My Bucket of Parts: Racy magazines addictive, identical; quizzes infamous

Now that all the reading has been assigned for all our classes, it's time to ignore the homework and pick up something more enjoyable.

For most women, it will be something like Cosmopolitan, and for the men, it will probably be Maxim. And if that material is too racy for some, there is always Sesame Street magazine for those that want something more tepid in material - I don't think Big Bird offers sex advice.

So, why are these two magazines (and others like them) so addictive to read? Is it the smut that is plastered from cover to cover? Is it the style advice? Is it the fact that once you've read one copy of the magazine, you've read them all? Or is it the quizzes?

Ah, yes, the infamous smut-magazine quizzes.

When marketing becomes too tedious, when the psychology paragraphs begin to blur together, when you've accidentally fallen on your architecture model - it's time to pick up something to arouse the mind.

I mean ease the mind.

But reading something like marketing just isn't interactive enough. Those pages aren't telling anything about our inner personality. We want to know what kind of seduction master we are, how good we are at kissing and if we're flirts with everything, including animals.

And I catch myself finishing up a quiz and smiling, because I had enough As and Bs that gave me a score of 45 out of 50, which says, "Way to go, you're the master of skin-timate relations."

I rule.

I know these quizzes can't be true to form - I've seen a lot of men taking the quizzes in Cosmo, you know, "strong enough for a man, made for a woman." But who creates these ever-so-popular quizzes? I have a feeling the editors of these magazines, with the mind set of Anna Nicole Smith, call up 1-900 numbers for their hot material.

"No I don't want to hear about - stop that! I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions to see if our quiz works for our upcoming October issue."

Upcoming is right.

So, I'm not sure if the majority of the readers take these types of magazines seriously - granted we all love the horoscopes and the quizzes that tell us things we already know. How do I know they can't be taken too seriously? Easy, sit in a large van for ten hours on a religious pilgrimage and you'll realize that even the most pious of people have a bit of naughty in them.

We had three issues of the same Cosmopolitan floating around the van - and we can't forget that the campus minister got her hands on one of them, read it aloud and laughed and said "I shouldn't be reading this."

Although, most of us in the van ride were of the same age - under 25 - therefore it was brainless entertainment.

So, when the intellectual stimulants of biology, physics and human kinesiology have eroded you're mind, especially while studying for an upcoming test - just remember, take a break with all those "tests" out there that will rate your ability at kissing, whether or not you're the world's biggest flirt, or if you should run off the side of a tall building, naked and screaming, with your mate.