We’re cynical biatches, so when someone told us about this eighth grade mash note that a teacher found on her classroom floor (see above), we figured there was a good chance it was faked in some way. But then we read it and we fell in love with the girl asking the question, “R u ready to be there when I’m mad, or need to cry.”

And then our inner feminist yelped like she’d been spanked and was all like, “WTF? Who says it’s a girl asking that question? How do you know it’s not a boy asking a girl, So chicken is more important than me?”

Whoever she or he is, they are our new role model for communication between or among the sexes. If only all relationships could begin with written confirmation that, yes, you are the only thing I care about unless I’m hungry and there’s fried chicken. Not the girl who sits at the desk behind you or the boy whose mom drives you to school or the idiot on the cheerleading team or the meathead who plays football.

People, take inspiration from this. What the hell, why not just go retro and actually pass notes next time you’re at a bar with a new partner? They might find it endearing when you write, while dotting your i’s with heart shapes, “Have you ever had, or do you currently have, an STD?” and, “If I freak out about my cat dying and call you twice in one day, do you promise not to dump me because I’m too needy?”

Communication, people. It’s simple eighth-grade shit and it can save a broken heart.

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You know the Showtime series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” from a few years back? Well, before it was a Showtime show it was a British show. Before it was a British show, it was a series of books. Before it was a series of books, it was an award-winning blog  called “Diary of a London Call Girl.” Its author went by the name Belle de Jour and she was quite the anonymous celebrity.

Turns out Belle was an American anthropology and mathematics student who came to the UK for a doctorate in forensic science. While living in London, she worked as an escort in order to make ends meet. And an empire was built.

In addition to writing the book The Sex Myth under her own name, Brooke has since worked in genetic epidemiology and cancer research and now serves as The Telegraph Wonder Women’s sex writer in the UK. So in honor of our new book, 150 Shades of Play, she interviewed us over Skype, one sex writer to two others. Here are some quick excerpts; check out the full interview with intro here!

What was the hardest part of this to write – were there dark corners of kink that you found it difficult to handle objectively? Or was it more, you know what, we’re going to get in there and demystify.

Lo: First we did a lot of online research, and I will tell you that there are now things I’ve seen that I wish I could unsee. [laughs] And I think that was part of why we did this book, for the newcomers, the Fifty Shadesreaders. Because if you go online and do a search, you’re going to be quickly faced with very intense images. Especially if you were just enjoying the gentler scenes.

Em: It’s one thing to see an illustration of a grown man in nappies for the first time, and another to go in at the deep end with some photos or videos of what’s out there.

and

Do you two feel that sex ed in schools is doing its job, that it’s keeping up with the internet and what people want and need to know?

Lo: It could be so much better. There’s so much porn online, and also so much bad information.

Em: We need to be willing to talk about everything, because if you don’t talk to someone about anal sex, they are going to Google it. You can’t have a sex ed that doesn’t talk about oral sex and masturbation because that’s what kids are asking about.

Lo: Porn does do a disservice to both boys and girls, by blurring the difference between fantasy and reality, and we need to do a better job of teaching kids that difference. Sex doesn’t have to look like it does online. We need to teach them about the stuff most porn leaves out: about communication, respect, and responsibility. And technique.

Em: Porn also suffers from being visual, like when a book becomes a film. People always like books better because they leave much more room for imagination. And that’s the difference, our generation grew up learning about sex from Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz. Sex ed hasn’t changed to reflect that people are learning about sex in a different way now.

and

So you’ve done kink. What’s next?

Lo: We’re going to promote this book hard. We do want to get it out there as much as possible, but also get the information in as many hands as possible.

For the record, Lo originally said “we’re gonna spank the shit out of this book”, but we guess you can’t swear in The Telegraph.

 photo via WikiCommons

Taylor Swift cannot write a bad pop song. She apparently can’t write a song about anything other than breakups, either. While we are shameless Swifties, we’d definitely like to see her branch out more — if not to different subject matter, then at least to some more honest, less PG-13 tales of heartbreak. Here are some examples of the kind of breakup songs we’d love to see on her next platinum album:

1. “Should Have Said the Safeword”
2. “I May Miss You But My Cervix Won’t (Jackhammer)”
3. “Pee on Me? Shame on You”
4. “GGG, OMG”
5. “You’re Vanilla, I’m Kinky, I Love You, Farewell”
6. “Don’t Leave Me Breathless (The Erotic Asphyxiation Song)”
7. “My Ears Are Not a Steering Wheel”
8. “I Didn’t Wet the Bed, Der (Get Some Sex Ed, Sir)”
9. “Faked It Every Time”
10. “Size Doesn’t Matter (But That Don’t Mean I Won’t Sing About It)”

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photo via Flickr

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Flowers in the Attic

Our Bodies, Ourselves. Judy Blume. Flowers in the Attic. If you grew up in the ’80s, chances are these books had a pretty big impact on your sexual development. In other words, as far as V.C. Andrews’ book goes, you probably have a bit of a thing for incest plot-lines. Forbidden love, up in the attic, with your hot sibling! Swoon. But it’s not the only story to explore the erotic potential of fictional incest. Think Angels and Insects, for example, or all those daytime soaps where two lovers find out they’re actually siblings separated at birth. Bummer for them! Hot for the rest of us!

So, tell us… what other titles belong in this incest genre? It could be a book, movie, TV show, highbrow, lowbrow, whatever. We’ll compile a list and publish it on our site soon. You’re welcome.

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All top ten lists are, by their nature, subjective, but this one is especially so — because one person’s “WTF” sex scene is another person’s monkey spanking material. (Exhibit A: we’d qualify a lot of porn as WTF.)

A few qualifications: David Lynch probably deserves a place in this list (okay, David Lynch definitely deserves a place in this list!), but because we’ve already written an entire post dedicated to his effed up sex scenes, we left him off this time. And LAST TANGO IN PARIS should probably be on here, but we are just so damn sick of talking about that freakin’ butter scene. The SHOWGIRLS pool scene is hilarious and weird and WTF hall of fame-worthy, but we already covered that one, too.

Also, we tried to steer clear of most cinematic depictions of rape, because it didn’t seem right to include those scenes alongside crushed-chicken sex and apple-pie onanism. “WTF” just seems a little too jokey of a response to the graphic violent sexual assault in a movie like IRREVERSIBLE. Oh, and we mostly stayed away from horror movies, too, even though it’s kind of a rule of thumb that the scarier the movie, the more messed up the sex is — we just didn’t have the stomach to go there (if you do, you’ll probably enjoy this list).

Which is not to say that some of the sex in the list below isn’t kill-me-now bleak. In fact, you’ll probably want to rent MARY POPPINS after making it to number one. But just in case you actually want more, check out our earlier post, The 20 Most Disturbing Sex-Themed Movies.

10. CRASH (1996)
James Spader plays a TV commercial producer who enjoys lots of vanilla sex with his wife until he’s involved in a car crash and overnight finds himself aroused by three-car pile-ups and the injuries they cause. Turns out there’s a whole community of people who feel the same way (we suppose this notion was more shocking back in 1996, when there wasn’t an internet chat room for every fetish under the sun). The entire movie is pretty WTF, but the, er, climactic moment occurs when Spader’s character has sex with Rosanna Arquette’s open leg wound. Yep, he did. Please don’t make us type that again.

9. PINK FLAMINGOS (1972)
Does it count as a WTF if it’s a John Waters film? Isn’t his name on the billboard kind of a heads-up? You say, “WTF, I want my money back” and the ticket guy says, “WTF, it’s a John Waters movie, what did you expect?” But even for Waters, the scene where a couple has sex with a live chicken between their bodies is out there. And that’s no rubber chicken. It’s an actual, freshly dead chicken from the butcher shop that gets crushed between them while they do it. We’re pretty sure that chicken didn’t consent to be in a three-way chicken snuff film. (Apparently, the crew ate it afterwards.)

8. THE DOOM GENERATION (1995)
How to pick just one fucked up sex scene from this fucked up road movie that makes FREEWAY look like THE LITTLE MERMAID? Could it be when a teen boy eats his own semen? Or how about when another teen boy is castrated by a pair of garden shears, shortly after a MMF threeway? No, we think the winner is when Rose McGowan’s character is raped with a statue of the virgin Mary. Yep, that’ll do it.

7. AMERICAN PIE (1999)
Masturbation is as American as apple pie! The “feel-good” movie of the year. We’re annoyed at ourselves for including this in the list, but how could we not? That would be like compiling a list of the Top 10 Movie Sex Scenes Involving Dairy Products and leaving out Marlon Brando and the butter.

6. HOWARD THE DUCK (1986)
We will forgive Lea Thompson anything — even her TV show CAROLINE IN THE CITY — because she starred in SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. But we wonder whether she can forgive herself for starring in HOWARD THE DUCK. In this movie, her character strips down to her underwear and attempts to seduce a talking duck, who is on Earth to stop some kind of alien invader. Check out their flirty banter as they lie in bed together (in other words, Thompson read this script and then agreed to star in this movie):

Howard the Duck (checking out Thompson’s butt in her skimpy undies): “I have developed a greater appreciation for the female version of the human anatomy.”
Thompson: “I can’t seem to find the right man.”
Duck: “Maybe it’s not a MAN you should be looking for.”
Thompson (coy): “Do you think I might find happiness in the animal kingdom, Duckie?”
Duck: “Like they say, doll, love’s strange. We could always give it a try.”

She proceeds to fondle him and his duckie plume gets a hard-on, which he embarrassedly apologizes for like he’s just come all over her thigh. She climbs on top of him and Duckie freaks out and says he can’t do it. “I was just kidding,” she says (riiiight), and then the movie goes on like we weren’t just about to witness Lea Thompson having alien duck sex. For the record, this was a Spielberg and Lucas production. WTF?

Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of the Golden Globes last night, we — the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler of the sex writing world — decided to give out our own awards for the evening:

Most Sensual Congratulatory Kiss
Sally Field to Daniel Day Lewis (Best Actor for Lincoln). Her hands cradling his face and their slow gentle lip-on-lip action put his wife’s lifeless kiss two seconds before to shame.

Best Feminist Moment
A tie between:
In her acceptance speech for Best Actress for Zero Dark Thirty, Jessica Chastain thanked director Kathryn Bigelow, saying “You’ve said that filmmaking for you is not about breaking gender roles, but when you make a film that allows your character to disobey the conventions of Hollywood, you’ve done more for women in cinema than you take credit for.”
AND
After President Bill Clinton introduced Lincoln, Amy Poehler said, “What an exciting special guest! That was just Hillary Clinton’s husband! Oh my god!”

Most Awkward Moment
Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement recipient Jodie Foster, in a speech trying desperately to be funny and profound about singledom, sexual orientation and privacy, but just coming across as painfully weird

Worst Fashion Theme
Plunging neckline (almost) down to the belly button, revealing underboob cleavage and making everyone nervous (hopeful?) for a nip slip. Worst offenders: Jessica Chastain & Amy Poehler.

Cutest Couple
Ben Affleck (winner, Best Director & Best Movie for Argo) & Jennifer Garner (presenter of Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical to Hugh Jackman for Les Miz)

Oddest Couple
Jodie Foster & Mel Gibson, there together as BFFs

Worst Shoes
Lena Dunham, winner of both Best Actress in a TV Comedy and Best TV Comedy for Girls. If you cannot walk in your shoes without them making you look like you have polio, either wear some bedazzled Chuck Taylors or go barefoot. Otherwise, it ironically cramps your famous unorthodox, do-it-my-way style. No one can see your shoes in these floor-length ball gowns anyway.

Best Romantic Dis
Tina Fey: “You know what, Taylor Swift? You stay away from Michael J Fox’s son [the Mr. Golden Globe of the evening].”
Amy Poehler: “Or go for it.”
Fey: “No, she needs some me time to learn about herself.”

Best Sexual Dis
Tina Fey: “Quentin Tarantino [who was nominated as Best Director for Django Unchained] is here — the star of all my sexual nightmares.”

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Queerskins

Our friend Illya Szilak is a full-time physician specializing in HIV treatment, a mother of two, a world traveller, and, oh yeah, in her spare-time she writes groundbreaking novels. (We both managed to shower today and consider that a huge accomplishment.) Her latest project, QUEERSKINS, is an online multimedia novel that tells the story of Sebastian Adler, a young gay physician from a Catholic family who dies of AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic. The text is presented as experts from Sebastian’s diary, which are full of intimate details, like his “first time” at a truck stop outside of St. Cloud. But in addition to the text, readers also accesses layers of sound and imagery, experiencing the work as a series of multimedia collages. Some of the images of everyday life were culled from the Creative Commons section of Flickr, giving it a feel of authenticity while simultaneously blurring the lines between truth and fiction.

Szilak and her collaborators have put this novel up online free of charge, since they would prefer that people donate to an AIDS organizations (such as AMFAR or Keep a Child Alive). She explains:

During the last election, AIDS and HIV wasn’t even part of the conversation. Even though, in 2011, 2.5 million people became newly infected, it’s totally off the radar for most people. We are hoping that with Queerskins, and with the networked, collaborative version of the novel that will be launched in 2013, we’ll raise awareness of this global tragedy, and give people with a wide range of viewpoints the opportunity to participate in a creative dialogue about love, sex, gender, faith and mortality.

The novel starts when Sebastian’s mother, still living in the rural Missouri home that he grew up in, sorts through a box of her estranged son’s belongings which had been with his body in Africa, where he died. Perusing her son’s (occasionally explicit) journal, she, like the reader, gradually pieces together the life of this man — by reading handwritten letters, looking at photographs, listening to imagined monologues and music. The below is an excerpt from a “page” of the novel, followed by an audio sample and a video clip (but to experience the novel fully, you’ve got to take a spin around the QUEERSKINS site yourself):

Sometimes, when I had to get away, I would drive out to our (James and my) truck stop, and sit at a booth in the diner and drink cup after cup of cheap coffee. I’d watch the truckers, potbellied men in plaid shirts, jeans and gimme caps. They took up space as if they owned the place. I almost felt sorry for them. They were like the indentured servants of a tyrannical prince who did not even know they were enslaved since none of them had ever tried to escape. They would never be courageous enough to relinquish that illusion of potency. If by some chance, they found themselves face down in the back seat, pants around their ankles, they could not experience it as anything but rape. The irony, of course, was that their wives, androgynously obese, were not epitomes of femininity. They hid their desires and their failures behind the banner of that fabled manse: the nuclear family. I hated them. I hated them all. I imagined slick-skinned warriors in pink tutus bashing their heads into the Formica countertop.

The following audio clip is of Alex, Sebastian’s lover in L.A., talking about the stories he used to write for Sebastian.

The following video clip from Queerskins is actually the activist group ACT UP in action:

The complete project is available for free at Queerskins.com, viewable in Google Chrome and Safari, not yet available for mobile platforms.

For updates on the networked version and to add your voice to the mix, follow Illya @queerskins on Twitter or “like” Queerskins on Facebook .

And please consider donating to AIDS research.