So imagine my surprise when I click over to the CockBib online store, only to find the Web site abandoned! What the fuck happened to the CockBibs?!

I have an e-mail out to CockBib guy to see whether the CockBib is dead for good, or whether some Christmas miracle will bring our favorite novelty penis accessory back just in time for the holidays. In the meantime, you can pay your respects by joining the CockBib Facebook group. And while we’re waiting for the inevitable CockBib resurrection, let’s share the best CockBibs of Christmas past. CockBibs may be dead, but making fun of CockBibs lasts forever. So without further ado:

“Who Am I Kidding: You’re Hired,” perfect for your office Secret Santa pool:

North Pole Ahead: Actually more Christmas-themed than it is cock-themed, in my opinion!

Heads, You Suck It, Tails, You Fuck It: There’s nothing like a good old fashioned game night to bring couples closer over the holiday season.

The Happy Birthday! CockBib. For Jesus.

The AARP has finally figured out a way to deter all those crazy tweens from sexting their chastity away: Inform them that a bunch of totally old people are doing it, too. In the November issue Online at AARP.org, reporter Jessica Leshnoff interviews a handful of first-name-only seniors who admit to sending photos of their boobs to other old people through text messages.

There’s Roger, the 59-year-old divorcé who need only tell a date that she has “amazing breasts” to be rewarded with an unsolicited photo of them. There’s Jill, 50, who suggests sexting dirty thoughts while “sitting in a restaurant waiting for your food . . . and no one knows what you’re doing.” And then there’s sexting-skeptical Richard, 66, who received a sext while “with a group of colleagues after hours at a restaurant,” and “surprised himself by being less than thrilled.”

These aging sexters have got a good half-century on the subjects of most sexting paranoia pieces, but their story is the same. The “old people are sexting” trend story operates under the same premise as the teenage sexting story. Find a group the public doesn’t enjoy considering being sexually active (minors, the elderly). Reveal that they are sexually active. Then, add technology—the second-scariest topic next to sex— and voilà—something else for David Brooks devotees to clutch their pearls over.

The AARP isn’t slut-shaming the elderly here, but it does insert a good deal of skepticism into the piece. After all, it wouldn’t be a “sexting” article without a degree of alarm. Elder sexting can’t be policed through the traditional avenues—you can’t ground them, and you can’t threaten to slap them with absurd child pornography charges. But surely, there must be some way to convince old people that sending dick photos may not be the way to spend their lunch hour? “But beware, the experts warn,” Leshnoff writes. “Sexting has its dangers, too, especially when it comes to people in the dating world.”

Those dangers? “False advertising.” “Too much, too soon.” “Not everyone likes receiving a sexually charged text.” Someone could steal them and put them on the Internet. And in a sick twist of fate: “the possibility of your teenage kids innocently flipping through your texts.” The article ends on a downer, via Richard: After actually receiving the money shot, “It was like the fun kind of went out of it,” he says.

But despite the pitfalls, the AARP has recognized that old people will probably send photos of their genitals anyway, so we may as well help them sext safely. Their tips: Slowly transition from “I still want to go to the prom with you” to “Forget chocolate, I am craving the taste of you!” Take care to periodically delete nude texts every once in a while. And always remember to “keep expectations based on sexting in check.”

I really like that. Our culture has a tendency to infantilize men and women “of a certain age,” and that includes treating their sex lives as either an unspoken taboo or an inflated cause for concern. I get it: My parents get AARP magazine, and I don’t want to think about them giving these sexting tips a text ride, either (except for the part where they delete the evidence). And the idea of my grandmother sending a perfectly chaste text message is hilarious to me. That being said, aging can present some pretty specific challenges to a person’s sex life—and, like with teens, the worst we can do is refuse to talk about it.

Photo via Ethan Prater, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Kathryn Holmquist’s little piece of horrific sex advice—sometimes, girls, it’s “too late to say no”—has evolved into a more advanced discussion on this blog. The question: Why should women be required to say “no” in the first place?

The “no means no” mantra that Holmquist is railing against is itself pretty old-school. “No means no” operates on the outdated assumption that men are the “scorers,” women are the “gatekeepers,” and the goal of every sexual encounter is for men to sneak past a woman’s line of defense and get her to not say no. In this model, the default setting of women’s bodies is “available.” Only by verbalizing a “no” can a woman signal that her body is not up for grabs. In recent years, that bullshit has been replaced by more progressive models which focus on raising the consent bar from “absence of no” to “enthusiastic yes.”

On the other hand, “no” is still a really helpful tool for women to use when they must quite urgently communicate to a person that, actually, he does not own her body. Mrs. D lays it out:

“no” should be said, clearly, when the first unwanted interaction occurs. A guy starts to get handsy, you push his hand away, and say “no, stop it.” You’re making out with a guy, and he wants more, you stop what you’re doing and verbally make it clear you’re not interested in more. Most women won’t do this…they’ll do a fully choreographed routine to get away from him without directly telling him no. That is social conditioning imposed on women that needs to change.

She makes a good point: Because women are consistently told that their bodies are public property, it can be a pretty transgressive, frightening, and even dangerous move to tell a man “no.” Saying “no” communicates to a man that he does not own you, and if you’re dealing with a rapist, he may not take too kindly to that suggestion. This power gives “no” its effectiveness, but it also makes the word sometimes difficult to verbalize. (At this point, I’d like to stop and administer another big fuck-you to Kathryn Holmquist for making saying “no” even harder).

When is it difficult to say “no”? Obviously, if a person is passed out drunk, it can be impossible to verbalize a no. It can also be difficult to say “no” when there is a physical and social power dynamic encouraging you to stay silent—when your sex partner is stronger than you, older than you, more respected than you, more confident than you, 0r simply maler than you (remember the part about everyone just assuming that men have a claim on a woman’s body?) In other words, it can be difficult to say “no” when you find yourself in a rape scenario.

But acquaintance rapes present a peculiar barrier to saying “no.” In an acquaintance rape, the power dynamic is a little bit different—you may be hanging out with someone who is bigger, stronger, and maler than you are, but you know them and you trust them. You’re friends. That implicit power imbalance doesn’t even enter your brain. A couple of comments left on a Daily Kos piece on rape discuss how that sense of security can make “no” a lot more difficult:

Now, a study in this month’s Journal of Contemporary Ethnography has attempted to decipher these sex codes for real for real. The study, conducted by researchers Kristie R. Blevins and Thomas J. Holt, examines the “argot,” or coded language, of the prostitution enthusiast’s “virtual subculture” in order to discern what these communication strategies indicate about the men who engage in—and report on—prostitution. Here’s what they discovered about the language of johns:

* First off: Don’t call them “johns.” On the online forums studied by Blevins and Holt, terms like “john” and “trick” were considered derogatory to prostitution enthusiasts. Online, johns prefer to refer to themselves as “mongers,” “trollers,” or “hobbyists.” According to the study:

For example, a user in the Inglewood forum described a successful night identifying and soliciting several prostitutes and closed by writing, “I cant wait to monger again like the sadistic one that I am.” Another Inglewood poster wrote, “Saturday morning, 10:30 am, and it was time for this dedicated hobbyist to pursue another adventure.” . . . Thus, the terms used to describe the customers of prostitutes reflect the notion that the customers find nothing wrong in paying for sex. It is simply an interest or pastime that they enjoy.

* “Pooner” is a good thing. If someone calls you a “pooner,” that means you’ve achieved online prostitution forum street cred. (Congratulations?):

Mongers who were very involved in discussion forums and review boards were often referred to as a pooner. This term was meant as a sign of respect and status and was used to identify those with clout in the forums. For example, jester from the Atlanta forum posted a question seeking information about escorts: “I was looking for recommendations about agencies from pooners who have used them . . . I don’t need to know details (if you are worried about LE), only about ones that are half-way reliable.” Asking for assistance from more senior or experienced members in this fashion could increase the likelihood of information sharing. Thus, active involvement in both the sex trade and online resources played an important role in indicating status among johns across the forums.

* “Mongers” tend to avoid offensive terms for prostitutes. According to the study, forum users shied away from calling sex workers “hookers,” “hos,” or even “prostitute.” Aww, how sweet. In place of derogatory terms for people, mongers used derogatory terms for objects, often referring to sex workers by their make, model, and build:

This language may be perceived as respectful and a way to neutralize the negative perspectives of their practices, mirroring their use of terms such as mongering or hobbying. At the same time, these terms treat sex workers as items, rather than individual human beings. For example, posters used the term streetwalker or SW to describe a prostitute who works the streets looking for clients. Posters would also use a letter to denote the race of the sex worker, including WSW for white; BSW for black; and LSW, HSW, or MSW for Hispanic.

* Other fun terms that treat people like objects: On the forums, skinny sex workers are “spinners”; older sex workers have got “mileage”:

For example, some johns used the term spinner to refer a petite female, [according to one forum user:] “a girl who is so tiny in proportion that you can put her on top of your bone and “spin” her like a top.”

. . . Specifically, johns would also use the term mileage to refer to women whose appearances reflected the physical and emotional toll that sex work takes on prostitutes. The use of a term like mileage that is typically used for automobiles is demonstrative of the perception that sex workers are offering a service.

* An “8″ on the “streetwalker scale” is a “6″ on the “normal” scale. Predictably, the way mongers rate sex workers is dehumanizing—they require a different scale than “normal” people:

In addition to the term mileage, johns also utilized a streetwalker scale to rate prostitutes’ appearances on a scale from 1 to 10. This ratings system was used to indicate the differences between prostitutes and women not involved in the sex trade, as in the following post from the Chicago forum: “This time I come across a very nice wsw [white street walker]. She would be a 6 on a normal scale, 8 on the sw [street walker] one.”

* These guys tend to beat the “sex workers are objects” theme into the ground. Online Web sites which many sex workers use to advertise are called “malls.” Photos are available for “window shopping”:

One of the most salient terms in the argot of johns that suggests sex work is a commodity is the use of the phrase mall. In this argot, a mall was a Web site devoted to advertising a variety of different online escorts and agencies. This was exemplified by a user in the Atlanta forum: “[A web-based service] is the best for finding upscale escorts or shall I say ones that charge 200 up. There are links to the escort ‘malls’ where window shopping is done.”

—

So, what does it all mean? Blevins and Holt don’t delve too far into the implications of the use of “mongers” and “mileage” in online prostitution forums. But the language they’ve uncovered does offer a few interesting insights into the men who solicit prostitutes (and talk about it).

First, many men who frequent prostitutes feel that their activities make them worthy of status and respect. These men don’t fit the convenient stereotype the public has created for johns: sad-sack guys who have to pay for sex because they can’t get girls to fuck them for free. They see themselves as connoisseurs, “hobbyists”—artists, even. They see paying for sex as a sport which can be won by frequenting the most and best sex workers for the least amount of money, hassle, and consequences.

Second—and most obvious—sex workers are seen as objects to be bought, not as humans. More often than not, sex workers are not portrayed as skilled workers who provide their customers with a service in exchange for a fee. Rather, they are things—to be perused, used, and dispensed of by the “hobbyist” who uses them to bolster his monger status. The sex worker herself is seen as the product. Again, the “hobbyist” is the thinking, creative, artistic being here, while the sex worker is denied her status as a worker, performer, or businessperson—a person capable of choosing if, when, and under what circumstances to offer a service. The idea that johns think of sex workers as objects is obvious. But it’s also important. It suggests, first, that johns believe that the bodies of sex workers are available for their use in any way they choose. But it also reveals that the ability to treat women as objects is part—or perhaps even all—of a john’s real interest in prostitution.

The fight for ideological dominance of D.C.’s college sex column “movement” rages on. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of valiant male chivalry—only drunker? This week: G.W. student fucks Marine; UMD students are bitches, dicks, or pussies; American University issues a Very Special sex column. It must be sweeps week:

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: In Layla’s latest heterosexual female romp, G.W.’s resident sex columnist extols upon the virtues of fucking servicemen. She also floats a revised idea of traditional courtship: Men are still confined to the rules of chivalry, but everyone gets drunk and you can do it whenever you feel like it. “Leaning against the bar, I spotted Prince Charming, an incredibly sexy combination of chivalry and a hint of danger, walking down the stairs,” she writes of a random Marine she spots while sitting alone, “double fisting” drinks at the bar. “Having stubbornly worn my three-inch heels, I literally stumbled into his arms and swooned at how valiantly and easily he caught me. In my opinion, there is nothing sexier than a man with an accent, especially if its southern and he happens to call me ma’am.” They decide to get it on. “Prince Charming grinned and pulled out an umbrella, proving that even in the face of a certain hookup, chivalry is not dead.”

Life Lesson: Layla insists there is “something scandalously orgasmic about making out with a marine in the middle of a bar to bad 80s music,” proving that people are into some freaky shit. Side-note: Layla may needs to take some life lessons from the Buster Darkhole school of sex column euphemisms. Her target is called “Prince Charming.” Her friend? “GI Jane.”

Progressive Meter: I count six references to “Prince Charming,” two to “chivalry,” and one each to “swooned” and “valiantly.” Layla’s column describes a thoroughly modern tale—they meet at a bar and hook up—but the vocabulary is stuck in another century. Three.

—

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND:

Sex Tips: This time around in UMD senior Esti Frischling’s regular advice column, she tackles the problem of a third-wheel friend who knows that one of the coupled-up friends is cheating on the other. Frischling’s advice—don’t snitch, but encourage them to break up, and if they don’t, go ahead and fuck the one who’s getting screwed over—isn’t as memorable as the way she tells it:

- “You better not rat either way (bitch).”
- “I mean, he can’t possibly see her as marriage material if he’s having all this premarital sex with all the sluts, right?”
- “approach the guy and say something along the lines of (and feel free to quote me directly) ‘Dude stop being such a dick — your girl is hot, lay off the adulterous pussy.’”
- “I say—and this is my final answer by the way—blow up his spot and f— his girl. Yeah.”

Life Lesson: Apparently, bitches, sluts, dicks, and pussies are A-OK in the Diamondback. But in the end, all we get is a “f—.”

Progressive Meter: While it’s difficult to discern a political bent in decisions over snitching, I do find the emphasis on “marriage material,” “premarital sex,” and “sluts” a bit off-putting here. You’re in college. Stop rating the validity of your relationships on whether or not you’re planning to get hitched to the person you’re currently doing. On the other hand, the advice that the advice-seeker “f— his girl”  seems to be applied with no concern as to whether the advice-seeker is male or female. Cool. Five.

—

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: This go-around, AU’s trio of porn-named sex columnists—Amber Sparkles, Buster Darkhole, and Maxwell Hillcrest—have teamed up to deliver a Very Special sex column about personal responsibility. This conversation—how to avoid unwanted pregnancies, STIs, abuse, and disappointment—is important. But Sparkles, Darkhole, and Hillcrest may be biting off more than they can chew here. The column is a little bit about pleasure: “Many people enjoy sex without condoms—scratch that, nearly everyone enjoys the sensations of sex more without condoms.” A little bit about shame: “it is your life. It is not the life of the girl who might yell ’slut’ at you when you walk home from a fantastic evening.” And a little bit about dying of AIDS: “imagine two boys at Apex going home together. They may have amazing sex, but if it is unprotected, the consequences can be fatal.”

Life Lesson: Sex undertaken without “planning ahead” can lead to babies, disease, and unhappiness.

Progressive Meter: The column is titled “Planning ahead helps ease worries in bed,” but the three-author treatment focuses entirely on sexual anxieties, and not on the peace of mind that can come with entering into sex fully prepared and ready to go. The intended take-away here—when you’re having sex, you should be concerned with satisfying your personal needs and taking care of yourself, not conforming to societal expectations—is a fine one. Unfortunately, the message gets lost in a sea of downers about the possible outcomes of doin’ it: campus shaming, misogyny, blood tests, abortion, and death. Four.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The D.C. Council’s Committee on Health recently completed a survey of about 250 District high school students’ thoughts on sex ed. The results reveal some interesting rifts between the male and female sex ed experience. Below, differing perspectives on sex ed—from condom use to LGBT acceptance—from the District’s young men and women. (You can read the full study here [PDF]).

According to the study, young women expressed a greater interest—and perhaps difficulty—in speaking openly about personal sexual issues:

[Y]outh asked for information about how to engage a partner in a discussion about his or her sexual history. Some female participants also want to be able to discuss more personal issues with health educators and used the focus groups to ask questions such as, “What do you do when sometimes when you’re having sex and it hurts, but at the same time, you know what I mean—it feels good?”

Young women also voiced an increased difficulty in speaking with their parents about sex:

Youth reported speaking to their parents about sex, but many said the experience was uncomfortable—though male participants reported an easier time talking about sex with their parents than the female participants. Youth also believe that their parents “may not know what to say.”

Additionally, the girls in the study were more likely to desire an increased visibility for GLBTQ issues in the sex ed curriculum:

Many youth also admit that GLBTQ youth face greater ridicule in school and in the community, especially from heterosexual males. When asked why, many youth simply responded, “they just do.” Some believed that heterosexual males view male-to-male relationships as a threat to one’s manhood. There did not, however, seem to be the same feelings among young heterosexual women. Overall, heterosexual female focus groups participants expressed a greater acceptance of GLBTQ youth. Several young women stated that “[gay males] are good friends because they’re less catty than women.”

The girls who participated in the study expressed shame in carrying condoms:

Youth participants reported that while both males and females should be responsible for having condoms, social mores can make women feel uncomfortable with carrying condoms. One youth expressed, “If I see a condom in my boyfriend’s wallet that is fine, but if I see my sister with one then it’s a problem . . . I am aware this is a double standard but that’s how society has branded her.”

Another young female explained, “I don’t carry a condom and don’t plan to because for one I don’t hvae anywhere to put it. I sometimes don’t take a puse and I don’t want to be at the store pulling cash out my pocklet and a condom out at the same time.” Young women are afraid that they will be judged as promiscuous by others or misunderstood by their partenr if they carry condoms. To avoid misperception, some female focus groups participants reported leaving the responsibility to their boyfriends.

While locked drugstore condoms produced shame and frustration in both male and female respondents:

Many youth also reported feeling uneasy when purchasing condoms, citing store employees as a primary source of their discomfort, embarrassment, or shame. Focus group participants discussed being uncomfortable when going into a store and having to ask for condoms from an employee, or having to retrieve them from inconvenient locations such as a click box or closed glass case with a “red button that makes a loud noise.” They described this experience as “annoying” and that it alerts everyone to their “business.” One youth stated, “the CVS machine to get condoms is loud and difficult to get condoms—if I can get cereal easy, why can’t I get condoms like that?”

Obviously, the absence of condoms affects young women differently than it does men:

While all youth reported having knowledge about how condoms can protect against STIs and pregnancy, some reported knowing several peers who do not use condoms because either “it feels better without a condom” or “slip ups happen in the moment.” For example, one young woman described her experience with a slip-up, saying, “it only took a few minutes to forget—30 seconds and now I have kids.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Say, ladies. A couple of economists—Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics—have unearthed a most satisfying and lucrative career option for us all: Prostitution! There’s only one problem: even though our two Steves are really brilliant economists, they just can’t figure out why most of us women don’t want to have sex for tons and tons of money. Why aren’t more women successful prostitutes?, Levitt and Dubner ask. Is it because:

a) They don’t like sex;
b) They hate men;
c) They’re kind of dumb;
d) All of the above.

If you guessed D, you are probably either Steven Levitt or Stephen Dubner. (Thanks for reading, guys!) Yes: according to Levitt and Dubner, the main obstacle standing between a woman and loads of sexy cash is her dislike of sex, her disinclination to make men happy, and her failure to understand simple economic principles. So while the world’s enthusiastic, man-loving, smarty-pants sex workers are rolling in millions from the comfort of their own homes, the world’s poorest street prostitutes get the short end of the sex-work stick—only because they hate men, hate sex, and are—from the way the Steves tell it—kinda dumb.

Now, I’m no economist, but I’m betting that the overworked, underpaid sex worker who turns tricks on the street has got deeper systemic problems to deal with than not enjoying the work enough. But I digress: Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown has already laid the groundwork on this shitstorm in her excellent piece on the Guardian. Take it away, Sady:

Levitt and Dubner build their piece around a comparison of two prostitutes: Allie, who works from her bedroom and makes between $350 and $500 an hour, depending on the client, and LaSheena, who works on the streets and probably makes about $350 a week, based on statistics. . . . LaSheena and Allie are the Goofus and Gallant of sex work, at least in the warped little scenario laid forth in the Superfreakonomics excerpt. Arising, as Levitt and Dubner seem to assume they do, from absolutely no context whatsoever (the fact that Allie is probably white, and that LaSheena is probably not, is never once addressed, for example; neither is the personal history of LaSheena explored in any detail, though we hear about Allie at excruciating length) they are not actual women so much as they are flattened-out, hollow caricatures of Success and Failure. Allie is a good prostitute; she has succeeded. LaSheena is a bad prostitute; she has failed.

What has LaSheena done wrong, you ask? Simple: She doesn’t like being a prostitute. “I don’t really like men,” she is quoted as saying. This is an interesting statement, which the authors fail to follow up. Why doesn’t LaSheena like men? Has she been beaten? Has she been raped? Is there a man taking a cut of her money? Was she forced into this job as a child by a man, by a boyfriend she loved, by sheer poverty? And has she seen the ugly side of men too often in this job to trust any? . . . We’ll never know, however, because Dubner and Levitt don’t ask. They don’t care to humanise her. She’s the Goofus in the scenario. Her poverty—which is assumed to be entirely her fault—is only there to provide a counterpoint to Allie’s shining example.

Boy, oh, boy, does Allie ever love being a prostitute!

Anyway: I highly suggest you read the whole thing. But enough dilly-dallying. Let’s dive right in to every woman’s second favorite pastime, after prostituting—chatting!

SADY: yo lady.

AMANDA: hello! wait … shouldn’t you be out, earning money for sex?

SADY: i know! i thought about it! but then i realized: i am probably not chipper enough for it. as per superfreakonomics, my disinclination to put your favorite song on the stereo and mix your favorite drink and smile gleefully about how awesome you are for paying someone to help you cheat on your wife would hurt me, probably, in the long run. PROFIT-WISE, that is!

AMANDA: right. which is why us curmudgeons have chosen a life of blogging, instead of the more obvious choice.

SADY: exactly. it’s a wonder more women aren’t out sexing for cash instead of blogging for dollars! oh, except that there are various disincentives to do that, actually? like, i am pretty sure there are women that choose to do sex work and like it, but what with the social marginalization, lack of protection by the law, health risks, etc. it is actually NOT a wonder that more women do not choose it.

AMANDA: there are so many things wrong with the treatment here, i can’t even begin. you did a lot of the work in your piece, but i wanted to start off with this one sentence from the freakonomics excerpt: “There is one labour market women have always dominated: prostitution.” hmm. really? i mean, i get that perhaps this is meant to be some sort of play on words, but given the amount of money men have made off of pimping out or trafficking prostitutes, i am not exaaaactly sure this is the case.

SADY: right? i mean, to frame the sex industry—not just prostitution, but other varieties of sex work in general—as “female-dominated” is just absurdly wrong. it’s like calling starbucks “cashier-dominated.” there are more women on the front lines, but management is by no means primarily or exclusively female. and given the exploitative relationship management has traditionally had with the service employees, that’s something to worry about. not that there aren’t exploitative female madams, etc. but you get where i am going, i hope. i think the entire article is so infuriating largely because it aims to present an “economic” analysis of prostitution by… talking to one sex worker, basically? and reading the work of one other dude? this stuff is insanely complex, and people have been fighting about it and studying it forever, and it DRIVES ME INSANE that people are going to read this fluff and confuse it with an actual analysis.

AMANDA: yeah. here’s another little pet peeve of mine: pretending that “prostitution” is the same as “sex.” I understand that prostitution is a lot different than it was 100 years ago, and a lot of that has to do with changes in attitudes toward sex. but when these researchers say that prostitutes now see competition from “any woman who is willing to have sex with a man for free,” they’re implying that tons of women are actually performing the work of a prostitute on a daily basis, which is absolutely not the case. the reality is that many prostitutes are not being paid to “have sex.” they are being paid—as the researches note with the high-class prostitute—to have the kinds of sex that men can’t get on a daily basis. and in reality, that doesn’t mean “interesting sex” or “anal sex” or “enthusiastic sex” that these dudes just can’t get out of their wives. it also means degradation. prostitutes are popular, to some men, because they can do whatever they want to them, and the appeal isn’t in a particular sex act that they can’t get at home, but rather in the experience of paying someone to be their sex partner. when these researches say you “have to like sex” enough to be a prostitute, that’s bullshit. plenty of women like sex. you have to like PROSTITUTION enough. or … be poor! and according to them, poor prostitutes are kind of fucking idiots.

SADY: well, this was somewhere i was heading in the piece i wrote for CiF, but there just wasn’t room to talk about it there; even if we don’t assume that all men are hiring prostitutes specifically to “degrade” them—and i don’t know what goes on in all circumstances, i do assume that a lot of guys want to degrade women because they get off on the power imbalance and others do it for other reasons, from all the first-hand testimony I’ve heard—the nature of the transaction is fundamentally different than the nature of the transaction that is casual sex. at the risk of oversimplifying: in prostitution, a woman does what you want her to do, for money. in sex—even casual sex—a woman does some of what you want her to do, or maybe even all of it, but only in exchange for you doing what she wants as well. in casual sex, there is (unless you are a huge asshole) the expectation that you will be dealing with the desires and needs of the other party. female desire enters the picture. and i think THAT, we can say, is probably a big part of the “sex” vs. “prostitution” thing. even if the guys don’t want to HURT the prostitutes, they’re paying them to have sex that has nothing to do with their desires and everything to do with the desires of their clients. the only way you can miss that is if you don’t acknowledge that women have desire.

AMANDA: right. so these economists are stumped—stumped, i tell you!—as to why more women don’t spend their entire lives pleasing men and receiving no pleasure in return. they can’t understand why this is, because outside of prostitution, women are lining up in droves to have sex! but instead of working through their obvious miscalculations here, they decide to tell imply that women are probably just kind of dumb. the kicker is when, at the end of the piece, this is how the researchers leave Allie, the “high-class” prostitute who ended up becoming an economist: “Several students said this was the best lecture they had in all their years at the university, which is both a firm testament to Allie’s insights and a brutal indictment of Levitt and the other professors.” As if it’s some kind of joke! when, in reality, these guys actually don’t understand wtf they’re talking about, and they’re actually seemingly amused that a prostitute could not be a dumbass. so: why didn’t she write this?

SADY: RIGHT! and that’s the thing; i don’t want to discount her insights or experiences—or those of LaSheena, the less privileged sex worker they interviewed for five seconds and then apparently forgot about because she wasn’t smart enough to be a billionare sextrepreneur—but I think Levitt and Dubner kind of effectively discounted her already, by using her as a subject even though she IS GETTING A DEGREE IN ECONOMICS and simplifying her story, which has GOT to be more complex than the one we’re reading, into this wacky quirky Happy Hooker stereotype.

AMANDA: yeah. and thank god she is getting an economics degree, because this is Exhibit A as to why more women need to be represented in the sciences. I’m sure that these guys are brilliant economists, but when you’re attempting to form a theory as to why HALF OF HUMANS choose not to be prostitutes for a living, perhaps your own experience will be insufficient.

SADY: right. oh, and the lazy dumb hooker is getting a DEGREE IN ECONOMICS now! wacky twist! did you catch the part where they said she became a prostitute because she “just didn’t like working all that hard?”

AMANDA: oh yeah. i caught that part. the weird thing is that the premise of their investigation is: why don’t women prostitute themselves out for cash, when the pay is so good? and they entirely fail to even begin to answer that question. they don’t come up with one reason why she wouldn’t! oh, they come up with one reason: maybe she’s married. but i don’t see another one!

SADY: i can’t think of a single one! there’s, like, one line where they acknowledge that it’s ILLEGAL (being harassed, jailed, and potentially raped by cops: A DISINCENTIVE???) but that’s only in the service of pointing out that its illegal status allows Allie to charge high fees.

AMANDA: haha right. now, i dont’ know if Levitt and Dubner are heterosexual males, but let’s assume they are.

SADY: assumed!

AMANDA: the only appropriate response to the ridiculous question posed in the article would be, “I don’t know, why don’t you suck cock for a living?” Why don’t you suck cock, out of your fancy house, instead of being a famous economist? I’m sure that will be the pertinent question in “SuperDuperFreakonomics: The Freakiestonomics Yet”

SADY: yes, at some point. WHY AREN’T LEVITT AND DUBNER JOINTLY FELLATING YOU RIGHT NOW: A FREAKONOMIC ANALYSIS.

AMANDA: probably because they don’t like sex?

SADY: i mean, jesus. sex work is complicated. i’m so sure—and i have to keep reiterating this, because i feel bad for assuming that allie’s “i just happened to go on an online dating service and tell people i was an escort because, tee-hee, i just love sex” narrative is a Pile O’ Poopy—that there are women who are very fulfilled in their sex work, or at least prefer it to the other jobs they could have. i’m SURE of this. but asking THAT ONE LADY to tell you what prostitution is like—hell, even what the MONEY side of prostitution is like—is massively misguided.

AMANDA: i mean honestly. LaSheena straight-up tells them that she “doesn’t like men.” And somehow, because Allie says that she LOVES men, this sample size of 2 indicates that women who like men make tons of money doin’ what they love, and women who don’t like men are poor street hookers. so really, women don’t cash in on the obvious benefits of prostitution because they’re … bitches?

SADY: that’s what irked me so much – they’re so invested in this Ayn Rand fantasy of the fulfilled sex-liking happy safe rich sex worker that pretty much everyone else is left out of the picture, or else shamed as inadequate. Allie is like the John Galt of professional sex, in this equation.

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: i also liked the fact that their response to LaSheena’s statement of “I don’t like men” was… what if there was more money in it for you? and she’s like, “yeah! sure! what’s that you say? I can get my degree from home in my spare time? And it includes a course in Air Conditioner Repair?” it turns into this weird sales pitch for sex workers.

AMANDA: right. it’s like, why do you think she is doing this? because she DOESN’T want money?

SADY: yes. and even though we know pretty much everything about Allie up to and including what she ate for breakfast this morning and whether there is corn in her poo, we know nothing about LaSheena. none of the factors that have led to her having four more or less illegal, low-paying jobs, at least one of which she hates, all of which are dangerous. and am i wrong for thinking her story might be the more interesting of the two? then again, maybe she just didn’t want to talk to the Freakonomics guys. can’t say I blame her!

AMANDA: i’m pretty sure that she didn’t want to talk to the fucking Freakonomics guys. They admit that they had to pay her in order for her to talk to them, which they think says a lot about how desperate for money she is. but i think it just shows how unpleasant it is to be recast in the lens of the Freakonomics guys.

Photo by otisarchive3

The signage helps “Men’s Parties” come into compliance with yesterday’s court order, which requires the club—and the nonprofit organization behind it, the “D.C. Wrestling Club”—to temporarily cease holding events, stop advertising, and post this sign five feet from the ground on the club’s main entrance, with lettering no less than 1 inch tall.

Still looking for that sexy Halloween costume? If you’ve been dreaming of dressing as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, except naked and horny for other high-profile female politicians, you are so in luck!

Hustler has produced a promotional cardboard mask in the likeness of Lisa Ann, the adult film star who portrayed everyone’s favorite VILF in the Hustler-produced picture “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?” (featuring porny Hilary Clinton and porny Condoleezza Rice) and its spell-checked follow-up, “You’re Nailin’ Palin: Interactive!” (co-starring porny Carrie Prejean).

Ladies, I’d really love to tell you to strap on Hustler’s “Parody Mask of Lisa Ann” this Halloween. But according to the instructions on the back, the mask is actually produced for men to slap on to you. Presumably in the boudoir. It reads:

PLACE ON FACE OF:

• Wife
• Girlfriend
• Mistress
• Significant Other

Doesn’t every man deserve to pretend to fuck a dead-eyed porn star who is pretending to be an absurd Republican politician? Just shut up and take the mask, Mistress.

On Wednesday, the District of Columbia filed suit to shut down “Men’s Parties,” the underground male sex club operating at 1618 14th Street NW. The lawsuit’s three defendants—David J. Butler, 1618 14th Street LLC, and the D.C. Wrestling Club—face charges of “opperation of a business without a basic business license” and “use of premises for business without appropriate certificate of occupancy.”

The initial documents in the case offer a glimpse into the club’s secretive activities, as well as additional information concerning the fatal accident that occurred inside the club on the morning of October 4th.

According to court documents, D.C. police responded to the report of “an unconscious person at the address” at 5:18 a.m. Detective Thomas Smith, a former Prostitution Enforcement Unit cop, was called to the scene to investigate a potential homicide. During the course of the investigation, Smith met Butler, “who identified himself as the President of a private club, doing business as the D.C. Wrestling Club.”

Butler told Smith that he hosts parties where “men come into the premises, make a donation, and socialize.” By the time Smith entered the property, Butler was accompanied by “more than twenty patrons and staff.” Three other staff members identified themselves to Smith, according to documents: Jerome Goodman, Juan Adams, and Ralph ‘Jay’ Rushing.

According to Smith’s affidavit, the activities of the club were obvious: “Strewn throughout the entire location are used condoms, empty condom wrappers, paper towels, cloth towels and other indicia of frequent, non-discrete sexual behavior.” What, no snacks?

The affidavit offered a full inventory of the club’s amenities:

First Floor: “A lounge area immediately inside the front entrance” which includes “two sets of lockers” and couches. Also on the first floor, “separated by curtains, are three wooden stalls containg ‘glory holes’ used for sexual activity” The floor also contains a “powder room and a linen closet.”

Second Floor: An additional “lounge area with several counches and a mounted television set” sits on the club’s top floor. The second floor also yields a “kitchenette and full bathroom.” Behind the lounge are “sexually-oriented materials” including a “sex swing, large wooden cross that permits an individual to be bound to the structure, and a bench.” The second floor also includes a bedroom “reportedly belonging to Ralph ‘Jay’ Rushing,” and another bench.

Basement: Two sets of stairs lead to this floor (the accident victim was found at the foot of one staircase). In the basement are”thirteen bed spaces separated by built-in wooden partitions and dark curtains,” each containing a “mattress and trash can.”

Last week, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner fired Emmy-winning writer Kater Gordon. The week before that, Late Night comedian David Letterman admitted to having sexual affairs with women on his staff. The week before that, film director Roman Polanski was finally detained after raping the 13-year-old model he had hired for a Vogue shoot. What do these incidents have in common? If you said “probably nothing,” you would be wrong!

Apparently, when three famous Hollywood men make news within a one-month period—whether the news concern rape, sex, or normal managerial decisions—those men are doomed to be nonsensically linked in the public consciousness forevermore! To wit: Linda Hirshman titled her Double X post on the Letterman scandal “Bad Sex: Letterman, Polanski, Ensign, and Edwards.” (Sorry, Linda: one of the above ain’t sex!) In a post on the Gordon firing, Kate Harding wrote for Broadsheet,”In the wake of the Letterman scandal, [the] question lurks.” (The question: Sexy times??) And Gawker’s speculation on the Gordon-Weiner dust-up lists a “strictly unprofessional relationship” as its first firing “theory.” (Nevermind that that makes absolutely no sense!)

By the Hollywood gossip transitive property, that means that Matthew Weiner probably fired Kater Gordon because . . . child rape, somehow! And because this is Mad Men we’re talking about, Gordon’s firing MUST be eerily reminiscent of the booze-soaked hyper-sexual office story-line of at least ONE of the television show’s beloved characters!

In this week’s edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I implore you to join us as we take a trip down the sexual speculation rabbithole, only to find that: (a) real life ain’t Mad Men, and (b) once again, with feeling: RAPE ISN’T SEX.

—

AMANDA: So, Kater Gordon and Matthew Weiner. Hittin’ it?

SADY: um, probably! because she worked for him! and got promoted! and then didn’t work for him any longer! those are all solid proofs of Hittin’ It, right? i could use them in Hittin’ It Court if I wanted to.

AMANDA: Personally, I think that the number one indication that they are Probably Hittin’ It is that David letterman had sex with some lady!

SADY: i know, right? IN THE WORKPLACE! I think we must therefore assume that everyone in the workplace is hittin’ it, all the time. i feel bad about not caring that much about the letterman thing. i mean: i get that there was a BIG-ASS power difference between letterman and his assistant. there is a big-ass power difference between david letterman and a lot of people. but until we know that there was not sexual harassment or quid pro quo stuff going on there, it’s just another story about somebody cheating on somebody to me. and i am familiar with the fact that people cheat on each other. and not that scandalized by it. i do watch “mad men!”

AMANDA: I agree. I don’t care about that or Jimmy Kimmel or whatever that is. Whenever those stories come up, everyone scrambles to “ask the questions” about whether the boss abused their power, whether the employee benefited from the relationship, whether there was coercion etc. But I think REALLY people just want to hear more about the details of their romance. ad in the case of Kater Gordon, their imagined made-up romance

SADY: yeah, exactly. you know my favorite thing about all this? is the parallels drawn between letterman and polanski. like: WOW, there are a lot of “SEX” “SCANDALS” going on, what with these two getting up to their morally equivalent no-goodery! but the kater gordon thing is just fundamentally wrong because we have no evidence of it. no evidence of coercion, and no evidence of a talentless young harlot being promoted due to her relationship with The Boss.

AMANDA: Right? I read one comment when the Letterman thing broke that was like, “Roman Polanski should send David Letterman flowers.” And I thought, how awkward would you feel being David Letterman receiving flowers from a child rapist because you had consensual sex with a grown woman?

SADY: haha, yeah. and, i mean, i don’t know whether the kater gordon/weiner Imaginary Romance and the jimmy kimmel Actual Romance are getting so much play because people are just wanting to hitch onto that sweet “sex” scandal gravy train or what.

AMANDA: people seem almost embarrassed to bring it up. all the critiques i’ve read have used passive language like, “parallels between weiner and letterman have been raised” in order to raise the issue themselves

SADY: right. but the parallels between weiner and letterman which ACTUALLY EXIST is that two young women worked for them, and were promoted to high-profile positions. and, you know. whatever the lady on Letterman had going for her, talentwise, is a debatable question. but Gordon would seem to be legitimately deserving of promotion.

AMANDA: yeah, and it’s extremely insulting to both the boss and the employee when commenters say, “why would anyone promote a woman? fucking, maybe?”

SADY: right, especially when her skill is so demonstrable. “oh, we know you got that emmy for that episode we all liked WITH SEX! and then the episode magically became good and forced us all to write positive reviews of it BECAUSE OF YOUR SEXINESS!” it’s refusing to give her any credit at all for her work.

AMANDA: except for that dream sequence in The Fog. Not so great. But my favorite comparison here is when people draw parallels between Weiner and Gordon and plotlines on Mad Men. Like, what if Gordon IS PEGGY OLSON? OR, what if Gordon was Freddy Rumsen, and was fired for pissing herself? ORRRRR what if Gordon was Sal, and was fired for not having gay sex? Spoiler.

SADY: what if she were that dude who got his foot run over with a lawnmower, and was fired because she couldn’t play golf any more? DO WE KNOW KATER GORDON HAS FEET? has anyone seen her golfing lately?

AMANDA: hahaha. yeah. the take-away from that is that people just really love the show so much they want it to be REAL. but that’s kind of fucked up, considering the source material.

SADY: yeah, exactly. the thought is that since it’s about a workplace where people are always cheatin’ and drinkin’ and smokin’ there must ACTUALLY be some chicanery going on, because otherwise the beautiful dream of a sexist, racist office that smells like cigarettes and freddy rumsen’s pee will seem all too unattainable.

AMANDA: yeah. i mean, maybe she had sex with the actor who plays Duck. it’s possible!

SADY: yeah… but does this mean that the people who wrote “star trek” did it all on a spaceship, too? but, i mean. honestly. the Mysteries of Her Dismissal are one thing… and i get mad when talented women are fired from shows, even when i don’t like them, as with the SNL Lady Quota. but i can’t help but feel that the people who are weighing in to be all “PROBABLY BECAUSE SHE AND MATTHEW WEINER HAD NAKED TIMES HUH” are, um, not helping. that’s the saddest part of this: that, for some reason, we still can’t think of women as just part of the workplace. even though the whole point of “mad men” is that we’re So Beyond That Now. i still feel bad for not feeling bad about the letterman thing, though!

AMANDA: i personally feel a little bit uncomfortable about my disinterest in that also, because if i were working for a company where my coworkers were fucking my boss, that would be a problem for me. although, maybe you don’t know until some crazy dude extorts your boss for 2 million!

SADY: ha, yeah. i mean, i don’t think i’d ever feel comfortable fucking someone in a position to fire me. i would not feel like i was that person’s equal. and i don’t think that it’s possible to separate your sexual relationship from your professional relationship to the degree that some people might hope, and that can result in unfair treatment. BUT, there’s no reason to think that boss/employee relationships are ALWAYS uncomfortable for the employee involved, or that they’re always predatory.

AMANDA: right. it’s also probably nobody else’s business except for the people involved, which is the main thing.

SADY: exactly. it’s not like this is someone in a position of public office, who holds accountability to All of Us. at worst, we might not want to hang out with David Letterman any more. which: good news! David Letterman doesn’t want to hang out with any of us anyway! neither does Matthew Weiner! PROBLEM SOLVED.

AMANDA: and that’s fine, because DESPITE SUGGESTIONS TO THE CONTRARY, he does not seem half as charming as Don Draper.

SADY: right. he seems like more of a bert cooper to me, in fact! maybe he fired kater gordon because she wouldn’t take her shoes off. PROBABLY, RIGHT?

AMANDA: prb. prbbbbbb! haha! i cannot type any longer!

SADY: that or her sterling-esque blackface routine, which i think we can all agree was inappropriate.

Photo by Carin Baer, via AMC.

So, how bad was that masturbation column? And could it possibly be worse than ABC News’ completely nonsensical take on the controversy? Let’s take a look!

The Bed Post:

Happy Monday, my lovely, loyal readers, I’m hoping you had a great weekend and didn’t get into trouble. What did I do this weekend? It was actually pretty standard. I caught up on some sleep, hung out with some pals, got some work done, did a little mutual masturbation.

ABC:

Let’s talk about sex. Or would you like to just read about it in The Towerlight? “Yes, I’ve read them all,” said student Zachary Chandler.

Verdict: The Bed Post appears to be frankly discussing a sex act. On the other hand, ABC News is asking a rhetorical questions and answering it with a quote from a student who was clearly asked an entirely different question. “So, would you like to read about it?” “Yes, I’ve read them all.” Forget “mutual masturbation”—what the fuck is “them”?

—

The Bed Post:

According to Wikipedia, mutual masturbation is “a sexual act where two or more people stimulate themselves or one another sexually, usually with the hands.” According to Lux, mutual masturbation is a way of life.

ABC:

Several community members, even the adminstration, voiced their opposition. Matt Radhe said, ‘I don’t think sex should be that taboo.’ Fellow student Tom Pope added, ‘Apparently some of the residents hall show pornographic videos like on the TV’s and stuff and for them to get made about an article just seems really confusing to me.’”

Verdict: Masturbation as a “way of life” may be a bit of an overstatement, even for a college student. However, ABC News apparently gets off on publishing a central premise—people are opposed to the sex column—and then backing it up with a bunch of quotes from people who . . . support the sex column. Also, they can’t spell “administration.”

—

The Bed Post:

Try not touching each other and only stimulate yourselves. Since you know your body so well, your hands will work exactly how you want them to, so you’ll always feel good. You’ll stay safe, while being intimate at the same time. It’s sexy to watch someone pleasure themselves and even sexier for you to pleasure yourself with someone else watching.

ABC:

“I personally made some poor editorial decision regarding the bedpost,” said former editor-in-chief Carrie Wood. . . . “Based on some of the stuff we were hearing from the  administration it seemed that they were trying to infringe on our rights,” Woods said.

Verdict: The Bed Post’s controversial references to self-pleasure have got nothing on ABC News’ edgy decision to misspell Wood’s name, mistype the name of the column (it’s The Bed Post), and misquote Wood. She made “some poor editorial decision”? Which editorial decision was that?

—

The Bed Post:

Want to take it to the next level? Try lying next to each other and linking arms. Girls – add a vibrator or dildo into your routine. Boys – find out if your girl will let you finish somewhere other than on your stomach. I tend to ask for it on my chest or back.

ABC: The column spared no detail; and while many excerpts are too graphic for this story one sentence give you an idea:  “Regardless of how you do it, you should be aroused, pleased and totally safe.”

Verdict: Jesus christ. One sentence GIVES you an idea. GIVES.

—

The Bed Post:

If you’ve been keeping up with my columns, you’re already all experts in the hand job department. As for heavy petting, girls – tell your partner exactly how you like it, just as you would while receiving oral sex. Want to make sure they really understand? Show them! Use your hand or finger(s) and let them follow along.

ABC:

“I think people are overreacting,” said Tom Pope.

“I supported her decision to run it, said another student.

“You can’t just always go by what people tell you,” added another.

Verdict: Yes, the Bed Post got explicit. Maybe ABC News should try that, instead of printing comments about “people” “overreacting” or “supporting” the decision to run “it,” no matter “what people tell you.” Just so we’re clear: THEY’RE ALL TALKING ABOUT MASTURBATION. There. MASTURBATION. That was easy, wasn’t it?

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].

SADY: ah, the kids today. what are they up to? other than pretending they know enough about sex to write about it, OBVS, since the kids of many various days seem to believe the same thing.

AMANDA: also, inventing hilarious pseudonyms for themselves, like Rex Butthole and V. Gina

SADY: i know, right? or BUSTER DARKHOLE, Legitimate Writer and Giver of Mature Sexual Counsel [Exhibit E]. somehow, i just hold out the hope that Buster Darkhole is his real name and this is the only career path open to him.

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: actually, as i read your summary, i was fondest of the work and pseudonym of MR. DARCY [Exhibit A]. i remember the third-act twist in Pride and Prejudice which mr. darcy exclaimed, “verily, miss bennet! our coffee date has involved a most unexpected oral manipulation of my genitals! yet i cannot refuse the fair lady Bingley, who is a superfreak in word and in deed!”

AMANDA: agreed, but at least mr. darcy is better than “layla” [Exhibit B], the name of the female columnist. though i knew a lot of kids in college into Clapton, so i guess it’s a cultural thing

SADY: haha. but, you know, reading these things and your summary of them, i was reminded of (CURSE ME FOR UTTERING THE FORBIDDEN NAME) T*cker M*x. [Exhibit douche]. Somehow, it’s just not scandalous any more to note that ladies like to have sex and are having casual sex. Unless you are the Pope, in which case all sex scandalizes you to some degree or another. The Kids These Days are pro-sex, including the lady ones. but they’re also pro-ridiculously-conservative-gender-norms. and i had somehow hoped that making the point that ladies and dudes can both enjoy sex would change things. IT HAS NOT.

AMANDA: one idea i’ve seen in a couple of these stories (and from adults talking down to college-age people, too) is: yes, women like to have sex just as much as men do, but they have to not do it in order to be happy [Exhibit E].

SADY: oh, yes. the HOOKUP CULTURE! which is DESTROYING LADIES’ CHANCES OF HAPPINESS!

AMANDA: because if they don’t not have sex they’ll never be in a relationship, which is what they REALLY want.

SADY: right. your vagina has to accumulate enough charge, through non-use, in order to work its Boyfriend-Entrapping powers on the dude of your choice.

AMANDA: i just read a chapter of a new book about young adult sexual experiences, ill remember the name later [Exhibit Laid: Young People’s Experiences with Sex in an Easy-Access Culture], and the introduction compared “hooking up” to a “microwave burrito” — you want it in the moment but eventually, you’re going to regret it. the book called casual sex “settling,” and insisted that good sex can only be had in committed relationships. personally, i really like being in a relationship, but part of the reason i like it is because i’m not only in the relationship so that i am ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX. i imagine this worldview just ends up with a lot of women settling into relationships with people they they don’t really like that also don’t provide great sex

SADY: yeah, and the mr. darcy column (i am sorry i keep returning to it! it fascinates me!) sets up the same good girl/bad girl paradigm. like, i COULD be with the girl who i might legitimately want a relationship with… or i could be with AWESOME SEXY TIMES lady. and, you know? it’s kind of sad to me that dudes still think this division exists. although hilarious that dude is puzzling out loud over how he wasn’t able to “settle down” as a damn college student.

AMANDA: i know. but then at the end, darcy is all, “you know what, maybe i can find a freaky girl that i love!” but you know he’s just gonna kinda keep fucking both of them. Whatever. that is the weirdest thing to me about the Concerns over the Hook-Up Culture. why should college students be encouraged to search out their Final Life-Long relationship among the first relationships they’ve ever had? that makes no sense, and neither does telling girls that hooking up will damage them. they can look for a boyfriend whenever they want to do that. or a girlfriend, which is one thing that none of these sex columns is really addressing.

SADY: YEAH. it’s all boys sexing the girls, and ridiculous gender stereotypes of boys sexing girls [Exhibit D], but these “sex” columns often seem more like the work of not terribly reflective or original straight college kids marveling over the fact that they can have sex and not worry about their moms overhearing them or showing up to offer suzy a ride home before it gets too late. but shouldn’t “sex” be a more, um, inclusive discussion than this thing about giggling over how you got SOOOO wasted and sexed up someone in your totes heterosexual manner last night?

AMANDA: of course, i would say yeah, but i can see why this happens. when you’re in college, those things are exciting to you, as a boring heterosexual person, even if its not terribly interesting to even, say, your classmates. it can be hard to look past your own experience when you’re first experiencing all these things. also, it can be hard to write when you’ve recently graduated from 5 paragraph essays.

SADY: oh, yeah. and, i mean, that’s cool and all. but it also – and i speak as someone who is ancient as the grave and yet remembers similar pressures from when i went to college – it creates this weird atmosphere on campus, where you ARE, to some degree, pressured to have enough casual sex to prove that you can do it and aren’t some clingy relationship-needing heterosexual female, yet you’re also a slut if you don’t eventually have a relationship, and you don’t exist, basically, if you’re queer.

AMANDA: yep.

SADY: like, it’s about “freedom,” and rebellion, but freedom can only ever take one pre-existing shape. by trying to make sex more public, you should be opening it up, but you end up writing a script for what sex should look like. which is not good for anyone, actually.

AMANDA: no, and it’s not particularly fun to read. which should be the main point. though i thought the American University anal sex column was getting there a little bit. at least Darkhole was all, “if you want her to put her finger in your butt, it’s cool, man.” [Exhibit F].

SADY: well, i mean, you have SEEN HIS NAME, right? he is buster darkhole! this is the column he was born to write!

AMANDA: yeah. I mean, it’s possible that Darkhole is a little too eager with the anal sex. i think i noted that the column didn’t mention the fact that like, it’s cool not to have anal sex, too, if you’re not into it.

SADY: maybe his full name is actually Buster Orhis Darkhole III.

AMANDA: i really want to score an interview with this person. but the AU column is an interesting approach because it is three people, two men and one lady, and i don’t know if there’s any gay or lesbian representation on that board, but that approach does open up the possibility of diversity, and not preaching one person’s crazy high school abstinence-only education lessons to an entire campus [Exhibit C]. although god knows how they actually get together and write that thing.

SADY: yeah, i mean, i’m fond of the collaborative approach to all this. maybe if there were like FIFTEEN college sex journalists per campus (and there are probably enough candidates!) you might get one of them that is confident enough not to just say whatever they think will make them look cool and sexually experienced, middle-school style. and hey, maybe one or two that aren’t straight people! that would be fun! i mean, i am skeptical of the entire “sex expert” position. i’m a grown lady who has been thinking about this stuff for the majority of my grown lady life, and i’m still not an expert on how my OWN sexual relationships should go.

AMANDA: it’s interesting, because the Nation’s piece on student sex columns painted them as this really radical progressive movement. and i think there’s a confusion there, because people still think that “talking about sex” makes you a liberal and saying “people shouldn’t talk about sex” makes you conservative.

SADY: right! and i think it is an issue of the younger generation! battle lines have shifted a bit; now, EVERYBODY talks about sex, liberal and conservative and that’s kind of taken for granted. it’s what they say that is the issue. or, alternately, the fact that everybody who is given a platform to do so seems to say the same thing.

AMANDA: right. and i don’t know what Mr. Darcy or Ramm Bottomham’s political persuasion is, but I imagine there’s more political diversity in these columnists than there is actual sexual diversity. which is weird!

SADY: yeah. and, honestly, i think T. Otis Notavirgin or whatever are – MAYBE! JUST MAYBE! – feeling more pressure to seem in line with the most widely accepted version of College-Age Sexuality than to actually, seriously think about sex and maybe come up with some insights.

AMANDA: yeah, and seeing as whenever i happen to write about college students they all flood my comments with insights like, “gay,” or … “gay,” i can’t really blame them [Exhibit frat]. college students are really harshly scrutinized over their sex lives, and college sex columnists must experience the worst of it.

SADY: Honestly! Here is what I think: I think that Buster Darkhole and Layla and Mr. Darcy and whoever are all filing these pieces that are like, “so I got totally WASTED! and had SEX! like PEOPLE MY AGE TEND TO DO!” then they are going home to make microwave popcorn and watch a movie and call their moms. and maybe ask someone out to a movie. that is what i believe. or hope?

AMANDA: i think they’re probably also silently weeping over the comments and/or getting shit from their friends [Exhibit single tear].

SADY: oh, god yes. but, you know, if embarrassing college sex columns are what it takes to teach the young people about Dealing With The Terrible Mean Blog Comments That People Will Eventually Leave On Any Blog Ever, I think it’s a sacrifice worth making. sort of!

Photo by BodogGirl

This week, Catholic University newspaper the Tower reported that the Washington City Paper would no longer be made available on the school’s campus. In fact, the paper has been gone from the CUA campus since May 7th, the day that my story on CUA’s campus sex ban, Screw U: Inside the Secret Sex Life of Catholic University, was published.

That morning, a very nice man who identified himself only as a CUA employee called to tell me that the university was removing the paper from the campus racks. “I just wanted to bring that to your attention and let you know that really sucks, because I know for a fact there are a lot of staff members and students that love to read your paper, and especially for this article,” he said. ” Again, love your work, awesome, thanks so much for throwing that out there, and, we got a really great chuckle for it. I hope you don’t get in too much trouble. Take care of yourself.”

The Catholic University administration was less amused.

Catholic University spokesperson Victor Nakas, whom I quoted extensively in the piece on the subjects of premarital sex, masturbation, and men kissing, explained the school’s reasoning for removing the paper from campus. “These decisions were occasioned by the City Paper’s hateful article ridiculing our Catholic faith,” Nakas told the Tower. Some CUA students were moderately pissed about it, but they were dealing. “Whether or not that article was a true portrayal of students, we should be able to decide for ourselves whether or not it’s worth reading,” sophomore Joe McAnaney told the Tower. “It’s disappointing that I can’t just pick up the City Paper in the Pryz anymore, even though I understand the University’s decision.”

Oh, Catholic University, always banning things! Catholic University of America has banned sex, masturbation, pornography, and condom possession among unmarried students for years. Let’s see how that’s going for them: clandestine condom distribution, check; student center sex, check; healthy LGBT population (considering), check; masturbation, check; celebrity naked photos, check; girls sneaking into boys dorms, check; boys sneaking into girls’ dorms, check; high-profile sexual assault case involving videotaped group sex in open CUA dorm room, check.

Unfortunately, college students prefer doin’ it to reading alternative weekly newspapers. Or do they? Perhaps a good campus banning is just what the City Paper needed to catch on with the CUA crowd. By my calculations, the Washington City Paper should already be well on its way to becoming the new campus forbidden fruit, a taboo rag which CUA students will hide beneath their mattresses and transport secretly between dorm buildings by slipping it inside the pages of the Express. How can it be wrong when it feels so right?

Or, maybe they’ll just read it online.

It’s three in the morning. You have it inside you right now. It kind of hurts. You’ve had one too many cups of jungle juice. You think his name is Andrew, but you’re not really sure. You thought you would never be that girl, but there you are, in your drunken haze.

You wake up the day after to an unfamiliar ceiling, some guy who smells like booze, AXE body spray and, well, something else. He wants to cuddle and you’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up [ ________ ].

Reader: How did the AU Eagle complete that sentence?

a. You’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up was rape.

b. You’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up was a product of society’s shaming of female sexuality, which encourages women to resort to dangerous, heavily intoxicated, and painful sex with strangers instead of openly pursuing empowered, respectful, and satisfying sexual experiences with desired sexual partners.

c. You’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up could turn into something.

If you picked choice C, congratulations. That’s right: The Eagle chose to use a woman’s hazy, drunk, and painful sexual experience in order to illustrate the serious on-campus problem of . . . drunk women wanting boyfriends!

“A lot of people think that their first sexual experience in college is something meaningful,” the column continued. “We can tell you that it is not. ” The columnists then informed AU females some strategies they should try next time, instead of painful drunk sex: “lets face it girls, more often then not you’ll have to slow the guy down. That’s more than okay—it adds to your ‘mystique.’ Flirt with them, step in a little bit closer, laugh at all his jokes, flip your hair, basically everything you see in the movies without the sex. I said without the sex.”

So, women who want to get laid on the AU campus can either a) endure drunk and painful stranger fucking, or b) laugh at jokes that aren’t funny, and . . . not have sex. What the fuck? And these are the paper’s sex columnists!

Some readers and on-campus groups agreed that the Eagle’s sexual scenario posed more pressing questions than “Why can’t the drunk girl find a boyfriend?” Like, “Was that hypothetical girl just hypothetically raped?”

Many members of the campus community argued that she was. AU Students For Choice penned an e-mail to its members calling the piece “alarming,” and describing the opening scene as “an explicit rape.” And in a letter to the Eagle, campus group Women’s Initiative wrote, “This is called rape . . . Not only does the column normalize sexual assault as a drunken hook-up that happens to everyone, but it places the responsibility of stopping sexual assault on women by telling them to ’slow the guy down.’”

Readers also chimed in on the consent issue. “Next time you write a sex article don’t write it like a date rape story,” wrote one commenter. Wrote another: “If it hurts, and you’re so wasted you don’t know what’s going on, then that is rape. And that’s not okay or normal.”

But others came to the Eagle’s defense. “How the hell is that rape?” wrote one. “I hear of this kind of stuff happening all the time. We’ve all been there at one time or another when you have drunk sex, so what? Its the people who end up trying to build a relationship off of that who are stupid.”

In its own response to the campus outcry, the Eagle defended the piece as “provocative” and called the outrage “confusing.” “For better or worse, many drunken hook-ups on this campus are completely consensual. Women’s Initiative knows it. AU Students For Choice knows it. Sometimes, people get drunk intending to hook-up!” The Eagle then attempted to shame all members of the campus community who voiced concern about the Eagle’s strange sex advice. “Baseless charges and unwarranted outrage make these groups look silly,” the retort read. “On issues as serious as rape and sexual assault, they should know better than to cry wolf.”

The students crying “rape!” and the students crying “completely consensual!” will probably have to agree to disagree—if there’s one thing I’ve learned from sex blogging, it’s that arguments over whether theoretical scenarios constitute rape are rarely resolved. But that doesn’t mean the two camps can’t find a mutually productive discussion somewhere in this mess.

The groups who claim that the Eagle piece “normalized sexual assault,” and those who claim that drunk sex “happens all the time” and that “people get drunk intending to hook up!” aren’t talking past one another—even though they refuse to agree on rape, they’re still voicing different perspectives on the same problem. If the Eagle finds the question “is this rape?” silly and baseless, why not ask them some alternate questions: Why is it considered normal for women on campus to choose disappointing, painful, hazy sex? Why is it a campus trend for women not to just unexpectedly wake up in a stranger’s bed, but to get drunk with the intention of waking up there? And since when is declaring painful sex “normal” a valid excuse for perpetuating it?

Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte has got some pretty good answers to these questions. In a post on the Hofstra false rape accusation, Marcotte explains how slut-shaming can lead women to resort to dangerous, heavily intoxicated, and painful sex with strangers—instead of openly pursuing empowered, respectful, and satisfying sexual experiences with desired sexual partners. She writes:

There is nothing wrong with you if you want to have group sex. Now, I wouldn’t recommend that you go about it as this young woman did. Like it or not, but a single woman in a group sex situation with a bunch of men she barely knows that have been drinking heavily is something that could turn to rape, or even if it doesn’t, it could seem menacing once you’re into it, and therefore you may not feel safe changing your mind if it gets weird. A lot of young men have really mixed-up, fucked-up attitudes about this sort of thing, because the homoerotic element is going to turn them on and then they’re going to get upset about that, and they might get more aggressive to demonstrate that they’re Not Gay. There’s a serious amount of danger there. That said, it’s foolish to assume that some young women aren’t going to have group sex fantasies, and the sheer amount of shame that is placed on them for wanting to act those out will push a lot of them to make really, really bad choices under the influence of inhibition-lowering drugs like alcohol.

The only cure for this is to stop shaming women for being sexual. Without the shame driving people to make rash, dangerous, and foolish choices, you’re going to have a lot more planning of group sex that involves vetting partners and getting consent and creating safe words and all that. And then, you own your choice and take responsibility for it. Which makes you not inclined to say it was rape if the word gets out that you did this. If your reputation isn’t in danger, then you have no cause to do bad things in an attempt to save it.

I don’t mind that the Eagle’s semester-opening sex column presented rash, drunk, awful sex as a normal college experience—it can be. But instead of examining why college women have sex they don’t like, or telling college women that they deserve to have better sex, the Eagle told AU’s female population that good girls don’t give it up. That attitude isn’t going to make sex on AU’s campus any better, but it will help to keep it drunk. Hey—at least it will be “normal,” right?

Marie-Therese Connolly wrote a fascinating article in the Washington Post yesterday about the problem of determining sexual consent among dementia patients. Connolly tells the story of a 96-year-old woman who accused her longtime gardener of raping her. The woman, who suffered from dementia, regularly wrote notes to herself as reminders of what’s happening in her life. In one note, she reminded herself that she had had sex:

She posted scores of notes throughout the house to remember other details of life. “Cut toenails” and “take medication” read notes in her bathroom. And in the kitchen: “Cook the food [daughter-in-law] brought over.”

But the notes that detectives later found in her home contained other, more complex reminders: Thur jan 8 2:40 pm sitting on side of bed. Thinking of [the gardener] and how I love him and it is returned. Friend love.

And: think it is Tues, Jan 12 9:15 PM can’t think what has happened has happened. [The gardener] is unbelievable Is all a dream so much sex! sex! sex! Wonder what will happen next. Think he comes on Tuesdays. Help! . . .

By the time the woman began speaking with investigators, her memory of the event had drastically changed. And it kept changing:

On Jan. 14, the woman told her daughter-in-law that the gardener had “taken liberties” with her the previous day; on the evening of Jan. 15, she said he had raped her. On Jan. 16, she told authorities that he had thrown her on the floor of her house and raped her and that she had fought for her life. She forgot who the detective was three times during a 15-minute interview.

Another note reveals how the woman’s perception of the incident changed as the hours passed:

Wed 1/14 it’s 11:30 — I called and it is Wed. am upset about [the gardener]. I want the regime to go back the way it was. Don’t know should I call him or not think about it and call some time today. 2:15 sitting by phone I am so full of remorse I couldn’t sleep. I want things to go back to it the was every was in the beginning. You just came in for a glass of wine after cleaning up the yard mowing etc. Things got way out of hand & I feel terrible.

Page Ulrey, the “elder-abuse prosecutor” assigned to the case, was not tasked with determining whether the woman had verbally consented to sex. That much was fairly easy to determine: an investigation of the incident showed no sign of a struggle, and the gardener, who submitted to a polygraph test, told investigators that “the woman had been telling him for weeks that she was attracted to him and desired to be with a man.”

What Ulrey did have to determine was whether the woman could legally consent to sex, ever. When asked about the woman’s mental state, the gardener said “he considered her a close friend and a healthy person with short-term memory problems but that ‘a lot of times she remembers things she thinks she’ll forget.’” In this case, the woman’s short-term memory problems turned an initially positive encounter into a horrific lasting memory. But does that mean that she should be barred from having sex with anyone, under any circumstances? And that any man who slept with her would be subject to prosecution?

In the end, Ulrey decided not to prosecute the case because pursuing it would effectively rob the woman of her right to have sex: “we realized that by prosecuting this case, we would in effect have to take the position that the woman was incapable of providing consent.”

It’s telling that even in the initial, positive note she wrote about her sexual experience, the 96-year-old woman cries out for “Help!” The sexual consent challenges faced by the elderly are important—and largely ignored. Unlike typical questions of consent—those involving intoxicated people, or underage teenagers—a patient with dementia who is deemed a victim will remain a victim until death. And because our culture hates to think about old people having sex, it’s important to recognize that elderly people can desire and pursue sex. As a result, as Connolly notes, the relative silence around elder sexuality extends to sexual assaults against the community. She writes: “Previously, most prosecutors wouldn’t go near cases involving witnesses or victims with dementia. According to a recent National Institute on Aging-funded study of sexual abuse in care facilities, police agencies nationwide declined to arrest 32 individuals even though state authorities had evidence, including positive rape kits, victim disclosures and eye witnesses, that they had committed sexual assault.”

Since Grandma is not supposed to be a sexual person, no one wants to believe that she can consent to sex, and no one wants to believe that anyone would sexually assault her. Discussing the bedroom habits of your elderly relatives may be uncomfortable, but it’s important—if they need help cooking dinner, cleaning the house, or pulling weeds, chances are they could use some help navigating their end-of-sex-lives, too. Recognizing that the elderly lead sexually active lives won’t resolve the problems that surround consent as the mind recedes into old age. But it might help the elderly, their caregivers, and their potential sex partners openly discuss issues of consent well before the memories of the act begin to fade.

Things are heating up between rival oral sex novelty item marketers CockBib.com, which bills its product as “the original cock bib,” and CockBibCrazy.com, which claims to market the “Real CockBib.” Jon, CockBib.com proprietor, is familiar with CockBibCrazy’s work. He is not impressed. “I originally came up with the idea strictly as a gag gift, like the kinda things you would find at Spencers novelties,” Jon writes in an e-mail. ”He has turned our fun party gag gift into an offensive, rude, and degrading item.”

Jon isn’t the only one feeling the blow job accessory market squeeze. The creator of CockBibCrazy has carved out a section of his one Web site devoting to discrediting CockBibs.com’s own line of ball shields. He writes:

CockBibCrazy products are marketed at $14.99 (”You spend that on takeout food!” the proprietor writes). CockBib.com products are currently selling for the bargain price of $4.99. And CockBib.com’s “lame saying”? “The Customer Always Cums First.”

Meanwhile, it appears that CockBibCrazy.com is running with “If It Ain’t A CockBib, It Aint Shit.” To each his own.

Jon promises CockBib purists that his line of original CockBibs “will continue to grow as I come up with funny catch phrases, that are non offensive, and non degrading for ladies.” CockBibCrazy, on the other hand, shows no signs of shying away from his dubious reputation among women:

Last spring, I discovered the CockBib, an oral sex accessory for men who want a dryer blowjob. “The whole idea for cockbibs came to me right after I was pleased orally and realized,’Damn, I can’t just fall asleep, I need to get up and wash my balls,’” the device’s inventor explained on his Web site, CockBibCrazy.com. “I had just been a victim of another sloppy blowjob.”

As it turns out, CockBibCrazy’s proprietor was not the first martyr to the sloppy blowjob. Though CockBibCrazy.com was registered on March 13, 2009, a different CockBib outfit, CockBib.com, was registered all the way back on Dec. 22, 2008. At CockBib.com, a duo called Jon and Shan market what they call “the original cockbib.” When I wrote to CockBibCrazy for his thoughts on the “original” CockBib, he seemed unfazed by the competition. “I am sure you can see a big difference in the quality of our product and the time put into our site?” he wrote to me.

For once, CockBib guy was right. CockBib.com’s CockBib designs are even weirder than dick accessories “Caution: May Cause Trauma” and “Pussy Killer.” Let’s check ‘em out!

5. “When Swallowing Is … Not an Option!” The informative CockBib.

4. “Don’t Talk With Your Mouth Full!” With a name like “CockBib,” the infantalization was inevitable.

3. “Daddy’s Little Squirt.” When your product works equally well as a CockBib and a baby bib, you know you’re doing something very, very wrong.

2. “Bride Breathalizer“: For the pre-wedding date rape.

1. “Road Love . . . It’s What Makes A Subaru, A Subaru.” Gross. My parents have a Subaru.

The Centers for Disease Control is currently weighing whether to recommend the circumcision of boys and men in the United States. If the CDC finds that a circumcision recommendation would reduce the risk of HIV among American men, I think that’s swell. Providing people with information to help protect themselves from disease is a wonderful thing. But a CDC recommendation would likely come with one major adverse side-effect. For women who already find uncircumcised penises disgusting, wrong, or unfuckable, the recommendation will also provide more fuel for their ignorance.

Women who shun uncircumcised penises has always struck me as short-sighted. These are the women who will glibly deem their sex partner’s genitalia unacceptable if, several decades ago, his parents did not predict her sexual preferences and subject him to newborn penis surgery accordingly. Sound familiar? We’re women. We know what it’s like to be unfairly judged on impossible physical standards! And yet, even women who are well-informed about sex—women who like it, talk openly about it, and even get paid to write about it—are keeping the genital snubbing alive.

Yesterday, the Frisky’s Annika Harris wrote: “Uncircumcised penises repulse and scare me, so my sons are getting cut whether it’s PC or not.” And she writes for a sex blog.

On the Simple Life, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie laughed over catching sight of some uncircumcised dick at a nudist beach, with Richie calling uncircumcised penises “fucking disgusting.” And they’re Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

In circumcision documentary Partly Private, a woman on a Sex and the City bus tour announced that “Ninety-nine percent of women in America would be shocked if they got in bed with someone and they were like: Oh! Huh!” (Watch her genital superiority, above, at the 1:33 mark). And she was standing outside of a sex toy shop while paying homage to a television show almost exclusively devoted to having sex with men. Note that this woman doesn’t just express her extreme dislike of uncircumcised penises—she attempts to justify her position by extending the disgust to her entire gender. In the Sex and the City’s circumcision episode, incidentally, the girls’ penis preferences were split about 50-50.

Whenever I’ve encountered women like this—women who find uncircumcised penises inherently gross—various medical statistics will doubtlessly be raised in defense of their penis discrimination. Uncircumcised penises, they’ll say, have a higher risk of contracting HPV—plus, they look weird. Uncircumcised penises have a higher risk of contracting penile cancer—also, what the fuck do you do with it? Uncircumcised penises have a higher risk of spreading HIV—and none of my girlfriends would ever fuck an uncut guy. These women are interested in sexual health, but they’re more interested in protecting their own prejudice against unmodified genitalia. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter if the guy’s clean of STDs—to these women, he will always be unclean.

Again, facts are great. And when the CDC gets around to making a recommendation, we’ll all be better informed about just what the risks of circumcision are. But no matter what the HIV link to uncircumcised penises turns out to be, you will never be able to determine a man’s status by examining his genitals. (And in some cases, you wouldn’t notice the difference anyway). So if you’re one of those women who dislikes uncircumcised penises because you consider them to be “unclean,” you would be better served to reserve that reaction for penises that don’t have condoms on them, or any sexual conduct initiated before you and your partner undergo fresh STD tests. No matter what style of penis you prefer, those two little accessories are a lot more likely to keep you safe than an irrational repulsion to unmodified dick.

In order to prove that his Artificial Intelligence could  master the “outer parameters of all possible human thought,” Holland presented a variety of common human interactions and demonstrated how the AI’s reasoning would operate under each circumstance.  All is well until we get to the “Reproduction” section, where we discover that this reasoning is not “Universal” so much as it is “Wilson Holland’s ill-informed heteronormative rants about women, rape, and HIV.” Let’s take a look:

WILSON HOLLAND’S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 1, IN WHICH CHECKING OUT LADIES PROVES YOU’RE NOT IMPOTENT AND/OR GAY:

A male human is flipping through channels on a television. He stops on a channel which has a bathing suit commercial. He views the beautiful women wearing skimpy bathing suits.

His wife enters the room. “What the heck are you doing?”

He replies, “I’m just seeing what kind of bikini I might buy you for Christmas.”

She says, “Yeah right.”

When a male human receives the visual stimulus of the silhouette of a healthy female’s body this information entering the brain from the optic nerve triggers the hormonal generated thoughts (in most situations). His hormones are telling him “I want to have sex with that girl, and that one too.” Does this mean he is a bad husband? . . . If he were to see these women in bathing suits and not feel any hormonal generated thoughts, then this might be a sign of impotence. This would mean that he may not be functioning properly when attempting to have sex, with his wife.

WILSON HOLLAND’S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 2, IN WHICH MEN DON’T LISTEN BECAUSE THEY NEED TO FILE SOME MASTURBATION MATERIAL FOR LATER:

Jim is a cashier at a convenience store. A very beautiful girl walks in a mini skirt. She walks to the back to get a soda out of the refrigerated section. He looks down to view her legs. She then walks up to the counter.

She says “Can I get ten dollars on pump four (she is speaking of the gasoline pump which she wishes to receive fuel from for her vehicle)?”

After a few seconds he states, “Uh yeah, uh pump two?”

She says “Yeah”

He then says, “And that will be all?”

She says “Yeah. That’s it.”

He says, “Well thank you. If you need any help pumping the gas or anything I would be glad to help.”

She laughs a little, “Thanks, but I think I can manage.”

When a male human comes in contact with the visual appearance of a female’s form, and that female is a healthy normal specimen, his thoughts are of having sex with the form (in most situations). . . . It is important to note that male humans (generally) view the silhouette of a female’s form and masturbate with this stimulus. . . . Males can be found visualizing the female form in many scenes exclusively for the act of masturbation as opposed to actual sex. It is not likely that this cashier will have sex with the female. He may use her visual stimulus to masturbate.

WILSON HOLLAND’S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 3, IN WHICH THE WOMAN AND BABY WHO DIE OF AIDS ARE TO BLAME!!!!!!!!!!!1:

The battle of work verses play manifests itself in the sexual desires of humans. Having sex is not always the correct solution to the natural selection problem. Males often want sex from a female while the female puts it off in making sure her mate is a good choice. The male (generally) has a strong desire to achieve an orgasm. He will surely make errors in problem solving with this issue:

A male and female are beginning to have sex

“Do you have the condom? The female asks.

“If we could …” He says as he is kissing her. “It feels so much better without the condom.”

“You have to wear the condom. ” She asks.

“Let . . . me” He then proceeds to have sex without the condom. She does not dispute or try to stop him. She later becomes pregnant and develops HIV. Her and her child both die from the illness.

In this scene the sensation of a sexual experience is in conflict with the knowledge that not using a condom can be harmful. Natural Selection is trying to eliminate these humans one way or another. If she would have insisted on a condom, his not being “fit” would mean that his offspring would not have been born. But she made a mistake, so natural selection has sought to eliminate her and the offspring.

WILSON HOLLAND’S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 4, IN WHICH RAPE IS A SMALL SEXUAL “ERROR”:

Johanna and Liz both have pet Chihuahuas. Liz is visiting Johanna with her male dog “Pinto.”

Johanna’s female dog “Lady” is quite excited to see Pinto and they begin to play immediately when they arrive. The two humans sit on the couch and begin having conversations. After a minute or two Lady jumps up on the couch and sets still. Pinto jumps up and continually attempts to get her to be more animate so that he can perpetuate the sex act and then mount her. She was temporarily interested in playing when he first arrived because she was caught up in the excitement of having visitors, yet now she is indignant. She is not in heat and does not wish to have sex. Pinto’s showing the arousal he has felt since arriving by constantly keeping his ears pointed up high and his eyes wide open. The two humans laugh and make comments at his attempts. Liz pulls him back telling him “Relax, she’s just not interested.” She holds him for a second and then lets go. Like a magnet he goes directly to the female to attempt courtship. She pulls him back again and when let go he moves directly to the female again. Throughout the entire hour long visit Pinto does not give up, slow down, or show any other desire to do any other thing but have sex with “Lady.”

The human which first coined the phrase “Men are dogs.” must have observed a dog like this one. In nature, the males of many species often act as an “on” button. They are ready at any given moment to perform sex (in most situations). Females often are only able to perform sex at certain times. The female has more of a duty to decide if sex with a given male is in the best interest of the offspring to be produced. . . . Males perform the act of rape more than females because their arousal is closely linked with the sex act and they often have the ability to over-power their victim. Females, even if given the ability to overpower a victim, would not be as compelled by sexual desire to perform rape. Males like the cashier mentioned earlier are distracted by their sexual desires. The strong sex drives of males cause a wide range of errors in the acquisition of sex.

A recent query on the anonymous relationship advice messageboard on LipstickAlley:

How soon after Man is released from Prison do you date him?

Let’s say you meet a man tall, attractive, no kids, and then he drops the bomb I have been in jail for the last ten years and just got out 8 months ago. What do you do? Would you immediately stop talking? Would you be curious about if he had sex with another man? Is him being released so recently an issue?

Would anyone date a man just freed from prison?

But after receiving a few dozen variations on “never”—such as “Only if the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and a host of angelic beings repeatedly told me to do so in a 3 dimensional vision on a Bose sound system”—the questioner assumes a new problem. It isn’t the possibly-violent-criminal thing or the curiosity-over-the-gay-sex-thing—it’s the “chemistry” thing:

I actually was going to tell him to stop calling me because even though he’s a nice guy and he seems to like me a lot, I don’t feel the chemistry. Then before i even said that he told me about he just got out. He just told me and I didn’t say anything, he just kept talking. When I met him, I just thought, wow, a nice, older, quiet man with no kids? (i’m in my 20s, he’s in his 30s)

now if i tell him to stop calling, he will think it’s because he just told me that he got out of prison.

While LipstickAlley was quick with a response to the “Should I date a former inmate?” query (answer: hell to the no), the more difficult question—”How do I stop dating a former inmate?”—was met with silence. I don’t know—perhaps this group of anonymous Internet commenters has more experience letting reformed criminals down easy?

Photo by decade_null

But Wakeman errs in her either/or assumption about the sex act: that facials are either grounded in mutual respect, and elicit pleasure, or are grounded in degradation, and elicit humiliation. In fact, facials can imply all of these things, though we rarely analyze it all in the moment. Plenty of sex acts made popular in mainstream pornography, like facials, are based on achieving male pleasure. Under this model, the female’s pleasure is derived by successfully pleasing the male—and in the process, allowing herself to be degraded. As Amanda Marcotte writes, “our culture constructs sex as something women do for men, and men do for fun.” That model of sexuality is undoubtedly objectifying for women. But it nevertheless—voilà!—conjures up an idea of “pleasure” for both sex partners.

Interestingly, Wakeman concedes that the facial is an act loaded with objectification and subjugation—in porn. When this act is removed from the context of pornography and placed into the bedroom of a Man and Woman Who Love Each Other Very Much, however, those demeaning undertones disappear for Wakeman. I can understand that: actually thinking about the implications of why we like jizz on our face tends to put a damper on the whole mutual-attraction-to-degradation thing. So what do we do? We compartmentalize. When porn stars do it, it’s degrading; when we do it, it’s respectful:

I think leaving facials up to the porn stars—actors who are making the facial appear to humiliate the woman—is what keeps it looking demeaning. Certainly some facials are depicted in porn as humiliating or degrading, but not every man who wants to give a facial wants it to degrade and humiliate just like it looks onscreen. Many do love and respect their partners, and know, to varying degrees, that porn isn’t real. Likewise, some of those female partners enjoy the act as well.

When Wakeman liberates the facial from the demeaning clutches of the porn industry, she performs a useful little trick for us feminists—she separates her sex life from her personal philosophy. We all perform this function in our daily lives—detesting cruelty to animals while eating meat, denouncing philanderers while cheating on our wives, denouncing corporate America while smoking cigarettes. But it’s a particularly common move when it comes to sex. Why? Because getting off is very necessary, very much informed by a tradition of male dominance over women, and can be very, very hard to accomplish if you only allow yourself to get off progressively. Of course, that doesn’t mean that enjoying performing or receiving facials means that you hate women, or that you have no self-respect, or that you’re a bad feminist. It just means that the patriarchy affects a lot of the things that we perform and enjoy on a daily basis, and it’s good to remember that our attempts to recast these acts as “empowering” isn’t so much transgressive as it is convenient.

See, facials are like weddings. We all know that the institution of marriage is one of the patriarchy’s all-time greatest hits, in which women are sold into sexual slavery from father to husband in exchange for livestock. And yet, who derives the greatest joy from weddings? Women! It’s the craziest thing. But even though we all know that weddings were clearly institutionalized to facilitate the willing subjugation of women, feminists figure out a way to do it anyway. Why? Probably because even though we all know it’s sexist as fuck, weddings—like facial ejaculation—still make some people happy.  And feminists deserve to be happy, too. But that doesn’t mean we should forget about the sexist tropes that sometimes inform our happiness (and our sex lives).

Tampa’s Creative Loafing Recruits More Bloggers from roblimo on Vimeo.

Last month, TampaBay.com posted this video of a blogger meet-up inside the Tampa Creative Loafing offices. Among the attendees at the City Paper parent-company shindig—I spy red solo cups—was Shawn Alff, CL Tampa’s “Sex and Love Editor” —me, but more Florida-y. Alff, who has written on bothstrong vaginas, and huge penises—and I got all that just by searching “Shawn Alff vagina penis” on Google—appears around the one-minute mark. “What do I expect from the bloggers? I expect a lot of full frontal, to be honest,” he says. “If they want to write for us, they basically have gotta go balls to the wall, have gotta show me what they’re working with. It’s really, it’s part of the job description.”

I guess that explains this?

(Having trouble with the video? Click the “HD” button).

The two exchanges are surprisingly similar—both target those with low self-esteem to exploit them for personal gain. Here’s how it works: The Pick-Up Artist devotee feels worthless. He is informed that self-worth may be secured by having sex with women agreed to be attractive by the Pick-Up Artist community. He is told that in order to have sex with these women, he must not “be himself”—remember, he is worthless. Instead, he must pay exorbitant amounts of money to learn the correct “tactics” not to gain self-worth—but to convince the women that it is they who are truly worthless. Only the Pick-Up Artist “master” wins here—he gets the cash regardless of the outcome of the sexual conquest, while feeling superior to his male devotees (who are, in turn, superior to all women).

“How to Date Out of Your League“—a very elementary-level, college age version of game written by COED Magazine’s Michael Dance—makes this dynamic perfectly clear.

Dance writes:

The holy grail of dating is to actually find a girl who’s hot but is still willing to go out with you.  And as you’ve already figured out, that’s really hard.  But even if you’re not as attractive or as suave as that friend who has so much sex you want to punch him, even if you “have no game,” there are a few ways to tip the scales in your favor.  These aren’t magic bullets.  They’re practical, actionable things that you can do to help you snag that gorgeous girl who it turns out has low enough self-esteem to actually go for you.

And so it begins. It is not enough for the Pick-Up Artist devotee to date someone who is his equal; in order to receive respect in the community, he must date someone who is somehow “better” than him (”hotter”). At the same time, the Pick-Up Artist  operates on the assumption that women who don’t want to have sex with him—even these “better,” hotter women—are conceited bitches. The Pick-Up Artist must find a woman he deems superior who, in turn, deems herself inferior. In order for the scam to work, both parties must believe that they are less-than the person they’re sleeping with. Only the Pick-Up Artist master—the guy selling the books—is superior.

1. Actually Ask Girls Out on Dates Look, you can’t date out of your league if you don’t have the balls to actually ask a girl out on a date.  Sure, you might be able to get lucky at a party with a drunk girl, but as you’ve already experienced, it’s harder to do that consistently than you fantasized about in high school.  So many guys whine inwardly about not being a chick-magnet and forget it’s because they don’t actually put themselves out there and talk to any girls.

. . . The key is to be perceptive.  The problem for most guys who are unlucky with girls is not that they’re bad looking, it’s that they’re oblivious.  Girls make it very obvious when they don’t like what you’re doing (and for the record, pick-up lines and transparent attempts to impress her never work).  If she’s interested, she won’t be looking around the room for her girlfriends to save her.  She won’t be responding to your questions in polite two-word answers.  In fact, she won’t have to respond to too many of your questions, because she’ll be asking you questions, too.

Do you see how he talks down to you? You have no balls. You’re so pathetic that you fantasize about having sex with drunk girls. You’re oblivious. You think that “pick-up lines and transparent attempts to impress her” will actually work? Of course not—you need much, much more help than one lousy pick-up line can provide (buy the book). The actual advice—talk to girls—is so obvious that only a man with the lowest self-esteem could regard it as a revelation.

2. Don’t Talk About Yourself.  At All.

“When I was in seventh grade, I was really into Magic: The Gathering.”

“Yeah, I love movies!  I even went to the midnight opening of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  Sat in the front row.”

“While I was masturbating this morning I was thinking about my mom…”

. . . But the “don’t talk about yourself” rule extends beyond just the obvious.  I really mean don’t talk about yourself at all.  You know why?  You’re not interesting.  You work in the scheduling department of a non-profit?  You taught yourself web design?  Your football team made sectionals in high school?  Your professor is just super, super lame?  Don’tcaredon’tcaredon’tcaredon’tcare.

Depending on exactly how “out of your league” the girl is, she’s probably not interesting either.  Unless she’s Mary-Louise Parker’s illegitimate daughter who got the hot genes from her mom and currently works as a spy for the CIA, chances are she’s just some random bitchy princess you want to sleep with, in which case — pat yourself on the back — she’s even less interesting than you.  If you ever want her to go down on you, just shut up and listen.

You’re worthless. She’s worthless. You’re all worthless, except for me. Only I deserve to be heard; only I am worth listening to. I am a worthwhile person; you are a sad, pathetic loser who might be allowed to receive a blowjob from another sad, pathetic loser if you listen to what I have to say.

3. But At the Same Time, Don’t Be a Pussy.

There’s shutting up and listening to her stories, and then there’s letting her whine to you about this guy who’s mean to her and she’s so glad she has a really, really great friend like you.  If you’ve gotten to the latter point, you’re beyond saving.

It’s not a secret anymore that in general, girls are attracted to guys who don’t treat them well.  . . . But there’s two things wrong with that rule.  First, you can only really pull it off if you’re good-looking.  If you’re a hot jerk, you’re a badass; if you’re an average-looking jerk, you’re a tool.  It’s not fair, but such is life.

The other problem is that most of you who need to read articles like this one are too nice.  You literally cannot be a jerk to a girl.  Your parents taught you manners, thank you very much, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that.

There’s not.  The solution?  Just be assertive. That means, simply, that you should come across like a man who knows what he wants.  When you ask her out, give her a specific time, place, and activity.  Never say “I don’t care, what do you want to do?”  If she asks your opinion on something, give it to her.  Etc.

If she does specifically ask you about yourself, you’re permitted to tell her that you have a steady job or are well on your way down a lucrative career path.  No, she’s not seriously considering you as a mate yet, but if you think there’s no difference between “I’m studying to be a lawyer” and “I’m an English major,” you’re wrong.

“Nice.” Nice is the classic marker of a girl who’s not interested, and when administered from a Pick-Up Artist master to a Pick-Up Artist devotee, it’s a very effective neg.  As is clear from the title of this tactic, being “nice” really means being a “pussy.” Let’s go ahead and sub that in to make sure we’re not softening the blow: “most of you who need to read articles like this one are pussies.” Sure, there’s nothing wrong with being a pussy. Just be sure that you act like a pussy who knows what he wants (which is pussy). Thankfully, the Pick-Up Artist master is here to step in and tell you how to be the right kind of pussy: Just lie. Hey, it’s what the master does best.

R&B singer Jeremih, self-proclaimed “Mr. Birthday Sex himself,” wants to make sure that D.C. youth remember to have safe sex (and listen to Jeremih’s hit single, “Birthday Sex”). In this PSA recorded for the local “Street Wize Foundation,” Jeremih inserts some safe-sex messages over the, uh, sex messages of “Birthday Sex.”

A sample: “You know, I might be doing my Birthday Sex thing, it’s cross-promoting and all, but I just want to make sure that if you all choose to do what you all do, make sure you all keep it safe in the streets, man. Make sure y’all strap up and you know, just keep it safe, y’all.”

This would be completely awesome—did I mention he’s promoting safe sex and “Birthday Sex” in front of a wall of sneakers?—except for one unfortunate ad-lib. Jeremih tells D.C. teens “strap twice if you got to.” Unfortunately, I’m a fucking decrepit snail compared to R&B sensation Jeremih—have you all heard his new hit single, “Birthday Sex”?—so no teen in the world is going to listen to me when I say DO NOT STRAP TWICE, KIDS. Someone cool please relay that message to the youth of America.

CNN’s Stephanie Chen discovered adult kickball today. But somebody didn’t stick around for the post-game.

In her report, Chen argues that grown kickball enthusiasts hit the field in an attempt to reclaim their lost youth. Kickballers, Chen writes, hope to relive the experience of “fifth-graders during PE class in Sparks, Nevada.” As any veteran of adult kickball can tell you (don’t judge me: I went to like two games!), the bygone era kickballers are attempting to reclaim is college, and the real sports begins after the field is empty.

Chen mentions the words “beer” and “single” only once in her piece, but from my experience, these are far and away the most important elements of the adult kickball experience. “With players who are trapped in a world of layoffs and job freezes, these adult leagues, contests and tournaments are the equivalent of sandbox time for children,” she writes. “They can make new friends and go for a beer after the game.”

A beer? Talk about a write-around. How about 12 beers (Miller Lite) chugged quickly in succession after the game? The actual ball-kicking is just the first half of the Kickball Biathalon, traditionally completed by a flip-cup tournament. DCKickball’s Web site makes its priorities clear: “So we play kickball for 45 minutes and then we go to the bar for 4 hours.”

And those “new friends”? The technical term is “fuck-buddies.” From what I can tell, performance on the kickball field is little more than an elaborate flirting mechanism in order to aid young professionals in their mating activities.

Just listen to Chen’s characterization of the game: “Spongy red balls wait in a queue, separating two teams wired to smack their opponent. Within seconds, the players dip and dive like dolphins until one player stands alone, relishing in victory.”

Two teams wired to smack their opponent? With balls? Consider that impulse, 12 beers in, and just guess what kind of event competes the Kickball Triathalon. (Hint: there are sexy pirate costumes).

Picking your sex partner based on their proficiency at beaming other humans with huge balls may sound gross, unappetizing, and depressing—a lot like the bar scene in general? I dropped out early on—I was a fucking loser at kickball, worse at drinking 12 beers on a Tuesday, and really, really bad at tolerating 22-year-old fuckers initiating small talk by informing me that their jobs were “top secret.” But I do know two long-term couples who met through the adult kickball network. They’ve both since split—perhaps adult relationships based on miming college life can’t last forever. But remember, eternal kids: Kickball fuck-buddies may come and go, but the DCKickball Flickr pool lives on.

Photo by phillipshannon

Tomorrow, the fate of our alt-weekly’s ownership may finally be decided, again.  While Creative Loafing brass are hugging it out in Atlanta bankruptcy court, CP staff will be busy proving that we still deserve our paychecks. We’re spending the whole day writing about fucking.

On the Sexist tomorrow: explore D.C.’s massage parlors, porn shops, courthouse weddings, clinics, and pick-up bars with the city’s finest romantics, stalkers, bartenders, activists, and queens.

All sex. All day. Eat it, Tampa.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

When the Brothers of Swagg present a club night at Oxon Hill’s “The Phat House,” you know you’re in for some promotional butt. The Brothers churn out the most bootylicious club fliers this side of Temple Hills. Bare female backsides, of course, are a time-tested tactic for luring heterosexual males into your two-drink-minimum party den. Now, the Brothers are hoping that women’s butts can sell to women, too.

Next month, the Brothers of Swagg will be promoting a new weekly ladies’ night—a ladies only night. “NO DUDES ALLOWED,” the flier announces. Since this club night caters to “women in the lifestyle,” the only men allowed in the Phat House will be the security guards. Amazingly, the advertising remains the same.

Take a look at these two Phat House fliers, and try to determine which one is targeted at “gentlemen only,” and which one is targeted at women. Are those two women embracing to please each other, or to please heterosexual men (you know, the usual)? File your best guesses in the comments.

Those sexy librarians who are tweeting their way through the American Library Association conference aren’t content with burying their innermost secrets into the social networking ether. Now, some conference attendees are preserving their stereotype-busting contributions to the nerd-sexuality canon in the slightly more permanent form of online document-sharing. Can sexy secret powerpoint presentations be far behind?

If you’ll recall, this year’s ALA attendees began airing their “secrets”—nerd-crushes, wi-fi frustrations, and sexual exploits—on Twitter via @alasecrets. It wasn’t long before the book-nerd confessional was shut down—-likely by one of their own. The Twitter account has since been reborn in the form of @ALASecrets2009, a den of impropriety even more sexually explicit than the first. Before the fall, however, the sex-starved librarians and stern conference brown-nosers Tweeted their secrets as one.

One ALA secrets completist has thwarted those who would silence the librarian secrets, preserving all the previous account’s Tweets in an online document for all to peruse. It’s titled “TRANSCRIPTS FROM @ALASECRETS 2009 BEFORE BEING SHUT DOWN BY A TIGHTASS KILLJOY,” and it’s probably much more interesting than whatever cataloguing powerpoint they’re all pretending to appreciate right now. So let’s check out the sexiest, sternest, and downright creepiest tweets to come out of the first half of the American Library Association conference!

THE SEXY:

5. “not discrete enuf. We had to go to Starbucks restroom for quickie. Missed start of next session :( ALA get it sorted.”

4. “Using Web 2.0 tools to build community, even if it is a community of hung-over sex-crazed librarians, McCormick W-177″

3. “Last night kinda hazy. Very tired, not focused this morning. Kinda sore down *there*. Need more coffee. Poss. meds later.”

2. “you don’t like the way you’re being presented then go set up an account for @sanctimoniousgetoveryourself”

1. “Who you calling ‘middle aged’? I’m sixty-six.”

—

THE STERN:

5. “Librarians need to learn how to silence cell phone ringers. And don’t answer your calls during a session!”

4. “Are they still playing Neil Diamond on the shuttle?”

3. “conference hookups are never worth it. don’t be stupid.”

2. “other people’s one-night stand stories are just as exciting as other people’s drug stories, i.e., NOT VERY”

1. “This twitter account is disgusting. It’s just a sewer of depravity. Is this the image librarians wish to proect to the world?”

—

THE CREEPY:

“Not only big but have never cum that hard b4. Bet there won’t be a box for that on the #ala2009
evaluation form ;-) Thanx; u know who u r.”

—

THE PROBABLY LYING:

“Hope she was on the pill last night. She was hot. I never got her name. I’ll never drink again. Shitting myself with worry.”

Photo by gruntzooki

Romance writer Moriah Jovan notes a disturbing new trend among the youngsters in “Romancelandia” (that would be the realm of romance novel fan-dom). Women “who love romance novels” are mocking older romance novels for their fantastically retro covers, dated cultural references—and rapist love interests. Not fair!

Writes Jovan:

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a host of “rape romances” that are routinely sneered at by younger romance readers and/or people young to romance reading. The device is that the hero is cruel, arrogant, and (as I saw in a comment about my favorite one, written in 1974) he “rapes her until she loves him.” Sounds harsh now, right?

Yes. Raping a woman “until she loves him”—shit, that could take forever!—does sound pretty harsh. Kids today, with their expectations that the idealized coupling presented by the romance novel not involve incessant raping! Jovan?

Let me put this in some context. [Great -ed.] In the early 1970s, a lady named Nancy Friday interviewed women on the subject of their sexual fantasies and published them in a couple of books: My Secret Garden (1973) and Forbidden Flowers (1975), just at the cusp of the “rape romance.” Without taking Friday’s scholarship into account, I find it interesting that many women’s fantasies at that time featured rape prominently. I also find it fascinating that these books were published nearly simultaneously with the early rape romances and thus, probably didn’t inform each other.

Mind, this definition of “rape” is not a legal one; it’s a highly stylized one in which it allows the female to retain her Good Girl status while still A) having sex and B) enjoying it because the hero is a different kind of rapist: One who is attractive, who is uncontrollably attracted to the heroine, and who gets her off after he’s made it possible for her to have an out, i.e., “I was raped.”

Why did she need an out? Because, at the time, a woman’s enjoyment of sex (especially outside of marriage) was still taboo.

Jovan’s insight into why women were attracted to “a different kind of rapist” isn’t invalid. And the idea that women might turn to fantasies of sexual control in order to satisfy their own desires while wiggling out of societal constraints didn’t expire in the 1970’s.

But if young fans of mainstream romance novels now find this idea silly, outdated, and ripe for mockery, why not respect their own idea of what’s romantic? Shouldn’t we focus on the positives—girls feeling comfortable expressing their desire for consensual sex—instead of attempting to force young women to appreciate rape in context? Remember: The great sin these women are committing is nothing more than gentle mockery—putting concerns like “I can’t believe that guy is so rapey!” on the same level as “I can’t believe they printed that ridiculous stallion on the cover!” or “I can’t believe they’re listening to Fleetwood Mac!”

Still, Jovan tries to convince young readers to appreciate the “zeitgeist” of the romance novel—even though they’ve expressed a clear “unwillingness to go along with [it]“:

I’m not sure why there’s this unwillingness to go along with the zeitgeist of the time in which the book was written, but instead to apply today’s standards of fashion or technology or pop culture as markers of timelessness. We don’t expect that of our historical novels, so why do we expect it of “contemporary” romances that cease to be “contemporary” the moment the galleys are finalized?

I’m not a fan of romance novels myself, but I do think these vintage genre works can prove relevant to modern women—just not in the way Jovan suggests. Young readers don’t just find the fashions and soundtracks of 70’s romance novels ridiculous—they find the very romantic ideals they’re based on offensive. To me, that’s a sign that the role of women in sex and relationships is flexible, socially informed, and changing fast—even in the relatively mainstream world of romantic paperbacks. That doesn’t mean we throw out vintage romance entirely—Jezebel’s Sadie Stein, for example, has done some great work discussing the trappings of dated romance novels from a modern context—but if we’re not allowed to mock, why would we even read the old stuff?

After all, romance novels are written to indulge women’s sexual and romantic fantasies. If the fantasies in the book—like, you know, rapist boyfriends—aren’t getting the job done anymore, what’s left to appreciate?

Quick Quiz! Sex. What is it, exactly?

A. One step past whatever you were just caught doing with that woman who is not your wife.

B. Anything that two people do together in private when they love each other very much, not including whatever those queers are doing.

C. Whenever the one with a penis has an orgasm.

D. Given the obvious power disparity between men and women in the patriarchy, an implicitly non-consensual act—unless two girls are doing it, but only if two girls are doing it exclusively for their own pleasure and not to satisfy the male interest in two girls doing it.

E. Dancing.

Today, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I will get to the bottom of this mysterious phenomenon, and figure out why the definition of “sex” is not actually any particular combination of penises, vaginas, anuses, and mouths, but rather a tool for cheaters to pretend they’re not cheating and homophobes to pretend they’re different from gays. Good morning, by the way!

AMANDA: hi

SADY: why hello!

AMANDA: do you want to talk now?

SADY: yes indeed! first off, i think we should acknowledge that approximately 125,000 celebrities will have died by the time we post this. THE GRIM REAPER HAS COME FOR CELEBRITY

AMANDA: and they never learned the true meaning of sex!

SADY: ah, yes. apparently, americans “can’t agree” on it! this is something i could in no way have learned from my own personal life of dating. i define sex as a peanut butter sandwich. is that so wrong?

AMANDA: when involved in a high-profile political scandal, i define sex as “one step past whatever i did with that woman”

SADY: i personally define sex as “anything you can’t tell grandma about for fear she might lose her tenuous grip on this mortal coil.” but the studies themselves are intriguing!

AMANDA: yeah definitely. i think, though, that they may be lacking in context. like, it’s not as important to define what “sex” is as it is to define what we’re comfortable with people doing with us or with other people. i feel like defining sex is just inviting loopholes. see: anal sex to keep virginity.

SADY: right, exactly.

AMANDA: and any cheater’s excuse about anything

SADY: and many many men’s magazine think-pieces about how it’s not cheating if it is with a stripper or other sex worker

AMANDA: or in argentina. etc.

SADY: oddly, the men’s definitions of sex tend to be more liberal than the ladies’, though, as per this particular article! like: forty-four percent of men surveyed said that oral sex was doin’ it. only thirty-seven percent of ladies said the same.

AMANDA: yeah, that was a surprise to me. i have a theory on this. it’s good.

SADY: i eagerly await it!

AMANDA: ok, so women are socialized to downplay their sexual expertise in order to not appear as— i believe the scientific word is “slutty”. and so may tend for the stricter definition in self-reporting. whereas men may want to fudge it a little bit in order to be able to put another notch in the bedpost

SADY: there is actually a long passage in that keith gessen novel (”All The Sad Young Literary Men”) that backs up your theory. observe how i move smoothly from actual science to literature! but: the dude is trying to figure out his Number and his List and whatever and is trying to figure out how liberal his definition needs to be. he concludes, if i remember aright, that blowjobs should indeed count in The Number!

AMANDA: sha-wing

SADY: whereas ladies might indeed self-identify as Virgins, a la Dionne in “Clueless” (CINEMA! INTERDISCIPLINARIAN THOUGHT!) had they only, say, given the BJs, or received the Lady BJs. actually, this study is weirdly non-specific about Giving and Receiving of sexual favors.

AMANDA: yeah, i noticed that also. allow me to extend an example from yet another genre, the Hip Hopera.

SADY: please do!

AMANDA: one thing that i’ve always found is important in these definitions is who is doing the sexing or non-sexing. so, a man could get Very Very mad at his girlfriend kissing another man, while he’s out Real Penis Vagina sexing some other woman. and maybe it’s not so much men excusing their own behavior while demonizing women, but that, as an individual, you can excuse your own guilt because you know the emotional context, the strength of the temptation, etc. etc. See: R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, where everyone is fucking everyone else and they all get PISSED when they find out their significant other has been doing the same thing.

SADY: yes, and yet i feel that (since this article is all about contextualizing “sex” in light of certain political figures putting the Thing in the Places Where You Ought Not To) that there has probably never been a case of someone being cheaterly without KNOWING that they were being a cheaterly cheater. i think you can basically define “cheating” as “that thing you’re going to feel really guilty about not telling your wife and/or husband and/or unmarried life partner because you know, for some reason, even if there was no Sexual contact involved by any definition, that you did something they would not like.”

AMANDA: totally. i think the rush to define it, in the case of the high-profile cheating, is that the public is just honestly curious about the sexy details. not that we like, want to know what sex is.

SADY: right? especially if they took place in argentina! and involve THE FORBIDDEN PASSIONS that you told everyone you were on the Appalachian Trail to cover up! all of the futzing around, semantically, can be useful only when trying to figure out how the other person involved sees your sexual exchange… but no-one’s denying that the exchange was sexual, in that case. the actual interest is kind of in knowing what other people have been up to.

AMANDA: and, in the case of say, gay sex, trying to define them out of the mainstream or out of existence. like, sure, you can put your penis in his butt, but it’s not sex, whatever it is you’re doing. which i refuse to equate with my penis in vagina business.

SADY: ha, yeah, or sex between women, in which case basically everything outside of a strap-on is relegated to “foreplay.” never “duringplay.”

AMANDA: UGGGGHHHH i feel myself sliding into the inevitable rant about the supremacy of the male orgasm in the sexual blah de blah and how that’s what this is all REALLY about and i can’t force myself to do it.

SADY: you sure? i have lots of thoughts about how the penis-in-vagina-as-real-sex thing is totally not good even for couples that have, respectively, penises and vaginas! LOTS OF THOUGHTS I TELL YOU.

AMANDA: save it for another sexist beatdown.

Photo by Mike Licht

AdFreak has discovered these sexualized advertisements for Davidoff cigars. Each ad is accompanied by a photograph of a male model appearing to orgasm upon catching a whiff of some fine Davidoff cigar smoke. The ads read, “Every Man Has a D-Spot.”

Finally, you may be thinking. Men reduced to sex objects in order to sell phallic shit, and not women this time around! [See female "O" faces in advertising: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and a bonus nonconsensual orgasm ad in Exhibit C]. So is this gender equality? Is it regressive? Or is it just icky?

I say it’s gender-equalizing regressive ickiness, but gender-equalizing regressive ickiness that reveals an interesting dynamic in mainstream sexist advertising. In traditional sex-sells ads, women’s bodies are used to grab the attention of potential buyers whom admen assume either a) desire these women or b) want to be these women in order to be desired by men. The focus, then is always on male pleasure.

And these ads are no different, as this collection of orgasm faces attests:

Still, focusing the imagery directly on male sexual pleasure is helpful for a few reasons. First of all, the ads are specifically not focusing on women/objects as a means to that pleasure. Great!

Second, this conscious inversion of the male gaze is visually disturbing enough to serve as an implicit commentary on our collective comfort with exploiting female sexuality in advertising. We’re comfortable looking at the boobs, but looking at the people looking at the boobs? Yuck!

And then, there’s the whole cigar thing. If you buy into the idea that a cigar is not just a cigar, these men are getting off on the perceived sexual potency of their own dicks, and that’s pretty funny. I really hope that’s what you were going for, Davidoff!

Still, while I appreciate the attempt at sexist imagery switcheroo here, I’m not sure I ever want to be comfortable being persuaded to buy something by looking at a David Duchovny look-a-like experiencing a contact high orgasm:

The woman, who arrived at the bar alone, is “fascinated by human sexuality,” she tells me. Sure, she’s got theories. “Some of my ideas are pretty radical,” she insists, before flagging the bartender for another Pink Slip.

Two sex tips from a drunk person, after the jump.

ONE. What if human sexual attraction were not based upon pheromones, genetics, or parental issues, but rather “completely mundane things that we don’t even realize?”

Say you’re really into scuba diving. You feel at home in the water. Always liked aquariums. Did you ever think that the reason you are attracted to that guy with a large mouth, wide nose, and the oily skin, is because he looks like fish? Think about it.

TWO. What if human sexual attraction were not based upon pheromones, genetics, parental issues, or marine life, but rather upon the feminine or masculine qualities of one’s teeth?

Say you’re really attracted to very feminine people. Perhaps the reason you like the guy with the rippling abs, the deep voice, and the Joe Biden sensibility is because, beneath it all, he has really girly teeth?

Or say you’re the more masculine type. Perhaps you still harbor an attraction to Tom Cruise—even knowing what we all know—because of his extremely pronounced cuspids?

Try it out next time you’re on the prowl. First, check out your cuspids—the longer, pointy ones toward the outsides of your smile. If you look like a vampire, you’re masculine. If your teeth appear more generically human, you’re feminine.

First, zero in on a target with the appropriately gendered teeth, depending on your sexual interest. Now, approach them and start a conversation. Maybe you could discuss with them your radical theories on human sexuality; whatever. Just make sure to keep your teeth hidden beneath your upper lip, the palm of your hand, or a medical mask. Once things have progressed to pleasant conversation, reveal your teeth to your potential mate—preferably, dramatically. If things go well from there, your dental make-up is likely in line with your target’s gendered attraction. If your teeth bomb, it was never meant to be.

Have you received a sex tip from a drunk person? Submit their insights to the Sexist.

Photo by pink sherbet photography

Iran is uprisen, Michael Jackson is dead, and U.S. governors are taking impromptu trips to Argentina via the Appalachian Trail to cry over “two magnificent parts” of cross-continental pen-pals.

And so, inevitably, we turn to the caveman. Tell us, Newsweek’s Sharon Begley, how might we blame ancient cave-people for all bad things that happen?

In her latest Newsweek piece, Begley asks whether we can blame bad human behavior like raping and murdering on our caveman ancestors. The answer is yes, we can—though we will remain rapists and murderers. We will, however, be rapists and murderers with degrees in “evolutionary psychology,” or as I like to call it: “another excuse for rapin’ that ain’t gonna hold up in court.”

Rapists exist today, you see, because many, many moons ago, a cave-man met several cave-women whom he liked very, very, much. The cave-women didn’t particularly care for him, however, so he cave-raped them, all of them, thus increasing the likelihood of his cave-rape genes surviving in modern man. We call these men “evolutionarily fit.”

The cave-men who only got cave-boners for consensual cave-sex, however, spread their cave-seed to fewer cave-women, thus passing fewer consensual sex genes unto modern man. We call these men “pussies.”

This evolutionary psychology business is a win-win for rapists: They can blame old Ooog for their non-consensual trysts, while taking comfort in the fact that their rapiness is just the natural result of evolutionary victory. Begley’s piece reveals evolutionary psychology to be a racket. But that’s not gonna stop Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I from taking a trip down Paleolithic lane—a simpler time, when rape was just natural, man, and caves weren’t equipped with wireless Internet connections for women to bitch about why rape is so terrible and we should, like, try to figure out how to make it stop. Lets go!

SADY: hello!

AMANDA: hi!

SADY: i am very excited to discuss caveman times with you today. scientifically, of course! with caveman science! evolutionary psychology has always been my favorite bullshit science because it just sounds like some creepy guy going, “i’m just WIRED this way” over and over and over.

AMANDA: allow me to suppress my rape gene in order to converse with you for several minutes about all of our rape genes. ahem, yes, evolutionary psychology. it’s interesting how in these debates there seems to be a tendency for people to figure out what IS and then justify why what already IS is inevitable (and/or good). people rape? must be because people were so rapey in the past, and now there’s just nothing we can do about it. evo psych makes everything so easy!

SADY: right: although, what IS, is predicated very much on stereotypes. like, one part of the article i found fascinating is the idea that rape is actually disastrous in a small community: the “rape” gene is actually a “get beat up and not given food by your fellow tribespeople and also someone might kill your rape baby which defeats the whole procreative rape-gene-spreading thing” gene. or, the idea that male jealousy is somehow intrinsically different from female jealousy and that is why dudes kill “unfaithful” mates. basically, boiling everything down to reproduction entirely misses the point of everything else people have to do to survive. not being known as a dangerous killer or other threat, in a community as small as these very primitive ones we’re talking about, is a good survival tactic. well, “primitive” is a bad word for it, since they’re using data from contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures to test these points.

AMANDA: sure, and one thing the article doesn’t talk about is in nowaday-land, how many women are actually stopping reproductive function entirely by sticking devices in their vaginas and medicine in their bodies. that’s just one example where science can help defeat science when our evolutionary history doesn’t really fit our needs right now.

SADY: right? exactly! but the whole appeal of the field is that it calls back to One True Natural Human Experience, before the dag-blasted condoms came to take it all away. and it seems – by sheer magical coincidence! – to be a version of True Humanity in which women ought to be sexy, men ought to be powerful, and violence against women makes you happier and more successful. it’s kind of ricockulous to project all that back onto Caveman Times, when the fact is that those attitudes are clearly part of our culture NOW, but if you want to run with Fred Flintstone as archetype of undiluted manliness, go on ahead.

AMANDA: and that’s why men rape, because at one point, not every man raped, and those men died out because they were PUSSIES.

SADY: CORRECT. Also, men of ye olden days KILLED their stepchildren. do you hear me, timmy? there was none of this “time-out” crap back when men were men!

AMANDA: it’s difficult for me to see “rapist” as a characteristic born unto man in any real sense
is “rapist” the magical quality that helps you understand that “no” means “yes”?
or is “rapist” the magical quality that helps you not care, specifically, whether another person wants to have sex with you or not?

SADY: “rapist” is all of that, and more! but, more importantly, “rapist,” in this theory, is the MAGICAL GENETIC GETAWAY CAR that allows you to say YOU didn’t do it. it was your pesky genes! clamoring for evolutionary dominance! whereas, as the article notes, being a rapist in a small community where that’s not tolerated actually has more repercussions than being a rapist in a LARGE community where it’s hard to bring rapists to justice. i mean. i think whether you’re a rapist might have a lot to do with how rape is received within your culture.

AMANDA: what is this “culture”? that’s an interesting point, especially when we’re talking about “date rape” or the dreaded (aiee) “grey rape” scenarios—people tend to dislike these terms because they make some forms of rape seem less “serious” than others. but they also, i think, are an attempt to push ACTUAL RAPISTS into thinking of their behavior as rape. when, in the past, many people haven’t considered pass-out scenarios as rape at all. so if you can’t even think of something as rape, you don’t have to think of yourself as a rapist, and that’s really convenient!

SADY: right. because “no” was the criteria, not the absence of “yes.”

AMANDA: yes but Sady, we were BORN with the “no means no” gene. that’s the only way we are able to define rape, as a result.

SADY: oh, right! i mean: how many other “genes” are we born with? is there a bukkake “gene?” is there a blow-job “gene?” is the fact that i find the naked picture of sascha baron cohen on the cover of GQ at once attractive and offensive attributable to a “gene?”
because i’d really like an explanation of that which in no way reflects upon my psyche.

AMANDA: it’s natural. can we go back to the beginning for one second? what do you make of the headline of this piece: “Why Do We Rape, Kill and Sleep Around?” a little bit of a one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other trick going on there, Newsweek!

SADY: I like the equation of the last item on the list to the first two! Raping. Murdering. CASUAL SEX. All evil! I also like the fact that these “genetic” explanations for sex do nothing to explain people having sex for fun and profit. it’s all procreation, all the time!

AMANDA: how did these fornicators not get weeded out?

SADY: yeah, but. you will notice. the slant of these theories is that male sexuality is a positive, ALWAYS, and female sexuality, if it even exists, is a negative. and there’s some beeswax about how ladies have to be “picky” to ensure that they only mate with “the best genetic material,” because apparently our vaginas are all hitler, but dudes just have to stick it into ladies as often as possible. no concerns about genetic fitness affect them! so, the headline should really read, Why Do Dudes Rape, Murder, And Sleep Around, Because Ladies Are All Waiting For Their Genetic Prince Charming And Therefore Don’t Do Any Of The Above, Except Sometimes They Do?

AMANDA: right. and the answer is, as this story suggests, a lot of these scientists are themselves just kind of fucking weirdos.

SADY: right. i liked the part where the scientists responded to critiques of their work with accusations of MARXISM. “i believe your data to be faulty.” “COMMUNIST!” that is what science is all about, right there.

AMANDA: also, that some of these quotes were taken from a scientist bbq.

SADY: oh, lord. why didn’t they film the scientist bbq? THAT, i would pay to see.

Earlier today, we differentiated between “real” and “fake” women with the help of an excerpt from Allan Williams‘ God Don’t Like Fake People currently being distributed on the D.C. Metro. Now, it’s the boys’ turn to determine how authentically they conform to gender norms.

Men: Are you for real, or are you fronting (and possibly gay)? Take the quiz, after the jump!

ONE.

a. You don’t change around people, so-called important people or women.

b. You are a Chameleon.

TWO.

a. You are the minority in this world.

b. You indirectly work for evil forces.

THREE.

a. You are very tuned-in with God.

b. You will never go out in public holding a Bible.

FOUR.

a. You refuse to buy women.

b. You will buy a woman.

FIVE.

a. You will take a pay cut in employment if it’s necessary to keep your sanity.

b. You worship money and education.

SIX.

a. You will stand your ground no matter what.

b. You will kill your brothers.

SEVEN.

a. You don’t worship a female’s booty.

b. You will do anything for money, even if it’s having sex with another man.

EIGHT.

a. you are content with a simple lifestyle.

b. you are used and controlled by beautiful women with fat booties.

NINE.

a. You do not define yourself by the material possessions you have.

b. You are very corny in nature.

TEN.

a. You are a leader.

b. You try to imitate rappers or any other entertainer that be on TV.

ELEVEN.

a. you are unpredictable.

b. you are predictable

TWELVE.

a. you only need one virtuous woman in your life because that one woman is worth more than 100 ungodly whores that are only beautiful on the outside but are full of worms in the inside.

b. you define your manhood by having sex with a lot of females all throughout life. It doesn’t matter how old they are.

THIRTEEN.

a. you know that fake women shop a lot and put expensive clothes and make-up on to attempt to cover up their horrifying souls.

b. you are afraid to die.

—

MOSTLY A’S: Congratulations! You are a real man.

MOSTLY B’S: You are a fake man who may or may not have personally annoyed the author of God Don’t Like Fake People by: stealing his love interest; valuing education; having sex with men; failing to recognize the worm-infested souls of ungodly whores. As a result, God doesn’t like you. For more information on your condition, read the entire excerpt here.

Photo by refeia, Creative Commons Attribution License

The other day, a friend of mine received a helpful pamphlet outside of the Metro entitled “Real Women vs. Fake Women.” This handy guide—which reveals which ladies in your life are authentic and which are fake, make-believe women—is excerpted from Allan Williams‘ book, God Don’t Like Fake People. In the book, Williams also tackles “real” and “fake” men. But more on that later—ladies first!

Women: Are you real, or are you fake? I’ve adapted Williams’ tips into a handy fifteen-question quiz. Find out after the jump!

ONE.

a. You are very clean.

b. You put time, focus and energy into your booty.

TWO.

a. You are easy to please.

b. When you receive a compliment, you look at the person who gave it to you as if they were the scum of the earth. However, you are addicted to compliments, and if you go a day in public without getting one you will start getting insecure and looking in the mirror every 20 seconds.

THREE.

a. You cherish the simple things in life that are the really big things in life, like God.

b. You only mention God when you say “Oh MY GOD!!”

FOUR.

a. You intend to get married or have kids early in life.

b. You intend on having kids later in life, possibly as a single parent.

FIVE.

a. You don’t have a lot of male friends.

b. You have a lot of so-called male friends.

SIX.

a. You are simple in nature.

b. You deal with multiple men at a time and claim that they are just male friends while steady fornicating with them.

SEVEN.

a. You love straight-forward simple men that need you.

b. You often cheat on your so-called boyfriends with coworkers at your job.

EIGHT.

a. You will take love over security because you know that true love always manifests itself in the physical form eventually.

b. You meet and talk to guys on Myspace.com or Facebook.com that your so-called boyfriends or husbands don’t know about it.

NINE.

a. You can’t stand quiet feminine guys.

b. You are always getting into relationships with men that are on the down low.

TEN.

a. You don’t drink or smoke but will perhaps drink a tad bit on occasion.

b. You often drink a lot and sometimes smoke because you get taken out so much, and that’s why you don’t know how to cook and are often very filthy and dirty.

ELEVEN.

a. You speak your mind to your man but don’t mind being submissive.

b. You lack common sense.

TWELVE.

a. You know how to cook and clean.

b. You only work out mostly in the spring time because that’s when you get to compete against unknown females and your fake friends on who got the best body and tattoos.

THIRTEEN.

a. You are clean.

b. You are very used up.

FOURTEEN.

a. You are just happy to be in a real man’s presence.

b. You look pretty but your inside organs and your vagina are work out because so many male private parts have visited there.

FIFTEEN.

a. You are too into your mate to have time and energy to spend with another man.

b. You don’t know that you are the cause of your own misery.

—

MOSTLY As: Congratulations! You are a real woman.

MOSTLY Bs: You are a fake woman who may or may not have personally annoyed the author of God Don’t Like Fake People by: cheating on him with your so-called friends, co-workers, and Facebook acquaintances; drinking alcohol; having a worked-out vagina; being a single parent; or simply refusing to go out with him. As a result, God doesn’t like you. For more information on your condition, read the entire excerpt here.

Photo by gailf548

10. “Lollipop”

DEFINING MOMENT: Lil’ Wayne’s “Lick it Like a Lollipop”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Sexual infantilization ahead. “It’s basically a cock. As in lick the lollipop. Refering to blowjobs. Lil Wayne made a song called Lollipop about this topic.”

SEE ALSO: 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop”

—

9. “Ridin’ My Pony”

DEFINING MOMENT: Ginuwine’s “My Pony”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Ginuwine’s pony, obviously, is his cock. One commenter commends Ginuwine for invoking a diminuitive horse as opposed to a more sizeable stallion; I’m just impressed he manages to carry the analogy throughout the song. His saddle is waiting, ladies.

—

8. “The Nappy Dug Out”

DEFINING MOMENT: Ice Cube’s “Givin Up the Nappy Dug Out”

UNDERLYING MEANING: All this means is vagina, but points for originality.

—

7. “Milkshake”

DEFINING MOMENT: Kelis‘ “Milkshake”

UNDERLYING MEANING: I always assumed “milkshake” stood for “blowjob.” In the context of the song, that interpretation would have Kelis performing mass outdoor yard blowjobs for all the boys. Kelis had this to say about the true meaning of the frothy drink: “Milkshake is just that thing that makes a woman stand out from everyone else. It’s a thing that makes you sensual and warm and maternal. It could be about breasts but I don’t have huge tits so you gotta work with what you got.”

—

6. “Skeet”

DEFINING MOMENT: Lil’ John’s “Get Low”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Ejaculating; “To shoot your man juice up on ur bitch.”

—

5. “Make it Rain”

DEFINING MOMENT: Fat Joe’s “Make It Rain”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Urban Dictionary identifies two levels of euphemism in this rap standard: “In strip clubs, it is when you throw stacks of money all over women (this is the “edited” definition)”; “When a man ejaculates all over a woman (this is the “explicit” definition).”

SEE ALSO: Lil’ Wayne’s “Rain Man (Strip Club Anthem)”

—

4. ”Superman That Ho”

DEFINING MOMENT: Soulja Boy’s “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Is it not intuitive? “When you cum on a girls back and then stick the sheets to her, so when she wakes up in the morning she has a cape.”

—

3. “Wild Thing”

DEFINING MOMENT: Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Dropped in 1989, this song is one of the original examples of hip-hop sex euphemism. Now, “doin’ the wild thing” is so intimately associated with having sex that it’s hard to believe it was once ambiguous.

—

2. “O.P.P.”

DEFINING MOMENT: Naughty By Nature’s “O.P.P.”

UNDERLYING MEANING: “Other People’s Property,” generally. Throughout the song, “O.P.P.” is made to signify both “Other People’s Penis” and “Other People’s Pussy.” According to Wikipedia, “when the song asks the listener if they’re ‘Down with O.P.P.,’ it is asking the listener if he/she is willing to have sexual relations with a person who is known to already have a significant other.” The enthusiastic call-and-response that generally accompanies this song suggests that we’re all a bunch of cheaters. Or we have no fucking idea what Naughty by Nature is talking about.

—

1. “Doin’ It”

DEFINING MOMENT: LL Cool J’s “Doin’ It”

UNDERLYING MEANING: Sex.

I’ve been mulling over whether to attend this week’s Rock & Roll Hotel “Air Sex championship” for a few days now—ever since Metromix announced its intention to supply its very own D.C. competitor. Since I’m not much of an exhibitionist, I’m afraid I may not be able to add much to the coverage. It’s Air Guitar, but with fucking. What more is there to say?

But after enduring a Sarah Palin Air Sex Routine, a George Bush Air Sex Routine, a Magician Air Sex Routine, a Swedish Air Sex Routine, and yes—a fucking Chris Kattan Air Sex Routine—I was hit with a terrible feeling of foreboding. All the obvious Air Sex Routines have already been performed, leaving only one Ripped from the Headlines Air Sex yet un-done.

This is my terrible fear: This Wednesday, some brave soul will reach the Air Sex stage, perform some brief Air Kung Fu, crawl into a Thai Air Closet, pull out an Air Penis Noose, and attempt an Air Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation.

If anyone actually goes through with the forbidden David Carradine Lack of Air Sex Routine, I’m really, really hoping it’s the Metromix employee.

I couldn’t find any Carradine Air Sex in Youtube’s arsenal, but if you want to watch people pretending to be Palin, Bush, and “Bjorn to Fuck” pretend to do it, be my guest:

Sarah Palin Air Sex:

George W. Bush Air Sex:

Magic Air Sex:

Swedish Air Sex:

And it’s about goddamned time. I can’t tell you how many months I’ve spent not obsessively blogging about glory holes in the Washington, D.C. area. Actually, I can tell you: It’s been exactly 288 months* now that I have not been excessively blogging about glory holes in the Washington, D.C. area. Well, I’m not getting any younger, and D.C. isn’t getting any more anonymous blow jobs through public rest area doors, so this June, it’s time to sit back, relax, and allow me take you on a tour of D.C.’s finest glory holes, past and present.

“Ikea Glory Hole” by GorillaSushi

Having recently written a story about the sex and repression at the Catholic University of America, I was interested to read Vox Populi’s interview with D.C.’s most infamous Catholic sex writer, Julia Allison. Allison graduated from Georgetown in 2004, where she wrote “Sex on the Hilltop,” the Hoya’s first sex column—and quite possibly the first sex column at a Catholic University, period.

Allison caused a good deal of controversy in her tenure at Georgetown University—dating a congressman, allegations of plagiarism, offers from Playboy—but few reports of Allison’s co-ed days have focused on the actual substance of her Hoya column. In the interview, Vox Pop’s Molly Redden digs past the personal fluff to find why even acknowledging that sex happens at Georgetown University was an up-the-Hilltop battle in the early part of the decade.

The whole Q-and-A is worth a read, but here’s the taboo Hoya topic that Allison says finally did her column in:

So, I wanted to talk about what do you do when you have a roommate and you wanna hookup? I mean, this is a question that every undergraduate has struggled with. And I said, “If you want to have sex, and you have a roommate, you need to do this.” And they said, “No no no no no no, we can’t write ’sex,’ let’s just say, ‘makeout.’”

Last November, I outlined some advice for well-meaning sexists on How Not to Advise Women Not to Get Raped. The post was in response to a guy named Aaron P. Taylor, who, in response to getting shut down by a female in da club, penned a manifesto entitled “Advice 4 Women: How to NOT Get a ‘Deserved Raping.’” The essay warned women against behaviors that indicate that she really “wants it”—even when her actual words (in the case of Taylor’s target, “Naaaaaaah!”) indicate that she actually does not want to have sex!

These behaviors include:

* flirting

* dancing (repeatedly)

* putting your face close to a man’s face

* kissing

* wearing a shirt that “shows just about everything but her nipples, then have a 30-minute conversation with a guy about how voluptuous and sensitive her breasts are, then spend half the night stroking her hand against the outer-lining of said breasts.” (It happens).

* anything else that gives a man a boner

Obviously, this argument—that women shouldn’t do certain things unless they’re down to fuck—is based entirely on a man’s expectations, and his own preferred end to every female interaction (sex). In reality, women aren’t soley interacting with men in order to eventually cause him to orgasm. And just because a behavior is “sexy” doesn’t make it “suggestive.” Most of the time, a dance is just a dance. A shirt is just a shirt. Putting your face close to a man’s face is just putting your face close to a man’s face. And a man getting a boner from any of that is his personal problem. Even if a woman is grinding her ass on your pelvis, all she’s suggesting is that—shocker!—she wants to grind her ass on your pelvis. Really, the only way a woman can actually suggest she wants to have sex with you is by saying, “I want to have sex with you!” It’s that easy.

One response to Taylor’s essay that hasn’t been raised, however, is how fucking shitty life would be for everybody if “dancing” really meant “fucking.” Taylor’s worldview offers one big problem for guys like Taylor: If women flirted, danced, wore revealing clothing, or did anything else that men happened to find arousing only in direct preparation for sex, da club would be a very lonely place. Under this model:

* A woman would never look at a man, lest he expect her to speak to him.

* A woman would never speak to a man, lest he expect her to flirt with him.

* A woman would never flirt with a man, lest he expect her to dance with him.

* A woman would never dance with a man, lest he expect her to kiss him.

* A woman would never kiss a man, lest he expect her to fuck him.

* A woman would never fuck a man, lest he expect the right to fuck her any time he wants, in any way he wants, in any orifice, whether she likes it or not.

In other words, women would never, ever, ever go to da club, lest a man chose to administer her a “deserved raping” for showing up. Don’t you see, Aaron P. Taylor? It’s a prison of your own design! Taylor is not just advising women how “not to get a deserved raping.” He’s also advising women how to make Aaron P. Taylor’s life a living hell. Which is, actually, the only reason women might want to refrain from doing whatever the fuck they want to do on the dance floor.

Photo by Yoshimai

Last week, I wrote about how CVS Pharmacies in Washington, D.C. are continuing to limit access to condoms by locking up some stores and declining to work with public health activist groups. The main problem with condom lock-up is that it forces customers to interact with several employees, wait around in front of the condom box, and verbally request the product. In short, it’s embarrassing.

Sometimes, the employees make it more so. I stopped by a CVS in Los Angeles last week to pick up some personal items—not condoms, though. I approached the cashier with a box of tampons, some Midol, and a pack of gum. I was with a boy.

The cashier rung up my merchandise, requested my CVS card, and delivered my change. Then, she said this to us:

“You kids have fun this weekend, whatever you do or don’t do!”

Whatever we “do” or “don’t do”? You got us good, CVS. I thought your employees could only make me uncomfortable about doing it when I bought something actually related to sex. Now I know you can make me uncomfortable about doing it (or not doing it!) when I buy anything at all!

Photo by Editor B

First the tattoos, and now this? However can this be? A Republican, who likes sex! I dare say I cannot handle this girl’s rebelliousness much longer!

It’s been an exciting week over in the comments section of Screw U.: Inside the Secret Sex Life of Catholic University. I laughed, I cried, I snuck a girl out through the bathroom when my RA came knocking. But I wanted to highlight two commenters:

From Member of the Underground Jimmy Hat Railroad:

This article couldn’t possibly be more accurate.

I transferred to Catholic from a Big 10 state school because I wanted more opportunities to intern as a politics student. I hadn’t even unpacked all of the boxes in my dorm room when I got a knock on the door from two students interested to know my stance on the Roe v. Wade.

Later that evening, my RA also knocked on my door with a pitcher of frozen margaritas and promptly provided me with a list of bars in the neighborhood who would accept my student ID and where I could get a great fake NJ ID.

The student body has CONSISTENTLY been packed with students from east coast preparatory schools who are so sexually repressed that when they finally got the chance to explore they completely went wild.

It was a blast. Run don’t walk to the mailbox to send in your application.

From God Squadder Mike, who describes himself as “a real ‘God-Squadder’ of Catholic University”:

Upon reading this article and seeing her sources, one wonders where Ms. Hess learned journalistic integrity. It seems a pretty poor argument to base your entire work on the source of one or two students, who obviously seek to push their own agenda of debasing Catholic University. One might query whether or not these students ever sought something more from their collegiate experience besides self-gratifying actions. Furthermore, it causes deep sorrow to see two of my friends, Karen Mahowald and Jonathan Meyer, be misquoted as if to prove that even good Catholics do not practice chastity. The blatant manipulation of their words is an affront to journalism and to truth, but to be expected from someone of Ms. Hess’ poor caliber. It is true what Karen said, chastity is not a list of do’s and don’ts. Chastity is a lifestyle dedicated at freeing yourself from selfish pleasures and focusing on the inherent beauty of sexuality. To treat it as something negative as many unfortunately do, only degrades our humanity further. Jonathan Meyer said, “None of us perfectly lives out our call to chastity.” This is not to say we view it as unimportant or insignificant. Rather Jon was saying that we recognize our own sinfulness and realize that we are bound to sin sooner or later. None of us can be perfectly chaste at all times. This does not stop us from trying. It would not be surprising to find out Ms. Hess is not a Christian as any Christian can recognize the understanding of trying to live like Christ as much as possible, but recognizing that we ourselves are not perfect; we are not sinless. The word is concupiscence, Ms. Hess, and we are all subject to it.

Illustration by Doug Boehm.

This week, I wrote a cover story for the paper on the sex life at the Catholic University of America, the official U.S. university of the Catholic Church. The Washington, D.C. school bans all behavior that is “inconsistent with the teaching and moral values of the Catholic Church”—including premarital sex, condom use, masturbation, and sexual assault.

Every year, Catholic’s coeds manage to successfully compromise the university policies—and their own chastity—within the school’s residence halls (and, according to one student, in the student center). The difficulty, for students and administrators, is acknowledging that sex happens. Consistent with Catholic tradition, sex isn’t sex at the Catholic University of America if nobody knows about it.

You can pick up the story on newsstands tomorrow.

Illustration by Doug Boehm

According to a recent Pew Forum poll, “Catholics have one of the highest retention rates” among Christian churches, with 68 percent of Catholic kids remaining in the church as adults. Here’s how PR Newswire chose to highlight the poll’s findings:

* Almost 70 percent Catholic youth stay Catholic as adults
* Only 2-3 percent cite sex abuse as reason they left Catholic Church
* Disaffected youth a primary concern

Wait—”Only” 2 to 3 percent cite sex abuse as the reason they left? Does PR Newswire look at a 2 to 3 percent Catholic sex abuse rate and say, “Meh. Pretty good”?

Tell me more! Closer examination of the presser reveals that “Pew also found that only 2-3 percent of those polled cited sexual abuse of children as a reason for leaving when asked in an open-ended question why they left.”

Whew—that 2 to 3 percent is referring to the sexual abuse of other children, not necessarily personal experience. Meh. Pretty good!

Photo by alykat

On Monday, Reuters reported on how the economic downturn is affecting Germany’s sex industry. Since tough times have hit the country, where prostitution is legal, its brothels have begun offering bargain-basement deals to keep johns paying for sex. The promotions include free shuttle buses to brothels, senior discounts, and the incredibly grody “day pass.”

I believe that women and men should be free to sell sex for money. I think that process should be legal and closely regulated. But I don’t know if I can get behind the day pass:

Berlin’s “Pussy Club” has attracted media attention with its headline-grabbing “flat rate”—a 70-euro admission charge for unlimited food, drink and sex between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

“You’ve got to come up with creative solutions these days,” said club manager Stefan, who requested his surname not be published. “We’re feeling the economic crisis, too, even though business has fortunately been more or less okay for us so far.

“Our offer might sound like it’s too good to be true, but it’s real. You can eat as much as you want, drink as much as you want and have as much sex as you want.”

I sincerely hope these “creative solutions” include health regulations that keep the sex away from the food and the very drunk away from the sex. I hope that “as much sex as you want” doesn’t preclude the prostitutes from taking the breaks they need. I hope the “fuck all” attitude still establishes strict boundaries for every encounter. And I hope I can somehow scrub my brain of the vision of a client drinking, eating, and fucking as much as he can to get the most out of 70 euros.

Photo by Mr. T in D.C.

Today, Scarleteen—a great resource for teenagers who are first beginning to, you know, explore the feelings of, like, doin’ it and stuff—published an epic roundup of boner queries.

Scarleteen titles its hard-on treasure trove more delicately: “The Roundup of ‘I Get an Erection When …’ Questions.” (Stay tuned for the inevitable “Roundup of I Get an Erection When I Read Roundups of ‘I Get an Erection When…’ Questions Questions”).

The roundup does a good job of ensuring all its “Erection-Whens” that their experiences are all perfectly normal, mmkay? But for those grown adults among us who haven’t been on the receiving end of a rogue pitched-cargo-short since high school, the collection of surprise boners also provides a jarring trip down memory lane.

As I relived the boner era through these tales, I realized something. These “Erection-Whens” are not merely airing their inappropriate states of arousal. They’re also, inadvertently, revealing their classic Teenage Boyfriend Personalities. Let’s review, shall we?

Erection-When #1: The Sensitive Boner.

Hey, I have been dating a really special girl for about a month now and recently we were cuddling watching movies and we were touching each other in a pretty intense way and I didn’t really notice it but I had gotten some sperm on my shorts and it bled through and it was ridiculously embarrassing because I knew she probably had felt it and I don’t want to mess up our relationship over something like that.

Reminisce: Aww. If this guy can make premature ejaculation sound adorable, he’s got nothing to worry about, right? Mmm, until that really special girl breaks up with him really soon over a completely unrelated problem he never expected: He’s “too into” her. You’ll precum again, dude, I promise.

—

Erection-When #2: The Rebel Boner.

Hi. I’m 15 years old and I’ve been with my girlfriend (17) for about 3 months now. She rides my bus to and from school and we sit in the back together where nobody can see us. Every day, she puts her legs over mine and we fool around a little bit, but never go further than making out; and I have a rather embarrassing problem. . . I pre-cum really really badly. I can’t control it! It’s so embarrassing and when she gets off the bus I look down and there’s a big wet spot on my shorts, and I really want to know how to control it. PLEASE HELP!!!

Reminisce: First of all: High-five. Second: Scarleteen’s advice, which is basically “maybe try having surprise boners in a less embarrassing place, like not on the school bus,” might not be too compelling for this 15-year-old charmer. Remember: This kid is macking on a 17-year-old, on the school bus. He’s not going to give that up for anything. Not even clean shorts.

—

Erection-When #3: The Jerky Boner.

So, my question is that I have learned that my girlfriend is pretty naive about sex and doesn’t want to do it. That is fine with me, but I am worried because whenever we kiss, or embrace closely, I have an erection that will touch, if not poke her. What is she thinking about this? Do other guys she’s dated have this problem to? Or does she just think that I am a pervert?

Reminisce: Ugh. You always do this. So, your question is: Your girlfriend is “naive” and so doesn’t want to “do it,” which is “fine” with you, except that it’s totally her fault that you have a boner, which is also fine as long as she doesn’t think you’re a “pervert”? Dude: That’s not a question. Scarleteen rightly neutralizes this guy by responding, “I’m not really sure why you’re describing your girlfriend as naive about sex.” Hey, not having sex with you sounds like a pretty informed decision to me, too. Allow me to add some additional advice: Masturbate.

—

Erection-When #4: The Oblivious Boner.

Okay, so when I went to a dance with this girl and we were just dancing together sorta close and I couldn’t help but like how it felt when she would dance against me. But then she was dancing facing away from me and her rear was rubbing against my crotch and I kept trying to think of anything not sexual but the next thing I knew I was hard. I don’t know if she noticed or not ’cause she kept dancing like that but I didn’t want her to think I was gross or anything so I went to the bathroom until it left. It happened again that night too when we danced slow with her against me, and I know she felt it because she kind of giggled, but I don’t know if she was laughing at me or what. It was embarrassing, how can I make it not happen.

Reminisce: She noticed.

Photo by bestfor.

Kate Tsubata is not your typical abstinence advocate. She wants you to choose one person to have sex with for the rest of your life, but her fidelity to the movement’s traditions ends there. She refuses to draft no-sex pledges, forge promise rings, stage purity balls, or cite scripture. She doesn’t care if the sex you’re not having is straight or gay. She likes sex, actually, as long as you only do it with one person ever—no wedding required. The stakes are lower, too. In Tsubata’s abstinence movement, sex won’t lead you down a road of eternal damnation—all it will do is kill you.

As the leader of the Washington AIDS International Teens group—or, the T-shirt-perfect “WAIT”—Tsubata, her three children, and a team of youth activists teach young adults to abstain from sex solely to stop the spread of AIDS. The encouragement comes via performance: a teen-friendly program of beat-boxing, break-dancing, and sober Powerpoint presentation in the name of waiting for “the one.” In steering a middle course between the anti-AIDS and anti-sex sets, Tsubata may be ensuring that her cause never, ever gets any money.

WAIT’s prevention strategy of lifetime fidelity to one person is too idealistic for most AIDS activists, who prefer to tout the benefits of lifetime fidelity to the condom. WAIT has also proven too practical for the abstinent, whose AIDS work is often colored by moral prescriptions against fornication, homosexuality, and other at-risk sins. The division between the groups has blocked a possible solution to the AIDS crisis. Forget daddy-daughter dances and abstinence-themed jewelry; these days, only an incurable epidemic that threatens to wipe out entire populations may succeed in convincing teens to keep their legs crossed.

The latest ravages of this incurable epidemic have jolted people into action. Within days of the release of striking new AIDS figures placing D.C.’s AIDS epidemic on par with West Africa’s, WAIT fielded dozens of requests for WAIT performances, in which a vanload of teens channel unused sexual energy into back-flips, one-armed headstands, repurposed  hip-hop songs, and other chaste stunts. Then, an hour-long Powerpoint presentation details HIV’s causes—intravenous drug use, sex, and in very rare occasions, deep kissing; and effects—rare bulbous skin cancers, tuberculosis, or simply wasting away. Only at the final slides does WAIT arrive at its recommendation: Better not to do it.

Tsubata, who also serves as co-director of the Washington AIDS International Foundation, WAIT’s parent group, knows it’s a radical conclusion in a city where an e-mail to condoms@dc.gov can bring a shipment of 1,000 government-funded “Durex Enhanced Pleasure” rubbers. But she says that rough times have benefited WAIT’s unorthodox abstinence approach. “Everyone is just so desperate for something to work, for something to help people, that I think they’re ready to try anything,” she says.

Everyone, that is, except the D.C. government, which has denied WAIT’s repeated requests for funding since the program started up in 2002. In that time, WAIT has staged at least 120 performances a year in 20 states and 15 countries, and been rejected for a dozen federal and local grants. Tsubata, who works closely with more generously funded locals like Planned Parenthood and Metro Teen AIDS, says the renewed interest in the AIDS crisis will only reinforce the AIDS cash status-quo. “Since I have never received a penny of it, it doesn’t matter to me,” says Tsubata. “But the lack of funds is not from lack of trying.”

Tsubata is quick to insist that she doesn’t need government cash to be effective, but the numbers are dire enough to test even the most committed of charity workers. In 2007, the Washington AIDS International Foundation collected $225,975 in donations from individuals and corporations like Wal-Mart, and zero from government sources. That doesn’t leave a lot of money to support its skeleton staff: In 2007, Tsubata raked in $18,480 from her work with the group; her eldest daughter, Lan Lee, collected only $569 for her efforts. Compare those numbers to two of D.C.’s more readily classified youth nonprofits: Metro Teen AIDS, which takes a comprehensive prevention approach, received $968,015 in government funds in 2007; the Best Friends Foundation, an uber-abstinent education initiative, received $1,520,759. The highest-paid workers in those groups made $59,129 and $96,750, respectively.

The problem is a funding strategy based on a strictly segregated sex-ed cash flow. The D.C. government will cough up cash for comprehensive HIV prevention. It will allocate federal funds for right-wing abstinence. But it rarely funds anything in between. The D.C. Department of Health does cite “abstinence” under in its HIV prevention strategy as “the only absolute fail-safe way for preventing HIV infection”—it’s just listed second to “condoms.” D.C.’s HIV/AIDS Administration allocates more than $70 million each year to local AIDS workers, and all must satisfy the District’s full approach. “The District believes in a comprehensive sexual health approach for young people, which does include abstinence,” says Michael Kharfen, the bureau chief for “capacity building and community outreach” in the HIV/AIDS Administration. Though WAIT’s program is comprehensive enough to include advocating for widespread testing, access to antiretroviral drugs, and condom use between HIV-positive lifetime partners, the group is not comprehensive enough for the D.C. government. “The HIV/AIDS groups that we partner with provide an array of services, including HIV and STD testing, contraceptives, working with youth,” says Kharfen. “Many also include abstinence in their approach. But none of them are exclusively abstinence-only.”

Abstinence-based AIDS groups are instead forced to compete for the small amount of federal funds allocated to “abstinence education” in Title V of the Social Security Act. The District receives “less than a million dollars” from that pot, Kharfen says, which is then distributed to groups based on a host of traditional abstinence criteria—almost all of which WAIT fails to satisfy. Federal abstinence criteria focus on preventing “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.” The federal funding, in other words, is dedicated to supporting the abstinence movement’s reputation as an impractical, preachy, and partisan expenditure.

Tsubata puts it more delicately: “The abstinence people who get funding have to teach all of these things we’re not interested in teaching,” she says. “Sometimes people will even scold us after a performance and say, ‘Your presentation was great, but I wish you had talked about the Bible. I wish you had some message from scripture,’” says Tsubata, who says WAIT entertained only a brief flirtation with fundamental funders. “I walked out on a meeting with a person high up in the Bush government because he basically said, ‘If you go and help Planned Parenthood, and you work with these other organizations that aren’t pro-abstinence, you’re making them look good. We’re not going to do anything for you unless you come over onto our side,” says Tsubata. Other WAIT rejections have been more subtle. Tsubata remembers receiving one returned grant application that scored WAIT highly in all categories—scores that were then crossed out and downgraded in order to give the grant to another group. But Tsubata insists WAIT has “never, ever, ever considered changing our message to get a grant,” invoking a very non-abstinent word to describe what that move would make her.

To Tsubata, ideology—and the government funding that follows it—has little to do with on-the-ground success. “Frankly, there’s a lot less division among those who work with AIDS than people might like to think,” says Tsubata. “We know abstinence is good. We know sexual integrity is good. We know condoms are necessary. Why do we get into these stupid little territory fights and worry about who’s right and who’s wrong? Who cares about the damn funding?”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery