown’s book offers young, single women guidelines for living their lives successfully. Sex and the Single Girl details everything from what to wear to the office to step-by-step instructions concerning how to conduct an affair. Brown decrees in her opening chapter that “ere is a tidal wave of misinformation these days about . . . how tough is the plight of the single woman-spinster, widow, divorcée” (4) and blames the majority of women’s magazines, in part, for dismissing the single girl as “a creature to be pitied and patronized” (5) rather than viewing her as she should be seen-“as the newest glamour girl of our times” (5).
