The epic journey into swinger territory continues with this week’s “Sex on Monday” as Carmel details what goes on in swinger clubs, the second in a three-part series.

Swingers’ Saga, Part Two

Carmel DeAmicis

Although John and Kiki had prepared me with useful tips (”Don’t take your clothes off unless you want to get groped”), I was still incredibly nervous. Fortunately, my friend Jess came along for support. She was silent the whole ride (perhaps preparing herself to not shriek at the site of old man penis). I felt a little guilty for relying on the old peer pressure tactic (”C’monnn, don’t be a chicken! Bawk bawk … “), but I was way too chicken shit to go to a sex club alone.

As we stepped into the club, John and Kiki donned their swinger personas (Kiki rocking a fuck-me electric blue skirt, John trading glasses for contacts-GSIs Gone Wild style). X, the club we visited, is located

Read the rest of the column here or in Monday’s paper.

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Earlier: Better Than Giada

After reading “Atheists and Abstinence”, did you want to check out more information on Harvard’s Free Love Revolution group?

Hit up the NY Times article that inspired the column and check out the Free Love Revolution’s Website.

Despite popular belief, Italian food and sex go very well together. For one, Italian food is traditionally eaten with a very large group of people, and sex … well, let’s just say this week’s Sex on Monday takes a more pluralistic approach to sex. Enjoy Carmel’s column, the first in a three-parter.

Swingers, Part One

Carmel DeAmicis

The door creaks open, and I brace myself for a pasty-faced man clad in leather or a bleached-hair woman with flesh oozing from her tube top. Instead, I am confronted with John, a decidedly uncontroversial looking guy. He’s rocking the classic Berkeley GSI gear: wire-rimmed glasses, comfortable shoes, hair sticking up a little in the back (as though he’s spent all night in the library). I breathe a sigh of relief as he welcomes me into the house even though my heart is still pattering a mile a minute and nervous beads of sweat are pooling at the nape of my

Read the rest of the column here or in Monday’s paper.

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Earlier: On the Brightside of Things …

Especially if you’re involved in actually making porn. Down in SoCal, quite a bit of attention is being given to the porn industry—especially its run-ins with AIDS and HIV. According to the LA Times, an actress tested positive for HIV last week, sparking an outbreak of attention unheard of since a 2004 incident in which production had to be halted for a month while porn officials figured out what was going on.

Purely on the numbers side, 22 cases of HIV have popped up since 2004, including last week’s. Well, we suppose you can’t have your sexy cake and it eat too—at least not all the time.

Image Source: Lookr under Creative Commons
More porn HIV cases disclosed, Porn actress tests positive for HIV, At least 16 previously unpublicized HIV cases in porn film performers, public health officials say [LA Times]

We’re talkin’ about blueberries, of course—what else?

As it turns out, a study conducted by a plethora of Spanish universities found that men who eat gratuitous quantities of antioxidant-rich vegetables and fruits have higher quality sperm compared with their counterparts who ate more meats and fatty dairy foods.

And according to study head and researcher Jaime Mendiola, that means men who want to be harder, better, faster, stronger should stock up on their antioxidant foods. Well, maybe not harder, better, faster or stronger, but you get the gist.

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Antioxidants Boost Sperm Quality [LiveScience]

Dive into the world of unfamiliar freckles, hair patches and knobbly knees with Carmel as she ponders about how we reconcile the foreignness of another’s body with our shaky faith that we know who they are (it’s what’s on the inside that counts!) in this week’s “Sex on Monday.”

Stages, Scripts & Strangers

Carmel DeAmicis

It almost always starts with a kiss-sort of an odd ritual when you really think about it. There’s nothing to compare to it in the animal world. The pressing of one another’s lips together, flesh that seems formed for only this purpose and seemingly has no reproductive function to explain its survival in our gene pool. But this is how it begins, the seeking of each other’s bodies through nerve endings meant for food.

Although, I suppose if we are being precise, the kiss is prefaced by its cousins-the fuck-me glance, the fuck-me dance, the fuck-me pants. This is where we parallel nature, our ostentatious shows of sexuality designed to get someone thinking about us naked and

Read the rest of the column here or in Monday’s paper.

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Earlier: If Sex Is Like McDonald’s, It’s Not a Good Sign

The University of Minnesota’s Dr. Date has some pretty nifty advice for men suffering from premature ejaculation, or as one non-PC writer called it, being “an early bird.” The good doctor actually has a few solutions, beginning at foreplay and more frequent sex. Another person writes in to Dr. Date with advice about how to get out of the “always the good friend, never the boyfriend” routine. Hint: It has to do with believing in yourself.

Bess Davis at the Montana Kaimin chimes in on an interesting trend she’s noticed among her friends: Given the choice between oral sex or cheese (but not both), the vast majority of people she talked to would rather stick with their cheeses. Well, we can’t say we’re not surprised—those cheeses at the Berkeley Bowl are pretty damn good.

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Earlier: Summer Love, Male Egos

Forty thousand men and women every day can now be like Romeo and Juliet—that is, they can get married at a mansion that is widely believed to be one owned by the Capulets of Shakespeare’s classic play.

The city of Verona in Italy finally opened up the 13th century Capello family balcony to weddings, but at a hefty price: A civil wedding license from the city will cost 900 euros for Americans, or almost $1,300. Yikes!

Spoiler alert: If life imitates art, it may not be worth all the romantic hype should the play’s tragic end come true. But neither should you fear the reaper.

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Modern Romeos and Juliets can tie knot in Verona [Reuters]

Are serious relationships doomed to lose that special spark or is there something else going on? Read Carmel’s somewhat abstracted take on the concept of commodification sex as a representation of relationships in this week’s “Sex on Monday.”

Big Mac With That?

Carmel de Amicis

We often think of sex in a physical or behavioral way-a friction between bodies, a joining of parts and pieces. The deed has a mechanistic definition, one that can be looked up in a dictionary and then reified in action. We suck and lick, rub and grind, prod and push; sex is, at heart, a bunch of motions joined together.

But what about when sex is more? A mouth nibbling an ear indicates something beyond just the chemical kindling of nerve cells; who owns the mouth and the ear will call into question the purposes behind the sex. Are both partners there for the pleasure? In this case maybe the nibbling is a sign of

Read the rest of the column here or in Monday’s paper.

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Earlier: Just the Facts, Ma’am