College sex columns: So wrong, they’re . . . boring.

This week, the Nation’s Alex Dibranco declared that the college sex column represents “a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo.” That might have been true when sex columns first popped up on college campuses in 1996, but now, fucking and telling is a normal campus activity for radicals and right-wingers alike. At this point, simply rehashing your heterosexual, vanilla, and gender-role-informed Saturday night hook-up through the campus press does not a sexual revolution make—even if you publish under the pseudonym “Buster Darkhole.” Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I talk about where the student sex column should go from here.

References: George Washington University’s sex column, penned by “Mr. Darcy” and “Layla” [Exhibits A & B]; Georgetown University’s sex column, penned by Colleen Leahey [Exhibits C & D]; American University’s sex column, penned by “Amber Sparkles,” “Maxwell Hillcrest,” and our pal Buster [Exhibits E & F].

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: “Buster Darkhole” and the Conservative College Sex Column” »

The first time I heard Usher’s new gender-bending single, “Trading Places,” the D.J. introduced it as a “backseat jam”—a track that’s very conducive to fucking. “Trading Places,” which follows Usher and his lady-friend as they trade gender roles in the bedroom for an evening, presents gender transgression as a one-off sexual novelty. It’s also not very sexy (in one verse, Usher’s girlfriend orders Chinese food and demands that Usher not wash his hands before they do it. Thrilling). Needless to say, it wasn’t really a jam I was willing to climb into the backseat for—and that was before I knew that the song is also a stealth anal sex anthem!

Let’s analyze the male/female dichotomy through the lens of Usher, shall we?

Now we gonna do this thing a lil different tonight
You gonna come over and pick me up in your ride
You gon knock and then you gon wait
Ooo you gon take me on a date
You gonna open my door and I’ma reach over and open yours
Gon pay for dinner take me to see a movie
And whisper in my ear I bet you really wanna do me
Girl now take me home and get up in my Benz
Pour me up a shot and force me to the bed

Read More “Stealth Anal Sex Anthem: Usher’s “Trading Places”” »

Remember those Davidoff Cigar ads that featured males appearing to achieve orgasm after taking a whiff of cigar smoke? No? Here’s a refresher:

Well, it looks like Davidoff has passed on the ad designs. Despite the free advertising provided by widespread Internet speculation concerning the intersection of grodiness and gender-role innovation suggested by the cigar ads, Davidoff isn’t too happy about being associated with old men getting off on their product. (For the record, I thought they were interesting).

Read More “Davidoff Cigars Not Buying the Male Orgasm Ads” »

* Early Tuesday morning, a 23-year-old Capitol Hill woman was stabbed 17 times by an intruder after she fought off his sexual assault. She is expected to survive.

* Eliminating tired, gender-specific table manners is bad business for some New York restaurants, reports the New York Times:

restaurant owners, managers and servers say that in ways that are often laughably clichéd, men and women—viewed as groups, not as individuals—don’t gravitate toward the same dishes, communicate the same priorities or seek the same emotional payoff from dinner out. All of that is taken into consideration when menus are written, rooms are painted and thermostats set. . . . “The truth . . . is that there is a difference. And in the service industry, it’s your job to acknowledge it, predict it.”

Aren’t there any restaurants, though, that find bucking the staid gender trends actually pleases the customer? Surely, there must be some hipster vegan pho cafe-cum-nightclub that’s benefiting from the switcheroo.

* This week, Tim Dickinson for Rolling Stone detailed John McCain’s lifelong bone/hate relationship with the ladies. Earlier, Ana Marie Cox for Elle investigated why so many women helped run his campaign, anyway.

* Upcoming: WNYC tackles sperm.

* Chuck Klosterman predicts the remainder of the 21st century. It doesn’t look good:

NOV. 6, 2012: Obama defeats the incumbent McCain in a landslide. However, the most curious aspect of the election is the candidacy of Digger True, a grassroots “blogucrat” who runs as an independent, solely using the Internet. True does not express any concrete views and does not participate in debates. Instead, he produces online supercuts of patriotic aphorisms, set to the music of Collective Soul. To the surprise of many in the mainstream media, True gets 3 percent of the popular vote. Blogucrat disciples begin petition drives advocating the elimination of copyright laws and the option of voting over the Web. [via Esquire]

* Finally, Belgian cock celebs [via Gawker].

Photo by Podknox.