Let’s pretend for a minute: You’re a girl who walks into a grocery store. You pick up some milk and a loaf of bread. At the last minute, you decide to buy a magazine, just some light reading for a lazy afternoon.

You get home, and you start to read. But here’s the problem: the articles are mostly about ways to sexually please men. OK, so I’m sure we can all see what makes this a bit weird. Why are women’s magazines only focusing on ways to give sexual gratification to men? Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying men shouldn’t be able to enjoy their sexual experiences, but why do these articles assume that the only role for a woman, in a heterosexual relationship, is to please her partner? Whatever happened to mutually enjoyable sex? I sure haven’t seen men’s magazines with the tagline, “Ten Ways to Please Your Woman.” And why do women’s magazines assume every woman has sex with men? That kind of assumption is what you would call “heteronormative.” It completely dismisses all the women who do not identify as heterosexual. And what about the women who aren’t sexually active?

The real question, I suppose, is why do women keep buying these magazines? It has to be stressful—and frankly a bit sad—to only be concerned with pleasing your partner sexually, without ever getting any satisfaction yourself. Wouldn’t it be better if these magazines encouraged couples to communicate to find out what pleases both partners? But unfortunately, sensationalism sells. These magazines promise a quick-fix for all relationship or sexual worries-and that can seem appealing, even when deep down we all know life doesn’t quite work that way.

—Taylor McCabe, 18, Contributor

Lady Gaga is a popular singer and musician, known for her elaborate outfits and videos. Her first album came out in 2008, and she has since sold over 13 million albums. She appears on the cover of the September issue of Vogue Hommes Japan dressed as her male alter ego, “Jo Calderone.”

I’m not a Lady Gaga fan; all of the information above came from five minutes on Google. My interest in the photographs of her cross-dressing doesn’t lie in any interest in her music, but rather in the fact that I’m gender-fluid. This means that I identify as someone whose gender shifts between male, female and neither, as does the way I present myself to the outside world.

What’s Lady Gaga’s motivation for this stunt? Publicity? An opportunity to introduce “Jo Calderone” to the world? Real gender identity issues? I can’t tell you for sure, but I can guess that it’s probably just publicity.

This isn’t the first time a celebrity has taken advantage of taking on an LGBT identity. Anyone who remembers Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” can tell you that. Perry sang, “Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent,” denying—both in the song and outside of it—that she has any actual attraction to girls.

How will Lady Gaga or “Jo” handle this? We don’t know yet, but I don’t anticipate tact and sensitivity towards transsexuals and cross-dressers. It’s not something most celebrities seem interested in bothering with.

—Leo Johnson, 14, Contributor

Can you imagine modeling your life after Seventeen magazine? That’s exactly what 18-year-old Jamie Keiles has decided to do. Over the course of the summer, Jamie has patterned her life on the advice of Seventeen, imitating their style tips and recommendations. Jamie’s blog, The Seventeen Magazine Project, offers a witty analysis of the magazine.

Her posts have analyzed the racial breakdown of models who appear in Seventeen (which surprisingly wasn’t that different from the racial breakdown of the country) as well as the content of the ads in the June/July issue (which were, not so surprisingly, 56 percent beauty ads).

Now, magazines like Seventeen are all well and good in their place—something light, fun and easy to read. But I think (even more so after reading Jamie’s blog!) that Seventeen speaks to girls as if we’re only interested in beauty and buying more stuff, but that isn’t what most girls want.

Jamie Keiles is proving that teenage girls are interested in more than just makeup and products. We’re invested in ideas and the world around us, as well. Maybe Seventeen will take a look at Jamie’s blog and expand their ideas about what girls want.

—Taylor McCabe, 16, Staff Writer

It seems to be a fad: featuring plus-size models in fashion magazines. Just look at Vogue Curvy on Vogue Italia’s Web site or American Vogue’s “Shape Issue,” which hits newsstands this month. French Elle has also joined in, by featuring American plus-size model Tara Lynn on the cover and in over twenty pages inside the April issue.

And while this is a step in the right direction, maybe the issue of having only stick-thin women admired as beautiful isn’t being addressed in quite the right way. After all, when an issue of a magazine is dedicated to women marked as larger than the average model, aren’t we again only paying attention to weight and presenting this one plus-size model as an exception to the skinny ideal?

And yes, featuring plus-size models in fashion magazines is a baby step toward including plus-size (or maybe more accurately called average-size, as most of these models are not extremely overweight) models into a traditionally skinny industry. Maybe this is an indicator of good things to come—a time when plus-size and traditionally ultra-thin models are included in fashion spreads together and made to be beautiful alongside each other without any hype over who weighs how much.

-Taylor McCabe, 17, Staff Writer

The cover of the November issue of Teen Vogue pictures 19-year-old Jourdan Dunn and 18-year-old Chanel Iman along with the cover line “Teen Supermodels Jourdan and Chanel on Their Rise to the Top.” Inside the magazine, Jourdan and Chanel talk about their careers as supermodels, but it’s what Jourdan reveals that’s got people talking.  Jourdan is expecting a baby sometime this December and her boyfriend, mother and modeling agency are supportive of her.

There was some debate at Teen Vogue, as to whether the magazine should still run the cover after they found out Jourdan was pregnant. But a number of factors, like a tight production schedule, kept the cover in place. Jourdan’s pregnancy and other recent celebrity teen pregnancies, like Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin, have been enough to get the public’s attention and start a conversation about teenage pregnancy.

Take a look at the cover. Can you even tell which one’s pregnant? I don’t know about you, but I don’t look at that picture and say “Omigosh! That supermodel is pregnant! That’s sooooo totally awesome! I want to be a teenage mother, too!!!” I’m smart enough to realize that this girl is an internationally famous supermodel and probably has a lot more money than I do to financially support a baby. I’d understand somebody having a problem with her being on the cover if she was promoting teen pregnancy, but she isn’t. Jourdan said that her pregnancy was unplanned and “really hard,” so she’s certainly not the poster child for how much fun being a pregnant teen is.