Notably, the book scarcely acknowledges queer desire, mostly depicting gay men as a pitfall in straight women’s search for love. Her sparkly prose was devoured by an audience who craved something other than domesticity.īut of course, Sex and the Single Girl - and Brown’s revamped, sexed-up Cosmopolitan magazine - didn’t speak to everyone. In 1962, when Helen Gurley Brown published her bestselling advice book, women couldn’t open credit cards in their own name, and Cosmopolitan magazine - which Brown would soon oversee as editor-in-chief - was still running anodyne cover stories like “How to Protect Your Family.” Against this cultural backdrop, Brown urged young women to enter the workforce and sleep with men. In many ways, Sex and the Single Girl was groundbreaking.