Last month, Wheelock College University of Pennsylvania professor Mary Anne Layden hit Capitol Hill to explain how pornography "robs men of their masculinity, of their psychological health, of their self-respect, of their greatness . . . of themselves." Now, Layden is back to explain the effects of pornography use among women: It gets them raped.

From a Washington Times story on the new trend of pornography "addiction" among women:

"The more pornography women use, the more likely they are to be victims of non-consensual sex," said Mary Anne Layden, professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston. "The earlier the male starts using pornography, the more likely they are to be the perpetrators of non-consensual sex."

The story never mentions that rape thing again. It doesn't offer up any evidence or statistics in its defense. (In fact, it never uses the word "rape"—just the skeezy "non-consensual sex"). In a response, psychologist David J. Ley attempts to figure this all out:

This is a staggering statement, and a frightening insight into the rebirth of the "blame the victim" argument against rape. . . So a female victim testifying her assailant is going to be asked about that time she downloaded a dirty movie to watch? And that has what to do with the immoral, narcissistic, selfish and angry acts of the man who violated her rights? The only way this has any kernel of truth is that highly sexual women are more likely to report use of pornography. Highly sexual women are also likely to report greater numbers of partners, and somewhat higher risk of an incident of sexual abuse or rape, possibly as a result of situations of date rape. But it's not the pornography, and it's not even the women's sexuality. It's the act of person who violates the rights of another.

Layden's assertion is both victim-blaming and perpetrator-excusing. Pretending that porn is responsible for creating rape victims and perpetrators—that it robs men of "themselves" and robs women of consent—shifts the blame for sexual assault away from rapists (the few) and on to every man and woman who watches porn (the many). The implication is that the perpetrator and the victim deserve each other.

And since almost every man admits to looking at porn—and only some women admit to the same—the burden for avoiding "bad" behavior falls largely onto women. Notice how, in Layden's statement, women are faulted for the quantity of porn they consume, whereas men are faulted for the age at which they begin watching porn. Presumably, a woman can control the amount of porn she consumes, but a man can't control the fact that he was initially exposed to pornography at a young age.

Under Layden's model, all men are potential rapists—but some women are good enough to resist making themselves into rape victims.

allegiance to the United States, foreign influence, foreign preference, sexual behavior, personal conduct, alcohol consumption, drug involvement, psychological conditions, criminal conduct, handling protected information, outside activities and use of information technology systems.

Well, "outside activities" seems to cover just about everything, but the "sexual behavior" point could stand some elaboration. Are we talking workplace sexual harassment? Rape? Sex outside marriage? Anal? No matter—this federal agency apparently reserves the right to fire you for fucking wrong. Whatever that means. [Via GLAA Forum]

This week, the District Mayor's Office of GLBT Affairs released the "LGB Health 2010 Report," an examination of everything from smoking habits to sexual behavior in the gay community. This is the District's first report to address the health of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in the District. But as the report's title makes clear, the transgender community has yet again been excluded from the official conversation on health. Also underrepresented here: African-American men and women under the LGB umbrella.

The methodology of the [study] itself raises questions about the reliability of the data and how it represents the true health of the LGB community, as reflected by the limited number of responses from African American LGBT people. The survey's findings rely on an identity-based rather than a behavioral questionnaire, which may exclude men who have sex with other men (MSM) but do not identify as gay.

And, as always: "the absence of information on transgender health underscores the pressing need for better data on the transgender community in the District," the DC Center writes.

Three Georgetown students (and another from NYU) have launched WorstHookUps.com, a website for anonymously airing your greatest sex fails. “After a traumatizing hookup experience, [we] looked for a place to post the story online and realized that no such website existed," a site creator (they won't reveal their names) told Chris Heller at Vox Populi. Of course, some of the entries are horrifying for all the wrong reasons—like this one, in which our anonymous contributor complains about hooking up with an "older black woman" whose breasts he describes as "straight-up National Geographic shit." The hook-up takes a turn for the worse when she expects him to help her orgasm, and employs a vibrator in this pursuit. Also? This "older black woman" is 27 years old.

Photo via rachelkramerbussel.com, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Ever had a sexual experience? Then welcome to the magical world of "virginity," where a white wedding dress can restore a sexually-active 40-something's innocence, a set of pigtails can turn even the most experienced porn performer chaste, and a new hymen can be shipped from China for about 30 bucks. Documentary filmmaker Therese Shechter explores the culture of denouncing sex (even while you're doing it) in "How to Lose Your Virginity," a film about our cultural obsession with chastity— and the way its meaning shifts mysteriously depending upon the implement and the orifice.

Shechter has got nine days to raise a couple thousand dollars to finish the film; while she's waiting to seal the deal, she agreed to answer some questions about surrendering your precious chastity orb to that one special fella who will ensure its proper maintenance until death do you part:

SEXIST: What's it like making a movie about people not doing something?

TS: The definition of virginity is so subject to interpretation. A Mormon college student who considers herself a virgin did a post for my blog, The American Virgin, about how enthusiastically sexually active she was, even though she was waiting for her wedding night to have intercourse. In the film you get the whole spectrum of sexual activity, from Cindy, a very religious and abstinent 30-something screenwriter I met at the Sundance Film Festival, to former ‘abstinence poster girl’ Shelby Knox who now runs seminars called “Fucking While Feminist.” This is all pretty much North America I'm talking about, by the way. There's so much more to say about the rest of the world and I deal with a lot of that on the blog.

SEXIST: In your pursuit of understanding our culture's obsession with virginity, you've examined a variety of industries and subcultures that rely on our fascination with virginity for their own purposes—from "barely legal" porn producers to wedding dress retailers to religious abstainers. How have you seen the meaning of "virginity" shift to satisfy these different contexts?

TS: I think they’re remarkably similar in that they all work within the fantasy of female sexual purity as something to be fetishized. They have different props—the Big White Wedding Dress, porn’s white panties, and the purity ring—but all use a sort of ritualized process whereby a symbolically virginal female is offered up to a male for deflowering. I say symbolic because the porn actress is definitely not a virgin, we’re pretty certain that most modern brides aren’t either, and given our shaky definition of the V-word, we might not even consider some purity pledgers to be totally chaste. But it’s the fetishization of all three that really fascinates me. For whose benefit is it this being played out?

Interestingly, in shooting these scenes, I felt the most comfortable in the company of the pornographers. I don’t know what that says about me, but I’d sooner go back to Barely Legal Ranch than a bridal salon or an abstinence conference.

How does our culture's emphasis on virginity affect men and women differently?

TS: That’s kind of at the heart of it all, isn’t it?

There are the abstinence-until-marriage programs and purity balls that focus almost exclusively on female virginity, going as far as having young girls symbolically hand over their purity to their father for safekeeping until their wedding night when it gets transferred to the husbands. You know, we may cringe at this, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s just a more blatant version of the traditional wedding ceremony. That’s something I really get into in the film as I deal with my own wedding planning and all its chastity-based rituals.

In terms of more mainstream culture (and by that I mean teen sex comedies), I think it used to be that the guys had to be total horndogs and get rid of their virginity as quickly as possible, and the gals had to defend the castle for as long as possible. I feel like recently there’s been a cultural shift where the guys are still basically supposed to be horndogs but it’s now okay for gals to have pre-marital sex under the right conditions (i.e., sex with your perfect boyfriend in a romantic setting with scented candles, possibly after prom, after you’ve professed your love for each other). And by sex, I mean intercourse. I think the idea that a woman needs a penis in her vagina to turn her into a full-fledged sexual being is still pretty prevalent. In reality, young men and women do all sorts of things sexually that don’t fit these gender-based scripts at all, but then they run the risk of being judged, shamed or punished by their peers, media, religious authorities, what have you.

Something seems to change for women in college. Young women talk about this in the film: there’s this metaphysical dividing line between high school, where no one is talking about having sex, and college, where everyone is expected to be having sex. Except not too much. Because that would be slutty, or according to the media, soul-killing (see: Caitlin Flanagan’s article “Love, Actually” in The Atlantic Monthly). The flip side of all this is if you don’t feel ready for sex, you’re considered freakish or undesirable, so you end up either keeping that fact to yourself or doing a bunch of stuff you don’t really want to do.

What’s really interesting is how this plays out after college with people who haven’t yet had sex. Those earlier expectations—that ladies should only have sex when in love and guys should be getting some nightly—often continue past the college years. The women are usually still waiting for that ‘special someone,’ and the men are so totally humiliated by their lack of horndog experience that they just withdraw. I hear this so often—people just assume that not only is everyone but them having sex all the time, but that no one would want to have anything to do with someone who was sexually inexperienced. Again, I think it’s the script we think we should be following so we’re not honest about what’s really going on. I got into this film project because I was pissed off by how women were shamed for being sexual, but as I’ve looked deeper, I’ve found there’s a significant portion of people out there who feel shamed for being non-sexual. I was a post-college bloomer myself, so I can relate.

I think it’s interesting that if you’re queer, you don’t really have a cultural script to follow, because among other things your sex life isn’t about penis-in-vagina sex. Maybe that’s good because you can create your own script when it comes to sexual initiation. I love the Marshall character in “The United States of Tara,” and I’m hoping the writers are building up to some kind of interestingly complex virginity loss scenario. I haven’t seen all of season 2 yet, so if it happens in Episode 11, don’t tell me about it.

In your work on the issue, have you come to find any healthy, inclusive, and non-judgmental conceptions of what "virginity" could mean? Or should we just call the whole "virginity" thing off?

TS: I don’t think we can call the ‘virginity’ thing off. Even though it’s socially constructed, impossible to really define (there isn’t even a medical definition), and often employed as a tool of the patriarchy, virginity still matters. For most of us, sex is important, and the first time you have a significant intimate moment, it’s a milestone (maybe not the best one, but a milestone nonetheless). But it’s hopefully just the first of many milestones in our sexual lives.

So, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the word ‘virgin,’ just the values we attach to it. Virginity is already imprinted with so many meanings, depending on who you’re listening to. It would be nice to be able to create our own personal language of sexuality, and dis-engage it from religious dogma, double standards, the fantasy porn sex you just downloaded or last night’s episode of Gossip Girl.

We spent a whole day talking about all this at the “Rethinking Virginity” conference where I was a panelist, and in the end it came down to this: Do whatever you want with whomever you want as long as it’s consensual and safe. Go forth and shag. Or don’t. That’s fine too.

Your film is called "How to Lose Your Virginity." Any tips?

TS: Unfortunately, no. I’m hoping that by the time you’re done watching the film, you think that phrase is absurd. There’s no right way, we’re not losing anything, and virginity is ultimately an ephemeral and elusive concept. So maybe you’ll be mindfucked, but you’ll still technically be a virgin.

members of the Third District's Crime Suppression Team, ICE, community members as well as the management of various PSA 307 hotels, worked together to arrest 9 individuals for prostitiion related crimes related to the use of the internet. Along with these arrest, came the seizure of various electronic items that were utilized to enhance their trade as well as money and various evidence. This inititave is another example of psa stakeholders coming together to get things done and we wish to say thanks to all that took part as well as we look foward to working on many more projects in the future. Thank you

In response to the announcement, some community members remained unimpressed. The sex workers are off my Internets, now when will they get off my sidewalks? R. Kelley (seriously) of the MPD-3D listserv has this to say:

There are still a lot of Street Walkers around 13th & K Streets NW; Mass Ave, etc. when I arrive at work around 6:00AM.

Mongal assured Kelley that police "are currently putting plans together to do a better job at elimintaing that problem" and solicited "any information or details relating to the activity, such as descriptions, cars, locations and tactics" of said "Street Walkers." Meanwhile, on the listserv, Ashley Shillingsburg politely requests that police not follow R. Kelley's every lead: "They are not 'street walkers,' they are 'sex workers,' and the only effective means of combating illegal sex work is by going after the people who purchase such services," she writes. "What are MPD's tactics for going after those people as opposed to those who are victims of both pimps and johns?"

Worried that tomorrow's Capital Pride Parade won't be enough sex-and-gender related activity for one day? Pass the time before and after with an ad-hoc sexuality conference by day, and gay balloon dinos on stilts by night:

BEFORE: Kink-For-All Washington D.C. 2, an "unconference" "about the intersection of sexuality with the rest of life." The first D.C. Kink-For-All sailed on Nov. 21, 2009 (you can watch videos of some of the sessions here); the next iteration will be held throughout the day tomorrow. The conference is free for all to attend, but there are rules. Oh: and RSVP here.

Kink-For-All Washington D.C. 2
Saturday, June 12, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The DC Center
1810 14th Street NW
Free

AFTER:

"Homo Erectus: The Evolution of Pride," a BYT-sponsored, caveperson-themed, Capital-Pride-ending party featuring an eight-foot T-Rex Ice Luge. Need I say more? OK: There's also a balloon dinosaur outfit on stilts. And an erupting DJ volcano booth. 21+ RSVP here.

Homo Erectus: The Evolution of Pride
Saturday, June 12 at 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Washington Hilton
1919 Connecticut Ave. NW
$25 (pre-sale)

Yesterday, Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote an open letter on Broadsheet to all the "celebrities" who appear in leaked sex tapes. Short version: You are all dumb sluts.

She begins:

Today's revelation that Hustler is releasing a 75-minute opus of "Real Housewives" star Danielle Staub doing the nasty is just the latest in a genre that wore out its welcome long before Dustin Diamond popularized the Dirty Sanchez. At this point, if you're a contestant on "Survivor," ever ran for president or have the name "Kardashian," we just assume there's a video out there of you making your O face. And our fatigue from your narcissism has actually finally won out over mere prurient curiosity.

Believe us, when it comes to the getting on of anyone's freak, we give a really wide berth. But call us cynical, we just can't shake the suspicion that what was once a private, loving act between an aspiring model and an aspiring DJ has now become something else—the pilot for a new Bravo series. Spare us the outrage at how you feel sooooo betrayed, how you have no idea how this could have fallen into the wrong hands. At least Jesse James admitted that, deep down, he wanted to get caught. This whole pretext of "I didn't really make and distribute my own little porno here" so you can give the public something that appears furtive and dirty and secret while still showing off how weird you look in night vision? Enough. And if you are actually dumb enough to make a sex tape and think it won't get leaked, you are too dumb to ever have sex again.

Allow me to translate for all the dumb sluts reading along here: You were asking for it. You saaaay you don't want the sex tape of your boyfriend coercing you into making a sex tape revealed to millions of downloaders, but we know better. You say no, but you mean yes. And if you can't figure even that much out—well, you're a dumb slut, after all.

We would like to just let this slide, but it turns out that your dumb sluttiness is getting veeeeery, very inconvenient for us sex bloggers out there in the business of covering dumb sluts. This business: Let me tell you, it is rough. We are routinely chained to our laptops and forced to watch Dustin Diamond, Kim Kardashian, various Survivors, and all manner of one-time political candidates pretend to not want us to be watching them do it, and then pen Internet posts detailing our displeasure with this scenario. We tolerated this, for a time. But now: A Real Housewife? For 75 minutes? This, it is too much to bear.

Perhaps you are wondering whether people who are tired of being forced to watch celebrity sex tapes are actually just too stupid to use the Internet? And to that we say: Quiet, dumb sluts. We are very busy judging you right now.

There may have been a time, long ago in the Tommy and Pam era, when simultaneous horniness and access to technology was a novelty. And there are no doubt still many, both in the celebrity spotlight and here among the rabble, who just want to mix it up a little in the bedroom now and again. There's no shame in wanting to watch yourself blow your boyfriend, I suppose. As far as attention-getting ploys go, though, the sex tape makes going out without your underpants look downright classy.

Of course, there are exceptions. There's "no shame," we suppose, in making a videotape of yourself having sex, as long as you ensure that your last name never becomes famous, you never run for office, you never appear on television, and you never participate in any beauty pageant. There's no shame in it, as long as you never attend middle school. There's no shame, as long as you never blog about sex—just like us dumb sluts. But if visual imagery of you engaging in sex ever comes anywhere near the periphery of possible Salon blog topics—well, prepare for a thorough public shaming. It's a long, lonely road, shame: We will not also be shaming the ex who leaked the tape without your consent, nor the porn company that's profiting from it, nor the downloaders consuming "the sex tape they didn't want you to see!" The dumb sluts will have to go it alone on this one. If you're lucky, you'll be joined by people who do not wear underwear. There's a special place in hell for both of you.

As a friend pondered recently: What happened to the eroticism of imagination? Whether you're a Real Housewife or just plain folk, a transitory adventure, with no record beyond the smile you just can't wipe off whenever you remember it, can be pretty goddamn awesome. And if ever there were a moment to stop self-promoting, to worry less about how cool this looks and more about how nice it feels, that'd be while you're doing it.

And where would a good round dumb-slut-shaming be without an Andy Rooney moment to cap it off? Sex was just better in the good old days, before some dumb slut got her hands on a video camera. Of course, there's always the possibility that you dumb sluts aren't videotaping  yourself each and every time you have sex, that you're not all ignorant to the peculiar pleasures of sex with the lens cap on, and that you're actually quite aware of how nice sex feels. If so . . . Well. It looks like you're even sluttier than we thought.

Photo via makelessnoise, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Have you always wanted your very own pornographic video store, located in a strip-mall off the highway and marked only as "VIDEO"? How about if that porn store came with a fridge? From the Craigslist ad:

Adult video store 1200 Sq Ft with huge inventory, around 15000 movies in best condition. This store stay in best location and almost 15 years. A lot of parking space.

Income $106000

Net Incone $50000

. . . I sale this store because I must move to New York as son as posible.

The store, located at 11108 Lee Hwy in Fairfax, Va., is listed as "Goatar Inc." The owner is asking for $39,000—"or we can talk about it." Also available: Your very own porn fridge.  "Plus I have in my store two speakers and amplifier. Plus refrigerator. Call me if you interesting."

"Think of the children" is an argument consistently used to justify adult insecurities. Hate gay marriage? Just argue that it erodes a "child's sense of innocence." Disgusted by sex workers walking the streets in "broad daylight"? Argue that a child could see them. Uncomfortable with people openly discussing alternate sexualities? A child could hear them. Explicit rock music? Think of the children.

The concern for kids here is disingenuous—"think of the children" is a convenient way for adults to protest stuff they just don't like. But let's step away from those earmuffs we've got permanently attached to our kids' ears for a moment and think about "thinking of the children." When can thinking of the children help to reveal aspects of adult society that are problematic for people of all ages?

Take, for example, the public reaction to the above video, which shows a group of young girls dancing to Beyonce's song "Single Ladies"—while imitating a very adult version of female sexuality.

Tiger Beatdown contributor Silvana has this to say of the display:

The performance has been roundly criticized, including some commenters saying that it is so bad that the adults in question shouldn’t have even allowed their daughters to participate. The way these little girls move their bodies is a surprisingly good imitation of how adult women who are performing “sexy” dance, and people DO. NOT. LIKE. THIS. Even worse, their outfits are supposedly more scandalous than the dance moves themselves. This is despite the plain that that they’re not particularly revealing and don’t show much more skin than a ballet leotard would. The discomfort isn’t because what the outfits reveal, but what they allude to. The lace, the stockings, the corset lacing on the “bodice” are, it seems, too much like what adult women wear when they are trying to evoke maximum sexiness. Doing this dance and wearing these clothes is, in our cultural estimation, firmly in the territory of not appropriate.

She concludes: "I think it’s pretty telling that when femininity is performed by non-standard actors, we either get really uncomfortable or laugh our asses off."

The general reaction to the above video is that these girls are growing up far too fast. But as Silvana points out—if we can stop thinking exclusively of the children for a moment—they're also growing up into a version of female adulthood that's marked by an absurdly hyperfeminine sexual performance. We know that little girls performing femininity is disturbing. About a decade down the road, though, this type of performance will be absolutely expected of these women, as Beyonce's latest video helps to reveal:

[youtube:v=FKqIgqJEH-o]

Kids are our second chances. They give us an opportunity to reassess what is means to be a man or a woman, and to try to change the bad parts before it's too late. It's not fair to focus our cultural insecurities on our kids, but it is easier. Let's take another example: Makeup. Last month, Douglas Quenqua delivered a New York Times trend piece on pre-teen makeup use:

It began for Alyssa Pometta, as these habits so often do, with the soft stuff. We are talking, of course, about lip gloss.

She began wearing it in fourth grade—Bonne Bell’s Lip Smackers, a girl’s rite of passage—after years of wearing ChapStick and pretending it was Revlon. But the thrill of flavored lip gloss was fleeting, and in January, 11-year-old Alyssa asked her mother, Phyllis Pometta, if she could graduate to the hard stuff: lipstick, eyeliner and mascara.

When the piece dropped, Salon's Margaret Eby accused the Gray Lady of "hand-wringing" and alarmism, writing:

The idea that painting your face leads to wanton acts of harlotry is downright Victorian. . . . The most popular birthday party activity for my fifth-grade class was visiting Priscilla's Beauty School, where I would inevitably come out with crimped hair and electric blue eyeshadow, looking like some sort of miniature '80s-inspired clown. Did I then fall down the slippery slope to TV-anchor levels of makeup? Not exactly."

Eby has accused Quenqua of Thinking of the Children in the most disingenuous way.  But if you read Quenqua's piece, he never intimates that experimenting with eyeliner will send girls down the road to olde-tyme prostitution. He doesn't say that Bonne Bell is a gateway drug to whorishness, or even to clownishness. When Eby sarcastically accuses Quenqua of a "slippery slope" argument, she misses the point, which is: When girls start wearing makeup, they will keep wearing makeup-–probably for the rest of their lives.

Of course, young girls don't deserve any extra scrutiny for applying concealers and colors to their faces—most women do this, and tweens don't need more eyes focusing on the way they look. Nevertheless, focusing on the cosmetic industry's point of entry—for American girls, around the tweens—is still a convenient way for us to reassess the expectation that women of all ages paint their faces. When girls stumble into the awkward tween years, they're introduced to a world of extreme body consciousness, vanity, and yes, beauty industry allegiance.

The point of entry is also the point when women's makeup use is at its most visible. When girls go from plain-faced to painted, we notice the change. Just as some sexy lingerie on a 7-year-old girl will show you immediately how ridiculous sexy lingerie is, a young girl with a full face of makeup can really make you think about lipstick, and why we put it on. One parent Quenqua interviewed said that makeup makes her daughter "look too old. It immediately ages her." But it's not just that tweens are entering the adult world of makeup application; it's also that they're not terribly good at it yet. They may be inexperienced in matching colors, blending blushes, or applying eyeliner without poking their eyes out. They may, like Eby did, emerge from a slumber party "looking like some sort of miniature '80s-inspired clown."

In short, girls are not very good at doing what adult women are trained expertly to do: Applying makeup, and then immediately obscuring the fact that they are wearing makeup at all. This is where Eby's critique really falls apart. For her, problematic makeup—the kind of makeup parents might really be concerned about—comes down to a question of gaudiness. Teenage makeup use is only a potential problem if it encourages women to perpetually paint their faces like olde-tyme harlots, or clowns, or TV anchors. Actually, the biggest danger of becoming a life-long consumer of the cosmetics industry is that women will learn to hide their beauty industry investment at all costs, to refuse to tip their hand and reveal that it's all an act.

When young women engage in overt feminine performance, we think of the children, but deep down, we're thinking about women, too. As these girls enter into adulthood, how do we deal with our discomfort at the version of womanhood they're taking on? We tell them to keep performing femininity, but by God, to just keep it to themselves. Makeup is to be worn "naturally," never garishly; sex is something to perform for men behind closed doors, never to be spoken aloud; plastic surgery is tacky, unless it's good plastic surgery, which is still better than looking old; extreme diets are to be kept private, in favor of of "I just keep in shape by running after my kids"; and feminine performance is in all cases an entirely personal choice, never a culturally-informed one. When we Think of the Children, we're not disturbed that girls are beginning to adopt feminine performance—we want them to do that. We're disturbed because they've forced us to to notice how ridiculous it is.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, ever the crusader against contraceptive misconceptions, has launched a new website dedicated to debunking one particularly absurd myth: havesexstandingup.com. In a report [PDF] released last year, the NCPTUP reported that eighteen percent of men believe that they can reduce the chance of pregnancy by doing it standing up. Havesexstandingup.com—and its corresponding faux-PSA (above)—hopes to convince men to stand up and fuck, with a condom on this time. The campaign's corresponding music video (after the jump) gets dangerously deep into the "have sex standing up!" message before being like, "but seriously, wear a condom because that shit DOES NOT STOP BABIES."

[youtube:v=18MOrVNSFFE]

Ever catch an arial view of Greenbelt, Md., and think, "penis in vagina"? Now, you're not alone! Sex map shot via Jess.

* Christopher Hitchens: Ex-gay, kind of! In his forthcoming memoir, the writer who does not think this is very funny refers to his continued sexual relations with men—past his regular gay dalliances at boarding school—as a "relapse":

''Every now and then, even though I was by then fixed on the pursuit of young women, a mild and mildly enjoyable relapse would occur and I suppose that I can 'claim' this ... of two young men who later became members of Margaret Thatcher's government. For this very reason I can't really give any more names.''

* In related news: Noted ex-gay activist goes wild with male prostitute on European vacation; claims he hired the guy to "lift luggage." Indeed!

* Hey Epiphora on the bizarre world of masturbation infocenter HealthyStrokes.com:

I’ll give this guy a couple ounces of credit—he is generally okay with young people masturbating, and he didn’t laugh at a girl who said she gets turned on by the cries of babies. But his views on female masturbation (derived, clearly, from absolutely nothing legitimate) are so fucked up, so irritating, and so detrimental, that I want to punch him in the face.

* Geek feminists: check out Geek Feminism's recently-completed "Ask A Geek Feminist" Q-and-A series and find out how to be "an ally to an OMG hot girl!1!!!!" and address tokenism in everyday life.

*Andrea Grimes of Heartless Doll asks if you can forget how to have sex.

* Congratulate From Austin to A&M on graduating to a level of feminist blogging where assholes come onto her blog and accuse her of being sexist for calling out other people for being sexist. Every feminist blogger experiences this special milestone!

Photo via George Eastman House

On Monday, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown will speak at Harvard's "Rethinking Virginity" conference, a summit on the state of sexual purity.

But before she Rethinks virginity, Sady must first Think it! Accordingly, I have volunteered to help Sady pop the proverbial cherry of Virginity Thinkin', a rite of passage every ladyblogger must endure, and which readers of this blog must endure as well!  It is awkward! It is sometimes painful! And it goes on far too long! In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady and I as we recall That Time It Almost Went In, mourn the loss of the Precious Treasures, and devolve into a fit of terrible sexual puns.

SADY: LADY! I think it is time for me to lose my Having This Particular Chat Virginity! As opposed to my Oral Sex (Receiving) Virginity, my Oral Sex (Delivering) Virginity, my Various Other Stuff Virginity, and my Virginity Virginity. All of which are gone already. I HAVE SQUANDERED MY PRECIOUS TREASURE!

AMANDA: Oh wonderful! Well I'm personally excited to commence Rethinking Virginity ... out of existence! For it has never really worked for me.

SADY: Oh, no? Please do detail the manner in which it failed to work!

AMANDA: "Failed to work" may actually be the operative term here? Because if someone were to ask me When I Lost My Virginity, they would then be subjected to a series of stories about Those Times It Almost Went In, But Didn't. I tried REALLY HARD to lose my virginity! I was like, Out, Out, Damned Virginity! But it just ... it just didn't work. Physically. For a long time. And now I don't fucking know/remember when it happened. It was late.

SADY: Right. The definitive moment at which you become an Anti-Virgin is hard to peg! In fact! And, honestly, gives too much credit to the first person to definitively Stick It In. Like, it's not like no-one has visited these territories before! Those dudes are like Christopher Columbus. They, like, Claim This Land for Spain, but fail to notice all the people who were already there. Uh. Sort of.

AMANDA: RIGHT. (?) And everyone pretends it's this really objective moment that's defined from the outside, but I've found for most people you just have to Decide when it is, and pretend that that time syncs up with whatever everyone else is talking about. I count myself as lucky to not have a very intimate relationship with Virginity and Non-Virginity, though. Fuck that noise.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I myself was at one point one of those girls who went around telling everybody that I was totally not going to sex it up until I met the dude I was going to marry. And people would laugh at me, and I would be like, "WHY MUST YOU DEVALUE MY MORAL CHOICES?" But then something magical happened, which was that I went to college. And there were like three dudes with whom it could very plausibly have happened, and I was just so tired of trying to figure out which one was going to be my husband (HINT: None) that I had sex with the WORST ONE just to get it over with. Which is also not a choice I recommend!

AMANDA: Haha! STRATEGY. I waited a long time to (try) to have sex, and it wasn't for some sort of sense of morality. I was never surrounded by any religious influences or anything like that growing up. But I did feel really, really, really, really uncomfortable with the idea of having sex, and a lot of that had to do with stuff imposed on me on the outside about how sex was bad. Like I was worried about getting AIDS if my boyfriend's penis got too close to me.

SADY: Yeah. That is also part of it. Like, there are so many risks to sex — AIDS, all the other terrifying illnesses, etc — that delaying sex can feel, really, like the best of all possible options. And also, there are other risks of sex If You Are A Lady, which include: Getting Knocked Up (I would basically consider this to be a terrible illness, in my current circumstance) and Getting Called a Slut. But here is the magic thing: All of these things can happen to you EVEN if you are not a virgin! And I feel like the emphasis on virginity, or the lack thereof, encourages everyone to place the emphasis on this ONE sexual encounter, your FIRST (and hopefully not last), instead of being like: Sex! You're going to be doing this eventually! Here's a realistic risk evaluation!

AMANDA: Exactly. And the emphasis on virginity didn't really help what I was going through either. The message was, "Don't have sex! And if you do, just wear a condom!" Which didn't speak to any of the issues I had with sex, or how to decide how to do it and when and with whom and why. Like, I am very much anti-abstinence-only education – and in high school, having sex was NOT going to be a productive option for me, in the place that I was. I was a VIRGIN and wanted to stay one, for a while. And still the emphasis on the virginity stuff really did not help me.

SADY: Right! And, like, a while ago, there was this headline all over the place, which was "Abstinence Only Education: Totally Works!" And what it actually WORKED at, apparently, was delaying vagina-to-weiner intercourse for a few years among the preteens. Good job! But also, this magically effective abstinence-only education program taught abstinence this way: Don't have sex until you are totally comfortable with having sex and know how to make good sexual decisions for you. This program that worked? NOT TEACHING ABSTINENCE, actually. What it was teaching was SEXUAL CONSENT. Like, "Hey, when you decide to have sex, your decision should probably be full and informed!" Uh, OK. But feminists have been teaching this for approximately FOREVER? I guess we never thought to call it "abstinence." I guess that's why we don't get the credit for our revolutionary sex-education technology!

AMANDA: Exactly. SEX ED EDUCATORS: PLEASE TEACH CONSENT. Because honestly, I've been having sex for a while now, and it took me a long time to be "totally comfortable" with it. A lot of that had to do with body-image stuff and all the connotations that went along with not being a virgin anymore, and so being a slut, but some of it had to do with people not respecting my right to make decisions about when I have sex and when I don't.

SADY: Right. I mean, I think my thing is: My first few sex experiences were kind of HORRIBLE, which I think had a lot to do with choosing the worst of all possible contenders so that I wouldn't have to think about being a virgin or not being a virgin any more. Because when I say "the worst," I mean we were at TWILIGHT LEVELS OF AWFUL. But also, I think they would have been awful anyway, because I had been taught "don't have sex," and I had been taught about the importance of putting a little rubber outfit on his apparatus if I ever DID have sex. But what I had NEVER been taught, apparently, was how to respect what I wanted, and to ask for it, and how to say "no" if I did NOT want something he wanted. I mean, I didn't even know how to say "ow" or "yikes." My impression was that one could Have Sex or Not Have Sex, and so my first few experiences were like, "oh, so apparently sex is AWFUL? It seems weird that people are so into it! But, OK! I am Having Sex!"

AMANDA: EXACTLY. GOD. I very much had the experience of something like, happening to me—-"Having" "Sex"—not participating or enjoying something, but like, enduring it. And part of that was necessary to come to a time when I would figure out how to like it, and assert myself, and that stuff. But surely, we can do better about the way we talk about things and prepare people for them, and how to know when Bad Sex is not bad sex and when it's Rape. We don't do enough of that.

SADY: Right. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about before, which is: Sex being defined as this very heterosexual experience of having a Penile Apparatus stuck into our Vaginal Apparatus in an Act That Could Potentially Produce Offspring (if you don't make his weiner wear an outfit, or whatever). Like, OK: There are a lot of things that are pretty darn sexual, which this description of Sex does not cover! And I am struggling to say this without sounding like some kind of creepy Tantric sex instructor, but: If you're like, "OK. So somebody is going to stick that into the other thing, and then you will Have Had Sex," you're missing out on (a) much of what makes sex fun or enjoyable, (b) much of the potential complications, and (c) the fact that sex, ideally, should not be some sort of terrifying Bene Gesserit test of fortitude? Like, that thing where they stick Kyle McLachlan's hand in the box and are like, "WITHSTAND THE PAIN OR DIE" so he can't take his hand out or the space nun will kill him instantly: Sex should, ideally, have little or nothing in common with this experience. Why can't we all just enjoy ourselves? By, like, respecting what feels good and what doesn't?

AMANDA: Right! And I'll add that making the definition of "sex" "Penile Apparatus stuck into our Vaginal Apparatus in an Act That Could Potentially Produce Offspring" also includes "rape" as a thing that is "sex," and so perhaps we should move toward a definition that includes shit that people want to do, and also expels the word Virginity from existence, because it doesn't mean anything and it's stupid.

SADY: RIGHT? Okay, so: Here's another reason why making "virginity" important is scary. There was, some time ago, an Ohio-based abstinence education group, and they had this little online "game" for students. This game, it was kind of a downer! In that it was about deciding whether a lady had been raped or not! So, lady SAYS she's raped. And, as we all know, rape accusations are totally fun to make for kicks! So you have to evaluate the testimonies of the people she knows, about her character. And one of them — A GIRL CHARACTER! IN THE GAME! I BELIEVE! — mentions that she's had sex before, and is thus probably a liar. Guess which conclusion you are supposed to draw?

AMANDA: UM. That she's a liar?

SADY: YES. Like, the idea that you can either want NONE of the penises or ALL of the penises: That is an idea that is taught! By "education" "groups!" They had to take the game down. But we can't take it out of the equation, when we look at the cultural ideals around virginity.

AMANDA: Well I know that there's a direct correlation between how much sex I'm having and how much I lie about everything!

SADY: LIAR. I mean, I would classify several of my experiences, especially early experiences, in the "consensual but not okay" zone of sexual activity. Not to make this a big downer of a chat. But, the idea of Sex or Not Sex means that sometimes you don't say "no" because you don't totally have it in your mind that you CAN say "no," because you don't have any idea in your mind that Sex is not just one big package that you are either OK or not OK with. So, like: You go along with it, and you even say “yes,” so there is consent although it's not enthusiastic, but that is in large part because Boundaries are not really a part of the understanding you have of Sex. Or maybe that is just me! Maybe I am just a people-pleaser! But I don't think I am! Because I please very few people, really, on a daily basis.

AMANDA: Yeah, well, you either want to Have Sex (slut) or you want to Not Have Sex (virgin), and so if you decide to have sex, then—"SEX"! Sometimes, you don't really know all the possibilities of what that could mean, but you do know that you've consented to It, Sex, and that's as far as the conversation goes.

SADY: Right. And I think a lot of girls struggle with it. Like: My frequent yelling about slut-shaming and my frequent yelling about rape culture are actually the same yelling. Because the devaluation of female sexuality devalues female pleasure which in turn devalues your ability to say, "I don't like this, but I do like something else, can we do that instead?"

AMANDA: And some people who have had sex many, many times, when confronted with the opportunity to pass judgment in a rape case, still believe that. Even though it's plainly obvious that sex is not all or nothing.

SADY: Right. Exactly. That's where it gets really kind of scary. And, I mean, if I look at my various virginities: Every time you do something new for the first time, you are basically a virgin at it. You have no idea how anything works and you are probably kind of bad at it and you just sort of muddle through. Like this chat! Which for some reason I am terrible at expressing any ideas within!

AMANDA: We are virgins at rethinking virginity! It's OK! But now we're rethinking virginity sluts. And there was much rejoicing.

SADY: Yes. Next time I do this, hopefully I will know more about what is happening, and be able to contribute! Or something!

AMANDA: Instead of being like, Ow! You are inserting your opinions into mine quite vigorously, and in a way I am unprepared to respond to! Can we try this on e-mail!

SADY: I am just sort of lying here. I am like, "okay, you take it from here, I'm just going to scope out the whole operation." I didn't mean for this to end in a really inappropriate sex metaphor between two heterosexual ladies with dudepartners, Amanda. IT IS JUST PART OF THE PROCESS!

AMANDA: And I'm like, ouch, my position ... on virginity is beginning to form a cramp, in my brainparts. OK! I have finished! After dragging this on for far too long, after you have grown bored with it!

SADY: Yeah. I think we're done. And now, to go on and have Rethinking Virginity Chats... WITH MANY OTHERS! Truly, after doing this one-on-one, the only other option is to do it with four other people. Simultaneously! In public! And possibly on film! THEY WERE RIGHT! THEY WERE RIGHT ABOUT THE ABSTINENCE! THE DAM HAS BROKEN, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK NOW.

Photo via MRBECK, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This week in college sex columns: The University of Mary Washington tells students to fuck finals, and just fuck; Georgetown University explains WTF a "Zombie Fling" is, and why it should be avoided; Jaclyn Friedman administers a beatdown to misogynist college columnists.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON tells you to fuck finals:

Sex Tip: In this edition of The Bullet sex column Sexclamations, Erin Hill advises students to take sexual study breaks to relieve stress: "Although it will consume a bit of your study time, making love to your partner and enjoying his or her presence will boost your mood and help you get a better grip on stress and other activities related to it. You may not find yourself 'in the mood,' but spending time with your partner and getting a few sessions in the sack can ultimately be extremely rewarding and beneficial to you and your partner’s well being."

Life Lesson: You don't have to take your clothes off: "simply holding hands can alleviate stress," Hill writes. Students without hands to hold can also "look at some LOLcats and have a few giggles," or masturbate.

Progressive Meter: Blowing off studying to have sex? Including options for students who don't want to have sex, and those who want to have sex with themselves? A+.

—

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY wants your relationships to feel like "an icy cool glass of lemonade on a hot July day":

Sex Tip: Hoya relationship columnist Colleen Leahey apprises her classmates of all manner of "fling" they can engage in this summer. According to Leahey, all summer flings are good ideas. Except for the "Zombie Fling," which must be avoided:

This relationship resembles a pesky bee you continuously chase around the room trying to swat, but, at the last minute, feel too bad to kill. It’s that hook-up you absolutely hate to enjoy and desperately want out, but you can’t seem to fully climb down the escape ladder. Out of all the flings, this is the only one I would suggest staying away from, for the complex feelings it typically yields are far from refreshing or exhilarating. If you find yourself with a zombie, get the strength to end things and use the summer as your rebound. There is no better time for a little recuperation than the summer months."

Life Lesson: "Like an icy cool glass of lemonade on a hot July day, the summer fling refreshes the exhausted college student’s mental and physical health."

Progressive Meter: Leahey approves of all summer relationship lengths, of from one week to three months. I'll take it.

—

SEX COLUMNIST EMERITUS and feminist superstar Jaclyn Friedman ain't in college anymore. But campus columnists of the misogynist variety would do well to heed her advice:

Sex Tip: Your faux-edgy pro-rape columns are not, in fact, edgy. "Congratulations. You have written a column encouraging dudes to rape drunk girls, and it's now earning you 15 seconds of internet fame. Well played. I hope you're making the most of your moment," Friedman writes. Unfortunately, your misogyny is boring: "don't kid yourself into thinking you're groundbreaking or even original. People have been telling women who 'misbehave' that they deserve/secretly want 'whatever happens to them' since the dawn of time."

Life Lesson: Do not write faux-edgy pro-rape columns: "please go directly to hell," Friedman concludes. "I have just as much right as any man does to go out and have a few drinks without having a violent felony perpetrated against me."

Progressive Meter: A zillion.

Photo via the Library of Virginia.

Last week, University of Virginia student Madeleine Conger pointed me to some bizarre language the university has been employing to tip-toe around the word "rape"in its student safety e-mails. "Our Chief Student Affairs Officer, Pat Lampkin, sends us these handy safety reminders before major binge drinking holidays—Halloween, Spring break, fraternity bid night," Conger writes. "This time it's Foxfield—an annual horse race in the area that students use as a day to get devastatingly drunk in an open field.  It's also the site of some of the infamous Tucker Max's sexual exploits."

Let's see how Lampkin warns UVA students of the danger of a drunken a horse race:

If you are intoxicated, your impaired judgment places you at a much greater risk for the following: injuries; sexual activity that is later regretted or deemed to have lacked consent; or a police citation. Plan not to drink or set a drink limit for yourself and stick to it.

Tell us what you really mean, UVA. Observe the entirely passive nature of this "sexual activity that is later regretted or deemed to have lacked consent." Sexual activity can be "regretted" by someone, but only "later." Similarly, non-consensual sexual activity isn't something that actually occurs when the "sex" happens—but it can be later "deemed" that way. Here, responsibility is administered evenly to both sexual partners—the one who "regrets" it, and the one who is accused of rape because of it.

At best, it seems that Lampkin is warning students against having bad sex and inspiring false rape accusations—an odd set of priorities for a campus security expert to focus on, no? I have an e-mail out to Lampkin, asking if what she really meant to warn students of was "rape." I'll update you when I hear back.

Photo via Tambako the Jaguar, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This weekend, "America's officially ranked number 1 pick up artist" Adam Lyons is coming to Washington, D.C., where he will be "teaching the secrets of attraction to 15 dateless men who have each paid $1300." Here's my dating secret: Not being one of 15 people who would burn $1,300 on this. But what do I know? I've never had "14 simultaneous relationships with models, actresses and other beautiful women." From the press release:

A former school geek who was voted by his classmates as "least likely to get a girlfriend" when he was 15 has been officially ranked the Number 1 pick up artist (PUA) in America! Even better, Adam Lyons, a published author and international commentator on dating, is in WASHINGTON D.C this weekend.

Adam Lyons was given the award at the official World Pick Up Summit in Hollywood, California at the end of last year. The summit is held every year and brings together the world's best dating coaches and pick up artists from across the globe. Adam even beat Mystery, the formerly ranked number one PUA, whose exploits were chronicled in the 2005 New York Times bestseller The Game.

At the peak of Adam’s playboy lifestyle he was a renowned club promoter bringing 80-100 girls to clubs each week and having 14 simultaneous relationships with models, actresses and other beautiful women. Adam married his girlfriend, a strong Christian who goes to church every week, in August 2009 after deciding his lifestyle was no longer making him happy.

So, Lyons let down 13 lovely ladies and married his currently-active-Christian wife in August, "after deciding his lifestyle was no longer making him happy."  He was named the Number 1 Pick-Up Artist in America later that year . . . after denouncing the lifestyle and getting hitched? What kind of World Pick Up Summit is this? According to the Web site, last year's summit theme was "TRANSITIONING TO SEX!," and everyone was really excited about it because of its close proximity to shopping. "And guess what???" the Web site reads. "It takes place in the world's best place to meet the hottest babes!!! The Renaissance Hotel is located in the heart of Hollywood IN A MALL!!!" Is there any better place to transition to sex? If you're still interested in dropping $1,300, have at it.

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of automatically capitulating to the boner pressing against your back?

This week in college sex columns, it's all about George Washington University student newspaper The Hatchet's sex issue. Weeee! In this edition of University Sex Columns, find out why "GW is the total opposite of Afghanistan"; how college kids can delay sex by "looking at the stars"; what to do when your number one hook-up falls for an Ed Hardy guy.

* On students who abstain from sex:

Sex Tip: We don't have to take our clothes off: "When she is out on dates, senior Ogechi Ajaegbu is bubbly and enthusiastic, admired for her eager personality and kind attitude. Some of her favorite activities with prospective boyfriends, she says, include chatting, going to dinner, walking around, and looking at the stars . . . But when the evening comes to an end, she and her date say goodnight and part ways—without a kiss and without spending the night."

Life Lesson: "Sex has a procreative function, it's the greatest form of love that two people can experience," Junior Andrew Buonopane told the paper. "In our society, sex has been used to express either lesser love, temporary affectionate feelings or a means to an end, a way to just feel good."

Progressive Meter: I'm glad the Hatchet is giving some face time to students who think about and experience sex and relationship differently than many of their peers. It would have been nice, however, to hear a bit from an opposing viewpoint, particularly when the students interviewed explicitly claim that their peers are having bad sexual experiences:  "[Leticia] Tientcheu said she chose not to have sex at a younger age when her peers were getting pregnant or contracting sexually transmitted diseases—even when they attempted to protect themselves. She said she is happy not to be in the positions some of her friends have found themselves in."

—

* On bad sex, from a female perspective:

Sex Tip: Veteran G.W. sex columnist Layla talks about making lemonade out of midnight boners. "I couldn't help but internally groan when I woke up to [my pseudonymous sex partner] the Energizer Bunny's erection pressed against my back," she writes. "Deciding against my better judgment, I gave him a second go-around. After all, practice does make perfect, right?"

Life Lesson: Never listen to Cosmo. "The Energizer Bunny killed the mood from the start, excitedly pouring so much lube out of the bottle that I felt like I had just gone swimming in a bed of oil, wax and sweat. And if you've never tried such ridiculous positions featured in the magazine Cosmopolitan—such as the 'Passion Pretzel' or the 'Torrid Triangle'—then keep it that way," she writes. "I didn't think people actually took the magazine seriously, but the Energizer Bunny did, wanting to show off his knowledge of every move possible, a few of which had to be fictional."

Progressive Meter: I'm sad that someone who seems as sex-positive as Layla would feel the obligation to satisfy that boner. So when talking about really terrible sex, it can also be helpful to discuss some exit strategies. Layla, who writes that she's no longer hooking up with the Bunny, almost gets there. "[E]ven though I consider myself a professional when it comes to escaping awkward situations, I struggled to make up an excuse to leave in the middle of the disastrous sex I was experiencing," she writes. "Especially before sunrise."

—

* On bad sex, from a male perspective:

Sex Tip: In its Sex Issue, the Hatchet debuted a new male sex columnist who goes by the pseudonym "Mr. Jones." Jones' idea of terrible sex isn't navigating a surfeit of lube in the boudoir. Nope, Jones is more concerned about how terrible it is when one of his many casual hook-ups decides to hook up with someone else. "Last semester I was fortunate enough to be presented with a number of sexual opportunities," he writes. "Throughout my escapades it never occurred to me that the girls on my booty call list could be using me as well, that the girl I call Number One might have a list of her own."

Life Lesson: Girls you have sex with have inner lives! "I had been thinking of girls like On-Demand television—there when I wanted them and otherwise just waiting around for me to call," he says. "But that is simply not the case, as I found out all too well."

Progressive Meter: In Mr. Jones' conclusion, he writes: "In the end, when it comes to potential hook-up situations, girls have just as much control as boys. They are not sitting at home waiting for a call. . . . So do yourself a favor and talk to your potential partner. You don't have to put a ring on her finger, but you do have to communicate." I'm all about communication, but I'm not sure that just talking this out would have solved Jonesey's underlying problem here. How is that conversation going to go: "I'm having sex with tons of women, all of whom I expect to be waiting around to exclusively service my dick. I hope you understand"?

—

* On G.W.'s on-campus sex resources:

Sex Tip: This item is chock-full of tips on how to take advantage of G.W.'s official resources for sexual health, sexual assault, and student counseling services. Hot tip: "[Student Health Services] annually offers testing for sexually transmitted infections in the Marvin Center and also provides testing at its offices by appointment."

Life Lesson: The more you know.

Progressive Meter: It's wonderful to make students aware of the resources available to them on campus, but I wish the Hatchet would be clearer on how students can contact these resources. I also wish the paper would take a critical eye to how G.W. could make its services better, or speak to students who have attempted to navigate these systems; this reads like a love letter to a school that could actually use a lot of work in supporting its LGBT communities and sexual assault survivors.

—

* On the sex politics culture shock experienced by some of G.W.'s foreign students:

Sex Tip: Different strokes: "With scantily clad men and women on television and couples engaging in public displays of affection in plain sight, the sex culture at Western colleges and universities can challenge the beliefs of international students."

Life Lesson: "GW is the total opposite of Afghanistan," GW student Faisal Rahimi told the paper.

Progressive Meter: I love that the Hatchet is looking at sex and sexuality on campus through different cultural lenses; I just wish there were even more lenses presented here. It would have been interesting to get the perspective of some foreign students who found the sexual culture in the United Sex to actually be more repressive than what they're accustomed to, for example.

Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida.

Last month, the Reliable Source unveiled its NCAA-style "Gossip Tournament." Making the final 32 was Marijuana Policy Project executive director Rob Kampia, who was a gossip force to be reckoned with in 2010. Reports surfaced early this year that several MPP staffers had quit over Kampia's sexually inappropriate behavior and comments, including taking a subordinate to his home after a work happy hour, inspiring her resignation; instructing his scheduler to make an appointment for himself and "bone-girl"; repeatedly informing a subordinate of his intentions to perform "a breast massage" on another woman; and allegedly telling a subordinate that she would look "hotter with a boob job."

For this, Kampia has qualified in the tournament's "HOT STUFF" category, where he faced off with Peter Orszag in what the Reliable Source called "The Player's Playoff." Let's see: On the one hand, we've got a politico-about-town who had a child out of wedlock; on the other, a guy accused of driving out large portion of his staff over charges of sexual misconduct in the workplace. Hmm . . . Hot or not?

The video for Erykah Badu's latest single, "Window Seat," is a stunning recrimination of the policing and exploitation of black women's bodies in America. Hey, what a great opportunity to sell a bikini wax!

In the video, Badu walks through the city of Dallas, removing her clothes piece by piece as she passes the city's confused, gawking tourists. Badu's stage is not far from the site of the JFK assassination; the video is shot in the faded colors of the Zapruder film. After she strips down to naked skin—with only blurring pixelation covering her breasts, genitals, and eyes—Badu falls to the ground, and a blue substance reading "GROUPTHINK" oozes from her head.

District beauty salon D'Brows, which offers eyebrow design, eyelash extensions, and a $68 Brazilian bikini wax, decided to capitalize off of the buzz around Badu's video with a promotional press release. "Erykah Badu must have read this before shooting this video," the release said. "Erykah Badu has the confidence that comes with a good waxing and so can you. . . .  Watch this Erykah Badu video [VIDEO] and then arrange your waxing at D'Brows today!!"

A few thoughts:

(a) How could Badu have read this e-mail before shooting her video? This e-mail is about her video.

(b) Since Badu's genitals are obscured by pixels in the video, you really can't tell what's going on down there.

(c) To my knowledge, Badu hasn't delivered her opinions on genital waxing, but she has said this: "I love my natural hair, I love my skin the way it is, I love my breasts the way they are . . . I don't want to be augmented in any way."

(d) Badu hasn't said much about the intent of her video, beyond clarifying that JFK "was one of my heroes, one of the nations heroes . . . He was not afraid to butt heads with America, and I was not afraid to show America my butt-naked truth." But I'll go out on a limb here and say that Badu's message has little to do with razing your pubic mound in order to achieve a socially acceptable vulva, and more to do with defying a social order that exploits black women's bodies as dangerously sexual. Badu's point was confirmed when Dallas police stuck her with a charge of disorderly conduct for performing the shoot in public. John Cheney-Lippold, writing on the differing cultural responses to Badu's video and the similar Matt & Kim video on which "Window Seat" was based, notes that Badu's strip was seen as a disturbing erotic display, while Matt and Kim's disrobing in Times Square was regarded as a childlike and lighthearted stunt:

So is it that our society still reads sexuality through blackness, providing an eroticization of Badu that Matt and Kim’s video doesn’t have? (Yes). Is it that two scrawny naked white musicians can appear to us as childish in Times Square, while one naked black musician can appear dangerous and disorderly in Dallas, Texas? (Yes). And is it that race still matters in our society—that we should constantly think not just of how we personally understand race and racism but how race itself is constructed to mean things other than a group of people with a certain skin color? (Of course). Here’s to hoping Badu fights the disorderly conduct charge.

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(e) In an unrelated note, Wanda Sykes is hilarious:

[youtube:v=mdV80sOdZHg]

Last year, a feminine hygiene company found that 50 percent of British women surveyed prefer having sex while drunk. And 6 percent of respondents have exclusively had sex while drunk. The armchair psychoanalysis employed to interpret these results didn't determine whether women actually enjoy drunk sex better than sober sex, or whether getting drunk simply helped to facilitate the sex even happening. Do women get drunk to have better sex or to feel better about having sex? Enter Pop singer Kiely Williams, who is leading the charge in heralding the erotic benefits of blackout intercourse.

A music video has emerged for Williams' ode to extremely memorable sex you won't remember the next day, "Spectacular." (Thanks to commenter KiaJD for the tip). Behold, the eroticization of the drunk girl!

In "Spectacular," Williams sings:

Last I remember I was face down
Ass up, clothes off, broke off, dozed off
Even though I’m not sure of his name
He could get it again if he wanted
Cause the sex was spectacular
The sex was spectacular
The sex was spectacular
The sex was spectacular

In the video, Williams is ass up, clothes off and very much awake as she performs a sexy and fully enthusiastic dance to lyrics about her being asleep while a man she doesn't know has (spectacular) sex with her. In the dance sequence, Williams expresses how being a passed-out recipient of "sex" made her feel—she felt sexy, confident, daring, and in control. Our drunk-sex researchers chalked up a woman's preference for intoxicated sex to body issues. Williams, apparently, just thinks it's hot.

Like it or not, the image of the "drunk girl" occupies an interesting space in popular culture. She's part wild girl, a sexually adventurous young woman in a shy girl's body, who just needs a bit of liquid courage to silence her inhibitions and access her sexual side. She's part Asking For It, an easy target for sexual coercion and rape who deserves to be punished for letting her guard down. Now, she's a fetish, too. The soft-core exhibitionism of Girls Gone Wild has made way for a genre of porn, targeted at heterosexual men, which mines the erotic potential of incoherently drunk women who are alternately sexually aggressive or asleep (Google "drunk sex" to find out what I'm talking about). There is also, of course, the works of Jamie Foxx.

Given Williams' girl power group audience, it looks like the sexiness of passing out is now being sold directly to women, and not to their sex partners. To me, "Spectacular" is the ultimate achievement in projecting a man's desire onto a woman's sexuality. Williams' "spectacular" sex is so centered on her partner's pleasure that she doesn't even inconvenience him by staying awake for it—and when she wakes up, she reassures him that it was the best sex she's ever had. Then again, I suppose Girls Gone Wild set the bar pretty low when it convinced drunk women to provide masturbatory material for thousands of subscribers in exchange for a free hat.

In this edition of Reader Beatdown, Sexist reader and sex activist Martin Quinones talks about how to come out—to law school admissions officers.

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I was recently presented with the chance to come out in a way that was risky, honest, and productive. On law school applications, every school asks for a broad personal statement, using a prompt along the lines of "tell us something about yourself." I decided to dump every egg at my disposal into one basket. Since December, the essay below has been read by my parents, most of my friends, and the admissions committees at thirteen top-ranked law schools:

To come out fully, in my case, requires three separate disclosures, each as potentially confusing and alienating as the last. I share them now for reasons that are political as well as personal: I am pansexual. When I say this I mean that I seek physical and emotional partnerships with people of all genders, including men, women, and transgender individuals. I am polyamorous. By this I mean that I see monogamy as one among many stable ways in which people are capable of forming romantic and familial bonds. I mean also that I find joy in my partners’ joy, including when that joy comes through companions and lovers other than myself. Lastly, I am a member of the BDSM community. When I say this I mean that I find fulfillment in consensual relationships and sensations that are not always soft and fuzzy, but can indeed be painful and challenging. Taken together, these three facts mean that I have found love and fulfillment in a wide spectrum of relationships and with a variety of people, and that this diversity of partners figures importantly into my identity.

They mean also that I inhabit a small, overlapping sliver of three poorly understood, largely invisible, and utterly unprotected sexual minorities. I am acutely aware that to share these details about myself represents a risk both personal and professional, and in some cases legal. But one reason I have chosen to out myself is to help legitimize my identity, and the identities of those I care about. It is my great hope that taking this risk openly and often will yield benefits both for me and for all those minorities who seek public recognition.

I am an activist, but I am no partisan, no bloodthirsty separatist. Instead of engaging intolerance and divisiveness, I have invested my energy in positively increasing the visibility of diverse sexual identities and normalizing the discussion of sexuality in my immediate environment. This is why I co-founded the Male Sexuality Workshop at Brown University, and for three years took the lead role in designing its curriculum and organizing its activities, affecting more than two hundred and fifty alumni of the program. It is also why I wrote a weekly sex advice and sexuality column for Brown’s student newspaper, why I currently work at Planned Parenthood, and why I have volunteered with the Boston chapter of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism over the past year. Most importantly, it is why I am applying to law school.

The communities I hope to support are at best underserved, at worst the victims of fierce and unchallenged discrimination. How best to contribute to their advancement, whether through labor or constitutional law, family or criminal law, is not crystal clear, and I will allow exposure and passion to guide as I move further into my career. But the larger society can and will come to a better understanding of the diversity of sexuality and gender expression it contains, and in the slow crawl toward that understanding, the first and most profoundly personal step I can take is to state unabashedly who I am: to come out.

The admissions committees, as expected, responded with months of stony, bureaucratic silence. Every school processed applications on a rolling basis, with the promise to "endeavour to have all admissions decisions returned by late April." As the waiting drew on from December into January into February, existential panic replaced the more reasonable anxiety of the wait, and each day felt like a confirmation that I had made a bad decision. I was sure I had reached too far, I had been too polarizing. I would have to settle for a school that I had no interest in, and that had no resources for someone interested in gender, let alone sexual freedom. My career was poisoned, and I hadn't even found it yet.

Finally, agonizingly, the risk I took paid off, and I was accepted for admission at the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law. To date, this is the only school I have been admitted to, a fact more reflective of how many reach schools I applied to than how my essay was received. But even if I am rejected everywhere else, a superb legal education is in my future, along with a JD from one of the most respected schools in the country, thanks in part to my choice to come out.

Photo via The Library of Congress

When Lena Chen was a sophomore at Harvard, she started "Sex and the Ivy," a blog devoted to something that most college students do, but few are willing to talk about. On her sex blog, Chen unapologetically aired every taboo of a college student's sex life, from recovering from an eating disorder to recovering a condom from her vagina. And for that, several thousand people decided that Chen must be punished.

In 2007, when she was 19 years old, private sexual photos of Chen were planted in the comments section of Ivy League gossip blog IvyGate. From there, Chen's ex-boyfriend, her classmates at Harvard, and the greater Internet gossip world took delight in forwarding, downloading, and re-posting the images—a full-scale campaign waged to shame Chen for talking about sex. "I was never ashamed of my body or of people seeing it," Chen later wrote about the experience. "I felt victimized because I had been exposed without consent and doubly victimized by those who wrote salaciously about the incident."

Chen's legion of downloaders are on the cutting edge of public sexual harassment. The technology has changed, but the idea is the same: Find a woman who dares to have a sex life. Feel the need to exert sexual power over her. Police her by sexualizing against her will, and under your terms. On the Sexist, we've called out the inherent misogyny of publicizing something as seemingly innocent as an inadvertent "nipple slip"; at Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte has suggested that the dissemination of private sexual images (like the Carrie Prejean masturbation video) ought to be considered a form of sexual assault; around the country, similar incidents of harassment have moved girls to suicide.

Chen, now 22 and writing at the Ch!cktionary, didn't  "deserve" this because she happens to be a sex writer. But her pro-sex philosophy does help to articulate why disseminating sexualized images of women without their consent is wrong.

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SEXIST: Could you talk a little bit about how the dissemination of photos like these can be so damaging?

LENA CHEN: People don’t really understand when there’s a line being crossed. People will say to me, “But how can you object to this when you post very provocative photos of yourself?” When I was 18, I posed nude for a friend of mine, for an art class. The photos went up in a student art gallery. Classmates saw the photos. They were taken completely with my permission, and I knew exactly the context in which they were going to be used. The leaked photos were taken in private by someone I was dating at the time. I didn’t expect them to be publicly disseminated. They were never meant for public consumption. It felt like a major violation. . . . But the part that I think is really exploitative is that these photos were obviously being spread in a manner in which the goal was to shame me. I’m not ashamed of my body or of people seeing my body. But the people distributing these photos didn't do it as an empowering, ‘rah, rah’ thing. These people took private photos of me and knowingly distributed them in order to try to make me feel ashamed of myself. I want to clarify the difference.

LC: In some ways, I was better prepared for this situation because I was already writing about sex. I know that slut-shaming is wrong and I'm not ashamed of being sexual. If this were to happen to someone else—a completely private individual—it would be extremely, extremely damaging to that person’s self worth. As for me, I went from being somewhat unhappy with my campus reputation to actually having panic attacks for the first time my life. I was placed under a considerable amount of scrutiny. These are real-world consequences. When slut-shaming works—and even when it doesn’t work—you end up losing a considerable amount of trust in people. And not just the person who posted them in the first place—you can’t even count all the people who helped to spread them. . . . Maybe you can predict the crazies, but you just can’t imagine the masses of people who will step up to help them. That’s what’s disheartening. And at Harvard, it wasn’t even that bad.  I think the difference is at Harvard—it’s not so possible to be a social conservative at Harvard. So everyone would be very politically correct about it to my face.

LC: I don’t think people forget that they also have sex. I think there’s a sense of false modesty about it. You’re not supposed to talk about it; that's the real crime. Even if you do it, you’re still less of a slut than a person who talks about it. People like to maintain the façade of sexual propriety. Think about the most embarrassing things that could happen to someone, and a lot of them will involve sexual performance. There is a great deal of anxiety about sex in our culture, and no one wants to talk about it openly and honestly. Because we’re neurotic about sex. We’re curious in a morbid way. That makes for some very ripe material for controversies like mine coming up. It’s a lurid, sensational story. Who isn’t going to be drawn into that? People project their own anxieties onto me. They want to shame me for letting someone take naked photos of me, but these people are going and downloading those images from a torrent. What does that say?

LC: Harvard has 6,400 undergrads. I don't think close friends of mine Googled the photos. Casual acquaintances, maybe we were close enough to be Facebook friends—they probably did. The people who are a few social networks removed from me. It’s bizarre to me, because obviously I’m a real person, even if I don’t talk to them. They see me in the dining hall, see me around school. It’s not like I was MIA. I really didn’t remove myself from Harvard campus life until after the fact [Chen took a leave of absence from school following the incident], but at the time, I was more or less a fully engaged student there. That’s why I found it really, really disheartening—the people behind it were my peers at Harvard. And maybe they didn’t think of it as some sort of huge betrayal of my trust, but it felt like a witch-hunt and felt like mass bullying.

LC: The person with the photos—my ex, presumably—left a bunch of comments on IvyGate with links to the photographs. Someone contacted me from IvyGate and said, "Do you want to comment on this? We’re going to write a story on it." I was so completely shocked that I didn’t even question what I was being told. You have to understand how quickly this all happened. Now I think I would like to go back and say," Do you really need to have a story on this? I’m 19 years old. I don’t think I fall into the category of a public figure. Exes go crazy. Where is the news?" People who are deemed “web celebrities” are just considered fair game for attack. Why would Gawker [porn blog Fleshbot] be posting anything about me? . . . The whole system is under the impression that if something happens to you, you "asked for it." And it’s applied more often to women bloggers. For example: I hate Michelle Malkin. But if she were a dude, would anyone want to find out where she lived? Conservatives and liberals alike—if you’re a woman you’re going to have to put up with a lot more vitriol. Certainly when it comes to matters of sexual shame. The best thing for everyone to do would have been to just ignore it. . . . I heard it was one of the highest-trafficked stories IvyGate ever published.

—

Previously in Sexist interviews:

* Jaclyn Friedman on Fucking While Feminist

* Thomas MacAullay Millar on men in the feminist movement

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of sticking rhinestones up our asses? Wait, what?

This week in college sex columns: In the future, we will bedazzle our butt cracks; Why your grandmother is wrong about staying single; why sex columnists should listento their LGBT peers.

TOWSON UNIVERSITY addresses the Vajazzling epidemic.

Sex Tip: In Towson University's Towerlight, writer Chiquita Young takes on vajazzling. She is skeptical. In a story entitled "Rhinestones are a vagina's best friend," Young writes, "I saw this I would laugh and stare. Plus when the jewels start falling off the sex factor is instantly erased, because then you’ll be too busy picking loose jewels out of your panties. . . . There is nothing fashionable about putting rhinestones on your vagina."

Life Lesson: Vajazzling is a slippery slope. "[A]ll I have to say is when will the madness stop? What’s next, bedazzling our butt cracks? Bedazzled bikinis?"

Progressive Meter: Oh, you know I cannot resist. 10.

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GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY tells students to start dating already.

Sex Tip: Listen to your elders. This time around, Georgetown Hoya relationship columnist Colleen Leahey learns some relationship tips from her grandmother. Grammy, who dispenses advice while lounging in her trademark red knit suit in Palm Beach, tells a single Leahey, "Good for you, darling. There is nothing wrong with being young and single."

Life Lesson: Well, don't listen to them too much. After hearing Granny's advice to stay single, Leahey goads her classmates into pairing up. "As the weather warms and winter depression disappears, prove my Grammy wrong. Go out on a limb and ask someone out. Girls, if you are comfortable ignoring all the silly rules your mother taught you as a young girl, then ask a boy out. Just be aware they will be far less excited about seeing the pretty cherry blossoms than you," she writes. "And guys, ask your crush on a date (weekday dates are usual preferable if you are scared she’ll say no). Seriously, you have nothing to lose. For better or worse, you will have a story to tell."

Progressive Meter: Sentiment that women should take the romantic lead is swiftly followed by the claim that boys don't like flowers. So, it's kind of a wash as far as gender stereotyping is concerned.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON listens to the school's LGBT set.

Sex Tips: In this edition of The Bullet's "Sexclamations" column, Erin Hill opens up her column space for her LGBT classmates to answer the question: “What is one thing you want straight people to know about your sexuality or gender expression?” Among the responses: “Sexuality is a beautiful thing, and essentially, it is about falling in love. Bisexuality just means you can fall in love with twice the people.” “Lesbians aren’t just flannel-wearing butch women. Lesbians are a community of diverse women who have a variety of interests, appearances, gender expressions and ways of loving.” "I am not a ‘label’… no matter how you describe me, it doesn’t encompass all that I am."

Life Lesson: Above all, Hill's column provides a lesson for sex columnists everywhere: Write outside your own experience.

Progressive Meter: Another 10!

Photo via Oregon State University Archives

Jaclyn Friedman is, in short, a feminist rock star. She is the executive director of  WAM!: Women, Action & the Media. She edited the incredible Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, and continues the work of dismantling rape culture in her weekly pro-sex column. She writes as compellingly about taking off her shirt for fun as she does her college sexual assault. And she has been fucking under these conditions for nearly 20 years.

Fucking while feminist presents a peculiar set of challenges for the pro-sex single. How do you talk rape culture on a first date while still managing to get laid once in a while? How do you find the feminist guy who won't self-flagellate to the point of unfuckability? How do you avoid dying alone, basically? Friedman agreed to talk to me about establishing a feminist fucking litmus test, the art of locating non-douchey sex partners online, and the secret perks of fucking a feminist.

Sexist: So I was eating dinner with my boyfriend the other day and I started talking about my opinions on rape kits and shit, and I realized that I could probably never talk about this stuff on a first date with someone I had never met.

JF: And if you were me, you would go the a first date, and he would ask, "So, what do you do?" My online dating profile says that I’ve written a book and I’m writing another one. So they ask about it. And then literally ten minutes into a first date I’m talking about rape culture.

How does that usually work out?

JF: The way I hope it will work is that they ask these initial questions before we meet in person. So then they can go offline and collect their thoughts and then respond to me. My profile says I’m a feminist. So a lot of people who would be really scared off by me, we don’t get very far. When the whole Polanski thing was going down, I had this big argument with a guy about Polanski. First date. And last one.

JF: I would like for there to be a set of feminist litmus tests that I could reference and use to find the right guy. Right now, I feel like I'm in an endless cycle of asking myself, "Am I willing to let this slide?" I'm mostly dating guys right now, which is fairly new for me. From my early 20s to my mid-30s I dated exclusively women and trans men. I'm not romanticizing that, like "it's so much easier with women"—let me tell you, it's not. But it's a different set of questions you have to ask. I don't feel like I can go in to these dates expecting dudes to know as much about feminism or sexuality studies or rape culture, the stuff that I live my life talking about and thinking about. I feel like I’m going to die alone if I do that.

. . . Here is what’s depressing about dating while feminist. Feminism is what I do with my life, it's how I spend my days, it's my job, it's not just an opinion I have among many other opinions. If I had a hardcore litmus test, the pool of men I could date would be so tiny. And then when you weeded out men who are gay, the men I don't find attractive, the men already in monogamous, committed relationships—really, I would never get laid again. So I do feel that I have to try to be flexible out of necessity. But if I were to end up with someone—and I do want a long-term, stable relationship with someone at some point—they would have to be feminist on some basic level. They would have to be.

JF: That would be lovely, wouldn’t it? If I could turn a man feminist with the power of my vagina? It hasn’t happened yet. . . . When I was younger, I dated mostly women and trans men. Those relationships didn’t work out, obviously, they had their own issues. But the feminist thing wasn’t as much of an issue. And the only cisgender man I’ve been in a longterm relationship was a feminist when I met him. We would have feminism arguments where I was educated by him, and vice versa. And I thought, well, how lucky I am to have found a feminist guy! And he ended up being an ass . . . in somewhat unrelated ways.

JF: I'm e-mailing a guy right now I really want to meet who used the word "heteronormativity" in his profile . . . aside from that, which almost never happens, more what I look for is. . . you know the Bechdel Test for films? It states that any good film has to have two female characters who talk to each other about something other than a guy. Well, this is my test: When I look at personal ads, I look at their lists of favorite books, movies, and music, and they have to list women in all of those categories. They don't have to have a majority of women, but they have to know that women exist in the culture and be fans of some of them. It's a pretty low bar—or it should be. I used to look for guys who don’t list Fight Club in their favorites, but I've had to relax that rule, because all dudes evidently love Fight Club. I do draw the line at Ayn Rand. It's more about avoiding red flags than anything else. . . . I also don’t respond to any guy who says they’re looking for a woman who "doesn’t have drama," not because I have a lot of drama, but because I feel like that is code for women who have opinions.

JF: If you Google me, it’s pretty obvious where I stand on the sex stuff. Whenever I end up talking about my work on rape, I also am immediately communicating that I’m a pro-sex feminist. . . . I have been with some men who are surprised that I am, shall we say, less than vanilla in bed . . . A couple of guys were shocked that I like to play various games in bed, because I'm a feminist. That's always really interesting to me. I'm always like, 'Are you kidding me? The feminists I know are the craziest women in bed you can find!" Those are the moments where I feel like a one-woman feminist PR machine. I'm instructing the world one man at a time that feminists are really fun to sleep with.

JF: Oh God. There is a type of feminist guy who is so eager to fall over himself to be deferential to women and to prove his feminist bona fides and flagellate himself in front of you, to the point that it really turns me off. And it makes me sad, because politically, these are the guys that I should be sleeping with! You know what I'm talking about?

YES.

JF: Everyone knows what I'm talking about. And some of them are even really cute! I want to say to them, "If you could be a person, like a whole, complicated person, who I feel like I could crack jokes around, then I would really like you." But they're so serious about their feminism at every moment that I don’t feel like a person to them. I feel like I'm on a pedestal, almost. I know that they're not going to disagree with anything I say under any circumstances. And I don't feel like I can make a raunchy joke about sex, because they'll be horrified. . . . I hate to be critical of our allies in any way, because we need them, but there's something about that certain kind of hyperfeminist guy that makes them unappealing to date, to me. I suspect it has something to do with our internal conceptions of masculinity, which is terrible on my part.

JF: Yes. They haven't internalized their feminism, so it’s always being externalized. And it places a lot of pressure on the women they're with. There's this very self-conscious performance of feminism. And it does sometimes feel like they want a cookie. . . .  OK, I know this is such a delicate conversation to have, but I want those guys to wake up because those are the guys I want to want to sleep with!

JF: . . . What happens to me that drives me up a tree is this: The guys who respond to me and are like, 'You’re awesome. You’re kind of a hellcat." They think it's cool and kind of bad-ass that I'm outspoken and passionate about things. They think that’s really hot. They’re into it. But then when that outspokenness gets applied back to them, it’s suddenly game-over. You know the idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl? She's light, and quirky, and she has no inner life of her own, and just there to serve our hero’s development and erotic interests. I sort of feel that I get cast in these dudes' narratives as the Hellcat Dream Girl, there to prove how bad-ass they are because they’re dating such a bad-ass woman. They think it’s cute or sexy. But when I use that smart, outspoken bad-assery to challenge their own perspectives, it’s suddenly not sexy at all. It happens when they say something that I disagree with, and I act like a person and not someone that is playing out their particular fantasies.

It’s happened to me a million times . . . they want it as a trophy. "Hey, look at my bad-ass girl." They don’t want to deal with me as a person. It follows this pattern where it usually comes from a person who seeks me out. They try to seduce me. They think I would be an accomplishment to conquer or something. They seek me out and try to get me interested in them, and then I am, and then they flee. . . . I feel like the same thing happened with the guy I dated for two years. He liked the idea of being a guy who would be with someone like me, but ultimately it turned out that he wanted someone who wouldn’t challenge him as much, a person who was easier and quicker to sweep away. I got evidence of that when, within three months of breaking up with me, he was dating a 23 year old who lists her political views on Facebook as "moderate."

JF: Oftentimes I wonder what the people who know me professionally would think about the compromises I make when I’m dating. I wish this were a live conversation where other feminists were weighing in. I’d like to know what other women are doing. Am I making the right compromises here? Should dating require these sorts of compromises? Is there any tactic that produces better results? . . .  I feel very unsure about what the best way is to live my politics and have a sex life. I really feel in the weeds about it. But it's something I think about all the time, and I don’t feel like I have the answers.

Photo by Anh Dao Kolbe

We most recently revisited the issue yesterday, after a study showed that women who observe public acts of sexism—like sexual harassment against other women—tend to direct more anger at men in general. The study demonstrates (among other things) that when men sexually harass women, they also hurt men who are not harassers. Pointing out ways that sexism affects men can provide men with a valuable access-point to feminist issues. It can also be seen as an invitation to throw a pity party for male victimhood.

As one commenter on the story wrote, "Here we go again. The poor menz! They have to experience the suspicion/scrutiny of women who have been put down, kept down, abused emotionally, fiscally, professionally, sometimes physically, yadayadayada." I don't think this is about feeling sorry for men; I think it's about recognizing that men can be valuable allies in working against women being put down, kept down, harassed, and abused. Is it fair that women have to first show men how sexism affects them in order to get them to care about how it affects us? No. But it sure is helpful.

So without any further ado, I'd like to introduce the first installment in a new Sexist feature: Interviews with experts on the subjects that most vex us around here. First up: Thomas MacAulay Millar, my favorite feminist writer who is also a man. Millar, which is not his real name, is a New-York based attorney and feminist writer. You may remember him for his essay condemning the comodification of sexuality, "Toward a Performance Model of Sex," which appeared in the Yes Means Yes! anthology last year, or from his work on the wonderful Yes Means Yes! blog. Below, Millar on the beginnings of a feminist man, how to find feminist access-points for boys, and what it's like to be a feminist with male privilege.

What personal experiences in your life contributed to your identification as a feminist?

TMM: My mom was a feminist, and raised me to understand that the world was unfair in big, structural ways, so I was in large part raised with it. She wasn’t an overtly ideological parent. She just believed in telling me how things really were, and I drew a lot of my own conclusions. I remember her telling me that my cousin (who was an evangelical), terminated two pregnancies. She was a clinic protester. But when it was her life, she thought it was different. Another cousin was molested, and when she wouldn't stop complaining, she was sent away to live in another state. (Eventually, she sued her abuser and got some justice.) My mother would tell me the parts of the stories in real life that people try to hide from children. I can't possibly thank her enough for that. I mean I literally can’t, because she died a decade ago. I thanked her a lot for being a great mom, but never enough.

As I got into high school, I started seeing issues like sex education and reproductive freedom through lenses heavily influenced by my women friends. I took my first women's studies class in high school, read some Steinem and some other feminist writing in high school. My mother had a bunch of feminist writing around the house that I read. And I started to see GLB issues through the prism of my friends' lives, and to see sexuality and sex education as my friends and I developed.

In my teens, too, I began a long process of growing into BDSM and figuring out what that meant for identity, and one of the early things I figured out what that there was a sort of mainstream position that wasn't overtly anti-sex in my area, but that was sort of very pro-partriarchally constrained models of sexuality, and that I was necessarily a dissident to that, and that I was therefore a natural ally to anyone else who didn't feel the official model fit them. So, in my mind, the idea especially around sexuality and gender expression that dissenters and dissidents should be in solidarity with each other developed early. So it was a pretty direct line from there to being active in college on choice and GLBT issues and doing my first minor in women’s studies. And also, people telling me when I said stupid things and learning from that, rinse, repeat.

I think most importantly, I began to hear one story after another about how women — mostly my women friends, and also some relatives — were molested and groped and raped (some men, too, but I didn't become aware of that until later). Women friends told me they had been raped, and not infrequently they had never told anyone else. The thing that stuck with me then and still does is how little space they had to safely process and heal. They felt that they couldn't say what had happened, let alone talk about how they felt, without being judged and shamed. And I think they were right about that, sad to say. They couldn't tell people. The reactions they would have gotten from parents and peers would have done damage. So they stayed silent, which is a very hard way to deal with trauma. Unfortunately, that's not something I see changing. Women I know are still telling me that they were raped, or that something happened that was rape but that they can't label, and that they have not or cannot talk about to anyone else. And I have a daughter and that scares the shit out of me.

How can we get more men and boys interested in the feminist movement?

TMM: Well, we can bullshit them and tell them that it's all upside, and that fighting for their relative privilege in an awful system that's no good for them doesn't have any benefits. But they'll quickly realize that's not true. And we can tell them that there are no downsides to participating in a movement where they have to confront their privilege and change how they do things. But they’d quickly find that that isn’t true.

You can’t sell a movement to cure structural unfairness to the beneficiaries of the unfairness unless there’s already a point of access. That means they have to really have a grievance against the way things are, for themselves or for people they love. But there are a lot of those. There are a lot of guys whose sister has needed an abortion, or whose wife was raped, or whose brother is transitioning, or who feel that the masculinity imposed on them is crushing them. If someone who knows that guy finds that point of access, like a pinhole in the patriarchal curtain, and starts pulling at it, eventually the hole gets so big that they accept that it’s not a matter of stitching the hole, it’s a whole panel or whole curtain that needs to be replaced. (And roman shades would look better in this room. Also, this paint is kinda tired. Let’s see how far I can stretch this metaphor ….*snap* Oops.)

. . . Or we can get them young and try to build into them a sense of fairness that is actually fair, and not one based on a set of artificially assigned roles based on two categories. I’m working on that. I’ll let you know how I did in about twenty years.

How does male privilege affect the way you approach feminist issues?

TMM: First, it means I don’t know everything and my personal leanings and experiences are not a trustworthy guide. I just have to accept that I’m going to be wrong and mess things up, and be gracious when people tell me what a schmuck I am. Because I am.

Second, it means forever keeping one eye on the dynamics of speaking for. In some ways it’s easier, as an affluent educated able bodied cis het white man, because I don’t have to think about the relative issues of when I’m privileged and when I’m not. I’m virtually always in the advantaged side of the structural issue, so I can keep the “I have an unfair advantage” light permanently on.

It’s something I talk about with friends a fair amount. In writing, a lot of what I do is talk about what something means for men, how men should read or deal with something, what it means as a parent, etc., where I’m interpreting my own experience and the experiences I have a better handle on, in light of the dynamics I’m talking about.

But I don’t do that with everything. Some of what I write is overarching theorizing, like Toward A Performance Model of Sex. I realize I don’t have any kind of omniscience, and my privilege informs what I write. I think there are three things I can do about it. I can decide that my understanding is so constrained by the limits of my experience and the dictates of my privilege that I should just shut up (some posts have ended their lives in the delete folder for that reason); I can try to learn and educate myself and improve and beat back my own privilege, which I’m forever trying to do and never fast enough; and I can put what I can out there and try to be as humble as I can about the limitations of it and then not get defensive when people move the discussion forward by pointing out the flaws in what I’ve done. I’ve edited a lot of posts to say, “I messed up, see comments.”

Do you think there are some feminist issues that are more readily accessible to men and boys than others?

TMM: There are things that should be feminist issues that are more the province of men and boys. Masculinity and manhood are becoming contested terrain, and that’s important. The most common discourse on masculinity reads to me like this: “I don’t know what it should look like. What we have is terrible in the following ways, and we should fix it. But I don’t know what it looks like when it gets fixed.” I have both so much and so little to say about that. Masculinity isn’t just “what men do,” but it is bound up with manhood. So we need women in that conversation, both those interested in masculinity and those that in some ways perform it. And we need people who reject binary identifications like “man” to weigh in. But mostly, whether cis- or trans-, the folks we need to help define masculinity are the people who perform it most, and that’s people who identify as men.

Also, there are angles and spaces that men have on feminist issues, where their understanding may be deeply limited by privilege, but where their position in the structural distribution of power is such that they can do more to make change. Men can do feminist work, even if they don’t apply the label to it, if they use what’s at their disposal to do the fair thing. Just as one example, George Tiller was a great hero for reproductive self-determination, not because he freed himself from male privilege, but because he was a doctor who would do that work, under the most terrifying circumstances. I know a guy who says the most awful shit, often to wind me up. But he also once physically intervened to prevent several men from raping a woman who was so intoxicated she didn’t know who she was with or what was going on. Security wouldn’t act, so he just started throwing punches. It worked, at significant cost to him which I won’t describe. That’s not a guy who self-identifies as feminist, but it was a deeply feminist act.

Less dramatically, just calling out rape jokes and rape-apology is something where guys’ views can influence other men a great deal. A guy who mentors younger women colleagues and makes sure their work is considered on its merits may not identify as feminist, or may have a very poor ability to check his own privilege, but that guy can to a lot of good with what he has, where he is.

So I guess I’d say that we need men to be situational allies where they can be, even if they are not (yet) able to make broader connections. Getting them to understand and see the unfairness of a specific situation or act is the first stage. If that creates the gateway for that guy to see those kinds of dynamics as pervasive, and pervasively unfair, great. If not, one person doing the right thing in one situation is better than not.

Are men in the position to play any unique roles in the feminist movement?

TMM: Leaving aside doing what we can with what we have where we are, because I don’t think that’s what the question calls for, I think the primary area where men have something specific and important to bring to feminism is in defining men and masculinity.

Those issues ripple through a lot. To take a particular class-specific issue, for example, take an opposite-sex couple with the same degree, working, say, as lawyers. They may have met in law school, gotten BigLaw jobs, proceeded on parallel tracks through the associate years, and then … that world is not perfect on treating women equally, but I see the social dynamics as the real hold-back. It’s very difficult for both partners to be driven professionals. They can pay for childcare solutions that leave them both free to work long and irregular hours and to travel, but many folks don’t want to do that for a lot of good reasons. Usually, someone takes a step back in professional responsibilities to parent. It’s almost always the woman. Some folks will tell you it has to do with women’s innate desire to mother, but I’m very skeptical of those explanations. Some people want to parent more than others, but I’m not going to accept anyone’s glib generalization that because it’s true for them, it’s an innate sex difference. Instead, I think it has a great deal to do with men’s unwillingness to take that step back. How men see their selves and role, and how their female partners will see them, and how they think their female partners will see them, is all about masculinity.

Of course, it’s more often the case that by the time a middle-class opposite sex couple decide to have kids, they are already in different careers with different compensation, and whoever makes less money becomes the parent with less professional responsibilities. And that has everything to do with the social construction or gender and work roles, tracking of women, conflation of some work identities with masculinity and femininity, etc.

All that is a narrow and class-bound analysis that leaves a lot out; a full treatment of just that example is a book topic. But that’s just one of many ways that construction of masculinity flows through work and distributional issues and other things that seem far removed from the direct performance of gender. I don’t think we can fully understand how much about masculinity is assumed until men start trying to take it apart, examine it and refashion it. And it’s principally men’s job to do that.

E-mail interview has been condensed. . . . a tiny bit.

As the District launches a new campaign encouraging women to put female condoms into their vaginas, some activists are focused on getting the device into a different orifice. Michael Petrelis, 51, has been promoting the use of the female condom among gay men since the 90's. “When I first learned about the device, I thought the only barrier prevention involved covering the dick,” says Petrelis. Then he found out there was a way to cover his partner's anus instead. “The female condom put the bottom in charge, in control, and that was such a good thing. And when I’ve been a top—the insertive partner—what I’ve liked about the bottom wearing the device is that my penis wasn’t wrapped in plastic.”

The female condom was approved by the FDA for use in the vagina in 1993. The regulatory body has yet to deem the device safe and effective for use in anal sex, but that hasn't stopped Peterlis and other public health advocates from noting the device's anal benefits:

For one, the female condom can adhere to the lining of the anus and provide a roomier experience than the male condom. It also opens up the field for a wider range of sexual accessories: “With the penile device you have to use the water based lubricants. You can’t use Crisco,” says Petrelis. The female condom also allows receptive partners to protect themselves against HIV with partners who refuse to use a male condom. The only thing that’s not sexy about the female condom? The name. “I mean, when you say female condom, I don’t think a gay guy is going to listen, because it’s for a woman. It says ‘female.’ I think it can be a turn-off to gay men,” says Petrelis.

Some female condom activists have pushed to re-brand the device with a more inclusive title, like the "receptive partner condom" or the “reality condom.” But the female condom's branding limitations go beyond the name. Some activists are reluctant to promote an item that hasn't received the FDA's official stamp. That's why Community Education Group, one of the five nonprofits distributing female condoms around D.C., is currently only engaged in promoting the device among heterosexual men (and women). "We haven't received permission to publicly promote the condom [for anal sex] because it’s not FDA approved for that," says the Group's Hilary Viens. "Even though we do know it can be effective, that's not something that we can really state yet."

Other female condom promoters are concerned that a focus on gay men might alienate the female condom's main target audience. "Eventually, we want the female condom to be accepted as a tool for women having sex with men, men having sex with men, women having anal sex,” says Zoe Lehman, who promotes female condom use through the Chicago Women’s AIDS Project. Last week, Lehman helped launched Web-based initiative ringonit.org, which takes its tagline—“Put a ring on it!”—from Beyonce’s Grammy-winning single “Single Ladies.” The Web site announces up-front that female condoms "are a great safer sex option that can be used by both women and men for vaginal and anal sex." But Lehman has encountered some reluctance to promote the device for all its potential uses. “Unfortunately, there are some places in this country that are still uncomfortable with anal sex," she says. "People get very uncomfortable about that, and it’s already going to be difficult to sell to the general public." The media has also tended to shy away from anal;  Petrelis was miffed that the Washington Post's recent story on female condoms failed to mention the device's use among gay men.

Pitching the condom to gay men will require promoters to get real comfortable with anal sex: Using the female condom anally requires some slight modifications to the device. Anal instructions are not currently included in the female condom's packaging, but the D.C. Department of Health posts online guidelines for how to insert the device. In short, you can either insert the condom by draping it over the penis, or sticking it directly into the anus; many users choose to ditch the condom's removable inner ring to aid comfort; if the penis is hitting against the end of the female condom, it could compromise the device's effectiveness.

In order for everyone to get comfortable shilling the female condom to gay men, Peterlis says that the public must first acknowledge that anal sex isn't just a gay thing. "I hope you're sitting down for this: Straight people have anal sex, too," says Petrelis. "It's not just gay men who need to know how to use it anally." Promoting the condom's anal use among straight women could be a vital tool in preventing the spread of HIV: Women who engage in anal sex are at a higher risk of contracting the virus, particularly if they are chiefly using condoms for pregnancy prevention. "I've got to put my hair down here and say that regardless of straight, gay, in-between, vaginal, anal, there is still a great reluctance to talk honestly in America about s-e-x," says Petrelis. "We're going to have to get over that if we're going to protect ourselves."

Photos by Darrow Montgomery.

This year, the University of Mary Washington's student newspaper, The Bullet, crowned a new sex columnist for its long-running sex column, "Sexclamations." Since taking the helm, 19-year-old freshman Erin Hill has tackled such campus-ready topics as female masturbation, representation in pornography, and pubic hair choices (an area of particular Sexist interest).

Over the past couple of months, Hill has heard from the haters ("Can you tell me how talking about masturbating is 'progress' in female journalism?"), lovers ("THIS ROCKS SO MUCH"), and one student who wrote in opposing Hill's column because her grandmother read it one time and became overwhelmed by the column's impolite subject matter. Seriously.

The detractor, Anne Elder, wrote:

My grandmother is an avid reader of the Bullet.

She reads the online edition every Thursday, looking forward to reading the happenings of her alma mater.

A few weeks ago, however, she received quite a shock when she tuned in.  She saw the first column of the new Sexclamations.

Needless to say, my inbox had an e-mail waiting from her regarding the column.

Her overall opinion was that it was “tasteless” and “some things are best kept under wraps and are more interesting if shared with select folks.”

I can’t say I disagree.

Elder went on to note that "Sex is an incredibly intimate expression of love, and that’s how it should stay," that "No one wants to know how many times a day you masturbate, how many people you’ve had sex with or what your favorite positions are," and that "If you take the passion out of sex and degrade it by putting it in print, it becomes less of an act of love and more like watching promiscuous college students get it on."

Putting aside the obvious question of why a grandmother is reading a publication for college kids and becoming offended that the content is not tailored to her sensibilities, I'd like to address Elder's complaint that sex columnists "degrade [sex] by putting it in print." According to this theory, sex isn't inherently bad—but people who admit to doing it are. Fucking is understandable as long as you deny, deny, deny, because talking about sex just about the sluttiest thing a person can do—even sluttier than doing it in the first place. This theory all but guarantees an unhealthy sexual environment. On a campus where you're shamed for opening your mouth about anything sexual, bad shit happens—students will be less likely to verbalize their consent—or lack of consent—with their partners, less likely to feel comfortable reporting a sexual assault if it occurs, and a lot more likely to silently agonize over whether their bodies, sex lives, sexual orientations, and most intimate expressions of love make them bad people.

All reasons why Erin Hill is providing a valuable service to the students of Fredericksburg, Va.'s University of Mary Washington. The proof is in the comments section: No matter what grandma thinks, students are talking about these issues. I asked Hill to talk a little bit about life as a college sex columnist:

Sexist: What sort of response have you gotten from classmates, friends, anonymous commenters, etc. since writing the column?

EH: Face to face with readers and friends, I have received nothing but praise since I became the new writer for Sexclamations. I have had several people tell me that the primary reason they pick up a copy of The Bullet is to read Sexclamations. According to upperclassmen, the column used to be less about sex and more about the relationship aspect of sex. They said that they didn’t enjoy the column in the past because it was not as interesting. Supposedly, previous articles provided commentary on lighter issues, such as the “romance and meaning of holding hands.” Everyone has applauded my efforts to be more raw, real, open, and honest. I try to not to censor myself too much. Sex is a brazen act and I feel my articles should be just as forthright.

Thank goodness I have an awesome editor who fully supports my writing. I managed to use the term “money shot” in a school newspaper- I thought that was a pretty big deal! I didn’t think my editor would allow it (originally, I used the term cumshot), but she did! It is important to remember that I don’t use vulgar language just for the sake of creating shock value, rather I use it to illustrate my point. Sometimes stronger language conveys my message in a better, more realistic fashion.

I suppose the most surprising response was from my mom. My mom fully supports the column, despite the awkwardness of reading about my perspective on porn. Out of all the compliments I receive, the best are from my mom- who simply stated in a facebook message yesterday, “Loved your article! <3”

A lot of college sex columnists use pseudonyms. What are the advantages and challenges of putting your real name out there?

EH: I think putting my name out there shows an unabashed support for women’s reproductive rights and women’s sexuality. I can’t be afraid to talk about topics like masturbation and attach my name to it if I expect and encourage other women to open a dialogue about their sexuality and exploration. I hope that my articles can make people more comfortable and knowledgeable about things related to sexual matters. I would like to lessen the taboo surrounding sexual issues. For that to happen, I must be fully confident, comfortable, and knowledgeable about sexual matters. Attaching my name to what I write is a part of achieving that goal. Perhaps some of my peers may stereotype me as the no boundaries, sex-obsessed girl or the liberal, feminist girl who writes Sexclamations. Hyperbolic labels don’t really bother me that much, as long as I’m able to convey interesting, informative ideas regarding sexual issues through my articles.

Why do you think it's important to write about stuff like representation in porn, female masturbation, and women's health?

EH: I think it is important to write about these things because it is important to talk about them. If my articles can provoke a conversation among a few girls in a college dorm about their sexual experiences, then I will consider my articles to be a success. I think it is important for people, especially young women, to have an open dialogue about sexuality. Because of conservative social norms and a prominent abstinence only message in schools, I think many women are shamed into not fully appreciating and celebrating their bodies. Personally, I don’t think sexual exploration is a bad thing; however, sexually exploring oneself and others can be a poor notion if not done safely. I hope my articles open the door to “sex positive” conversations.

What was your reaction to the letter to the editor which stated that the topics in your column are too vulgar to even be spoken about?

EH: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I respect Miss Elder’s comments and can understand why she might feel that way about my column; however, I was disappointed that she made false claims about my articles. She stated that I had written about “how many times a day [I] masturbate, how many people [I’ve] had sex with, or what [my] favorite positions are.” This could not be farther from the truth. In fact, I agree with Anne in that writing about such personal details would be “tasteless.” Perhaps Miss Elder misunderstood my intentions of the articles. My intentions were not to expose details of my sexual life, degrade the meaning of sex, or make crude/vulgar statements. My intentions were to creatively educate, provoke curiosity/inquiry, and encourage sexual conversation- in hopes that people become more comfortable with sex and sexuality. All in all, Miss Elder and I fundamentally disagree. I wish to promote conversation and education about sex while she wishes to keep sex a completely private, intimate institution. I’m glad we each have the freedom to express our differing perspectives in the “Viewpoints” section of The Bullet.

What do you think of the idea of writing a college sex column with the goal of pleasing students' grandmothers?

EH: The Bullet is a paper primarily read by current students and I feel the topics discussed in The Bullet should cater to that readership base. I understand that faculty, parents, and alumni read The Bullet, too. On the other hand, it is important to note that there are plenty of articles other than Sexclamations that are exclusively pertinent to current students. I don’t think it would be tremendously troublesome for the older readers to simply skip articles like Sexclamations. In general, I don’t see a major problem with skipping articles that do not appeal to you. If you don’t like it, don’t read it! It’s an elementary concept. Until I am given restrictions, I hope to continue to write a column with relatable and interesting information regarding sex and sexuality.

Hooking up: We know it's all the rage among kids these days! But for us Elderly Folk who are, like, three years out of college, questions remain.

For example: Sex is great and all, but wouldn't girls be happier if they consumed several meals paid for by men who clearly only want to fuck them before they gave it up? Would girls be better off if they just stepped away from the blow job, twiddled their thumbs in their parent's house, and waited until a suitor deigned to call? Hold on a second—don't different girls want different things out of a relationship? But more importantly, will hooking up EAT THEIR BRAINS?

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, these questions—and more!—will remain pretty much unanswered. But Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I will talk a lot about blow jobs, and other academic topics encompassed by the new field of Hook-Up Studies. Join us!

AMANDA: Well hello!

SADY: Hello Amanda. Before we go any further, I should let you know that I am not too "committed" to this chat. This chat will not buy you dinner! This chat will not visit your many relatives in Phoenix, Arizona! This chat is a "no strings attached" form of chatting.

AMANDA: Is this why I overheard you silently weeping throughout your college years?

SADY: And AT THIS VERY MOMENT, yes. Actually, I feel like the least qualified person in the world to discuss Hookup Culture! Since I have always been a visitor to it from my own home town of Serial Monogamyville.

AMANDA: And as such I assume that you have never had any boy problems!

SADY: Well, it's interesting. Did you know that if someone calls himself your boyfriend, and you are in a relationship in which there is substantially more emotional vulnerability in play, this person is LEGALLY AND MORALLY OBLIGATED never to hurt your feelings? Like, ever! To be fair, though, I think that the Simmons piece—and I have always really liked Rachel Simmons' work, so maybe I am partial – did have SOME interesting points in play. As did the amazing [Kate] Harding response!

AMANDA: And Amanda Marcotte's, too.

SADY: Oh, yeah. That did lay open some of the structural issues, in terms of what needs men and women are even allowed to HAVE, much less express. So what I think Simmons is saying is that if we have a "dating culture" where the obligation is to act like things are casual even if one or more parties would not like them to be, and if this is particularly based on the idea that the males are skittish creatures who will basically shit themselves and die if you are too affectionate or make it clear that you consider them boyfriends or whatever, well: peoples' needs don't always get served in this culture.

AMANDA: True, and I think one of the problems with most of the critiques about the "hook-up culture" is that they look longingly back on the "good old days," instead of admitting that perhaps there is a third option beyond accepting the "hook-up culture" as-is or going back to the 50s. Or the 1850s. People talk about it like it's "freedom to have sex!" or "abstinence," and forget that there are a lot of ways to have sex and to talk about having sex.

SADY: Right! Because, basically, sometimes people really DO want to just have some sex and not get too involved. And in a monogamy-and-courting-centric dating culture, THOSE peoples' needs (particularly if they be lady people) are shamed and hard to fulfill. So, yeah: I think Simmons is interesting, but (maybe inevitably) not really taking the WHOLE ENTIRE picture into account. What about shy dudes who see sex as this really intimate thing and get crushes afterward? What about them? They are missing from this analysis! They might also not be served by The Hook-Up Culture!

AMANDA: I've been constantly disappointed by the reluctance of researchers in the field of Hook-Up Studies to talk to boys about this stuff. I mean, I knew many guys in college who wanted girlfriends badly, and who were dissatisfied with casual sex.

SADY: Yeah. I mean: I have to tell you, that is one reason I am at the very least more charitable to the Simmons piece than I am to the many anti-hook-up screeds which I have delighted in tearing to pieces. Because a lot of them go so far as to MAKE UP BRAIN CHEMISTRY REASONS why a person who is a lady can never have casual sex, ever, without crying all over the binder on which she is compelled to write the dude's name 9,000 times.

AMANDA: Along with rough sketches of wedding dresses.

SADY: And plans as to what you will name your first baby. So at least Simmons is not gender-essentializing TOO much in that regard. But dudes and their vulnerabilities – and the problems with the idea that dudes want sex, nothing but sex, all the time, and that sex is therefore a good which women must trade in exchange for a dude agreeing to Totally Be Your Boyfriend OMG—always kind of get left out of these conversations, which is interesting to me.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, they tend to just support stereotypes. The women who are interviewed are all miserable about it, and the men are all just basking in the blow jobs. The End. There are no women who are getting what they want, and if we actually interviewed those women—I don't know—maybe we would come to a better model of sex?

SADY: Right! Exactly! I mean, I feel like a lot of OH NO THE KIDS ARE HOOKING UP is, like, just this weird hysteria over what are pretty common dating experiences.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, mistakes must be made. There's no use of us Elderly Folk attempting to make kids get it right on the first person they fuck.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. And, I mean: when you first meet someone, or even for a few months after meeting someone, you might be unsure as to what they want, and there's the potential that you might not know them that well (in fact, a certainty that you don't) and they therefore might turn out to be a jerk in various exciting ways. Like 97% of Jane Austen novels are about that! Except that nowadays, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy would have been banging ever since that first party they attended together, so you might end up having sex with someone while getting to know them. OH NO!

AMANDA: Oh, no. And it's not that I don't appreciate narratives about female sexual dissatisfaction. There are definitely a lot of structural ways that the dating culture values men's pleasure and devalues women's pleasure, and so if women aren't satisfied, I understand that! The problem is when you try to just stuff all women into another structure — well, maybe girls would be happier if they didn't give it up so fast — that also devalues them

SADY: Exactly. Like, that's the thing, and where I have to depart from "hook-up culture" critiques. If you, lady, will be sad if the guy you have sex with does not want to be Your Boyfriend, well... don't have sex with that guy? Like, conversations about consent and boundaries and why it is OK to have the needs you have without apologizing are a lot better, in my experience, than telling people to have sex or not have sex in these specific ways.

AMANDA: Right. The problem isn't with this "new trend" in sex, but that our sexual culture dutifully follows trends at all. I know this is not "cool" of me to say! But perhaps kids would be better off if we didn't crumple under the weight of hysteria over kids having sex and just emphasized that they should be having sex the way they want.

SADY: Exactly! And emphasized that you might want different things at different times, and with different people... like, it's not like I have never BENEFITED from The Hook-Up Culture. Sometimes you are just like, "okay, this dude and I are never going to run skipping through a field of daisies, but he is cute, though." And other times, you are like, "well, I don't necessarily want to be putting myself out there for someone unless I think that person and I have the potential to get along real well." And sometimes you are me! And you just don't care! Because you have one million other things to do!

AMANDA: Yeah. A recent study came out that said that abstinence-only education could be effective in delaying sex among young teens. And the headlines were like, "Abstinence-only education works!" I mean ... I guess it works if you think that the point of sex education is for people to just call the whole thing off because it's too hard? But really we should be focusing on what happens when kids DO decide to have sex—what that sex is like.

SADY: Yeah. And, I mean, that's where sex leaves the level of the biological and the health-related and the ideological and enters the realm of the personal. And, like... I don't think, no matter what "dating culture" we have, we are ever going to avoid the fact that girls are going to crush out on unavailable or unattainable dudes. Or dudes on the unattainable or unavailable ladies! I mean, we have basically explained the careers of Taylor Swift AND Megan Fox right here! But getting girls to the level where actual SEX is something they know they have options regarding and the right to say "no" or "yes" to depending on what is up at the moment... that probably should be the goal, yeah?

AMANDA: Right. Not just "sex" or "not sex," when you've heard that "sex" consist of "giving a guy who refuses to be your boyfriend a million blow jobs that are never reciprocated"

SADY: Haha, yeah. Let's just get to the point of "blow jobs should always be reciprocated." MAN, I have NO IDEA why I am not working in the public schools right now! "Ladies, blow jobs are fun... TO RECEIVE, THAT IS!!!!!" And that is the story of how Sady Doyle got sued by thirty sets of parents at the same time, the end.

Allison, 26, and her boyfriend were having sex—an activity they had engaged in many times over the six months they had been dating—when her contraceptive vaginal ring fell right out of her vagina. Her boyfriend paused. He developed a sudden concern over the efficacy of the couple’s method of birth control. “He was like, ‘Oh, no. How is it going to catch my semen?’” Allison recalls.

For about a year now, Allison has used the NuvaRing to prevent pregnancy. Three weeks out of the month, the clear, flexible plastic ring sits in Allison’s vagina and releases hormones into her bloodstream that prevent her from ovulating. It does not “catch” anybody’s semen.

“He played it off as a joke,” says Allison of her boyfriend’s bizarre interpretation of her birth control. “But in the tone of his voice, that honest worry was there. Part of him was thinking, ‘What does this ring actually do?’”

Allison is a veteran witness to contraception awareness syndrome. “I was dating a guy in college who knew that I was on the birth control pill. Of course, he was concerned about me getting pregnant,” says Allison. “So he said, ‘You know, you should take four or five of these a day—just take as many as you need to,’” she says.

Jenna had been living with her boyfriend for several months when he floated his own contraceptive theory. Jenna was taking her birth control pills continuously, meaning that she was skipping the pack’s built-in placebo pills in order to stop her period. At some point, her boyfriend discovered how she had managed to avoid the monthly ritual. “I was thinking you were just magical, like a unicorn,” he told her. “I mean, you hope one exists somewhere, but you never think you’ll get to live with one…a cool chick with no period drama that has sex all month long.” He added, “The guys thought I was making it up.” (Boyfriends could not be reached for comment for this story).

According to a new study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, many young American men exhibit attitudes toward contraception that could best be described as “magical.” The study [PDF] surveyed American singles ages 18–29 about their perceptions about and use of contraception. Twenty-eight percent of young men think that wearing two condoms at a time is more effective than just one. Twenty-five percent think that women can prevent pregnancy by douching after sex. Eighteen percent believe that they can reduce the chance of pregnancy by doing it standing up.

For the most part, men lagged behind women on the pregnancy prevention front. And when the study dipped into the realm of “female” forms of birth control, the gender divide intensified. In the study, 29 percent of men and 32 percent of women reported that they know “little or nothing about condoms.” When asked to rate their knowledge of birth control pills, 78 percent of men reported to be clueless, compared to 45 percent of women.

With a majority of young men generally unknowledgeable about hormonal birth control—and nearly half of young women equally stumped—men sometimes don’t figure out the basics until they think they may have impregnated someone, or their penis feels something weird. “I dated a girl with a NuvaRing, while I didn’t know she had one,” says a 22-year-old Arlington resident who didn’t discover how the couple was preventing baby-making until his penis was already well inside her vagina. “I found out the physical way, when I felt the alien object. I immediately recoiled in fear, asking what was wrong. It was frightening. Then she told me her birth control was a ring in her vagina, which I had never heard of.” He demanded the evidence. “She retrieved it—which is a sight to see—and showed it to me, put it back, and we continued,” he says. “I feel like girls should tell people.”

When Allison’s boyfriend expressed concern with the efficacy of her vaginal ring, she told him all about it. But even between two adults, the subject inspired some awkwardness. “The conversation wasn’t exactly free-flowing,” Allison says. “I’ve been dating since high school, and it feels like the men that I date now have a very similar idea of birth control as the men I dated who were high school students,” says Allison. “They get a preliminary idea in sex ed, and then there’s not really any education after that. Nothing ever changes.”

In addition to staging teach-ins, women are also responsible for shouldering the physical, emotional, and financial responsibilities for pregnancy prevention. Pap smears, STI tests, and gynecological sessions about their contraceptive options—that’s just the tip of it for the sexually active woman. In order to keep their birth control subscription fresh, they have to repeat that process every year. Their male sex partners are under no such requirements. As Salon noted last year, women have 11 methods of contraception from which to choose; men have two—condom and vasectomy. And even if men did have additional reliable birth control options, many women wouldn’t trust them to use them correctly. In a comment on the Salon article, one woman wrote, “I love my husband more than anything in the world but I would not place that responsibility on him because if the BC failed and he was responsible for it I would kill him then he would be dead and I would be having a child while in prison.” Perhaps it is no mystery why some men confine their responsibility to forms of birth control which relate directly to their own genitalia.

Gustav Seestedt, 23, says that birth control pills are the form of contraception he has “the most indirect experience with.” He has no idea how they work. “I thought it, uh, controlled, uh… I actually don’t know, now that I think about it,” he says. “Oh, man, I thought it had something to do with hormonal control, but that doesn’t seem right at all. That sounds pretty awful. I thought it, uh, somehow killed fertility with like chemicals and stuff,” he says. The ring, however, strikes Seestedt as a superior option. “I thought that was pretty fine, because, from what I understood, it was kind of a low-cost way of doing it, and it wasn’t really…I like it because chemical pills and stuff are kind of weird, [but the ring] was kind of placed inside, and…you know what I mean? It just kind of did its thing, you know?”

To some, the male indifference to birth control can be attributed to a juvenile disregard for all things related to the place in which the vaginal ring “does its thing.” We live in a country where heterosexual heartthrob Robert Pattinson feels comfortable announcing to Details magazine, “I really hate vaginas. I’m allergic to vagina.” Where tech nerds everywhere let out a collective titter over new Apple device the “iPad,” because it sounds kind of like a thing women use when they’re on their periods. Where Judd Apatow has built a film career out of turning extended vagina jokes into blockbusters.

“I definitely think that the inability to understand birth control goes back to the woman’s period,” says Allison. Months after the vaginal ring incident, Allison’s boyfriend remained confused about the specifics of her menstrual cycle. “The other day, I was on my period, and I took out my tampon before I went into the shower,” she says. “My boyfriend was like, ‘Wait: But you just took your tampon out. Can you go into the shower like that?’”

Allison responded to her boyfriend’s question with more questions. “Does he think that the second I take out my tampon, it’s just blood, blood everywhere?” she wondered. “That if I don’t plug it up with this cotton thing every moment, all hell will break loose?” Her boyfriend did not elaborate. “He was just kind of like, ‘Never mind,’” says Allison. “I think he understood the absurdity of his comment. But he was making an honest attempt to learn about something he doesn’t really know about.”

VIDEO: Men Explaining Birth Control.

Photo by outcast104, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

It could come before the relationship even begins: "My favorite book is The Fountainhead."

It could come in the middle of a blow job: "Swallow my man custard."

It could preempt sexual contact entirely: "Hey, bring those roast beef curtains over here."

It could come 30 years into your marriage: "The ceremony would be held on a rooftop in New York and the Dave Matthews Band would make an appearance."

Give me the best Relationship-Ending Line you've heard, throw in a little context, and if you've got the saddest/funniest entry, I'll ship you out a copy of Babeland's new sex-positive how-to, "Moregasm: Babeland's Guide to Mind-Blowing Sex."

File your relationship-enders in the comments or e-mail them to me here (if you comment, make sure to leave a valid e-mail address where I can reach you). Extra points awarded for dramatic irony.

In this edition of Dr. Laura Schlessinger's YouTube extravaganza, the Doctor tackles a series of questions from Susan, a woman who has been forced to date men in order to ultimately become married to one of them. Susan is understandably confused on the specifics of such a modern endeavor.

Susan asks: "After years of dating, I still have a lot of questions. And since dating is essentially a prerequisite to marriage, I'd like your opinion on some of those questions. After one date, if a girl isn't interested in a serious relationship with a guy, should she go out with him again anyway? I've ben told that it's courteous to go out with a guy a second date unless the guy is a complete jerk. Until there's a definite dating relationship, should the girl pay for her share of the meal? How soon is it to considerate to disclose health issues? Information about past marriages? And other unpleasant corners of your life? And finally, how soon is it okay to kiss and hug?"

Over the next four minutes, Schlessinger informs Susan how to know when to ditch him ("With me, if he didn't open a door, take off my jacket and put it on the chair, pull out the chair and pay the tab, and open the door to the car, and pay for the gas to get me there, there wouldn't be a second date"); how to know when to tell him about your STIs ("For example, you have herpes. That's communicable!"), and how to know when to put dating on hold ("Gee, I was molested when I was five and I hate sex. This would be a good thing to clarify with your therapist before you begin dating").

Finally, Dr. Laura lets Susan know when to kiss him: "Hugs are nice at anytime. Pecks are good anytime. Really slobbery kisses and sucking on each others' face, that should wait awhile until you think each other is a keeper, I can't believe I answered that question. So until next time—I'm going to stop blushing—I'm Dr. Laura. Take care."

In the video, Dr. Laura became visibly uncomfortable discussing only one of the following topics:

a) "Gee, I was molested when I was five and I hate sex."

b) "For example, you have herpes. That's communicable!"

c) "Really slobbery kisses."

Hmm.

The District expects to register six-to-twelve inches of snowfall today. Winds are clocking at up to 40 miles an hour. The government is closed. Classes are canceled. Road conditions are hazardous. You want to pass the time by fucking. But is it safe?

A tipster for We Love D.C. reports that at least one District Safeway's condom selection was so decimated from the blizzard supply rush that only Magnums were left on the shelf (plenty of lube, though). Snogasm, indeed. Will D.C.'s near-record snowfall present a heightened risk for unintended pregnancies and STD transmission among antsy residents?

So far, at least, the condom rush has yet to extend to the District's most pervasive condom provider, CVS Pharmacy. Perhaps the chain's signature security click-boxes are fortified enough to prevent a quick clearing of the shelves: I called several CVS locations to check on their availability, and many claimed to be stocked with the full cornucopia of reproductive health products. The Dupont Circle CVS (6 Dupont Circle NW) boasts a full condom stock and will be open 24 hours throughout the storm; a clerk at the Adams Morgan CVS (1750 Columbia Rd. NW) promises the store will stay open until 10 p.m. As for AdMo's prophylactic stock: "Yes, we have a lot, honey," she insists.

The larger condom concern, of course, lies in the Southeast quadrant, home to the District's highest HIV/AIDS rate and the lowest concentration of pharmacies. One Southeast CVS (661 Pennsylvania Ave. SE) is currently operating and stocked with condoms—but the clerk who answered the phone said she couldn't promise the store would keep its doors open throughout the storm. One Anacostia CVS location (2646 Naylor Road SE) also plans to close early, at a time TBD. That store's condom stock isn't as healthy—"we have a few," says an employee—but the store doesn't anticipate having to turn anyone away from protection. "They're not running out," she says. "Nobody's buying them at the moment." CVS's second store across the river (3240 Pennsylvania Ave. SE) wasn't answering the phone when I called; a nearby Safeway pharmacy (2845 Alabama Ave. SE) also wasn't talking.

If your local pharmacy is closed or running low on condoms, the D.C. Department of Health points condom-seekers to the long list of community partners who distribute free condoms to District residents. While the D.C. government is closed today, some of D.C.'s condom partners may still be shilling rubbers gratis. But make sure to call ahead. "They're not government run, so they're probably opening and closing on their own accord right now," says a DOH rep. The list includes 37 locations in NW, 29 in SE, 14 in NE, and four in SW. The DOH also directs frisky residents can also text "DCWRAP" (followed by their zip code) to 365247 for a list of the nearest participating locations. The DCWRAP text line may be closed today, as well: I texted twice. I got nothin'.

But what of the residents who aren't able to brave the wind, sleet, and snow to reach one of these rubber providers? Call up DC Snacks, one of the Department of Health's condom distribution partners, who will deliver free condoms to your door—along with your order of Cheetos, cigarettes, or Chipwiches, of course.

Snack delivery entrepreneur Matt Mandell says that DC Snacks was open for business until about 10 p.m. last night. He hopes to resume delivery service again this evening, provided that the snow slows enough to ensure safe conditions for his delivery fleet. Since most DC Snacks snacks are delivered on bicycle, tonight's service depends on whether the main city arteries get plowed. "Our people on bikes can usually ride until we hit about six inches of snow, and then it's hard to get traction. That's when we pretty much closed," says Mandell. Mandell doesn't like to be closed. "We'll do our best. In some areas, we'll have to walk the bike. Some areas we can do it by motorized transportation . . . if it's close enough, we'll try to walk it there," he says. "I'm almost positive we're going to be open tonight."

If DC Snacks is operational this evening, be sure to take advantage of the extras. "There are always people who request that we throw a bunch of condoms in the bag," says Mandell. "We will definitely do that."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last month, Marijuana Policy Project Executive Director Rob Kampia took a three-month leave of absence from the nation's leading pot advocacy organization in order to receive therapy for his "hypersexualized" condition. In the office, symptoms of that condition included: Pursuing MPP employees for sex, sending e-mails to a subordinate stating his intention to administer a "breast massage" to an MPP donor, allegedly telling a female employee that she's look "hotter with a boob job," and staging MPP's annual fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion.

In Kampia's stead, MPP no. 2 Alison Green has stayed on to manage the fallout of Kampia's longtime workplace obsessions. One casualty of Kampia's therapy leave: The Playboy party appears to be kaput.

In an organization-wide e-mail, Green informed staffers that "MPP will not be holding a party at the Playboy Mansion this year." Green attributed the cancellation to Kampia's absence: "without Rob doing his normal major donor fundraising we simply don't have the cash flow to pay the up-front deposits that would be due now," she wrote. She also admitted that corralling MPP's staff into a mansion devoted to porn and staffed with professionally naked women isn't the best way to combat recent public concern over MPP's sexually-charged environment. "Plus, the PR ramifications of holding the event right now are probably obvious," she wrote.

Green then encouraged staffers to parrot this official word on MPP's choice to vacate the Mansion this year: "While MPP greatly appreciates and benefited from our association with Playboy over the past four years, in 2010 our VIP and major donor event calendar will showcase our flagship fundraiser at a new venue that will represent the diversity of MPP's supporters."

Playmates aren't the only MPP extras getting the ax in the new year. In another e-mail to staff, Green detailed the immediate financial effects of Kampia being temporarily benched:

As you know, we're working on a very tight budget for the next few months, since we currently don't have either of our top two fundraisers raising money for us (Rob and Troy). As a result, please be very frugal with your expenses — including travel costs, books, printing, etc. If in doubt, please check with your department head or me before incurring an expense. There may also be additional barriers to getting a trip approved, so please clear any travel ahead of time. Our ability to move forward without additional cost cuts is 100% dependent on our ability to pay our expenses with the amount of money we're taking in.

Also getting the forwarding treatment—a note from MPP Trustees outlining the organization's plans for the company's "immediate future," including possible downsizing of the organization's grants program:

We apologize to the staff for the uncertainty that has resulted from the Board's efforts to resolve the issues relating to our Executive Director's behavior.

We realize that it's harder to work at an organization where the staff or leadership are in transition or turmoil.  We continue to seek to minimize that turmoil.

Because Rob is on leave, currently both MPP and MPPF have no acting Executive Director.  For the duration, the organizations will be managed by two leaders at the top.  Karen O'Keefe will be responsible for Federal Policies (Aaron Houston will report to her) and State Policies and State Campaigns (Steve Fox ditto).  Alison Green will be responsible for Communications (Kurt Gardiner will report to her), Online Outreach (John Berry), Membership (Marsha Wallen), Events and Outreach (Andrea Farnum) and IT (Eric Smith).  Karen and Alison will work out issues that overlap.  They will both report to the board, and will be invited to participate in board meetings.

Alison and the staff have prepared a budget suggesting that MPP can sustain most of what has already been planned between now and May. This depends on Peter Lewis contributing $200,000 per month, as he has committed to do, and on other committed contributions arriving.  Many board members are working to make their contributions early in the year, to offset the loss of our fund-raising capability from Rob's leave, Troy's departure and our decision not to have the Playboy party.

Though Peter is donating toward MPP operations, he has decided not to  donate to the MPP grants program at this time.  Unless we can quickly  raise significant grants-program money from elsewhere, there will be serious impacts on some of our grantees.  We will be working with the staff and with those organizations to minimize those impacts.  Most of our state grantees were not expecting grants over the next several months, and will not see an immediate impact; the organizations at risk are the national ones.  At this point we do not know whether there will be an MPP grants program later in the year or in future years.

Thank you for persevering through a difficult time for the organization.  Despite that difficulty, it's a great time for accomplishing our goals.  The public is coming around to our point of view.  While they are with us, let's change some marijuana laws!

If your boobs could talk, what would they say? According to this proposed ad campaign for Durex condoms, your boobs would likely say . . . "boobs":

. . . at least, that's what German designer Andrej Kranhe thinks your boobs would say. Other strange sexual insights gleaned from Kranhe's "Type Sex With Durex" ads:

Girls orgasm in mythological afterlives:

When you have sex, does your body feel as if it has been transported to:

a) Elysium, the ancient Greek underworld that housed the "final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous"?

b) Valhalla, the mythological Norse afterworld where dead soldiers dine in an "enormous hall . . .  ruled over by the god Odin"?

c) Zion, the Jewish promised land?

If not, you're probably a dude:

According to the ad, when boys have sex, their penises turn into brains, and their brains turn into:

Yeah . . . nothing. According to the ad, when boys are busy sticking their "brains" into a lady's "Valhalla," they are incapable of reacting to outside stimuli, processing information, or reasoning.

You just ate a bunch of fruit:

At least, that's what I think that means.

Performing oral sex on a man makes a woman's brain feel "dainty":

. . . and her throat feel "TASTY"!

When boys do manage to think thoughts during sex, the thought is, "this sucks":

Girls, meanwhile, are experiencing shuddering, quaking boob orgasms. However, they are privately traumatized by this:

Her body's saying "orgasm wave," but her mind is saying "paralyzed, confused, embarrassed." Hmm. I wonder what kind of "Type Sex With Durex" this one is?

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good-old-days of referring to all former sex partners as  "trash"?

This week: How to "recycle" last week's "human trash," in the bedroom; how getting waaaaaasted will help you get into her pants; why you should never approach the person you're fucking in public.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tip: Georgetown Hoya relationship columnist Colleen Leahey goes green this week by applying the three R's to drunken GW hook-ups. In short: Your previous sex partners are "trash." Having sex with a casual hook-up twice means you're "recycling." "Human recycling is rather different from rocking your older sibling’s hand-me-downs," Leahey writes. "It typically involves alcohol, bad judgment and a late-night phone call. However, it happens on college campuses—all the time. So, is there some sort of benefit to this practice, or should an old hook-up be thrown in the trash, never to be touched again?"

Life Lesson: Sex makes everybody feel worthless. "Next time you see your random hook-up out, think about the repercussions of what you’re about to do," Leahey writes. "Weigh the pros and cons of your situation; if it seems worth it, then feel free to recycle one more time. But do remember, you could wake up the next morning feeling like a piece of trash yourself."

Progressive Meter: Even environmentalists are vulnerable to the conservative idea that having sex destroys every boy and girl's precious reserve of purity. ZERO.

—

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND:

Sex Tip: Seal the deal while she's drunk. UMD Diamondback advice columnist Esti Frischling returns from winter break to dole out advice on how to hook up with the girl you had your eye on last semester. Whatever you do, make sure she's not sober: "You didn’t man up and have your way with her when you had the chance, and now you’re just a loser with some number in your phone," Frischling writes. "The next time this happens, you have to capitalize on her tipsy advances."

Life Lesson: COLLLLEEEEGGGGGE! "I wouldn’t go straight to the sober, daytime date just yet. That’s a serious recipe for disaster. . .  you might not be drunk at that time during the day, meaning you’ll be less confident and she’ll be less attractive," Frischling writes. "I think you should meet her where you’re both most comfortable: drunk at a bar. You also don’t want to be stuck alone with her when everything goes to shit, you realize you have nothing to talk about, and you’re both terrible dancers."

Progressive Meter: Buhh. DRUNK.

—

HOWARD UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tip: This time in the Howard University Hilltop's "He Said . . . She Said" column, the He and She team up to warn undergrads against becoming somebody's "boo." According to the Hilltop, "boo" really stands for "Boy Other Option" or "Broad Other Option," depending upon the gender of the "side jawn" in question. How to be a good boo: "Don’t spend all your money, don’t ask a bunch of questions, don’t expect to meet their friends, don’t go physically farther than your emotions will allow, and never try to come up to them when they’re with another person."

Life Lesson: Boos can graduate to boyfriends and girlfriends—if they know their role. "We’re young and many of us have lots of options to choose from when it comes to being in a relationship—especially the guys on campus—so I can’t blame them for testing the waters before jumping into commitment," they write. "But the key to being a good boyfriend/girlfriend is first being a good B.O.O. Play by the rules folks, and you will win."

Progressive Meter: Some aspects of boo behavior show a respect for your sex partner's autonomy—a willingness to allow some physical and emotional distance "before jumping into commitment." Other characteristics of the boo appear to be an entrée into an abusive relationship. Never try to come up to them when they're with another person! THREE.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

In response to some off-the-cuff criticism of R. Kelly I wrote eight months ago, a reader writes in:

You seem like you may have some sexual tension issues going on. I hate to sound superficial, but if you are as attractive as me (I'm pretty damn good looking) we should get together. This is a NSA offer only. I don't wand to fuck every girl in the world, but your attitude added you to the list. Holla at me.

I still don't have any advice for my friend on how to deal with her love-struck commenter. But I do have one tip for any blogger who finds herself on the receiving end of a booty-call from a reader who assumes the blogger to be a frigid but possibly extremely attractive woman who may be interested in no-strings-attached sex with an anonymous R. Kelly enthusiast: Hit publish!

In this week’s episode of the Real World D.C., Ty gets romantic in McFaddens; random lady in purple leggings gets some action; Josh isn't getting his dick sucked. Refresh yourself with the first, second, third, and fourth episode sex recaps here).

The top 10 sex-ish moments of the third episode, after the jump.

10. JOSH'S MOTHER TATTLES ON HIS GIRLFRIEND

Josh's mom calls in to inform him that somebody in Philly saw GF Ashley kissing some guy called "Richie."

9. CALLIE IS NOT ATTRACTED TO SINGLE MEN

He does.

8. TY AND EMILY HAVE A SERIOUS TALK

Ty wants to do it, then gets philosophical on gender: "For Emily to put on a facade and pretend she has no feelings, pretend she's not a woman, it kind of makes me lose a little respect for her."

7. CALLIE REVEALS HER ADDICTION TO DRUNK DIALING

Emily: "That's a douchebag. Hang up the phone."

6. JOSH CRIES

"The pain of my nose being pierced, and the pain of Ashley allegedly cheating ... they're both hard to deal with."

5. TY MASSAGES BUTT

Emily: "Will you massage my butt? That's my biggest turn-on."

4. JOSH MAKES OUT WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND FOR A WEEK

3. . . . BEFORE MAKING OUT WITH LADY IN SPARKLY PURPLE LEGGINGS

Erika: "I kinda feel like Josh is a scumbag."

2. JOSH BREAKS UP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND

His last words: "I'm not getting my dick sucked, which I could be."

1. TY TELLS EMILY HE LOVES HER

. . . inside McFadden's.

In this week’s episode of the Real World D.C., cast member Andrew's dubious relationship with consent jumped from cartoon panel to bedroom; Mike wishes Ashley would play with her vagina; Andrew gets an all-night boner (Refresh yourself with the first, second, and third episode sex recaps here).

The top 10 sex-ish moments of the third episode, after the jump.

10. ANDREW POSITIONS HIS CROTCH NEXT TO THIS WOMAN'S CROTCH

Andrew actually finds a woman who tells him that she "loves nerds!" He responds by aggressively making out with her . . . and then making out with her best friend in front of her. Busted. At least he got his creepy crotch action in early in the game.

9. MIKE CALLS ASHLEY A BITCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN

8. ANDREW GETS SOME ADVICE FROM THE LADIES

The women in the house join together to instruct Andrew how to pick up women. One golden rule: "No whispering in her ear creepily."

7. TY GETS REAL

Realest moment of the episode: Ty tells Ashley, "I need you to trust me. I need you to take my hands right now."

6. ANDREW TOUCHES BRA

.

When the women in the household announce they're "going to teach him how to one-handedly take off a bra," Andrew holds a real, live woman's brassiere in his hands. It takes him a few minutes to get it right-side up.

Welcome back from Winter Break, sexually active college students (and old people wondering what those darned kids are up to these days)! The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of pretending that sexual orientation is just a "phase."

This week: When you're fucking a guy named "Dirty Jersey," and he doesn't want to wear a condom; how to stop being friends and start getting laid; is bisexuality the new black?

HOWARD UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: in "Is Bisexuality the New Black?", Aaron Randol surveys Howard University students about this crazy new "trend." "Is college a catalyst for bisexual behavior? And if so, does this mean bisexuality is nothing more than a trend, the new black?" Randol writes. "The notion that bisexuality in college is just a trend proves controversial for[one bisexual man]; as he, like many others, have had feelings towards both sexes before college."

Life Lessons: One of Randol's classmates describes the campus male bisexuality epidemic: "I am positive more guys at Howard than girls are trying bisexuality. Less than 5 percent of the girls that I know of here are trying or have tried it, but I’d say 50 percent of my guy friends have tried. I don’t know if it’s Howard or if it’s how people are leaning in general. But it seems like here, 1 in 3 guys are gay or bisexual. It’s not even weird to hear a guy is gay or bisexual at Howard any more.”

Progressive Meter: After setting up the trendy bisexual straw man argument, Randol is ready to smack down that particular theory. Let's hear it, Randol! "So is bisexuality the new black, nothing more than a trend, a staple on the public scene?" he concludes: "Maybe not." Bleh. ZERO.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: Georgetown Hoya dating columnist Colleen Leahey reflects on the Swiftian nature of her romantic life. Taylor Swiftian."The entire situation was straight out of a silly Taylor Swift song: I had a thing for my best guy friend. While he dated various girls, I put myself in the friend zone, giving him advice and being there when he needed to vent to someone," she writes. "Secretly, though, I was hoping he would realize that I was the one he truly liked."

Life Lessons: Refreshingly, Leahey combats this trademark Swiftian passivity by advising unrequited lovers how to step up and do something about it. "So, this new year, if you’re finally ready to admit to your inner desires, then do be more aggressive with your feelings," she writes. "Go with your impulse; if you think there’s a spark and it’s not one-sided, make a move. . . . Don’t overanalyze or freak your friend out, but you do have to make a slight effort if you want something to actually happen (unless you’re trying to be the next victim of the T. Swift syndrome)."

Progressive Meter: Slight effort! What can I say, I'm a sucker for refusing to fall victim to the T. Swift Syndrome. SEVEN.

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: Hatchet sex columnist Layla admits she's done it without a condom—with a guy she calls "Dirty Jersey." "Since [the first night we had sex], despite his protests, I insisted on a condom every time like I knew I should," Layla writes. But that didn't last: "Somewhere during the next five or six times we had sex, my resolve dissolved. I went from being adamant about using protection, to making Dirty Jersey pull out to get a condom, to finally staying quiet about it. Part of me hoped that he would catch on to my desire to use a condom, but he never did. To be perfectly honest, it felt amazing without it and it was just as much my fault as it was his."

Life Lessons: Fuck that guy! "I may be guilty of condom-use abuse in the past, but now, I am most definitely reformed," Layla writes. "It also helps that I'm not dating Dirty Jersey anymore."

Progressive Meter: What does strapping on a rubber say about your politics? According to Margaret Talbot's "Red Sex, Blue Sex," teen pregnancy is higher and condom use lower in this country's red states. So we'll count this prophylactic flip-flopper as a moderate. Feminist bonus: She ditched a guy who clearly didn't give a shit about what she wanted in the bedroom. Too bad she softens that with a healthy dose of self-blame.  FIVE.

photo via nerdcoregirl, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Yes, "too fat for Playboy" actually constitutes a full episode's arc on this show. This week's episode of the Real World D.C. was the Very Special Body Image Edition. Essentially, everyone just commented on Callie's body the whole time. She's not skinny enough! She works out too much! Andrew secretly watches her shower! This issue looks like it might snowball into a season-wide theme; at a premiere party, one Real World fan told City Paper that Callie looks like she's lost 20 pounds since filming.

In non-weight-related-issues: one cast member tells another cast member to suck his own dick. (Refresh yourself with the first and second episode sex recaps here). The top 10 sex-ish moments of the third episode, after the jump.

10. ANDREW LOOKS AT NAKED CHICKS IN THE SHOWER.

Andrew: "Girls think that the frosted glass on the shower, that you can't really see through that. But you can. So."

Josh: "I saw most of them already . . . Callie has a nice body, I love it, I love it."

Andrew: "She's got some meat on those bones . . . But you can never tell her that."

Josh: "Some girls are self-conscious about that type of thing."

Dun-dun-dunnnn.

9. TY AND EMILY HAD SEX

Afterward, Ty calls his ex-girlfriend to tell her about it, for some reason. She is upset by this.

Meanwhile, Ashley continues her parade of strange racial comments: "I'm picturing the future: Little black-white babies."

8. ASHLEY DEEMS HERSELF A SIZE-2 "CURVY"

Discussion topic: Who do you think is going to gain the most weight in the house?

Ashley: "Me. I'm going to go from like a 2-4 to a 6-8."

Callie: "That is not curvy. . . . I've never been a small, teeny tiny little girl. I've always wanted to be smaller."

7. TY GETS JEALOUS OF EMILY DANCING WITH OTHER BLACK MEN.

Shouted from the steps of the Real World house: "Hey Emily, how were all the black guys at the bar? Were they fun? Were they awesome? Did you rub up against them with their [BLEEPED] out?"

6. TY CALLS CALLIE TOO FAT FOR PLAYBOY.

Callie: "Ty, I have the right hair color to be a Playboy bunny."

Ty: "You're not skinny enough."

Callie (opening her heart to the confessional): "Ty makes a comment that I'm not skinny enough to do Playboy, and I'm trying really hard to act like it's not bothering me, but it's like marinating in the back of my head and even though i'm attempting not to get upset, I am."

Ty explains himself: "To be perfectly honest, Callie is not the size of a playboy model. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm a realist."

EUPHEMISM: "Bedrock."

[youtube:v=Ha80ZaecGkQ]

DEFINING MOMENT: Young Money's "BedRock," in which Lloyd announces, "Call me Mr. Flinstone, I can make your bed rock." (Thanks to Heartless Doll for the tip).

LITERALLY: "Bedrock" has several classic associations. According to Wikipedia, bedrock is the stratigraphic term for "the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth." Bedrock, when employed as a proper noun, is also home to animated prehistoric family The Flinstones. It is this definition which the Young Money lyrics favor.

UNDERLYING MEANING: Has there ever been a weaker sexual euphemism? According to Urban Dictionary, the phenomenon of bedrock—the sexy kind—occurs "when two are enjoying intercourse & the man shakes the bed." Obviously. "Bedrock" is mostly pun at this point, but if Young Money's track takes off, we may see this term come into its own as a bonafide euphemism. On the other hand, for a song filled with references like "Call me Red Bull / we can fly away" and "I be stuck to her / Like glue, baby," I'm not betting on this track's lyrical stylings enduring.

Today, Tucker Carlson launched The Daily Caller, a Web site that has been hailed as the conservative answer to the Huffington Post. Given my peculiar obsessions with Arianna Huffington's left-leaning political tabloid, I had but one question for Carlson: Will there be nipples?

Last June, I noted the Huffington Post's regular publication of "nipple slips," or the accidentally bared nipples of major and minor celebrities. I argued that the promotion of these red-carpet snafus encourages readers to objectify women's bodies, while denying those women the agency to control their own nipple exposure—and that these non-consensual erotic displays compromised the Huffington Post's ostensibly progressive bent. (Recall this intensely zoomed-in image of the outer reaches of Beyonce's areola to reveal the depths of HuffPo's obsession with accidental nipples).

When pressed on what it all means, editor Arianna Huffington insisted that a nipple slip is divorced from political ideology: "As Freud said, 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'—and a nipple slip is just a nipple slip." (Translation: Sometimes a cigar does not mean a "penis," but sometimes a "woman's nipple" does mean a "woman's nipple," and that means lot of page-views).

Huffington's armchair psychoanalysis failed to shed any light on the matter: How is the objectification of women justified by political progressives? With the launch of Carlson's Caller, I was presented with a rare opportunity to see how a right-leaning Web site might deal with women's boobs peeking out of their dresses. Would it lean toward the side of abstinence-informed modesty? Would it tend toward boy's-club objectification? Or would it just publish, like, real news?

I e-mailed Carlson to ask him about his site's political ideology, and whether it would embrace nipples. Carlson's response: "I can't promise the site will be areola-free—in my experience these things are hard to predict—but even at this late stage we haven't settled on a firm nipple policy," he wrote.

So far, the Daily Caller has yet to promote images of any accidentally naked celebrities on the Web. A perusal of the Daily Caller's "Entertainment" page reveals some tabloid fare ("Lohan in paparazzi incident...again"), and some sexy news ("Avatar was supposed to have a sex scene"), but, alas, no nipples:

Yet.

This week on the Real World D.C., Mike got a little bit too gay for Ashley's taste, a housemate is intrigued by Andrew's rape cartoons, and Andrew lures an apparently drunk woman into the hot tub. (Refresh yourself with the first episode's sex recap here). The top 10 sex-ish moments of the second episode—including cast member Ashley's slow descent into crippling homophobia—after the jump.

10. ASHLEY ATTEMPTS TO COME TO TERMS WITH MIKE'S BISEXUALITY

"He's ... bisexual," Ashley tells a friend over the phone about her house crush, Mike. "But then he's got like these green eyes and tan skin and athletic build and stuff." Later, she feigns interest in meeting Mike's long-distance boyfriend. "So when's the BF coming? . . . I'm excited to meet him. . . . Is he a nerdy guy or like a jocky guy?"

9. ASHLEY COMES TO TERMS WITH MIKE'S BISEXUALITY. THEY HOOK UP:

"We, like, full-on tongue-kissed," Ashley reports. The other housemates go wild.

8. THE HOUSEMATES REALIZE THAT THEY HAVE THE POWER TO SUMMON RANDOM HOT PEOPLE ON COMMAND:

After Ty sees crush Emily dancing with another man in a club, he resolves to "find a hotter girl to talk to." (By "talk," he means "allow her to place her ass near my hands"). He succeeds instantly.

7. THIS RULE EVEN APPLIES TO ANDREW:

"Okay, I'm going to go find a girl," Andrew says. "I'm just gonna, like, tackle her. Gazelle: lion."

6. THE HOUSEMATES DISCOVER ANOTHER USE FOR RANDOMS: FORCING THEM TO LISTEN TO THEIR PERSONAL PROBLEMS.

Emily can't believe she kissed Ty, random lady at the bar! He's so gross! Right?

Tonight, the District will finally embark on the long-awaited experiment in forgoing politeness for realness. If these early previews of the Real World D.C. are any indication, the seven housemates will commence "getting real" by arguing over whether God exists in the Dupont Circle Bucca di Beppo. In other words, Real World looks to be getting a little bit too real this time around. But these seven real people will, at least, furiously attempt to have real sex with one another. And damned if I'm not going to record each of their pathetic stabs at doing so.

I suspect that MTV fucked up in a major way by airing Jersey Shore, not because the premise is offensive and the footage socially damaging, but because it's raised the bar for reality show sex and violence to unparalleled heights. Tomorrow, the network's follow-up to its Guido-rific reality hit will transport viewers into the squarest TV territory possible: following around a bunch of aspiring political aides as they struggle at their internships and get drunk at McFaddens. I have lived this television show! It was called George Washington University. It was just OK.

But there is hope! Earlier this year, Ruth Samuelson reported that the Real World D.C. house does, indeed, have the requisite hot tub, but there were several months there where we weren't even sure if we were going to get that much sexualization out of this show. Now we know:

People will make fun of Andrew for being a virgin! (above)

Andrew will outrageously pretend that he is not sexually attracted to Emily in order to convince viewers that he is, in fact, actually attracted to women!

Girls will speculate as to which boys are gay! And they will guess Andrew.

Andrew will say this: "I wanted to improve my chances of being laid by forcing Emily to be my roommate, I feel like I kinda put that on her. Gahh, I'm such a dirty guy, I hate myself. But I probably will have sex with her. When Ty is done with her."

People will hang out near a shower!

Will Andrew ever get laid? How many times will Ty air-dry his muscular body for all the housemates to see? Who will hook up at McFadden's? Check back in with the Real World D.C. hook-up round-up, every Thursday.

Lessons learned from 2009’s high-profile rape cases.

This was the year of the armchair rape analyst (ARA). If you’ve never run into such a person, here’s a job description: While men across the globe generate allegations of rape, ARAs are charged with casually dismissing the problem from the comfort of their living rooms. They sit back, stroke the chin, and plant gray where black and white work just fine.

ARAs have a field day when high-profile alleged rapes surface in the media. Though they always concede that “no means no,” in such cases it’s not always clear who said what. The ambiguity allows ARAs to decide matters of consent based on the suspect’s skill on the football field, the victim’s blood alcohol level, or the presence or absence of a rope.

BEN ROETHLISBERGER
Verdict: He could have sex with any woman he wanted.

“Most girls would feel lucky to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger.” That’s what a Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino rep allegedly told Andrea McNulty, a hotel employee, when she reported that the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback had raped her in his room.

When McNulty filed a civil suit against Roethlisberger this summer, Big Ben’s fans assumed the armchair position with one foolproof excuse. After all, “He could have sex with any woman he wanted” functions outside the realm of facts.

Fans said that same thing when Kobe Bryant was accused of rape: “Kobe Bryant doesn’t need to rape any woman. They would gladly throw themselves at him,” wrote one supporter. And Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock: “It’s not like he had to make somebody have sex with him,” said Up Records owner Pete Ritchey. “He could have sex with anybody he wanted.” And magician David Copperfield: “I hardly think he needs to rape anyone, surely there is plenty of willing participants out there,” wrote another ARA.

So: Every woman in the world chooses her sex partners based on how far they throw footballs, how many Bukowski references they can work into their indie rock records, or how effectively they can make shit disappear. Actually, simple name recognition is enough to make any woman want to fuck you. And another thing: Men rape women only because they can’t get sex anywhere else.

These assumptions aren’t just wrong. They’re dangerous. Let’s think of another reason why a man might rape a woman: because he assumes that he can have sex with anybody he wants. He has a recognizable name, and every woman wants to fuck him. At that point, why bother to gain consent? He’s famous. The consent is implied.

ROMAN POLANSKI
Verdict: Oh, what could have been!

When Roman Polanksi was finally arrested in Switzerland over his 31-year-old guilty plea in the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, the arguments in Polanski’s defense began to stack up like so much snow in the luxury Alpine village of Gstaad: The 76-year-old Polanski is a victim of America’s puritanical sex laws; having survived both the Holocaust and Charles Manson, the man has suffered enough; he didn’t know she was 13; Polanski is genial and intelligent, nothing like a rapist.

But the most absurd excuses in Polanski’s defense enter a Twilight Zone of rape apology, where the real price for raping a child is not serving time in prison but rather depriving the public of a couple of great movies. These excusers are loath to imagine a world where cinematic geniuses are forced to craft brilliant films without raping anyone along the way. What if, by systematically putting its convicted rapists behind bars for years at a time, the United States has denied the world more Pianists?

I have seen The Pianist. It is not worth raping a child over. Entertainment industry luminaries disagreed. Swiss erotic photographer Otto Weisser had this to say upon Polanski’s arrest: “I am ashamed to be Swiss, that the Swiss is doing such a thing to brilliant fantastic genius, that millions and millions of people love his work,” Weisser said. “He’s a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago. What a shame for Switzerland.” Hundreds more—including Woody Allen, Natalie Portman, and Pianist star Adrien Brody—added their names to a petition demanding Polanski’s release that painted Polanski as the victim: “Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.” After all, if Polanski were forced to serve time over the child he raped, maybe he never would have made the Pianist, Adrien Brody’s career never would have taken off, and the world would have been deprived of Adrien Brody’s turn as “Bloom” in the Brothers Bloom. And that’s the real tragedy.

Whenever another cultural milestone rolls around—an election, an inauguration, a Bruce concert—you can bet that the men of Craigslist will attempt to parlay it into an opportunity to scout out some themed poon.

This week: Christmas poon!

The worst of the Christmas-themed sexual overtures filed in the "Casual Encounters" section of D.C. Craigslist, after the jump. Warning: Links (and possibly this entire blog, actually) NSFW:

TEN:

Clarification: not actually a sex ad:

I am just looking for a woman that would be willing to give me a Christmas gift I have always wanted....her to kick me. :-) I'm not looking for anything sexual at all, so you do not have to worry about that. Just would like to find a woman that would like to have a guy she can kick whenever she likes. Hope to hear from you. Merry Christmas!

NINE:

For the girl with Santa issues:

It is that time of year again when santa gets VERY stressed out and he is looking for a good girl who would like to let him pay her a special visit (or a bad one who wants to get on the good list) and help santa out. Looking to come by and spread some christmas cheer. Santa has a wonderful candy can for you to suck on. And from there stuff your stocking and give you a very merry christmas! Send santa a letter and tell him what kind of girl you have been this year and what you want :)

EIGHT:

I have found the woman for you, good sir! It feels so good to play holiday matchmaker:

I'm looking for a man with a santa suit to satisfy a naughty Christmas fantasy.

You should be clean, drug and disease free, 30 – 45 years old.

please respond with a photo of your face and put the word "Santa" in the subject line.

SEVEN:

What woman could resist becoming this dude's ornament?

I NEED SOMEONE TO DECORATE MY CHRISTMAS TREE AND RAISE MY SPIRITS BEFORE THE HOLIDAY! I FIND BEAUTY IN MANY SHAPES, SIZES, ETC, SO PLEASE DON'T BE SHY. PLEASE RESPOND WITH HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPRUCEN UP MY TREE, PLEASE SEND A PIC. FYI I'M HOPING FOR COAL THIS YEAR SO THE NAUGHTIER THE BETTER;-)

I, too, am interested in how women intend to "sprucen up my tree" this holiday season. Do you think that's German?

SIX:

Extra points for making a holiday pun out of your condom use:

Yes, I should put more into this ad, but the title is what I'm looking for. I get off on giving women something that their husbands or boyfriends SHOULD be able to, but can't. While he's plowing the snow, we can either stay inside and keep each other warm, or you can sneak out to do some "last minute Christmas shopping", either way, I'll give you a nice, big, wrapped present.

FIVE:

Does the specificity of this guy's Christmas availability make anyone else kind of sad?

I'm a sub male, who is otherwise totally and completely "normal:" good job, fit, intelligent, silly, athletic, etc., but I have a very strong Boot fetish. If You'd like to have Your Boots licked clean, kissed, and worshipped after getting them dirty in the snow, i'm Your guy!

i do NOT want to have intercourse. i just want to feel the presence of a powerful Woman forcing me to lick Her dirty Boots.

i'm even available Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day after 2pm.

FOUR:

I have a sneaking suspicion that this man is going to be forced to eat his Christmas balls all alone this year:

I had a ball "triming" party and I now have the smoothest balls....looking for a beautiful woman to enjoy them over some Holiday cheer!

THREE:

What's weirder: That this guy expects your panties to stay warm for a reasonable period of time, or that he is obviously purchasing these panties as a Christmas gift to himself? ("Offer ends next Wednesday, Dec 23rd").

Mature white male, into warmed over ladies panties, used and warm preferably...  reward for you...more if you are interested in letting me remove them myself...  Ladies only please...may be interested in more if you are...  Collection availability starts Monday am, Dec 21st. Offer ends next Wednesday, Dec 23rd.

TWO:

This guy, on the other hand, used the "Twelve Days of Christmas" as an excuse to write an overly long poem about picking up a woman and fondling her "nips." Not okay:

You are tasty and fresh,
and everything good,
as I munch between your legs,
the way a man should.

Oh, dude, do not bring Christmas into this.

ONE:

Someone has got to inform this guy that Craigslist does not function as an adult Santa that will magically fulfill your threesome request. But don't overexert yourself, magic Craigslist Santa, this guy is "perfectly fine with just watching":

I guess it's every man's dream to be with two women, right. What better place to try and make it happen than CL, lol. I don't need to touch either of you but of course that would be great if I could. I'm perfectly fine with just watching though. Make my Christmas one I won't forget, lol.

Photo via Matt Kelland, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

5. Randy Raft:

How to Do It: "Climb onto a well-inflated raft in shallow water, and lie on your stomach with your butt and legs dangling over the edge. Your man should grab on to your thighs, as if he were pushing a wheelbarrow, then enter you. He can then pull you incredibly close for the deepest possible penetration."

The Spontaneity of Raft Sex: According to Cosmo, the appeal of "Randy Raft" lies in its element of surprise: "since you can't see him, you aren't able to anticipate his next move, which is surprisingly thrilling." OK, but can't I face away from my partner when I'm not on a well-inflated raft in the shallow pool I was forced to purchase in order to revive my sex life? And what could his "next move" possibly be? Sexy dunking?

4. The Submarine.

How to Do It: "Have your man sit on the second or third stair in the shallow end of the pool (or on the hot-tub bench). Straddle his lap and take him inside you. Next, lift your legs so your feet are propped up on the top of the stairs. Have him grab on to your thighs as you lean back. Hold on to his calves to help you stay elevated as he pulls you back and forth."

Watered Down: Cosmo writes: "The feeling of weightlessness combined with the sensual deprivation of not being able to hear since your ears are submerged will allow you to surrender to the bliss of your partner's member throbbing inside you." Whoever wrote this copy was clearly trying to compensate for the utterly unsexy phrase "not being able to hear since your ears are submerged" by putting as many Cosmo-approved sexual signifiers into the end of that sentence: "surrender to the bliss of your partner's member throbbing inside you"? There's no way waterlogged pool sex is that good.

3. The Sexy Sprinkler

How to Do It: "Stand beside a soft-spraying sprinkler and bend over so the water hits your genitals. If you can't reach your hands to the ground, place them on your thighs or calves for support. Your partner should stand behind you and put his hands around your waist as he enters you.

Enticing Extra: If you thought the "Sexy Sprinkler" was just sex plus water again, you'd be wrong. It is sex plus water plus grass smell! According to Cosmo: "the aroma of wet grass boosts your sense of smell, making this a supersensory experience." I know that olfactory cues play a big part in attraction, but I'm pretty sure the aroma of wet grass will only boost your ability to smell . . . wet grass.

2. The Canoe Canoodle:

How to Do It: "In a canoe or rowboat, paddle a short distance from shore. Once you're at your desired locale, stretch out on your side, resting your head on your bottom arm for cushioning. (Bend your knees if necessary.) Have your partner spoon you from behind, keeping his top arm wrapped around your waist as he enters you and begins to thrust gently."

Complicating Factors: Let's see: it's sex, except you're lying naked on the hard, metallic floor of a boat. Cosmo rates the difficulty of this position as only a three out of five, as if most sexual encounters require you and your partner to secure a boat and a body of water as a pretext to getting it on. Also, last time I checked, canoes looked like this . . .

. . . meaning your canoe sex will situate your bodies between a hard metal boat and a series of hard metal poles. Rrrrow!

1. Surf's Up

How to Do It: "Lie facedown on a surfboard with your arms and legs outstretched on either side. With your guy standing at your side in waist-deep water, have him wrap his leg around the board to mount it like a horse and enter you from behind. Once he and the board are steady, he should stretch out as well."

But Why? According to Cosmo, "Trying not to tip over the surfboard adds an extra element of fun to this carnal challenge. And, having the hard substance beneath you—and his hard body on top of you—feels exquisitely sexy." "Surf's Up" is near impossible to pull off. If you and your partner can manage to get off on a surfboard, you're still going to find yourself face-down on a "hard substance" as your man attempts to wrangle his wet body onto yours long enough to stick it in you.

Canoe photo via Sassy Frassy Lassie, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of passive femininity, drunk-flirting double standards, and Jell-O Shot lesbianism?

This week: How to pick up guys sober; when gays and lesbians offend gays and lesbians; what to do when you pick up a guy drunk.

—

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND:

Sex Tips: Diamondback advice columnist Esti Frischling tells UMD girls how to find dates beyond the old standby of "flirting with random guys at the bars." Her venue of choice? "Class. Next time, just sit next to that stud and smoothly pass him an empty tic-tac-toe board—guaranteed to get you at least a smile and a game, possibly even a good lay."

Life Lesson: "Just look approachable and wear stretchy pants."

Progressive Meter: I support any relationship advice column targeted at women that does not rely upon sitting around and waiting for the hottest dude ever to reveal his improbable love for you. Man, Twilight has really lowered my standards. 6.

—

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: Since our AU Threesome of sex columnists has retired for the semester, this one's a rebuttal. Sarah Brown, Senior, has this to say about the Threesome's treatment of lesbian sex: "I can look past the inaccurate comparison of lesbian sex to Jell-O shots, the offensive implication that lesbians are all biologically the same and even the language that suggests that 'encountering a lesbian' is similar to running into a strange creature in the wild," she writes. "What I cannot seem to move past, though, is the Editor’s Note at the bottom of the column, which reads: 'In an attempt to prevent misinterpretation, we would like to acknowledge our sex columnists are of varying sexual orientations and genders.'”

Life Lesson: Newsflash: Gays and lesbians can offend gays and lesbians. Writes Brown: "While I’m glad that The Eagle has taken a non-heteronormative approach to the sex column, what this note implies is that The Eagle staff does not regard members of the LGBT community to be capable of saying things that offend and hurt persons in their community."

Progressive Meter: Good points, all. But really, how is one expected to get through a semester of sex column writing without including at least one offensive analogy to Jell-O shots? 9.

—

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: This time around, Hoya sex columnist Colleen Leahey invites us to learn from experience. In "How To Avoid The Pitfalls Of Drunken Flirting," Leahey tells the story of "Ian" and "Emma," two Georgetown co-eds who only talk when they're wasted. As the semester goes on, the drunken flirting gets heated: “I just think you’re so beautiful," drunk Ian tells her one night. What exactly do you want from this whole thing? drunk Emma texted back. Weeks later, the hangover sets in: Drunk Ian's girlfriend wants to fight drunk Emma!

Life Lesson: When a dude with a girlfriend goes astray, there is always a woman to blame. "Emma walked home with tear-filled eyes. She went to bed upset, feeling like some kind of worthless tease. The next day, however, her sadness turned to anger. Since when had this whole situation even become a big deal? Nothing had happened. And how was it solely her fault? Albeit, she had crossed a line, actually recognizing their flirtation, whereas Ian had merely straddled it. Yet, once she realized how wrong her actions had been, she immediately backed off. So, why did she deserve such scrutiny an entire month later?"

Progressive Meter: Double standards are a bitch. 7.

Photo via the Library of Congress