How Helen Gurley Brown Sold Sex

Sady Doyle would like us to know that the late Cosmo editor's legacy isn't feminism:

Gurley Brown’s single girl was no less exclusively focused on nabbing a man than the good girls hoping to catch a husband; the difference was that she took a market-driven approach in dating as in work. She saw herself as able to buy and sell various men as their stock went up and down. Financial independence simply allowed her the freedom to attain or discard those relationships. In Gurley Brown’s vision, women were not empowered sexual agents—if they were, their habits might be less exclusively man-pleasing and heterosexual—they were sexual capitalists, appropriating the fruits of male economic privilege with their sexual wiles. Although the single girl was not supposed to take, sponge or depend, accepting furs or jewelry from a wealthy man in exchange for sex was none of those things. It was a paycheck for a job well done.