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. Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it (18 and older only, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri:
I have been having these exotic sex dreams about my best guy friends, and I do not know what they mean. My guy friends are not unattractive. These dreams been going on for a while and sometimes O wonder what do they really mean. I am a straight guy, but having gay dreams.
Lauri: You are also very brave and I commend you for owning up to your “guy on guy” dreams. Lots of straight guys have them but are too embarrassed to discuss them.
Of all our dreams, the sex dream seems to be the most polarizing: either we are absolutely delighted when we wake up, still bathing in the glow of the amazing experience with our dream partner — or we wake up horrified, disgusted and very, very concerned.
You must remember that the dreaming mind speaks in a symbolic language and should not be taken literally, which means sex in a dream really isn’t about sex at all! Instead, sex is more about connection, communication and/or a merger of energies.
Since these are your best buddies that you are dreaming about, I would bet the farm your dreams are happening because you are really connecting with them in some way. Maybe you’ve recently been finding out that you have a lot in common with them. Maybe you’ve been having deep political or other meaningful conversations that is bringing you closer to them psychologically. Or maybe you all are “coming together” — ahem — on some idea or project.
Whatever the case, it’s all good! So let not your heart be troubled. Also? Let not your friends know. As benign as these dreams are, they could totally freak your friends out!
Visit Lauri’s brand new site, WhatYourDreamMeans.com, for even more dream interpretations! If you want to be able to figure out your own dreams every morning, then check out her latest book, Dream On It: Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life, which will give you the tools you need to become a dream expert, too. Check out all of Lauri’s books here.
When you do a search for “sex” on Getty Images, you get a lot of interesting results — so many, in fact, that we were compelled to create a superlative series of Getty “sex” search images. We ran a “Best of Animal Sex” post and a best “Lion Sex” post, but now it’s time for the little guys to get their due: behold the best bug bonking, aw yeah! (Seriously, some of these are absolutely beautiful.)
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Reader grainne said the following in response to our post, “Comment of the Week: How to Get Past His Porn Habit”. We found this point really interesting — that many women are bothered by porn not because they find it offensive, per se, but because they think it misleads men regarding what women like in bed:
When you talk about “getting past his porn habit,” you are not addressing how many women and girls might not really care that their men look at it, if it did not affect their thinking about what most women find pleasurable.
Dave Lampert, inventor of the Sybian machine, said it best: “I have long maintained that the greatest hoax played upon the world is the importance of the male stroking during intercourse. The in-and-out motion of stroking is used in nearly all male/female porno material. This movement gives the viewer a better view of what turns them on. It is what they wish to see. Thus most viewers think this is how intercourse is performed.”
To my knowledge — I admit to not having made a study on this point — man is the only animal in the kingdom that strokes. (Stroking should not be confused with the natural movement of trying to force the penis in further, which does have a slight in/out movement in the attempt to thrust deeper.)
Please do not try to tell me that man strokes because he has the ability to think. It is the opposite, he strokes because he is not thinking or because he is selfish. I believe that stroking is 95% to the benefit of the male and the 5% received by the female would come under the category of “priming the pump.”
We’re always thrilled to hear about people opening themselves up — as it were — to new sensual experiences in the backdoor area. Unfortunately this particular region seems to encourage experimentation with D.I.Y. sex toys — and it’s the last place you should be going D.I.Y.! Our E.R. nurse friend confirms that those stories about deodorant sticks/cucumbers/action figures stuck up patients’ butts are not merely urban legends.
D.I.Y. solutions can be great when it comes to home improvements, NOT when it comes to your tushy time. The anus and rectum are delicate body parts that need special care, or else — you’re right — things could go horribly wrong. The area is prone to tearing if mistreated, it’s not self-lubricating, and it’s got curves that can’t accommodate certain shapes (like, say, rigid action figures) easily.
Instead, you should use only high-quality toys designed specifically for the rear, like LELO’s Bob and Billy, Tantus’s L’il End butt plug, the Tantus vibrating ProTouch, or Booty Beads’ Silicone Anal Beads. (If your tush doesn’t get out of bed for less than $10K, then check out LELO’s gold-plated Earl anal plug.)
Here are the five things you should look for in a high-quality, purpose-made butt toy:
1. It should have a flared base so as not to get sucked up into your black hole, lost for all eternity.
2. It should ideally be made of non-porous material like 100% silicone so it can be sterilized thoroughly (i.e. so it won’t harbor microscopic fecal bacteria).
3. It should be soft, yet firm, with a little give to it so it’s easy on your bod.
4. It should be ergonomically shaped (e.g. it should have a tapered end and possibly a curve that targets his prostate gland, a.k.a. the P-spot or the male G-spot).
5. It shouldn’t have rough seams or anything that might break off inside of you, duh.
And while you absolutely must use lubricant — and lots of it — it’s probably best to avoid anything oil-based, like Vaseline or Crisco, since oils degrade the latex in condoms, they’re a bitch to clean off, and they can lead to infection in women (should the oil in question somehow make its way to her vajayjay). Instead, go for a water- or silicone-based lube, at least when you’re playing together.
Remember: Be smart (or would that be smart-ass?) when it comes to anal play. It’s like what your mom used to tell you about your nose: just because you can stick anything up there doesn’t mean you should.
Anyone who has experienced pregnancy loss, whether a miscarriage or stillbirth, knows that this subject makes people uncomfortable. Even close friends and family members often find themselves unsure how to react to this kind of grief and loss. It turns out that the same goes for a movie about this subject: Minnie Driver was recently nominated for a Best Actress Emmy for Return to Zero, a film about a couple whose first child dies in utero just days prior to his birth, and she said this about their struggle to get the movie out there: “This is a special one… We made this film for $800,000. We ran out of money. We couldn’t finish it. Families who had lost children contributed to our Kickstarter fund so we could finish this film. And when we showed it to distributors in town no one would touch it. They did not now how to market it. Then Lifetime stepped in.”
The film does much to address the discomfort surrounding pregnancy loss, but the filmmakers wanted to do more, which is why they partnered with our friend Tara Shafer’s awesome website Reconceiving Loss to build the Return to Zero Project/Reconceiving Loss, a digital archive and public project to document pregnancy and infant loss from miscarriage through to neonatal death.
In the United States alone, one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, and every year an additional fifty thousand babies are stillborn or die within thirty days of their birth. This issue impacts millions of people each year, and still the topic remains a social taboo.
Assuming there are no Emmy-winning pregnancy loss roles in your near future, here’s something else you can do to help the cause: Reconceiving Loss launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to build this archive of stories and healing narratives. Award-winning novelist Edie Meidav, author of Lola, California, says: “After the trauma of loss, many people start to feel they live a story unscripted by them. And since we walk around always carrying great secret possibility — the ability to name elements of what we would otherwise call, merely, pain, shelving it away in the pain drawer — we all have a great power. Tell what you know (and also what you don’t know) about what you have suffered, and both a writer and reader find a sense of choice in what otherwise would seem to strip a person of that most basic dignity, that of telling one’s own story.”
Somehow Edie (another pal of ours) always manages to find the most eloquent, intelligent, sensitive way to say what we didn’t know we’d been thinking all along!
So, you can give ten bucks to the cause — and, even more importantly, you can share your own stories of loss, from miscarriage through to neonatal death.
If you donate at any level to the Indiegogo campaign, you will be listed as a permanent Charter Archive Underwriter. The campaign closes August 17th — current supporters include the STILL Project and the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth. As New Yorker contributor Daniel Raeburn says of the Return To Zero Project/Reconceiving Loss: “Like therapy, writing is narrative. It’s taking the raw, senseless material of this world and shaping it into something that’s not so senseless, into something we can live with. A story. And after the death of a child, that’s what we need: a story we can live with.”
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screen shot of ABC’s “After the Final Rose”
Last night’s “After the Final Rose” was the most dramatic ever! Not because the Bachelorette (Andi Dorfman) got engaged to a guy (Josh “I Can’t Put My Arms Down” Murray) after only knowing him for two and a half months and only going on, like, three dates — max — with him. Not even because she slept with both of the two finalists (Josh and Nick “My Neck Is Always Cold” Viall) a week before announcing which one she’d chosen. It was the most dramatic ever because somebody (Nick) admitted to said sex on live TV!
Nick: Knowing how in love with you I was, if you weren’t in love with me, I’m just not sure why, why you made love with me?….I didn’t have any expectations about that night, but to me, that night, that was like fianceé-type of stuff. That meant so much to me. And I told you that. It meant the world to me.
You know it’s serious when you can hear a rose petal drop on a set with a live studio audience.
It’s an unspoken rule that what happens in the fantasy suites stays in the fantasy suites. It’s the one time the contestants can be alone together, away from the cameras, without microphones or their last few shreds of inhibition. Sex is had and it’s hinted at coyly by producers, but it’s not usually spoken of explicitly, especially not during the post-game “A.F.R.” when the focus is supposed to be on true wuv and mawwiage (and in the loser’s case, total devastating heartbreak).
Andi, with her facial expression set to Defcon 4 Frown, was not pleased with Nick spilling the beans:
That’s below the belt. I think that’s something that should be private.
It’s tempting to get on board the Andi Bus Tour through Indignation Town. After all, what happens in the fantasy suite stays in the fantasy suite. Like Andi said, that’s private. It’s not gentlemanly to kiss and tell. It’s pathetic for a grown man to cry because he didn’t get the final rose. Don’t try to slut-shame Andi because you’re bitter. You, Sir Scarf, just proved to the world why Andi didn’t choose you!
These are sentiments that have been expressed all over the Interweb and the Twittersphere since the show aired. They are even sentiments that we were inclined to embrace in our wine-and-chocolate-covered-strawberries-induced haze last night. But in the sobering light of day, we’ve popped two aspirin, washed the dirty wine glasses, and tried to get a little more Jack Handy about this whole most dramatic finale ever! thing.
If this had been “The Bachelor” instead of “The Bachelorette,” and a woman had gone on national television to ask why he had schtupped her if he didn’t love her, wouldn’t the rallying cry heard round the world have been “You go, girl!”? Isn’t that exactly what happened last season when runner-up Claire, regaining some viewer goodwill, said of Bachelor Juan Pablo, “Don’t tell me you love fucking me [and then not propose]”? And weren’t we all giddy when Andi herself pulled back the curtain of last season’s private fantasy suite to reveal what a self-centered pig JP was?
There’s something disingenuous about using the “privacy card” when you’ve signed up to be on a reality show about love (and — let’s admit it — sex). There’s something disingenuous about having sex with a person whom you know is in love with you (and whom you let believe you love right back, contract or not), and then dumping them and subsequently defending your actions by saying, “Your take on [what the relationship/sex meant] might have been somewhat different than mine.” There’s something disingenuous about answering the question, “You knew I loved you, so why did you make love with me if you didn’t love me back?” with the answer, “That’s exactly why I didn’t make you go through the rose ceremony.” There’s something disingenuous about saying that your intense feelings for this guy (while you dated, kissed and fucked him) were real, when you just admitted that you were in love with someone else the whole entire time, a person you planned on getting engaged to and having a monogamous relationship with for the rest of eternity!
People are joking about how Nick is a creepy stalker who needs a restraining order. But if we believe he was truly in love with Andi — and from the footage we’ve all seen, there’s really no reason not to — then why wouldn’t he do everything he could to see her again, to get some real answers, some closure? If she had refused all his requests to talk privately beforehand, then why shouldn’t he ask her, during the one chance he got, how she could have had sex with him if she didn’t love him? And why wouldn’t he be nervous and awkward and uncomfortable finally facing her? Forget the fact that there were millions of people watching: it’s hard to confront someone you love who doesn’t love you back. How about a little more sympathy for the guy who got his heart pummeled? (We gave it to Claire, and she wasn’t even very likable!) As a straight man, Nick should be commended for being willing to be so emotionally vulnerable in public, and for expressing the idea that sex can mean something. Being in touch with your emotions and believing that sex is sacred are not the domains solely of women.
As sex writers, we are all for open relationships, as long as everyone involved is well informed about the situation. We’re all for women sleeping with whomever they want without being publicly shamed for it, as long as they’re honest with their partners. In all our advice writing, we encourage (read: demand) that people treat their sex partners with respect, open communication, and forthrightness — no matter their gender. That’s basic human decency.
Of course, decency is not a commodity television usually trades in. It’s a testament to the perverse power of reality TV that anyone thinks Nick should have acted any differently or that Andi acted nobly. We recently listened to a “This American Life” episode about one of the most popular reality shows ever in Japan which capitalized on the real suffering of one individual who was basically stripped, starved, tortured, and humiliated for viewers’ entertainment — it was hard to listen to and we kept asking, somewhat self-righteously, “How could people watch this, laugh at this, enjoy this?” Which of course begs the question, “How can you watch a show that purposely orchestrates people’s heartbreak, especially if you’ve ever had your own heart broken?”
Which is not to say we’re not going to watch “The Bachelor/ette” anymore (let’s not go crazy). But maybe we’ll try to watch it with a little less disdain and a little more empathy from now on.
We get a lot of advice questions coming in at EMandLO.com, but sadly, we just can’t answer them all. Which is why, once a week, we turn to you to decide how best to advise a reader. Make your call on the letter below by leaving your advice in the comments section.
Submit Your Own Question to EMandLO.comTry Our New
*PRIVATE* Advice Service!
Dear Em & Lo,
I have been having an affair with my supervisor for the past two years. Yes, he is married, but he made promises to me to leave her. She suspected us but he denied it, but when she tried to overdose on pills he called it off with me. He tells me he and his wife are over, too, but I don’t know if that’s true. I know we had a special love, and he is just calling it off out of guilt. Do I tell her?
— Cheatin’ (at) Hearts
aries (Mar. 21st-Apr. 20th)
Danger ahead. Proceed with caution. Go slow. Watch for sharp turns in the road. Get AAA for your genitals.
taurus (Apr. 21st-May 20th)
Taking risks is only admirable when the results are positive. Wow, it’s really brave to jump out of a plane so you can tell all your friends what it feels like to soar with the birds; it’s utterly stupid when the chute doesn’t open. It’s wildly romantic to marry someone you met ten days ago in Vegas; it’s idiotic when they turn out to be emotionally unstable psychos you have to divorce within six months. It’s courageous to quit your high-paying day-job to pursue your dreams and become a professional karaoke artist touring the karaoke contest circuit . . . No, that’s stoopid whether it works out or not. The point is, just like battles, you’ve got to choose your risks carefully too. Especially this week. Otherwise, putting your heart on the line might result in it getting run over.
gemini (May 21st-June 21st)
Love is likely to develop in the strangest ways this week. Kind of like when people used to pick up the wrong roll of film from the photo lab and discover exactly what their next-door neighbor liked to do with his . . . . Except, with love, it’s a nice surprise, and we don’t call it “gross,” we call it “serendipity.”
cancer (June 22nd-July 22nd)
You know how some weeks you feel like you could pull off the Kama Sutra’s “Feeding the Peacock” and “Riding the Elephant” before breakfast? And other weeks you need twenty minutes of pre-sex stretching just to get near the missionary position? Well, this week you’re going to be a veritable vertical 69-ing, reverse-butterfly-kissing sexpert. And that twenty minutes of stretching? An especially good idea.
leo (July 23rd-Aug. 22nd)
At some point this week, you may suddenly find yourself singing, “I can’t fight this feeling anymore. ” We have our fingers crossed for you that this urge strikes you in the shower, but we can’t make any promises. You shouldn’t, though. Fight this feeling, that is. Tell the world (and one person in particular) exactly how you feel — in song and dance, if need be.
virgo (Aug. 23rd-Sept. 22nd)
Practice quid pro quo in the bedroom this week — if you want snuggles, then snuggle first; if you want oral sex, be the first to head south; if you want to splosh, pay for the groceries. Sexual karma is a boomerang.
libra (Sept. 23rd-Oct. 23rd)
We don’t have many golden rules (and we often break them if the stars are insistent enough) but we have yet to meet anyone who was successfully set up on a blind date by a member of their family. Have you? Remember the sweater your aunt gave you on your birthday — you want that person picking out a partner for you? We thought not. A family member may try to coerce you into giving love a chance this week (and no, we don’t mean in any incestuous way, sickos); tell them (very nicely) that you’re all set for now.
scorpio (Oct. 24th-Nov. 22nd)
If we weren’t such generous, kind, selfless people, we’d say, “Stop polluting the dating pool!” Your charm is raising the bar so high the rest of us just can’t compete. Fortunately, it makes us happy when you get laid.
sagittarius (Nov. 23rd-Dec. 21st)
Your heart is a muscle, and for argument’s sake, let’s pretend your genitals are too. If you exercise them properly, they’ll become stronger. And everyone knows exercise is an endorphin inducer, an antidepressant and a sexiness promoter. This week, it’s time to get physical, like in that Olivia Newton John video, sans the leg warmers.
capricorn (Dec. 22nd-Jan. 20th)
Take it easy. The more you push someone into an intimate situation the more he or she will be reluctant, slap you in the face or press charges. Didn’t you ever hear that story when you were a kid about the contest between the Wind and the Sun to see who could get the man’s jacket off, and the Wind was all cocky and macho, boasting about his power and strength like a fraternity date rapist, and the Sun was super laid back with a big smile on his face like he had just smoked a big fatty, and the Wind got all up in the man’s face trying to force it off which only made the man button up his jacket tighter while the Sun just sat back and shined and shined and quickly got the man to happily take his jacket off? If it had been an “adult” book, the Sun could have just kept shining, getting the man so hot and bothered that he had to unbutton his shirt, then pull down his pants, and then, aw yeah, slowly, oh so slowly, take off his tight, white Calvin Kleins to reveal his . . . Anyway, you get the picture.
aquarius (Jan. 21st-Feb. 18th)
Maybe you don’t buy all that stuff about how arm-crossing is a sign of defensiveness, avoiding eye contact is a sign of evasiveness and a slap in the face is a sign of slight perturbance. But you really ought to give lip-licking a try this week. Sensual body language will only work in your favor. So the next time you’re in the presence of someone you fancy, stroke the stem of your wine glass, playfully touch their forearm as you laugh at their jokes, hold that stare a little longer. Just stop short of drooling and sticking your tongue in their ear.
pisces (Feb. 19th-Mar. 20th)
It’s in the bag, baby. Just say the word, and everything your heart desires will be yours. At least, romantically speaking. When it comes to career success, financial stability and spiritual tranquility, you’ll actually have to get off your ass and work for a change.
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LELO’s Personal Moisturizer (75 ml)
Lube gets a bad rap, so we’d like to clear its name here once and for all: Store-bought personal lubricant is not a “crutch” for people with faulty machinery. And reaching for the wet stuff doesn’t mean you’re “not into it,” “frigid” or “kinky.” It just means you like to make sex even better:
But don’t even thinking about pulling a Marlon Brando and reaching for the butter (not even the olive oil, yuppie). Oils can degrade latex (i.e. break the condom!) and can also encourage vaginal infections. So when you’re a friend in need, manmade lubricant is a friend indeed.
Don’t have any on your nightstand? Here are 6 popular brands to check out:
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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. Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it (18 and older only, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri:
I dreamed I had a threesome with my wife, an ex of mine, and this other woman [ED: So, more of a foursome, then?]. I’m not sure if she was my ex’s friend. It started with oral sex where the unknown woman started, and not too long after my ex started and my wife looked in the corner of her eyes with just a bit of disgust seeing me enjoy it, as she is not that good at oral.
Lauri: Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Did you have this dream soon after your wife gave you oral in real life, or soon after you perhaps discussed it or thought about it?
If so, then this dream indicates that this is an issue for you and you should take it as a gentle nudge from your subconscious to encourage your wife to explore different techniques that could help improve her skills. If you present it to her in the frame of “exploring” she may look at it as you wanting to be adventurous with her rather than you criticizing her. Em & Lo’s book SEX: How To Do Everything is a pretty thorough guide.
If your wife’s lack of oral prowess has not been top of your mind lately, then this dream may be more about communication. In my research I have found that most any dream that focuses on the mouth in some form or fashion can usually be connected to communication issues.
It seems your intuition is picking up on the fact that your wife has a bit of jealousy right now in real life, hence her giving you the side-eye in the dream. I believe your ex is in this dream as a warning that you don’t want your wife to become an ex either. So I believe this dream is urging you to open up the lines of communication with her and get to the bottom of what may be irking her lately. Open and honest communication is the key to a lasting and healthy relationship.
Visit Lauri’s brand new site, WhatYourDreamMeans.com, for even more dream interpretations! If you want to be able to figure out your own dreams every morning, then check out her latest book, Dream On It: Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life, which will give you the tools you need to become a dream expert, too. Check out all of Lauri’s books here.
When you do a search for “sex” on Getty Images, you get a lot of interesting results — so many, in fact, that we were compelled to create a superlative series of Getty “sex” search images. We ran a “Best of Animal Sex” post, but there were so many amazing lion (money) shots, we had to give them their own day in the sun. Enjoy — they’re GRRRRRRRRRREAT!
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Most people have that one, fail-safe way that gets them from point A to point O quickly and directly, scenic lookout points be damned! And when you’re busy or tired (read: every minute of every day), it’s easy (and understandable) to resort to that surefire route on the rare occasion you do get around to doing it. But tonight, whether you’re alone or with a partner, give yourself at least 30 minutes — okay, 20 — to try to have an orgasm in a different way. Because the more ways you can train your body to have an orgasm, the opportunities for pleasure you have at your disposal and the less chance your orgasm has of ever getting old (not that that is a huge risk or anything). Here’s how:
Don’t worry if you haven’t gotten to O-town before time’s up. Remember, the journey is 90% the fun!
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Our hilarious friend and Lo’s old college dorm buddy (that’s not a euphemism) Eric Levy is an up-and-coming stand-up comedian. We’ve never seen him live, but he’s always cracked us up. He recently posted a set from last December on Facebook, so we finally got a chance to check him out: and he’s as funny as ever! We especially liked his bit on pussy vs. balls, and which is the tougher of the two (starts at minute 13:15). Enjoy!:
Our friend Laurie Sandell is not only a celebrity interviewer for women’s magazines like In Style, Glamour and Marie Claire, she is also a Bachelor Nation superfan. She started a private Facebook group for her likeminded friends (like us) called “Monday Night You-Know-What Discussion Group.” She once bagged the White Rhino of Ben’s season of The Bachelor, a random run-in with show-villain and now tell-all author of “I Didn’t Come Here to Make Friends,” Courtney Robertson (Laurie was bold enough to ask for a pic together and got one!). Her superfandom reached its zenith last night: she was in the studio audience of “The Men Tell All”! And now she’s here to tell us all about it:
How did you score tickets to “The Men Tell All”?
One of my friends knows one of the show’s producers. As soon as I found this out, I immediately called in the most important favor I could imagine ever asking of him.
Where were you seated?
In the front row directly behind [host] Chris Harrison and the hot seat. It was just a fluke we got those seats: I brought a friend [another fellow superfan] and we were one of the last people called into the theater. They needed a party of two for the front row and we fit the bill.
What’s the difference between seeing it in person and seeing it on TV?
Surprisingly, it was eeerily similarly because the set was so utterly familiar, like we had teleported through our TV into the studio. Everything looked exactly the same: the lighting, the flowers, the candles, and, of course, the roses.
Are the guys better (or worse) looking in person?
So much better looking in person. We were actually floored by how good-looking they were. They were shorter than we expected, however — at least some of them were. They were all very comfortable and charismatic on stage. Clearly they had been in front of cameras for months. None of them seemed shy or embarrassed to be there.
Were there any surprises with the guys?
I have to admit, I have been a little bit lax in my viewing this season: I have an infant, so I’ve been watching with one eye, so I didn’t know exactly who the guys were. So when they came out, I was like “That guy is cute.” But he turned out to be the potentially racist one, so I quickly changed my crush.
To whom?
Ron was very charming and super cute.
What was Chris Harrison like?
He’s more sarcastic and hilarious than he is on the show. On the show he has to appeal to a mainstream American audience, but in reality he’s very wry and quick-witted, so that surprised me a bit.
And what was Andi like?
Very likable. And so much more beautiful in person — she truly is stunningly gorgoeus, as good-looking as any A-list celelbrity. Articulate and very put together. She came across as genuine.
How long did it take?
Eight hours.
What?!? Really? Start to finish?
Really, eight hours. When we first got there, we were in a holding room while the producers were making sure everyone was there. They gave us sandwiches. Then they ushered us into the studio and we spent the first two hours watching the fantasy suites episode — they tape “The Men Tell All” before the fantasy suites episode airs so we got to see it before anyone else. After that, each segment took a long time to shoot because they film more than they air, and there were breaks between each segment for leg-stretching and bathroom runs.
How were the bathrooms?
Luxury trailers set up like nice hotel restrooms. An entire trailer was one bathroom.
What was the audience like?
I was looking around at my fellow audience members, like, “Who are these people? How did they get here?” There were a lot of jewel-toned tops. It really did look exactly like the audience you see on TV. They’re a combination of people like me who are friends of friends, people who had won charity contests, randos off the street, and people associated with the show. For instance, there was a guy there — and there are hardly any guys in the audience — so I asked him how he got there and he said he provides the limos for the show. But I have to say, everybody in that audience was a superfan — there was not one jaded person in the room. I’ve been in the studio audience of “Dancing with the Stars” — I was there to interview Lisa Vanderpump — and I was seated next to another interviewer who was totally bored. At the “Men Tell All”, everyone — and I mean everyone — was into it, laughing it up.
Did you practice your reaction faces beforehand?
My friend and I were cracking up practicing our faces beforehand, but when the show started, we were so caught up in it, we really were making crazy expressions. Afterwards, we were actually afraid we might look really ugly because we hadn’t practiced looking pretty while looking surprised!
Did they use any of your reaction shots?
Umm, nothing BUT shots of us! We were practically in every frame! [See below, Laurie is the one in blue, with dark brown glossy bangs.] There were no super surprised reaction shots but we did tsk tsk when Chris Harrison talked about Marquel getting kicked off. At one point, Chris brought up a rumor that Andi was pregnant, but I misheard and thought she was about to announce that she actually was preggers, so I whipped my head around to my friend and gasped louder than I’ve ever gasped in my life. Fortunately they didn’t use that.
What was the most surprising thing about the experience?
It was more intimate than I thought it would be. There’s nowhere to hide. You really are a part of the show. And the guys were very close to the audience. They were only a few feet away. They were milling about afterwards and we could have interacted with them, but there were a lot of producers around and I think it would have been unseemly to try to talk to them.
Any other dirt you can give us?
There are a ton of funny things that I’d like to share but they might really break the fourth wall and I had to sign an extremely steep confidentially agreement that no amount of fundraisers would ever help me recoup.
