Cosmo: Literary food for fun and fearless females

As a 27-year-old ABC1 female, I fit Cosmopolitan's target demographic exactly. I am at an age, according to editor Louise Court, when I have more confidence than I did in my early 20s and am unencumbered by young children. "It's an incredibly liberating time when you want to take on the world and feel you can do anything," she says. That sort of attitude informs the magazine's strapline: "For Fun Fearless Females", which Court reiterates many times during our interview.

The only thing is, I stopped reading Cosmo over a decade ago. As for fun and fearless, that might be possible were women my age not beset by headlines warning that nightly buckets of Shiraz lead directly to an early grave, natural conception is nigh-on impossible past age 32, and it is improbable they will achieve income parity with their male peers.

Nonetheless, Cosmo's refreshing positivity lures 450,000 women to part with £3.20 every month, which suggests it is read by over 1m people. That is a hefty stack of magazines, second only in size to Condé Nast's Glamour magazine, which shifts almost 100,000 copies more.

Cosmo's sales have remained almost the same since its launch 35 years ago, when the scant selection of women's magazines bore no resemblance to today's bursting newsstands. In March 1972, with Michael Parkinson as the pin up chosen to sell the magazine's first issue, a print run of 350,000 sold out before lunchtime on launch day. The second issue sold out of 450,000 copies in two days. The scene was no doubt not dissimilar to the violent crush at Primark earlier this year, when the bargain basement retailer opened its Regent Street store, except the 2007 women were fighting over £3 ra-ra skirts and £15 parkas, rather than spiky feminist debate and sought-after advice on contraception.

Cosmopolitan gained popularity and notoriety for this willingness to cover taste-taboo territory, and it did so with some verve and very good writing: Susie Orbach on the myth of dieting, Quentin Crisp on woman's emancipation from men, Paula Yates on everything from Barbara Cartland to hanging out in Paris with her rock-star buddies, Helen Fielding on marriage (20 years before she invented Bridget Jones), and a piece entitled: "Why Are Women Such Sluts?"

There are three mentions of "sex" on the cover of this month's issue, a "lust" a "love" a "hot" and a "totty". Have these terms lost their shock factor? Almost certainly, so why are women as eager as ever to read this magazine? Court says that women are a lot less politicised than they were. "I think a lot of battles have been won and that is the status quo."

It is true that women in their 20s are hardly the Greenham Common generation, but surely there are still a few battles to be fought? A recent Cosmo approach to a survey saying men get paid 17 per cent more than women pointed out to readers they were working for free from October 30 until the end of year. "Angry?" the magazine asked, before dispensing some advice on what to do about it.

"People talk about Cosmo as the life, love and relationship bible – and we are. That is the bedrock of the magazine," explains Court, when asked how she produces a magazine for such a large number of women each month, when the current trend is to target readers much more specifically, according to their age and consumer habits. "When Helen Gurley Brown (who at 85 still reigns over the Cosmo empire and its 59 satellite editions from New York) came up with the concept it was helping young women be the best they can be in every area of their lives. That's as true now as it was 35 years ago. People think they know what Cosmo's about: sex. It is, but it is also about so much more than that."

Not everyone agrees. Carol Sarler of the Daily Mail likened the magazine to a "raddled old slapper" this year. "The glossy that was once the bible for liberated girls now peddles nothing but sex and is an insult to modern women," she raged. Naturally, Court was upset to read such criticism on her third day in the job but maintains: "Our sales speak for themselves. We are completely relevant to young women today and as relevant as always."

Comparing recent issues to articles from the 70s and 80s, a selection of which have been published in a hardback annual, The Best of Cosmopolitan, it is striking how little the substance of Cosmo has changed. Overlooking a fashion shoot of Cilla Black in a tweed three-piece suit (and the fact hair straightener was something you applied overnight, rather than a £100 plug-in contraption), the Cosmo of yesteryear carried pieces on the work-life balance, abortion, house husbands and how to put the sparkle back into your relationship. This content might not be shocking, but it's hardly lost its relevance. Women are, after all, still women. That it also ran frequent adverts for careers as air stewardesses and warned readers not to worry that "secretarial work could cease as a major job for girls," on the other hand, suggests a fair amount of progress in other spheres. I would hope so, if Sarler considers being able to open your own bottle of wine a sign of liberation, as a 1972 Cosmo did.

Court admits to being a little hungover when we meet, having spent the previous evening hosting the magazine's Ultimate Women of the Year Awards, a celebrity-sprinkled bash honouring the readers who had achieved outstanding things over the previous year, including a woman who escaped the Rwandan genocide to set up a charity for fellow survivors. Katie Price, aka Jordan, won the ceremony's top accolade, the Ultimate "Be The Best You Can Be" Woman Of The Year Award, encapsulating the spirit Gurley Brown launched the first Cosmo with. An apt choice of role model for liberated women? "She's a very strong, self-made woman," says Court. "She's got a £30m fortune and has coped with having a disabled child. She's moved on from selling her body. She has completely reinvented herself."

Price has reinvented herself in a few short years whereas Cosmo has not evolved much in 35. Perhaps that is its secret to maintaining such a healthy readership. Court recently received an email from a woman in her 50s who reads the magazine with her two daughters, and met someone whose granny buys Cosmo, to find out what her grand-daughters are thinking. "It was her way of staying in touch," she says.