photo via flickr

• The Frisky: What commitment really means in a relationship.
• YourTango: The trick to staying faithful to your partner.
• How About We: How doing small things now will save you from divorce later.
• Nerve: Can I cheat on my girlfriend to make sure she’s the one I want to marry?
• TresSugar: Why women trust gay men’s dating advice above anyone else’s.
• HuffPo Women: Why P.D.A. matters.
• 150 Shades of Play: Erotic death match — Fifty Shades of Grey vs. 150 Shades of Play.

• The Frisky: What your sexual fantasy says about you.
• YourTango: 5 reasons to stop being angry at your ex.
• How About We: When did writing about detached sex become a thing?
• Nerve: An interview with a Tantric sex coach.
• TresSugar:  Relationship stats from recent love studies.
• HuffPo Women: Can online dating alleviate loneliness? 
• 150 Shades of Play: Did you fuck up Valentine’s Day? Make it up with the best present of the year!

We and Jamye Waxman go way back. We all got into the sex writing biz long before every college paper had its own sex column. Which is ancient in Internet years. And yet we’re all still so fresh-faced! Jamye is our kind of colleague: frank, feminist, and funny. So we were thrilled when she wanted to talk to us about kink and our new book 150 Shades of Play for her podcast, Hot Sox. We discuss our thoughts on human furniture (kinda fucked up), the perils of writing about sex while parenting (don’t leave your new illustrated kink book lying around for your 5 year old to pick up), the power of Fifty Shades (winning a flogger, some vaginal beads and a vibrator at a book party held in a small town library is now just good, clean fun), and lots, lots more! Download the podcast for free on iTunes and listen to it the next time you’re at the gym, grocery shopping, or polishing your secret butt plug collection!

BUY “150 SHADES OF PLAY” ON AMAZON.COM! 

The Best Valentine’s Day Present Ever!
The top 10 reasons why our new book 150 Shades of Play
makes the best Valentine’s Day present ever!

10 Easy Ways to Be More Romantic
Romance is contagious. So the best way to get your partner to
be more romantic is to be more romantic with them first.

How to Write a Love List
It’s kinda like Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet #43:
How do you love your partner? Count the ways!

Wise Guys: Does Valentine’s Day Have Any Appeal to Men?
Three of our guys give you the cold, hard truth.

What Do Men Really Think About Valentine’s Day?
These three Wise Guys have a kinder, gentler answer.

Valentine’s Day Cards That Don’t Suck
Someecards: “Sorry the only ring you’re wearing this
Valentine’s Day is a contraceptive in your vagina”

What’s the Best Gift for a Man?
Three of our Wise Guys give you some good ideas.

What’s a Good Valentine’s Day Present for a Guy? Part 2
Some more suggestions from other Wise Guys.

The Science/Poetry of Kissing
Are we the only species that kisses?

How to Treat Her on Valentine’s Day
Some good advice from an Em & Lo reader.

Your Call: What Should He Do for Valentine’s Day?
If you’re in a new relationship, our readers might inspire you.

Poll: What Do You Think of Valentine’s Day?
Tell us how you really feel.

How Can You Get Him to Be More Romantic?
Our Wise Guys enlighten.

Top 10 Classic Rom Coms
We defy you not to watch and enjoy these movies with
your honey-bunny when they come on TNT on Sundays.

Top 10 Alternative Rom Coms
A.k.a. Chick flicks guys dig.

Top 10 Overlooked Rom Coms
Lesser known romantic comedies that never became classics, cult
or otherwise, but that nevertheless deserve our attention and affection.

Top 10 Old School Rom Coms
These are the ones you feel like you should get around
to Netflixing at some point, but often don’t.

Top 10 Overrated Rom Coms
The movies on this list all break the cardinal rule of
rom coms: the protagonists must actually be likable.

The Worst Rom Coms Ever
Must Love Dogs? Must Hate Dumb Movies.

The 7 Worst Rom Com Actors of All Time
Put down the rom com script and back away!

150 Shades of Play
The only Valentine’s Day present you’ll ever need to give.

• YourTango: How can I get over my ex, sexually speaking?
• How About We: 10 questions that will save you from marrying the wrong person.
• Nerve: 8 important milestones in “female-friendly” porn.
• TresSugar: Books to give your friends or lovers this Valentine’s Day.
• The Frisky: 10 reasons to never stalk an ex online.
• HuffPo Women: Values that were considered “too female” are suddenly vital.
• 150 Shades of Play: The best Valentine’s present this year!

An engraving from Michael Maier’s Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617) depicting an alchemical androgyne.

FUN FACT: Romantic and sexual imagery was a popular means for describing alchemical processes in both the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period.  It’s true! Long before there was Fifty Shades of Grey, there were many alchemy texts rife with blush-inducing romantic and sexual metaphors. To find out why, listen to this “Distillations” podcast (from the Chemical Heritage Foundation, ooooh sexeee). You’ll also hear some steamy passages read out loud! Aside from chemical burns in the lab, this is as hot as science gets.

MORE FROM EMandLO.com:

• How Different Are Girls’ and Boys’ Brains?
• Why Is Sex Fun?
• 5 Reasons Why More Sex Helps Your Career

It wouldn’t be the Super Bowl without a bunch of sex-filled commercials to excite, offend or turn off. Kissing is still the sex act of choice for advertisers (thankfully), so here’s a round up all the big, bold and (only sometimes) beautiful Super Bowl ad kisses.*

GoDaddy.com’s “Perfect Match”
If you’ve seen or heard about any Super Bowl commercial, it’s this one from reliably tasteless GoDaddy, created by their female(!) chief marketing officer and starring their female spokesperson Danica Patrick. In previous years, they’ve relied on women with careers (police officers, TV interviewers) suddenly becoming strippers or on the stereotypical “bimbo” having a wardrobe malfunction. None of that this year (thank heavens for small mercies). No, this year GoDaddy decided to offend with the suggestion that people can’t be both sexy and smart, that all beautiful women are dumb and need a smart man to get by. Then they added gorily juicy horror movie sound effects to the kissing, just to make it that much more cringe-inducing. Somehow, their ad exec manages to deny the ad’s sexism with a straight face in this interview with Forbes.

How Not to Kiss Like a Zombie and Other Helpful Kissing Tips

Old Milwaukee’s “Bus Kiss”
This ad — starring a mustachioed Will Ferrell in a tank top making out with an older Asian woman on a bus — aired in only three cities, but it’s gotten national attention for its weirdness. In the category of awkward Super Bowl kisses, this one is FAR superior to GoDaddy’s. With kissing that’s passionate and even tender, the couple seems genuinely into it. Unlike the GoDaddy stinker, this ad you cannot look away from.

Dear Em & Lo: My Boyfriend Hates Kissing

Bell’s “Viva Young”
Apparently, you’re never too old to party: an elderly gang busts out of the retirement home to pull an all-night rager, including dance-club makeout sessions and bathroom stall hookups. Again, unlike the GoDaddy ad, this commercial is not gross, it’s inspiring! Who, no matter how old, could argue with the tagline at the end “Viva mas”? We hope we’re still kissing like that at 80. Hell, we hope we’re still kissing like that at 45.

Dear Dr. Kate: When Should I Tell a Partner About Oral Herpes?

Audi’s “Prom”
Initially, we loved this John-Hughes-esque ad: high school boy is heading off to prom dateless, but Dad gives him the keys to the suped-up Audi and this gives him the courage to make a move on the prom queen. It’s a romantic underdog story…until you think about the kid totally taking the girl by surprise and planting one on her without her consent. Then it becomes a bit sexual-assault-y. Like, hey, even cute sensitive loner boys can become sexual aggressors and take what’s rightfully theirs from passive girls if they just drive the right car! Of course, the prom queen doesn’t pull away — she’s into it — so we’ll just imagine that she gave him her blessing in a note passed to him earlier that day in AP Calculus.

Wise Guys: How Do Men Feel About Their Girlfriends Kissing Other Women?

Budweiser’s “Brotherhood”
There definitely seemed to be something more going on between this man and his horse besides grooming and feeding, if you know what we mean. The kiss is quick, but we swear there was tongue!

Poll: Do You French Kiss When You Wake Up?

*We did not include blown kisses like in Hyundai’s “Stuck” or licks like in M&M’s “Love Ballad” or half-second pecks like in Coca-Cola’s “Cameras”.

KISS WITH KINK: GET THE BEST VALENTINE’S DAY PRESENT OF THIS YEAR!

All those kisses during the Superbowl commercial breaks on Sunday night got us in the mood to talk about macking. To summarize: loved the Audi John-Hughes-style prom night kiss (though it only really works if we assume she did give him her consent to kiss her at some earlier point — maybe a note passed in math class? — otherwise it’s a bit sexual assault-y); really loved Will Ferrell’s mysterious bus ride smooch that you might have missed; really wished GoDaddy had had the balls to make that sexy + smart kiss actually hot and not awkward mouth-noisy icky (and we kind of hate the implication that a person can’t be both sexy AND smart).

Anyway, if you ask a room of people about the best movie kiss ever, chances are that rainy scene from The Notebook starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling will get more than a handful of votes.

But if you ask us, the kiss that wins is the one between Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. Don’t get us wrong, that Notebook kiss is good smooching, too — we just think the Brokeback one is even better. It’s rougher and more dangerous — not out in the hills or by a lake, but at home where one of their wives could show up at any moment! Everything is on the line, everything, but they just can’t deny their love! See? (Apologies for the unfortunate music overlay):

So, in honor of all the V-Day smooching soon to be upon us, we’d like you to vote on your favorite kiss. Watch the Notebook scene here and the Brokeback scene here and then pick your favorite (or suggest your own, even hotter alternative).

MORE LIKE THIS ON EMandLO.com:

• Top 10 Funniest Sex Scenes of All Time
• Top 10 Worst Lines in Rom Com History
• Bull Durham Believes in Slow Kisses and Soft Porn

Etherea Silk Cuffs by Lelo

Here are the top 10 reasons why our new book 150 Shades of Play: A Beginner’s Guide to Kink makes the best Valentine’s Day present this year:

1. It gives you the great excuse to try something new in the bedroom — perfect for longterm couples on Valentine’s Day.
2. It also has staying power. The perspectives it can give you on kinky sex can inspire your sex lives for years to come. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!
3. It’s timely and relevant. Almost everyone has read at least some of Fifty Shades of Grey. This helps put such a huge cultural phenomenon into perspective, in a way that’s fun and flirty (and actually well written).
4. It helps round out a nice gift basket of treats for Valentine’s Day: chocolates for your sweetie’s sweet tooth, roses for romance, and 150 Shades of Play for playtime! (Way better than some ill-fitting lingerie they’ll never wear.)
5. Even if your partner doesn’t love it, you can pass it off as a gag gift that makes a great bathroom book. Just turn to the entry on  pony-play!
6. The lighthearted tone of 150 Shades of Play takes some of the pressure off of you two to perform (unlike the gift of, say, a strap-on dildo).
7. It’s a great way to give your partner hints about what you’d like to try…just happen to leave a bookmark or post-it next to a section that catches your interest, then leave the book on their pillow/night-stand. Or just get the book for yourself, read up on some tips and techniques before Valentine’s Day, and then wow your luvva with your amazing new moves!
8. Not only can it improve your sex life, it can improve your social life! You can enliven future cocktail parties with some of the trivia you’ll learn from 150 Shades of Play: Did you know that we get the term “masochist” from Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, the author of the 1870 novel Venus in Furs? Both he and his main character got off on being degraded by dominant women wearing fur. And that’s one to grow on!
9. It’s affordable!  You get so much — 230 pages of well-researched history, fascinating cultural information, good sexual advice, precise technical instruction, cool illustrations, and side-splitting humor (basically everything that wasn’t in Fifty Shades) — for so little: dollars less, in fact, than what 8 measly pieces of Godiva chocolates costs!
10. Not only will you be giving your partner/friend/friend-with-benefits a great gift, you’ll be giving us a gift too: By buying our book, you will literally help keep this site up and running. So won’t you please be our Valentine?

****THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED****

Our friends over at FANDANGO want to make your Valentine’s Movie Date Night a hit! And we want you to help us get the word out about our new book, 150 Shades of Play. Fandango wins, we win, and hopefully YOU win too! Here’s how to play:

Between now and Sunday February 10th, include the title 150 Shades of Play along with this link — http://say.ly/pEj4J7E –  in a Tweet or a Facebook Post, let us know you’ve done so, and you’ll be automatically entered to win Fandango’s awesome Date-Night prize:

• a $100 Visa Gift Card
• a $30 Fandango Gift Card

Post that link as many times as you like, because the more you post, the more chances you’ll have to win! (Mentioning the book as an excellent Valentine’s Day gift may not help you win the contest, but it will endear you to us for always and ever!) Let us know whenever you Tweet or FB post by immediately emailing a screenshot of the post to us here, including your name and US mailing address (no PO Boxes), which we promise to keep private;  on a Mac, Command+Shiftshift+4 lets you drag and capture an area of the screen; click here for instructions on taking screenshots on either a PC or a Mac. <Don’t skip this part or your post won’t count! The deadline for entry is EOD EST on Sunday, February 10th, 2013. One lucky winner will be drawn at random and announced on our site the next day, with the prize arriving before Valentine’s Day.

While you’re waiting to win the Fandango Movie Date Night prize, check out their VALENTINE’S DAY MOVIE GUIDE for tips on the perfect movie to see together. Supplement your prize (or have a backup if you don’t win) with a cute VALENTINE’S DAY GIFT CARD FROM FANDANGO for your sweetie (see below). And don’t forget to order a copy of 150 SHADES OF PLAY for after the movie!