All posts by Em & Lo

Princesses Having a Hard Time with Their “Happily Ever After”
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cinderella_by_dina_goldstein“Cinder 3” by Dina Goldstein

Princesses can’t seem to catch a break these days. People are poo-poo-ing Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog”; they’re criticizing princesses not only for raising passive human dolls, but for turning those kids into spoiled little brats; even guys, who normally don’t pay attention to this stuff, have had enough with all this princess crapola. And you won’t hear us complaining (we’ll take Buffy over Beauty any day). Our favorite of these princess digs is photographer Dina Goldstein‘s work-in-progress called “Fallen Princess,” a series which places fairy tale characters in modern day scenarios: “I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.” There’s Snow White up to her elbows in kids, Rapunzel after chemo and, our favorite, Cinderella in a dive bar drowning her sorrows in a glass of what we really, really hope is cheap whiskey. Check out some of the others at JPG mag.

Confession: Porn Makes My Heart Grow Colder
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porn_setphoto by TheNaughtyAmerican.com

Our contributor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has a confession to make (in response to the recent confession by another contributor, “Porn Makes My Heart Grow Fonder“).

I don’t like porn.  Which strikes me as strange since not only do I love sex, I study it. But there’s just something about porn that turns me off.  Okay, a lot of somethings.

Porn makes me feel awkward.  Maybe it’s because our puritanical society has succeeded in convincing me that porn is the root of all evil. Or maybe it’s because of that time in middle school when I was watching a rated-R movie on TV with my parents and a sex scene came on. But porn makes me feel like a creepy voyeur sitting in the corner of a room while a couple has sex on the bed.  To me, sex is something private and sacred (even though I admit I enjoy sex in public).

(more…)

Wise Guys: Do Men Ever Choose Masturbation Over Sex?
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masturbationphoto by slushpup

Advice from three of our guy friends. This week a straight woman asks, “Do guys ever choose masturbation over sex? If so, why?”

Straight Married Guy (Ben): Sure. Plenty of times. Sometimes my wife isn’t around and I don’t really feel like waiting. Or sometimes she is around but really tired, or stressed, or pissed off at me. Sometimes, she wants to watch me do myself. Sometimes, I have a fantasy I’ve been working on and having another body with me would actually be a little, um, distracting. Sometimes, I just want to look at porn. Basically, I have lots of different moods and I find myself in all different types of situations and masturbation is just one tool I can use to be sexually expressive. It’s a good tool. I like it.

Gay Committed Guy (Mark): Ever? Sure, nothing wrong with that, or with a woman making the same choice. It also depends on one’s definition of “sex” — I don’t think I need to remind anyone reading this column that there are plenty of ways to get off besides penetration. But given the opportunity, whatever form the sex might take, I’d say it’s a rare guy who prefers to go it alone. So if we’re talking mutual masturbation with a partner: cool. But if he’s having a wank in the bathroom every night before hitting the hay, leaving his lady lacking: uncool.

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Tampax — Yes, Tampax — Makes Awesome Little Indie
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Okay, we know it’s just one big commercial, but we don’t care: “Zack 16” is a great little piece of movie-making. At the beginning of this 4-part series (which you can watch in one go), Zach wakes up to find his boy parts replaced by girl parts! Sure, it trades in some tired old cliches — e.g. girls like to bake and are obsessed with clothes — but all in all it’s a super sweet and subtle look at the trauma of puberty and the abyss of misunderstanding between boys and girls. The website is totally rad, too (if you’re into that whole Juno/Away We Go movie-art aesthetic).

Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered

Your Call: A “Business Trip” Then a “Broken Foot” — Is He Lying?
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just_not_that_into_youmovie poster via SassyPanda

Dear Em & Lo,
Two months ago I met a man online, we went out on a first date and hit it off immediately.  We saw each other a few days later, and had sex after that date.  We continued to see each other over the course of the month two or three times a week.  He then went away on vacation.  Upon his return we made plans to see each other, but he had to cancel because of a work issue, which also took him on a long business trip.  He returned recently and contacted me, however we haven’t been able to see each other because he broke his foot.  He’s stated that he likes spending time with me, but he’s in an incredible amount of pain.  But he’s maintained a level of silence, by only responding to some of my messages. Having been down this road of being ignored by other men I am a tad paranoid about whether the leopard has new spots?    Is this just an extreme case of “He’s Just That Not Into You?”
–Lonely Leopard


Can’t see the poll? Click here to take it.

Dream Interpretation: My Cheating Fiance’s in the Driver’s Seat
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car_kissphoto by Adriano Agullo

Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex. Each week, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells one lucky reader what their dirty dream means (after the jump). This week, a woman asks Lauri:

In real life, my fiancé and I have been together for about a year and a half. Our relationship has always been long distance. We recently had a very huge fight over him cheating on me and it ended up with us together again. Here’s my dream: we’re both in a car, me in the back and him driving. Were on a familiar road near my house that is usually busy but there is no one around. The car is just sitting in the middle of the road and he’s looking back at me through the rear view mirror. He keeps asking me if I’m ready to lose my virginity. I couldn’t hear myself answer but I kept on mouthing what I was trying to say. No matter what, he would always answer “You have to wait” and then stop looking at me and focus on the road. (more…)

Bisexuality: Doing it Like They Do on the Discovery Channel
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penguinsphoto by Paul Mannix

We were tickled pink a few weeks back when we read about the so-called gay penguins who were raising an adopted chick. But “bisexual penguins” would probably have been more accurate; most scientists agree that animals that engage in same-sex activity don’t usually shun heterosexual encounters. Rather, they simply have ingrained gay tendencies that are a part of what make their little animal community work. As sociologist Eric Anderson of the University of Bath in England so succinctly puts it, “Animals don’t do sexual identity. They just do sex.”

Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered

Blog Snog (06-19-08)
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jeremy_piven_drawn_on“Bridget Jones’ Diary” drawn on Jeremy Piven  by Lemondrop

A weekly roundup of some of our favorite sex- and love-related posts from various blogs and websites:

Study: The Car Doesn’t Maketh the Man
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sports_carphoto by Qole_Pejorian

In news that will probably be surprising only to the male readers of this site, a recent study found that expensive cars don’t really impress the ladies. Researchers in Australia measured changes in the brain responses of women toward a range of men in different cars. Turns out a man having a mid-life crisis in a Porsche is still a man having a mid-life crisis. And a hottie surfer is a turn-on even if he has to take the bus. Apparently one of the “biggest surprises” of the study was that the classic MG Roadster car turned women’s heads when it was empty, but failed to impress if a dude was driving it. Well, that’s only surprising if it has never occurred to you that women are more likely to fantasize about driving a classic sports car than they are about dating a man who owns one. And an insecure man in the throes of a mid-life crisis kind of spoils that fantasy. What’s next — scientists demonstrating that crotch-rocket motorbikes don’t actually increase the size of your penis?

• This post is a part of Sundance Channel’s Naked Love Blog
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Contest Winners: Name That Schlong!
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green_porno_penises1The marmoset penis, a.k.a. jacchus hammer

Thanks to everyone who entered our Name That Schlong contest, inspired by the “Why Vagina” episode of the second season of wacky Isabella Rossellini’s “Green Porno” series on SundanceChannel.com. As all but one of you guessed, the arrow is indeed pointing to the marmoset’s penis — not that you necessarily knew what a marmoset was. But now you do! The undisputed winner is Pepper, whose entry came packaged with a mini science lesson. She wins a whole bunch of green goodies from the Sundance Channel. The rest of the honorable mention entries just win our respect (you can’t sell that on ebay but, hey, you can’t buy it on ebay either).

Winner:
“A marmoset is a monkey, sometimes no bigger than a finger. Since the common marmoset’s genus and species is Callithrix jacchus, I nominate ‘jacchus hammer,’ a la the human male penis euphemism, ‘jackhammer,’ for the slang. Runner-up is ‘jacchus in the box.'” — Pepper

First runner-up:
“Gnome dome.” — Prag

Second runner-up:
“This is a marmoset cock with a wizard’s hat for a cock head. ‘Zard sabre is my slang name for this cock. What a lucky monkey to have such a spiffy cock!” — Richard

Euphemisms we think the marmoset community is most likely to adopt:
“Monkey junk!” — Dave W
“Marmoset penis a.k.a. Marmosex Pistol” — Amanda
(more…)

Books: American Parent
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american_parent

Sam Apple just came out with his second memoir (after Schlepping Through the Alps) called American Parent. From it, we learned that The Lamaze Method was created by Stalinists and based on false science that was forced upon the Soviet scientific community because the government couldn’t afford pain relief drugs for women in labor. He swears that’s true! Anyway, here’s a sweet (and sick, if you think about it for too long) excerpt about how Sam’s love for his newborn was like a romantic crush:

Read the excerpt on SUNfiltered

Remember This Sunday: 10 Things Dad Inadvertently Taught You About Sex
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golfphoto by Evil Erin

It’s Father’s Day on Sunday, June 21st this year — don’t forget to call and thank yours for all the wonderful advice.

  1. Always take time to warm up before athletic events.
  2. Use headcovers for your woodies.
  3. Passing gas jokingly around loved ones is only done by old, married people (your parents) who NEVER have sex anymore.

READ THE OTHER 7 ITEMS HERE (the link works this time!)…turns out he taught you about sex toys, bondage, and orgasm etiquette. (Sorry Dad.)

Confession: Alcohol Saved My Sex Life…But Hurt It Too
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black_white_bar_scenephoto via freeparking

Our contributor Abby Spector, who is double-majoring in English and Feminine/Gender/Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University, has a confession to make:

All my sex life, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with alcohol. Not because it provokes the desire but takes away the performance, as Shakespeare once said. No, my problem is that it provokes the desire and enhances the performance, taking away all my stage fright so that the show goes on, whether or not it’s a particularly good idea to perform that night.

The first time I got drunk I realized I liked girls. People always assumed I was straight, and, up until then, I went along with them. It was easier to follow the crowd than listen to my pubescent hormones. But then I was at a college party with my sister and couldn’t deny my lesbianic boner. This wasn’t your typical frat party; it was the initiation for the women’s rugby team at a liberal arts school in the northeast. Even Ann Coulter would have turned gay that night.

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Wise Guys: What's a Guy-Friendly Date?
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stock_car_racing1photo by ClevelandSGS

Advice from three of our guy friends. This week they answer the following: What is a guy-friendly date?

Gay Engaged Guy (Joel Derfner, author of Swish): Seriously?  Anything that doesn’t involve talking about feelings.

Straight Married Guy (Fred): If he’s into you, anything is a guy-friendly date.  Okay, maybe not ballroom dancing for a football guy.  But then again, with ballroom dancing, he gets to put his hands all over you, so that could still be good. Watching “Dancing With The Stars,” that would be unfriendly to guys (note to wife).  To make a date really enjoyable for guys, food and sex is really all it takes, but let’s just focus on the entertainment portion of the evening. One of my favorite dates was driving mini-race cars.  Another was going to Coney Island in NY.  Another was when my car broke down and we had to wait for hours in the closest bar for the tow truck.  I would guess sporting events would be an enjoyable date for most guys, but I’m not a sports guy so that wouldn’t work for me. I know a man who’s into vintage hot rods and floral arranging (I did not make that up), so it’s difficult to narrow in on what will please guys in general. Everyone’s different. But again, if he’s into you, you are the main attraction. (more…)