sundance

The pocket rocket… literally

Pocket rocket vibrators have been around forever — since before sex toys got all fancy and high tech and, you know, effective. But there’s a reason the pocket rocket-style vibe has stood the test of time — it’s small and unassuming, but not so small that you wonder why you bothered. It fits easily in your nightstand or, yes, your pocketbook, and it’s not likely to give any guy a complex.

Naked news: prosthetic testes that actually work are in the works

In sci-fi news, scientists are working on a prosthetic testicle that creates and ejects human sperm for men missing one or both testicles who want to procreate. Yale Sex Week, once banned, is in full swing right now. Ron Paul says abortion is okay only when it’s an “honest rape,” you know, as opposed to all [...]

A comedian that will melt your liberal bleeding heart

We both enjoy playing Texas Hold ‘Em, but of the two of us, I (Lo) enjoy it a little too much. So much so that when I just need a night away from it all, I go to Foxwoods to play the low limit table with a bunch of 65 year old men, half of whom have a drinking problem, the other half of whom have a gambling problem. It’s not as sinful or sexy as Vegas, naturally, but it does the trick.

It’s you, perfected!

There are many reasons not to read women’s magazines. One of the biggies? All the retouched photos. The genetic mutants we call models and celebrities can beat the shit out your average Jane’s self image, but Photoshop can chop it up with chainsaw. This before and after cover of Red Book from a few years ago thanks to Jezebel.com says it all. In fact, Jezebel has made one of their crusades exposing the evils of Photoshop (here’s their most recent “unveiling”). One of the funniest commentaries on how fucked up Photoshop is when it comes to setting impossible beauty standards is this recent parody of a beauty product commercial by Jesse Rosten on Vimeo: “Just one application of Fotoshop can give you results so dramatic, they’re almost unreal…istic.”

High heels are the devil

High heels are an essential part of our fashion-glam culture. Finding a pair of flats at last night’s SAG Awards was like trying to find a vegan quinoa recipe in a Paula Deen cookbook. More common was the doughnut burger of the shoe world: the 29-inch stiletto like Emma Stone wore. What women will suffer for fashion! Personally, the two of us fall into the more utilitarian camp: while Em has been known to rock a sparkly pump at a party, you’ll find her more often than not in the day-to-day dressing up a flow-y, flowery dress with a pair of Converse. And Lo? Nothing comes between her and her Danskos. It may not be pretty, but nothing’s more ugly than her mood after 20 minutes in a pair of uncomfortable pumps (are they even called that anymore?). Which is why we always feel high and mighty in our low flats when a new study about the horrors of high heels comes out.

The classy way to give a dirty gift on Valentine’s Day

What’s a recession-friendly Valentine’s Day gift that will always be received gladly? Unilateral oral sex is a pretty good bet. Or perhaps a half-hour massage with no pressure to reciprocate. Or maybe dressing up as a cowboy and doing your best BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN impression. But how do you make such generous sexual offers feel like an actual gift that you planned in advance — as opposed to a last-minute, oh-shit-I-didn’t-make-it-to-the-mall-in-time present? A hand-written promise to talk dirty, unabated, for 20 minutes is kind of sweet (at least, it is if that’s your partner’s bag), but it can come across as a little half-hearted. A little unofficial, if you will. No witnesses, no signatures in blood, etc.

Want to go to Palm Springs?

One of our favorite toy creators, Jimmyjane, has just teamed up with Ace Hotels (in their NYC and Palm Springs locations) to offer guests a room upgrade that includes a Jimmyjane-curated selection of sexy goods, which can be purchased online, at check-in or from Ace’s late-night room service menu. No travel plans to NYC or Palm Springs? Jimmyjane.com is offering several packages that allow you to bring the Ace experience home with you (for example, the $89 “Voyeur” package includes TCHO Drinking Chocolate, a blindfold and cuffs, the French softcore Emmanuelle Collection, a bullet vibe, a feather tickler, Sir Richards condoms, and Good Clean Love lubricant — kind of an awesome Valentine’s Gift, hotel stay or not).

Top 10 dirtier books

A few weeks back we jumped on the Twitter hashtag #lessambitiousbooks bandwagon, with a list of our Top 10 Less Ambitious Sex Books (The Joy of Dry Humping, Slight Hangup About Flying, etc.). This time around we figured we’d create our own damn hashtag — #dirtierbooks — so that nobody could accuse us of being late to the game. The trick with #dirtierbooks is to be clever without sounding like a cheesy porno (The Da Vinci Load, A Tale of Two Titties, et al). Below are our top 10 best attempts. So, er, anyone want to jump on our bandwagon? (That came out dirtier than we meant it.)

Naked news: Sex and the City, high school cougars, and gaydar

• High school team can’t call themselves the Cougars because of its association with sexually-active, single, middle-aged women.
• Speaking of cougars and high school: Sex and the City pre-quel pilot on the CW is a go.

And you thought Mississippi was conservative? Meet Mitt, Ron, Newt, & Rick

Women’s reproductive rights haven’t been this threatened by a group of Republican presidential hopefuls in decades. As Rachel Maddow summarized brilliantly the other night, Rick Santorum, “libertarian” Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry have all signed pledges backing the Personhood movement that aims to make all abortions illegal (even in the case of rape and incest) by defining fertilized eggs as people, which would in turn ban most forms of birth control. Mitt Romney hasn’t signed anything yet, nor did he attend the Presidential Prolife Forum in South Caroline this past Wednesday like all the others, but he did tell Mike Huckabee last October that he “absolutely” would have supported a personhood amendment to his state’s constitution when he was Governor of Massachusetts. Rick Santorum is the only one — so far — who’s actually said out loud that birth control is “not okay” and is a dangerous problem in this country, but that kind of thinking is basically built into the personhood movement (whether these candidates, who will say anything to appease their religious base, realize it or not). So you know where these guys stand.

Valentine’s Day cards that don’t suck

Instead of waiting til the last minute like usual, why not get a jump start on some Valentine’s Day card ideas, you know, before Monday, February 13th sneaks up and cupid-arrows you in the ass?

• From Someecards, the king of irreverent greetings: e.g. “Sorry the only ring you’re wearing this Valentine’s Day is a contraceptive in your vagina” (that’s just one of 99 hilarious ones)
• Five DIY Valentine’s Day cards to make with the kids, collated by LilSugar.

Naked News: Girl Scouts stand by their transgender members

• The Girl Scouts are standing by their transgender-inclusive policy despite a threatened boycott of Girl Scout cookies. Which sounds as good an excuse as any we’ve heard to over-indulge in Thin Mints this winter.
• Pee in Peace iPhone app helps transgender people find the nearest single stall or gender neutral bathroom (in Ithaca, NY, only so far… but they have hopes to expand!).

The slow but (hopefully) steady erosion of our gender stereotypes

For our book club, we’re reading the 2003 novel “We Need to Talk About Kevin” by Lionel Shriver.* I, Lo, knowing nothing about the book or its author, began reading and was amazed that a male author could create a female narrator that sounded so authentic and convincing, especially regarding childbirth and motherhood. That is, until halfway through the book when I happened to catch a glimpse of the author photo on the inside back flap: turns out Lionel is a woman.

Naked news: the frothy mixture edition

With Santorum’s recent surge in the polls, it’s important to take time out to remind ourselves what a crazy sex-police zealot he is:

• Writing about Santorum’s “Google problem,” a New York Times writer says Dan Savage’s prank was in response merely to the senator’s opposition to gay marriage, so Dan Savage sets him straight (try Santorum’s comparison of homosexuality to bestiality and child rape); the writer corrects his mistake.
• On Funny or Die, Dan Savage comedically threatens to change the definition of the name “Rick” if Santorum doesn’t agree to stop attacking gay people during his campaign.

“The first dating site for humans”

It seems like just yesterday the two of us were out on the fire escape of the Nerve.com office, smoking (smoking!) and coming up with the profile questions for the original Nerve Personals (you may remember “______ is sexy; ______ is sexier”). The Nerve Personals had a meteoric rise, signing up affiliate partners like Salon and The Onion left and right. It was so successful, it spun itself off into a purely personals company called Spring Street Networks. But what goes up must come down: the personals network was eventually sold to Friend Finder long after we’d gone and the whole thing just seemed to fizzle out, at least on Nerve’s end.

Top 10 less ambitious sex books

We’re suckers for a good Twitter hashtag — they can make everyone feel like a stand-up comedian for a few minutes (not to mention giving us all a break from reading what our colleagues ate for breakfast). We particularly loved the #lessambitiousbooks hashtag that was trending this week, and of course we jumped on the bandwagon, finding ourselves hilarious @EMandLO. We were planning on publishing a round-up of our favorite sex- and love-related entries found on Twitter, but as it turned out, we had more fun coming up with our own. So here are our top 10 less ambitious sex (or sexy) books:

Puritan mating rituals & a free monologue for a new year

This morning our inbox had an email from Mike Daisey titled “A free monologue for a new year.” Daisey is the writer, director, ex-Amazon employee best known for his extemporaneous monologues. He just performed a sold-out show at Boston University’s Huntington Theatre on New Year’s Eve as part of Boston’s First Night festivities. What caught our eye in the description of the monologue was the “elaborate mating rituals” of New England Puritans (of course), but what kept our attention was the mention of advice for having a New Year’s Eve that doesn’t suck — humanity’s eternal dilemma. Admittedly we haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but anything that makes fun of Boston in the first two minutes can’t be half bad. Here’s the set up from Daisey:

“Bounce That Dick,” feminist or not?

When we were sent a link to the new YouTube video “Bounce That Dick” on the Jenna Marbles channel, we didn’t know what to expect: some kind of safe-for-work sexual technique advice video by a porn star turned educator? Then, during the first 30 seconds, our hopes were raised, as the young “blogger and entertainer” began a rap parody, stating with much braggadocio, “I’ve been told since the day I started growing pubes to shake my ass. Well, guess what, my ass is fucking tired as shit. This time it’s your turn to wiggle your man junk for me. I wanna see you shake your muthafuckin penis, bitch.”

A rewrite-the-ending-contest to affect social change

Through our friend, Lynn Harris, writer, co-creator of Breakup Girl, and now communications strategist for something called Breakthrough, we heard about a “Rewrite the Ending” contest (which ended last month):

Show of hands- How many of you wish that:

- Andy (Pretty in Pink) had ended up with Ducky?
- After Willy dies (Death of a Salesman), his wife gets a great sales job without having to play the “poor widow” card?
- When Simran’s father finally releases her hand (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge), she runs for the train to Goa and finds happiness on her own?
- Ariel (Little Mermaid) had kept her voice and won American Idol.

In other words: How often have you been enjoying a book, movie, play, or TV episode…when all of a sudden things take a turn for the sexist, misogynist, needlessly violent, or worse? Have you ever wished you could jump into a story, shout at the characters, grab the pen (or keyboard) of the writer, and make it turn out the way you think it should?

Of course we have! So I (Lo) entered the contest (you could do it via Twitter, Facebook or email, from 140 characters up to a couple hundred words). Here was my entry:

The top 10 sex scandals of 2011

It’s the most top-10-list time of year! And we’re not even going to try to resist its allure. 2011 was no stranger to sex scandals (is any year?). Most were political and/or not really all that surprising. And so, without further ado:

photo of DSK graffiti via Flickr

1. DSK

2. Shirtless congressman on Craigslist

3. Arnold’s love child

Did Mariah Carey invent the sexy Santa look?

Earlier this week on our site, we asked our Wise Guys what was up with the sexy Santa lingerie thing. Which naturally led us to thinking about Mariah Carey, and how she basically owns the entire sexy Santa category, not to mention the sub-category of soft-core porn Santa. We know she didn’t exactly invent the look — scantily clad Santa’s helpers have been around for decades, and someone saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus years ago — but she’s made it her own again… and again… and again (Google-image-search “Sexy Mariah Santa” if you can handle even more).

Gift guides for that special someone, whoever they may be

After your dad, your significant other is the most difficult person in the world to buy presents for. After all there’s so much pressure — you want it to strike the right note, convey your love, perhaps your desire, show just how well you know them, and at the same time be a surprise. So [...]

Why all articles about sex use a photo of feet sticking out from the covers

While doing a little internet research, our intern Alyssa came across this article from the Telegraph UK entitled “Average Man Has 9 Sexual Partners in Lifetime, Women Have 4” accompanied by a photo like one of those above. Next to the link she sent, Alyssa wrote: “Random Side Note: Why do they always use photos of feet sticking out of a bed for these sex stories? Who has sex with cold feet like that? Doesn’t it make anyone else feel comfortable staring at these random people’s feet? Seriously!” It’s a legitimate (and funny) question.

Naked news: Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas, et al

• In “I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Joke” news, an Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas and cucumbers to avoid them having sexual thoughts.
  
  
• Mint.com’s “page not available” page has a kinda funny personal ad.
  
  

And you thought your last date was bad

Sometimes you have to date someone for months before the crazy comes out. And then other times, you receive a 1,600 word email after a disastrous first date that accuses you of leading the person on because you played with your hair, you made a lot of eye contact, and you said “Nice to meet you” at the end of the evening. We’re going to have to rethink our first-date advice now, because we’ve always told people that if you’re not planning on calling someone, then don’t say “I’ll call you” and never call — instead just say, at the end of the date, “It was nice to meet you,” and leave it at that. We figured that was the international standard for, “Have a nice life.” Apparently one investment banker didn’t get the memo.

Of course, this 1,600 word email could be a fake. (Backstory: “Lauren” went to the Philharmonic alone, met “Mike” there, and they went on one date, after which she didn’t return his calls, so he Googled her email address and sent her the below letter.) But we’ve received thousand of emails over the years from people who are sad/mad/heartbroken/crazy about love — and this one reads like real-life crazy to us. Here’s the letter in full — we’ll let you decide: