EARLIER this week, and before the developments at Marikana in the North West struck us dumb with shock, we shared a moment's silence to reflect upon the passing of a pioneering feminist and to express gratitude, not only for the revolution she single-handedly brought about, but for the sheer impact her ideas have had on so many of our lives.

True, there are those who may disagree with the official position at the Mahogany Ridge that our debt to Helen Gurley Brown is immeasurable, and it is perhaps not surprising that there have already been several attempts to belittle and poke fun at her legacy. Even the usually staid New York Times joined in the snarkiness. The legendary Cosmopolitan editor, their obituary noted, "was 90, though parts of her were considerably younger."

Brown's critics took her to task for her apolitical stance on many issues of the day. If she had any politics, the Times said, it was that of personal advancement. "The advice she offered Cosmopolitan's readers on winning the right friends and influencing the right people was squarely in the tradition of Dale Carnegie, if less vertically inclined."

But this was precisely where Brown got it right. She institutionalised the philosophy that it was perfectly acceptable for single women to go out and actively get laid.

In her groundbreaking book, Sex and the Single Girl, published in 1962 and long before she took over as editor of Cosmopolitan and long before the appearance of other "seminal" feminist texts, she urged women to be financially independent and sexually satisfied before bothering themselves with the more traditional concerns of homemaking and motherhood.

For the early 1960s, this was beyond radical, it was immoral and even worse -- I remember, as a conscript in the late 1970s, being told that such behaviour was all part of a communist plot -- but Brown's "stiletto feminism", as her detractors put it, would eventually come to define the modern, single, liberated woman. Many of us at the Ridge have played an active role in that liberation, selflessly (and gratefully) lending a hand -- and other bits -- when duty called.

That said, it is admittedly a little alarming the gusto and precision with which Cosmopolitan has, especially in recent years, informed women how they may enjoy sex even more. Don't get us wrong. We're all for the enthusiasm, but consider the following (found online at jezebel.com - see here):

"Alternate between swivelling both wrists in opposite directions and stroking your hands upward, twisting your wrists when you reach his head as though you are turning a doorknob. Rub your thumb in a tiny figure-eight pattern over his frenelum . . . Or try the windshield-wiper move; glide your thumb from side to side along the rim where his head begins, then move your thumb up and over the top of the head several times."

Perhaps the typical Cosmoplitan reader knows what the hell is going on here, but we're a little in the dark. After some discussion, one of the regulars claimed he was taught about such things at school. A frenelum, he said, was that thing on which a lever pivots. This, he added, may or may not explain why the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, was as keen as mustard to get more high school girls interested in physics.

Of course, not everything in the magazine is Higher Grade and there have been "sex tips" that weren't all that taxing in the grey matter department. "Cook dinner topless," was one, "apply a little tomato sauce to your nipple, and ask your man to lick it off."

Another was, "Take a few of your favourite erotically appealing flavour combinations, like peanut butter and honey or whipped cream and chocolate sauce, and mix up yummy treats all over his body."

Even our village idiot could tell you that kind of nonsense was not going to happen anytime soon in these parts. It's far too cold to be cooking kit off, even if you are slaving over a hot stove.

But the most ludicrous advice was the following: "Give him a beer facial -- the combination of the egg white and the yeast in the hops hydrates and improves skin elasticity . . . but you can just tell him that your lips can't resist his delicious, beer-flavored face."

Look, you don't ever waste beer like that. Period. Besides, we have complexions like leather. The time for facials was back in 1997. It's too late for that now. We've moved on, and so must this column.

Sadly, and on a more serious note, Helen Gurley Brown's revolution means very little to many young South African women. Financial independence remains an elusive dream, and sexual violence -- rather than sexual pleasure -- is their reality.

This article first appeared in The Weekend Argus.

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