So you’re perusing the “Human Sexuality” section at Moe’s one afternoon, thumbing through a copy of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus In Furs.” Its margins are heavily annotated with interjections such as “Ahh!!” and “YES!!!” in distinctively masculine handwriting, especially next to the scenes detailing the protagonist Severin’s repeated requests to be whipped, beaten and called derogatory names by his lover Wanda. He also demands that she clothe her naked body with animal fur coats and little else.

You shut the book in terror, realizing that Sacher-Masoch’s work bares a troubling resemblance of your most recent romps in the proverbial hay. Suddenly a string of your boyfriend’s recent sexual requests flood your mind: (Click here to read more…)

On Thursdays I’m taking the liberty of playing Monday Morning Quarterback. For these posts I’ll take the opportunity to add another part to my column, criticize myself, respond to comments and/or do whatever else I feel like doing.

It’s funny, when I wrote this week’s column I fully expected people to misconstrue what I was writing.

All I did was write a simple piece about how alcohol and sex are intertwined in college life. People often drink to feel more comfortable interacting with others. Are you telling me this doesn’t exist?

Maybe you don’t want it to exist, but how can you hate on me for writing about the fact that it exists?

One more thing, I never said you should get someone else drunk to have sex with he/she.  I said you should have a couple drinks yourself. People are claiming that I condone raping people when the truth is the exact opposite is true.

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Here is an excerpt from an e-mail I received and my response. It encapsulates a lot of the ill-founded comments people were making.

Email: (Click here to read more…)

Picture this: you’re at a party, you’ve had a few drinks, and you’re feeling good. The music’s pumping, cute boys are abundant, and by golly, one of them is even coming over to talk to you right now! (OK, I would normally say feel free to adjust the genders of these hypothetical characters so that the scenario is most applicable to your own sexual preferences, but in this case, it’s kind of critical that the suitor has a penis. Straight girls and gay men, this one’s for you.) He polishes off his fifth beer, you quickly smooth out your hair and drain the screwdriver you’re holding, and the conversation commences. After a few arbitrary exchanges (hey, hi, how’s it going?, pretty well, etc.) you and your new-found friend start (Click here to read more…)

via SMBC Theater.

The other day, while browsing the Web and searching for ideas to blog about, I stumbled across a true gem. Despite the fact that it was a bit more scientific than I typically go for, I was fascinated. This article that I found delved into the mysterious realm of the human senses. You know how people talk about the senses being more powerful than we realize and how we say things like dogs and horses can smell fear? I’ll do you one better: according to what I read, humans can smell sex.

That’s right, ladies and gents, our sniffers are good for more than just telling us when Mom’s baking a batch of cookies. In fact, they can actually decipher when someone is aroused or not. Here’s how it works: Have you ever noticed that when you’re around a person that you’re truly attracted to, you get a little nervous and maybe even a little bit sweaty? Well, that sweat—you know, the kind that we specifically layer on the pre-date deodorant to avoid—contains pheromones (bodily chemicals that elicit responses in the opposite sex). Studies have shown that men and women alike are able to notice the difference between the sweat that results from a good long gym session and the sweat that we exude when aroused. These little chemical signals hiding in our sweat are just waiting to call our bluffs and reveal our true intentions.

So next time you find yourself wondering whether or not the hottie in your morning lecture is in to you, try something other than decoding the subtle hints of his or her body language. Instead, see if you can get close enough for a whiff—it could tell you all you need to know.

Image Source: publicenergy under Creative Commons

While we’ve probably all had discussions on the merits of sex with oneself vs having sex with someone else, the not-unrelated idea of asexual reproduction brings up a bigger question: Why do people (and for that matter, lots of other organisms) use sex to reproduce instead of the alternative (like bacteria)?

Some biologists have hypothesized a few of the advantages of sex have to do with protecting against parasites.

In a nutshell, the idea is that if you have a population of clones, it’ll be easier for parasites to exploit weaknesses in any one individual, and hence the whole population. So one of the evolutionary pressures towards sex was as a defense against parasites.

Of course, crabs are a different story …

Image Source: karindalziel under Creative Commons
Why Have Sex? To Fend Off Parasites [LiveScience]

A particularly effective Urban Dictionary entry defines beer goggles as the “phenomenon in which one’s consumption of alcohol makes physically unattractive persons appear beautiful;” something that nearly all of us have experienced, either personally or witnessed courtesy of a mildly-inebriated friend.

The beer goggle effect is so common, in fact, that sometimes it’s possible to forget that it can lead to some pretty large, though occasionally humorous, regrets. In college, drinking and sex just go together—it’s one of those correlations that we have come to accept as truth in the work hard, play harder world that we are currently a part of. We finish our 10-page papers, go out with friends, down a shot—or eight—and then find ourselves half-naked in someone else’s bed … only to realize (a few hours later, once the buzz has worn off) that our judgment wasn’t at its finest.

This would be the appropriate time to subtract 15 points of self-respect.

Let’s make one thing clear: I’m not condemning drunken hookups per se, I’m simply suggesting that we should all at least be aware of the difference between going home with someone that you are at least somewhat interested in and accidentally bedding a complete creep. To put it simply: When that guy you didn’t want to dance with starts looking more and more like Jude Law, it’s time to take the goggles off.

Image Source: imnohero under Creative Commons

On Thursdays I’m taking the liberty of playing Monday Morning Quarterback. For these posts I’ll take the opportunity to add another part to my column, criticize myself, respond to comments and/or do whatever else I feel like doing.

I don’t want to be one more hater, but yeah this column kind of failed. Spell check? also you’ve disappointed me! At first I thought you were hot, and I was glad a guy was writing the column. But come on, admitting stereotypical sexist college male bs doesn’t give you license to use it as the basis for your writing…Ex “you need me to loosen her up for you?” Not only is that fucked up and scary, it sounds like a line from a really bad gangbang porn. what house do you live in again? I’ll make sure to never go there again…

After I saw that comment I was planning on a long diatribe on how much of an idiot that reader is. Someone else did it for me.

I liked the column. I don’t know what spelling errors you’re talking about, but I’d say that if anything, you’re the one who “kind of failed.” And as for your comment about the line, “You need me to loosen her up for you?” I think you need to realize that he was quoting someone else, which is hardly using it as “the basis” for his writing. Because you obviously haven’t heard, but good writing is supposed to be a representation of life as it is, not life as an ignorant and excessively-PC feminist wants it to be. So, uh…shove it.

To the second reader: If you’re a female, I want to take you on a date. If you’re a male, I’d like to take you on a man date (i.e. let’s rage at Beat the Clock). Seriously, shoot me an e-mail if you see this blog post. (Does anyone see this blog post?)

One thing I’d like to add in response to the first comment is whoa, I was hot at one time? That’s awesome.

I’ve gotten cute, handsome, attractive and sexy thrown over in my direction from ladies. Sometimes I’ve done something that has elicited a response of “that’s hot.”

But telling me I’m hot, or was hot (I’ll agree with you there, I have this pimple on my chin that won’t go away) gets me kind of wet.

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This column has no organization whatsoever.

The other day, my friend Carlos and I were in the midst of a discussion when he declared, “girls and boys can’t be best friends without secretly having feelings for each other.” Needless to say, I was appalled. By and large, my best friends are of the male persuasion, and I can honestly admit that I’ve never thought of any of them (Click here to read more…)

From time to time, I’ll indulge in an hour of lounging about and reading magazines. Cosmo, Vogue, whatever’s lying around, I’ll mindlessly flip through the pages, pausing only when a title or picture really grabs my attention. It just so happens that what caught my eye, most recently, was the word “penis” about a hundred times—and that’s not an exaggeration, surprisingly enough. As I skimmed the article—it was a detailed compilation of ways to please any man by updating old pickle-tickling techniques—my mental responses to the tips went something like this:

1. “Hmm … OK.”

2. “Ooooh … definitely remembering that one.”

3. “Oh god, are they (Click here to read more…)