Liz Langley

Among many other vendors, Wazzabi sushi in Winter Park provided this lavish human buffet, which I hovered around like I had a crush on the tuna. I learned a great truth here: you know you have moved from vigorous youth to comfortable mid-life when there's a gorgeous man laying mostly naked on a table in front of you covered in sushi and you're all about the sushi, providing witty comments like 'Yeah, he's very handsome. Is that yellowtail?" and keeping an eye on how much salmon is left.         Elizabeth, the lovely young woman pictured, said when questioned that bathroom breaks were not a problem for her - she didn't think about it, plus the sushi was getting hoovered up so fast it would be easy for her to get up any second now (possible second sign of age: considering what it's like to be a human sushi boat and having toilet access be first consideration).  (Photos by Liz Langley and Estrella Serena)

I hate admitting that the commercial got me, but it did. It went something like “The average woman in America is a size 14. The average woman on a reality show is a size 2. This is reality?”        Interesting, especially because in re-reading that sentence, I know I'm way closer to "America" than I am to "reality." Enter “More to Love” a new Fox reality show that’s essentially a supersized version of "The Bachelor," "Rock of Love," or any reality dating show where a bunch of women vye for the affection man they’ve just met as though their world is the Titanic and he’s the last lifeboat. The only difference is that here that everyone is a bigger size than you normally see on TV: the prize, Luke, is a  26 year-old cutie who weighs in at 330 pounds.       Here and elsewhere I keep hearing folks who aren't skinny described as "real," a linguistic fad I find unfair and inaccurate. Skinny people are just as real as everyone else; I h

On July 11 nudists all over north America gathered to strip away their daily cares, inhibitions and Hanes-Her-Ways to make the book of Guinness World Records for the most number of people swimming naked at the same time - and I was one of them. I didn't start the story as a nudist but now, well, let's just say I thought about spending money on a bathing suit yesterday and didn't. The full story,  Stick It To Your Puritan Forebears by Stripping Down  is on  Alternet  today and I think it's the best thing I've written in a long time. Pass it on to your friends, post it on your sites, and give it all the clicks you can (clicks like applause and beatnick finger snaps now, right?) It'll make you want to strip down yourself - though I recommending going somewhere like  Cypress Cove  first (casual office attire is not typically that  casual). ENJOY! Photo by Miriam Lorenzi @ www.miriphoto.com (PS: Toy Talk, which usually runs on Tuesday, will be back later in the week)

     “Yes, yes, yes!” is a large part of the dialog one hears in many adult films, and if my guess is correct, that cliché is largely drawn from real life. But what if writers, stars and the rest of us started getting more definite and trend in our affirmations and saying “Absolutely! Absolutely! Absolutely!”          It speaks loudly about my little world that that’s the first thing I thought of when I read excellent story by John Blake from CNN , who is fed up to the back teeth of the word “Absolutely.” You hear it everywhere, he says (and the possible origins of this trend are pretty interesting) and it’s got to stop.          Our tendency to work a word to death is the reason Lake Superior State University produces its Banished Words  List every year, a confinement area for those terms it’s thoroughly sick of. “Green,” “maverick,” and “not so much” made this year’s list and both CNN and Lake Superior are looking for your comments so click the stories to contribute.          As I

         Tada!!!!        The day finally arrived, the day I’d been so happily gearing up for, the day that the Guinness World Record Organization would  tally the number of people swimming naked at nudist resorts all over North America at 3pm EST on July 11. It was a crystal clear Saturday afternoon and 403 people turned out at Cypress Cove  in Kissimmee, myself included, to show the world our true colors – which turned out to be mostly all-over-tan. The full tally will be ready in a few weeks.        “Is that you in the back to the right with the glasses? Nicely done!” wrote my photographer  Orlando's  Miriam Lorenzi  who did the story for Metromix  and took the photos (like the one above) which would help hundreds of us remember becoming part of a world record.        What I loved most about the experience wasn’t just the camaraderie or the fun and certainly wasn’t standing waist-deep in a Florida lake so hot and brown I felt like a lump of sugar in a big cup of English Breakfas

        Every once in awhile you see some TV show where somebody gets locked out of someplace naked and has to be rescued by a bemused passerby. Desperate Housewives, An American Werewolf in London….even Garrison Keillor tells a story of being nude in a hot tub  and finding himself locked outside. We see and hear these things and we laugh at the awkwardness, thinking they never really happen or at least not to us.        Well, guess what.     I now have intimate knowledge of what a singular pleasure it is to give the  AAA  operator the laugh of the week. There she is, stuck inside on a glorious day, listening to all those sad, angry, exasperated, hot, sweaty, broke people freaking out on the side of the road and then you bob up on the call list. You say you’ve locked your keys in your trunk, hem and haw about where exactly you are then finally blurt out that you’re at a nudist resort, failed to put your keys in your pockets because you didn’t have any and ask her to send someone  insta

        Hours spent in gyms, malls and salons, getting clipped, fit and outfitted – all of it won’t matter much if, when it comes time to actually have the sex you’re primping for, you didn’t put a few minutes into preventing a yeast infection.        Owie! Yuck! Nothing’s worse than looking forward to a night of passion and suddenly getting that little itch that may be telling you something.          “Yeast loves heat darkness moisture and sugar so its no wonder they’re happy growing in vaginas,” says Sheri Winston  , sexuality teacher and counselor, nurse midwife, author and founder of the Center for the Intimate Arts. Sugar aids and abets yeast and a lot of women get yeast infections when they’re on vacation – “they drink margaritas, eat desserts, go to the beach, have lots of sex,” all creating a prime atmosphere for yeast to thrive (the moisture, friction, semen and contraceptives that come with sex can be contributing conditions as well).         Most of us can tell by the pain,