“[I]t’s not really cool any more to have sex all the time,” says Lady Gaga.
Mike Doesn’t-Believe-in-Evolution Huckabee’s deep thoughts on gay couples adopting: “Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?”
At first we were tickled by these quirky ads for India’s Adam Extra Long Condoms by the world’s third largest ad agency Publicis. The illustrations are cool, and they obviously have a sense of humor. But take a look at the details, and things get creepy. Why do all the women look either surprised, or in pain, or, in the case of the pool lady, in the process of saying “Stop!” (note the Heisman hand). In the restaurant one, you’ve got a mouse pretty much date-raping a passed-out cat. In the tree one, an unsuspecting goat is about to get violated by a hopeful dog. And back at the pool, there’s a poor frog checking out his micro-ween. Add to that the extra insecurity this will only heap upon average (and below) guys, and the ads leave you feeling like they’re all part of a bad dream. Silly, yes, and a little bit sinister. (You can check out the larger images at I Believe in Adv — double click them there.)
photo of Clelia Mosher from the Stanford University Archives
The March/April edition of Stanford Magazine has a fascinating article on Dr. Clelia Mosher, a Victorian-Era scientist, researcher and Stanford professor who conducted the first known sex surveys of women, decades before Kinsey (who’s considered the pioneer of sex research). Even though the sample size is small and represents mostly white, middle-class, educated women, it still goes far in revealing that Victorian repression was an ideology that was pushed on women rather than a reflection of actual views or practices of the time. Below are some highlights from the piece, but the whole thing is worth a read if you’ve got the time.
Go ahead: try to answer that question. It’s tougher than you think. Does it mean intercourse? Then how do gay people “have sex”? Does it involve penetration? Then what about those who only climax from external stimulation? Does it involve orgasm? Then what about all the women who’ve had sexual relations with a second party but never climaxed? Does oral sex count? Not since the Clinton days. Well, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University recently studied this gray area by conducting a random, telephone survey of 204 men and 282 women, mostly hetero, living in Indiana, ranging in age from 18 to 96 — and found no consensus. The L.A. Times summarized the findings like this:
Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in ROMANCING THE STONE.
When I started asking around about what people’s favorite romantic movies were there was a lot of overlapping, but not one person mentioned any – not a single one – from my personal top 10 list, so I felt obliged to share them here (in no particular order) and see if there were any takers.
1. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989)
What’s more lovable than Meg Ryan in her adorable late 80s/early 90s phase? The answer is Meg Ryan side by side in an unexpected romantic duo with Billy Crystal. Who can forget her orgasmic experience at Katz’s Deli? This movie proves that sleeping with your friend doesn’t necessarily mean the end of your relationship.
2. BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961)
Holly Golightly may not have found love in the Truman Capote original, but in the hands of screenwriter George Axelrod (THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES, to name a few) she not only finds love but looks fabulous doing it.
If you like your humor cheap and juvenile but find PeopleOfWalmart.com just a bit too mean and depressing, then check out ThingsThatAreDoingIt.com — a collection of inadvertently sexually-charged inanimate objects. Many of the coolest ones seem to have dubious origins (no way is that naked tree goddess not Photoshopped) but the ones that look genuine (like the friendly trees above) will lift your spirits and put a smile on your face that you can feel good about in a way that People of Walmart’s “Front to Back” cannot. Here’s a sample:
About a year and a half ago, we lost our innocence as hosts of a 10-episode UK TV series called “SEX: How to Do Everything.” We consider ourselves fairly prudish sex writers, so you can imagine our shock when the series turned out to be way more explicit than we (or our parents) would have ever had hoped for.
The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo was held in Vegas this past weekend, overlapping (not accidentally, one imagines) with the geek-fest Consumer Electronics Show. There were some areas of overlap, with sex booths showcasing 3-D porn, and a sort of “Wii for men” (a box attached to the johnson creates sensations that sync up with dirty scenes on the screen), and what’s being touted as the world’s first interactive sex robot.
Last Sunday, in a big NYTimes think piece, sexual mores writer Katie Roiphe accused Dave Eggers and his fellow male American literary contemporaries of being too into cuddling (like that’s a bad thing):
The younger writers are so self-Âconscious, so steeped in a certain kind of liberal education, that their characters can’t condone even their own sexual impulses; they are, in short, too cool for sex. Even the mildest display of male aggression is a sign of being overly hopeful, overly earnest or politically unÂtoward. For a character to feel himself, even fleetingly, a conquering hero is somehow passĂ©. More precisely, for a character to attach too much importance to sex, or aspiration to it, to believe that it might be a force that could change things, and possibly for the better, would be hopelessly retrograde. Passivity, a paralyzed sweetness, a deep ambivalence about sexual appetite, are somehow taken as signs of a complex and admirable inner life. These are writers in love with irony, with the literary possibility of self-consciousness so extreme it almost precludes the minimal abandon necessary for the sexual act itself, and in direct rebellion against the Roth, Updike and Bellow their college girlfriends denounced. (Recounting one such denunciation, David Foster Wallace says a friend called Updike “just a penis with a thesaurus”).
Eversion in air: from blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom from Carl Zimmer on Vimeo.
Competition within–and between–the sexes have long had a way of influencing biology. Deer grow antlers with which to battle each other, peacocks flaunt elaborate tails to attract peahens. But none of these can hold a candle to the wonders that are duck genitals.
The movies are a great place to learn about life, including your love life. Let the characters in these ten Sundance Festival films make the big dating and mating mistakes so you don’t have to:
scene from new movie “It’s Complicated”
Meryl Streep, our new hero, on sex scenes between older people: “”The whole idea that you have to look a certain way and be a certain age to earn love is ridiculous. We love what we love. It doesn’t matter what shape it is. It’s thrilling to see real people on screen.”
Canadians are one step ahead of us in the health department again: sex stores are game with regulating the adult toy industry to keep out harmful chemicals found in the plastics used in some toys.
Somebody must have done this before. There’s got to be a 1978 calendar buried in someone’s basement  somewhere featuring topless guys in tight pants with lush mustaches and fluffy wittle kittens. But we’ve never seen it. So we’re kind of getting a kick out of Hot Guys and Baby Animals, the new Recess Peanut Butter…
Thanks to The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor on NPR today, we learned it was James Thurber’s birthday (12/8/1894-11/2/1961). He was a celebrated American writer and wit, best known for his short stories and cartoons in The New Yorker. While on staff there, he shared a small office and became great friends with E.B. White (hey, just like we became great friends when we worked and shared a desk at the online mag Nerve). Together the two wrote “Is Sex Necessary?: Or Why You Feel the Way You Do” (1929), the first prose book either of them had published (hey, just like we wrote our first book together, “The Big Bang”!). Of course, ours was a true-blue sex manual and theirs was a parody of sex manuals — a hilarious send-up of the new “sexologists” on the scene back then, like Freud and his compatriots. And while ours goes into shameless detail (there’s a chapter on fisting, fer chrisakes), their’s never really gets to the sex at all — and that’s its genius.
image by King Chimp, from “Nosferatu” Don’t eat any garlic for at least 72 hours beforehand. Don’t give blood for at least a month beforehand: you’ll need all your reserves. Get your blood work done beforehand and make sure you bring condoms: while the undead can’t give you any STDs, infections you might have (especially…
This is one of my favorite music videos I’ve seen all week. Slightly NSFW, Saman Keshavarz directed this sexy concept for Cinnamon Chasers’ catchy song “Luv Deluxe.” Shot in HD first-person POV, watch closely as the viewer is presented with three different scenarios of a road trip, which correspond to different personalities. Cinnamon Chasers –…
Ever wonder how sexy your city is? Well, if you’re based in the UK, you have a chance to find out: UK sex toy retailer LoveHoney has created the UK Sex Map, which uses data on sex-related spending to determine just how sexy different townships are. For example: the people of red hot Upminster spends…
Years ago, we were part of the team that created Nerve.com’s Position of the Day. The challenge was coming up with the positions; the fun was coming up with the names: “The Quasimodo,” “The Wet Blanket,” the “I Can See My House from Here.” So we were really curious about the Snuggie Sutra, a website…
I don’t mean to encroach on our lovely Em and Lo’s territory, but I had to share this neat chandelier available at Culver City, California’s Sundayland. This 26” by 26” chandelier, the “Sylvia” is built from silver plastic vibrators and is sure to “turn on any room.”
There isn’t better proof that an active, healthy, happy sex life keeps you looking young and vibrant than Betty Dodson, the great American sex educator who basically invented sex-positive feminism and almost single-handedly made masturbation okay for women. She turns 80 today — and doesn’t look a day over 60! It could also be the…
Improbable Research is an organization which collects (and sometimes conducts) improbable research (i.e. “research that makes people laugh and then think”), publishes a magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research, and administers the Ig Nobel Prizes. These mock Nobels are held once a year in a fun, goofy ceremony to honor the most unusual recent…
photo by babasteve
In horrifying international news: A new Afghan bill allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses his sexual demands.
In no-duh news: Kids use the web to look up “sex.”
We all know that sex can sell anything from clothes to cars to chewing gum–but what about a chewing gum that’s trying to sell sex? Sexlets is being marketed as a gum with a special blend of ingredients that, ahem, helps with male sexual enhancement. Odd as it may seem, it’s not the only confectionary…
photo by yaaaay Yawning before sex may actually be a good thing. Newsweek — yes Newsweek — has a whole polyamory extravaganza online. Yay, another excuse to drink! Red wine may increase a woman’s sex drive. A new iPhone App (illegally?) maps sex offenders. Dubious study of the week: women are getting better looking while…