A New Years Carol

It’s kind of funny that New Years is the resolution holiday when the greatest rehab story ever told happens a week before during Christmas. If there’s a bad habit you’re trying to break or a good one you’re trying to acquire (and if there’s just one you’re ahead of me) flip the calendar back to the week of December 25 and review a A Christmas Carol, which Charles Dickens wrote in 1843 because he needed the cash.

A Christmas Carol is usually billed as a story of “redemption” which is a lovelier word than rehab but both just mean reclamation of one’s own life. And that’s what resolutions are made of. Scrooge’s addiction is clearly money, addiction here being defined as a fundamentalism about anything, whether it’s booze, sex, religion or “Twilight.” It differs from a passion in that passion – for your work, your partner, for music or anything else –brings satisfaction at the end of the day. You might be consumed by it but in the end it’s not just a hiding place, which is what Scrooge’s counting house becomes.

Then, of course, there’s the intervention and Scrooge’s, while supernatural, still comes from his best friend, Jacob Marley, who corners Scrooge unexpectedly and won’t let him leave the room without hearing what a fuck-up he is and making him agree to treatment, just like on TV. His three therapists are the ghosts which take him through a lot of rehabilitative steps - one who makes him come to terms with emotions he’s been avoiding for about 50 years, one who makes him look at the effect of his behavior on others and one who does the Scared Straight method of showing him how bad things can get if he doesn’t knock it off. At last we get to the redemption stage, the happy ending where the patient recognizes his problems and sets things right. Dickens even foreshadowed the ‘amends’ step, with Scrooge making up to the Crachits for past mistakes. There was never a sequel, which is good – one would hate to think of Scrooge relapsing and ending up back in rehab, like on so many E! True Hollywood stories.

Anyway, if you’re averse to the sterile jargon of the 21^st century and find self-improvement more entertaining when it involves ghosts, time travel and Victorian London then keep considering Scrooge a little longer after Christmas. Whatever you’re trying to change might not be an addiction, but there are templates a-plenty to change it –as long as you’re trying you’ve got a head start. And we’re all trying – why do you think there’s so much self-hep media? It’s not because we’re all happy and perfect. So you’re not alone.

So THAT was a heavy Happy New Year message but that’s what happens when you watch nothing but Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Sex Rehab and period movies for several weeks. 2009 has been a manic year for most of us and though we can’t rely on supernatural intervention like Scrooge did, I hope that in 2010 we all get the one thing we need, whether it comes from something outside or from right within ourselves: satisfaction.

Let the countdown begin.

Movie Mondays: Resolutions for the Adult Industry

       Welcome to the week between Christmas and New Year’s, that long corridor of time when we have the luxury of taking stock of every dumbass thing everyone else in the world did this year and then making one resolution for ourselves – possibly so we don’t make the same mistakes as any of them did.

       Aside from the fact that no one keeps them, resolutions pose one major problem: we make them for ourselves when other people should probably make them for us and us for them.

       This will never happen, of course. It would cause probably 90% of the partnerships in earth to go down like the Hindenburg. Our nearest and dearest have a perspective on us that we never can but hearing them say something like “The only weight you need to lose is that idiot boyfriend of yours,” would be troubling because, while true, there's a great chance it would be the friend that gets the axe instead of the boyfriend. It's an ooky side of human nature that we sometimes kill the messenger should the message be one we’re not ready to hear.

       Be that as it may, the idea of the resolution from without is still a good one and since it’s Movie Monday so here are some suggestions for resolutions that the adult film industry could make this year to make it even better than last year. If anyone takes these suggestions and they work out you can consider them predictions instead of suggestions, consider me psychic instead of just a writer and pay me exhorbitent fees for my advice, which you'll take or be doomed. Dooooooooooooomed!

       DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!

       I always wanted to do that. Anyway, on with the show:

       ALIEN CGI: We had such a great time last year with "Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge" (which was technically 2008, but who cares) that we hope there will be some more fantasy/CGI stuff happening in adult world this year and considering the preoccuptation of the movie-going public with aliens, vampires and other supernatural creatures maybe it’s about time we saw a little inter-species action. Start with Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six and you’ll have the adult film dollar of every geek from here to the White Cliffs of Dover (if you haven’t already).

       TIGER TIGER   Now, as it happens I spent Xmas in Winderemere and I wouldn’t wish this on a neighbor or anything, but we all know the parody tapes are going to happen – but please, at least, make them good. Parodies were ha-yooj last year and the best ones, i.e."Crock of Love" were clever in their casting and funny as well. If you’re going to go to the trouble of story context, that part should be enjoyable, too. Maybe a “Caddyshack” send-up with a Tiger subplot? (Sorry, it’s the only golf movie I know, outside of the Bugs Bunny cartoon My Bunny Lies over the Sea).

       STORY.   Speaking of parodies, the popularity of the spoofs that came out last year are convincing proof that adult film audiences still want plot. People will skip forward to the sex and go back to the sex they want to see again, but that doesn’t mean context doesn’t count. I've often zipped through the sex and then gone back to check out the story or vice versa.  Just like in real life, it’s nice to find that everything else about the source of your sexual excitement is interesting too.

SEX TAPES   I suspect there will be some people (Jon Gosselin, perhaps?) who might try, one day, to to make porn movie like others have done when to extend their 15 minutes to 16 (John Bobbit; Dustin Diamond). Please don’t fall for it. Let them pretend to have a sex tape that got leaked instead. That’s always bad enough.

CROSS-OVER    Sasha Gray’s popularity is well-deserved in the adult world but it was fun watching her crossover to the mainstream in “The Girlfriend Experiment,” but honestly, the thing that intrigued me the most about her was the list of her 5 favorite films on The Rotten Tomatoes show, offering preferences that make most of the rest of us look like slow-witted fifth graders. Well done. Would love to see more of her in the mainstream and more like her everywhere.

EVAN STONE.  Just put him (pictured above, right) in adult film ever made, including the home videos, and get it over worth. They will all be better for it.

     Anyway, those are our resolutions for the adult industry this year - we'll be on the look-out for Eccentrica Gallumbits and they can be on the lookout for us.

Last minute gifts that will seem truly planned

       You’d have to have a lot of nerve to have all your holiday shopping done on the day of Christmas Eve. It would mean you were organized and solvent which is very suspicious when everyone else is harried and broke. What the hell have you been up to, anyway?

       If you don’t have it all done I do have one or two final things – really easy, nice things, too – to recommend from Fairvilla (they’re also open on Christmas day from noon til 2 a.m.) and lo and behold, they’re not sex toys, adult films or even snazzy underwear. They do sell other stuff, stuff you could hand right to your mom without causing a blush and no, your mom would not have to be Dr. Ruth.

       Take, for example, the candles by Ilume with names like Brilliance, Sultry, and my favorite, Stellar, which is tiger lily, vanilla and amber ($29.99 in a thick, blue glass candle holder) with some of the richest, most exotic scents you’ll ever take in. There are also spa kits, lots of them, some with mom stuff in them and some not so much.

      From the G-rated section there’s Kama Sutra’s Spa Pleasures kit with Ocean Bleu bath gel, clean-smelling scented bath sales (that turn the water blue) a scented votive. For something more intimate, we recommend the Earth Body kits ($23.99) with a hand and body lotion, glowing oil and a massage candle – as the candle burns it turns into a moisturizer or massage oil which you spoon into your hand or directly onto the body. These candles are all natural oils: soy bean, coconut, hemp seed, apricot, jojoba and avocado with a little vitamin E for good measure and they come in several transporting scents as well (my favorite scent is the tropical Sunshower but my favorite scent name? “Naked in the Woods”).

       The best thing about Earth Body is that they make some teeny little stocking stuffer sized bottles of their massage oil for only $2.95 so you can make up a great sample bag for someone or add them to something else you’re giving. You could, in fact, put something like that into this stone incense box ($20.99) for a nice surprise.

       If you are getting a gift for your SO you can get a custom gift-basket with stuff from a variety of companies carried in the store. One of the pre-made ones I looked at, for example, had products by Sex in the Shower, lube from Empowered Products, Ilume, Kama Sutra, Schakolad and a Hot Heart massager from Lover's Choice. The whole shebang was $98.11 but that is A LOT of stuff and you can customize yours to fit your price point.

       Finally Fairvilla has a lot of really nice books, also, not just how-to books for lovers (though there are plenty of those) but erotic art, comics and “How to Live with a Huge Penis,” ($12.95) by Dr. Richard Jacob and Rev. Owen Thomas, which is bound to make the holiday of any man you get it for. It includes chapters on “Dealing with the Teasing,” the Six Stages (from denial to acceptance) and the part that gave me the laugh of the day, the Affirmations Journal where the afflicted can write their private thoughts on their huge schlong (well, about their huge schlong) under headings such as “I shouldn’t fellate myself today because…”

       Oh, and on the other side of the shelf from that you’ll find Cleis Press’ Best Sex Writing series, specifically the 2008 anthology, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussell and including stories by several esteemed writers oh and….ME. And you know what? It’s really good!       Anyway, that’s it for me - have a spectacular holiday weekend and do tons and tons of things you have to make pitiful resolutions for next Thursday. See you next week!

Lingerie gift-buying advice

There aren’t tons of circumstances I can think of where a woman would be unhappy to get a gift of lingerie. Unless you’re rich as Rockefeller and could afford to get her a car but keep getting her thongs it’s typically a welcome gift. It says you think she’s sexy and you want to give her something to wear for the part.

There’s only one problem with buying lingerie and it’s a problem with all clothing gift purchases: size. If you’re dating a woman who is self-conscious about her body – in other words, if you’re dating a woman – buying the wrong size either way is a path strewn with banana peels, especially with such an intimate garment (it's a lot more personal than, say, a jacket). If you buy too small she might feel self-conscious about being too big. If you buy too big she might feel self-conscious that she’s too small or she might wonder exactly how goddamn big you see her as being (unless you're vigilant about telling her that you think it's the sexiest thing in the world that her butt sticks out like a bay window, which mine does and I never tire of hearing its praises). If you're very confident go for it, but if you're not I have two words: gift card.

If you get a gift card to a store that’s pretty adult or lingerie- specific then she can’t be mistaken that you’re intentions are deliciously filthy (do NOT get her a Sears gift card if you know she wants something more out of Moulin Rouge). Fairvilla has tons of nice lingerie from bridal white to black PVC and with many companies making terrific teddies, corsets and dress-up costuming in plus sizes the choices are vastly better than they once were. Should you go the gift card route you can a) go shopping with her and make a date out of it or b) tell her what you think she’d look amazing in and be delightfully surprised at what she comes back with.

. The outfits you see her are pa-retty obviously holiday-themed dresses/costumes (this the season) but between the range of items, the holiday sales and the helpfulness of the staff you’re sure to find something fabulous in any genre of lingerie you like.

Men are so much easier. All you have to get them is the t-shirt that says “All I want for Christmas is a blow job.” And that one’s on sale, no less.

Toy Talk: the We-Vibe II / Gift Talk: The ultimate ball sack

       When the We-Vibe came onto the scene in 2008 it changed the vibe of vibrators entirely. A couple’s or singles vibrator that’s worn by the woman during sex for g-spot and clitoral stimulation, the hands-free We-Vibe let’s the guy feel the gentle buzz, too. This revolutionary approach saw the We-Vibe named Toy of the Year by viewers of Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, Storerotica’s Hot Product award winner for 2009 and won the 2009 Erotixxx award, a a European honor fo top selling product of the year.

       And now spiffy little wonder has gotten an upgrade. In addition to all it’s previous perks of softness, flexibility and medical-grade silicone the We-Vibe II comes with 9 speeds. There’s your simple Low and High, but then there are different pulses, rates and waves, including some with names like Cha-Cha, Ascending and Wave that sound more like ring tones (and may move some of you to make beautiful music). Take a look at the We-Vibe II features here and you’ll see the chart with the nine variations – looks kind of like the various difficulty levels on a treadmill, but hopefully these heights will be more pleasant to get too – and be decent exercise to boot.

       I haven’t tried the We-Vibe II, so this isn’t a review, but word is that Fairvilla Megastore already had to get another holiday shipment, so we're wondering if original fans are rushing to get the new model, like Mac people who just couldn't wait to get the first iPhone. So why do the cliché thing and wait til Valentine’s Day?

       And while you’re at the store you know you’re going to be looking at the novelty gifts and a perfectly appropriate one, not for the time of year but for the time in general is the My Sack golf ball holder. It’s an ultra-suede bag with “It Takes Balls to Golf” embroidered at the top, comes with two free balls (in case you don’t have enough) and clips handily onto a golf bag. We’re not saying who but we can only think of one or two people here in Orlando that might not get a chuckle out of it during this particular holiday. 

Movie Mondays: The gift of exploration

       Porn is a highly personal thing.

       That’s a bit of folk wisdom I usually throw into the wind on Mondays when I do an adult film review but since it’s Christmas I have a different bit of advice this week on how to invest your adult film dollar. DVD’s are a magic bus to fantasy and if you’re in relationship it’s way more fun to take the trip together, which is why I recommend getting a Fairvilla Megastore video membership or a gift card with which your honey can get one.

       Picking out movies with your sweetheart is great on a lot of levels. If you’ve never done it it’s a novel experience and novelty tops off relationships like an extra inch of vodka tops off a half-drunk screwdriver. It’s an intimate bonding experience, you get to giggle a lot and the best part is that you can explore ideas in a way that’s really, really easy.

       Some couples can be on the most wonderfully intimate terms and still have a hard time saying what they want. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to point than to speak. For example:

       * You are browsing the store together.

       * You see a title like “Slave Training with Mistress Blucher” (or some such thing).

       * One of you points and raises a pair of hopeful eyebrows.

       * The other either shakes their head “No,” in which case you move along, or allows a look of intrigue to dawn on their face in which case you check it out together.

       That’s a pretty cool discovery to make and a potential dimension to add to your relationship. And THAT is a pretty freaking cool gift.

       A membership is only $20 ($35 if you’re paying cash and don’t have a credit card to run) and the buyer has to be present to rent but you can put someone else’s name on your card (make sure you straighten out those particulars at the store before buying) and rentals are $4. I know there’s a lot of freebie porn on the web, but it’s not as much fun to huddle around the laptop as it is to browse the shelves and get even more ideas for things you might want to explore one day.

       Plus with the store being decked out for the holidays you get to see a lot of stuff I can guarantee you’re not going to find at Big Lots. Take, ferinstnace, these Pornaments by Dirty Flirty, glass ornaments with a shiny metal finish which you see sprinkled about this post. They come in about a dozen varieties, like this sexy snowgirl, bondage teddy and stud Santa (there’s also some extremely nasty elves, gingerbread people, Christmas vixens and a topless angel) just to remind you that this may be a G-rated season but there’ still some X-rated fun to be had. 

(PS: Yep, you can get the spiffy Xmas ornament glasses there, too...)

Put a Tiger in your what?

      Like many other people I initially eschewed the Tiger Woods story as another boring bit of infidelity. Even when the mistresses started piling up like unpaid bills, even yesterday when Tiger’s high school girlfriend Dina Parr (no kididng) went on E! and revelaed that her dumped her in a way that made Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Leo Buscaglia (a harsh letter delivered while she was with her parents asking her not to bother coming to the tournament he was playing). OK, that was titillating, but I still thought this was just another story about how people shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep.

       Now I’m not so sure. It’s not because of the advent calendar of flings, it’s not because Tiger was just named Athelete of the Decade by the AP and now we’ll have to hear “well, he’s certainly the best swinger,” jokes for life. It’s because of his doctor.

       Now it's important to note that as of an hour ago, according to Examiner.com, PGA tour commissioner PGA commissioner Tim Fencham says that Tiger is clean and he has no worries about this, but evidently a doctor that Tiger chose to treat his bum knee is a “a doctor who promotes human growth hormone.” That according to this LA Times column in which Bill Plaschke tells the implications with gratifying drama. The story-story is that Dr. Anthony Michael Galea was arrested by the RCMP in Toronto in October and was charged yesterday with conspiracy to import an unapproved drug and conspiracy to export a drug.

       Mr. Fencham's endorsement is certainly important, but there is still something about your doctor getting arrested by Mounties that’s a real tipping point in your life adventures. This is not longer some guy who let his wang take the wheel. This is now getting exciting, like one of those houses in a true crime stories where the police come in a house searching for  the neighbor’s missing cat, and they find a locked door and behind the door they find a loose board and under the loose board there’s a crawl space and in the crawl space there’s some rope and a bloody necklace and so on. Tiger’s case isn’t ghoulish like that, but creeping Jesus, whatever next? As Willy Wonka said, “The suspense is terrible! I hope it’ll last.”

       In a fun little side note, a couple of the alleged lovers on Tiger’s list are adult performers Holly Sampson and Joslyn James. Here’s Holly talking about her tryst with Tiger at his bachelor party (fair enough – that’s what bachelor parties are for) and here’s a Hollywood life story saying that James' dad knew about his daughter’s fling with Tiger.  If you want to look at some of the titles they’ve been in, check them out at Fairvilla's new website (remodeled and looking swank!): click here for Holly and here for Joslyn. It is Christmas after all; maybe you can pick up a DVD for any avid Tiger fans on your list

.

       I may check them out soon but for now I’m waiting for the scandal to moulder a few more weeks. By Valentine’s Day I kind of hope we will learn that it’s easier just to list the women he hasn’t slept with and that the story now involves genetic engineering, pirate gold a psychic medium paid to enslave the soul of great golfers of the past.

       Say what you want about Tiger, but outside of Caddyshack this is the only time the damn game has ever been interesting.

Fap Mapper

     Why in the name of all that is holy you would want a phone app that tells everyone in the world where you’ve been jacking off or getting it on I have no idea. But you can have one.

       FapMapper – I’m so not kidding – is an application written about on the Huffington Post today which allows you to document where you’ve been doin’ it. Be warned, though – the very front page of the site (which is all we looked at) says this is a place for “documenting your sexual exploits, real or otherwise,” so while you might think it’s hilarious that someone relieved their urges in the middle of, say, the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney, it sounds like they might be pulling your leg and nothing else.

       So, you might not be able to get a cure for what ails you, or a job or insurance or any justice in the world, but goddammit, if you want to document yourself jacking off in a swan boat at Lake Eola this is your chance. What the hell…it’s Christmas!

Toy Talk: A Hickey and a Quickie

     One more quickie about the Fairvilla Ladies night (I think this is my fourth or fifth post about it – you really have to start coming out to these things). Among the many vendors we were happy to see Kama Sutra, long-established as an excellent source of luxurious, sensual products and huge fun in a little gift box. We got the line of the night from a young lady who was testing out the Raspberry Honey Dust, a sweet-tasting powder that’s not only fun to lick off but feels good on. A glass of water sat on the demo table with a layer of powder floating on top of it – no kidding, you could dip your finger in the water and the powder has such integrity your finger would come up dry and lovely to the tastebuds. One young lady, after taste-testing this and other KS products at the display table and evidently having an awfully good time with them, was overheard to say “Oh my god – I just gave my hand a hickey.”

       Now that’s what I call an endorsement. Kama Sutra products are available at Fairvilla  (check out the gorgeous new website!) and they offer a multitude of gift possibilities ripe to slip into a stocking. Don’t forget – it’s a gift for you, too. Everybody wins. 

Latter Day Hotties: An Interview with 'Mormons Exposed's' Chad Hardy

       When I first read about the Hot Mormon Muffins calendar of Mormon pin-ups in Details online

I was as skeptical of the project as I am of religion in general (if you haven’t seen the South Park episode about Mormons

you owe it to yourself, btw). But the more I read about Chad Hardy, specifically about his desire to break Mormon stereotypes, i.e., to let the world know that not all Mormons are anti-gay marriage, the more interesting the whole shebang became.

       I got the opportunity to interview Chad for Alternet

the day before Thanksgiving and spent two hours on the phone with him – that’s more than I often get to spend talking to people I actually know. He was engaging, funny and philosophical and hopefully that’s reflected in the resulting piece Latter Day Hotties: An interview with 'Mormons Exposed' founder Chad Hardy.

     And if you need some incentive to check it out, here’s Sister Farr with some muffin tips. Enjoy!

Toy Talk: One for the boys and one for the girls

       For reasons you’ll be glad to be spared from, I’m trying to get James to remember who Pete Burns is:  "Dead or Alive…big hair…80’s… “You Spin Me Round?" That’s when he gets it.

       “I think he might have gotten a sex change,” I say, though it turns out he hasn’t, just enough plastic surgery to transform Mr. T.  into Dakota Fanning. He looks more like a woman now, (check out the before and after, left) like a Lady Who Lunches in Coconut Grove and changes cheekbones more often than I change ink cartridges. He also successfully sued a doctor who botched his lip procedure (giving him what the UK mail calls 'trout pout') and got a million pounds out of it. I don't care if he looks like Pirate Pete or Penelope Pitstop; he gave us some of the best dance music of the era and some glam to boot. I love Pete Burns. 

       “Why would anybody want to cut off the boys?” James says, mulling over the question of sex changes (at this point in the conversation we don’t yet realize that Mr. Burns is still a Mister). James gives the requisite PC nod to to-each-his-own-and-all-that-crap. But still. “You can have them for years and years and yet they always bring all kinds of new and amazing pleasure,” he says and I agree. I don’t have them on me but I do know you can work with the same set for a surprisingly long time and never find yourself running out of brilliant ideas on what to do next.      

     If I did have a scholong to call my own I would treat it and well which I think could easily involve the use of the Vibratex Maven elastomer masturbation sleeve, shown here at the Vibratex table at the Fairvilla Megastore Ladies Night Out. This sleeve is so luxuriously soft and pliant it could make you wish you had a putz to put in it – it reminded me of when the winter clothes first start coming into the stores. You go to Target, you finger the fleece and you just can’t wait til it’s cold and so you can justify getting some.

     The girl's side of the aisle did offer some spiffy stuff, too, my favorite being the Mystic wand. Alisa from Vibratex (shown here with the Mystic) noted that once upon a time in Japan, where the company's toys are manufactured, phallic shapes for toys weren't really ok - this wand is a good example of how that taboo was side-stepped and it was a side-step in the right direction. I can't believe it runs on AA's (four of them, though). I only tried it at the store but it seemed to me to be as powerful as it is pretty. Plus when you're done you can use it as a faux microphone and sing "Sweet Mystery of Life" like Madelaine Kahn in "Young Frankenstein" (below). 
        The Mystic is available through Fairvilla, and between that, everything else they have to offer and some of the other things we saw at the show, never mind about that wishing for a putz-to-put-into-it idea. Some things remind you how much you enjoy being a girl.

 

Liz story: Don't Put on a Happy Face

We all know all about thinking positive, but there's an aspect of that dogma which, to me, is the emotional equivalent of airbrushing models to inhuman beauty standards: no one can be that hap-hap-happy all the time, just like most of us can't be that tall, skinny or nicely dressed all the time.

     Still, most of us, when confronted by a sad situation, instinctively want to pipe up "Look on the bright side!" and get our friends, who could have just gotten a pink slip, a heart break or a bad diagnosis, to feel better. Keying off of Barbara Ehrenreich's recent book "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America," I interviewed four authors, including Christina Nehring, Dr. John Sharp, Dr. Charles Sophy (from Celebrity Rehab)  and Sheri Winston about what is that best way to receive bad news from a friend: Don't Put on a Happy Face: Why Fake Optimism is the Worst Way to Deal With Bad News. I hope everyone you know is too prosperous, well and happy for you to ever need it...but just in case...enjoy.
(PS: Toy Talk, which usually runs on Tuesday, will be up later this week.)

Tiger's Wood

       The best thing about the Tiger Wood’s hoo-ha is that it was revealed today that John Zeigler, pastor and founder of the founder of the The First Church of Tiger Woods is disbanding it because his hero has proven to be a human being with a tireless putter.

       God, I love crazy people, as long as they’re not in the same room as I am.

       This is far and away the most interesting thing about the Tiger Woods saga. The infidelity isn’t interesting. The only surprising thing about infidelity is that people are are always surprised by it. The only surprising thing about this infidelity is that a man that rich doesn’t know enough to get a second cell phone specifically for his assignations and billed to another name, or some other strategic move that any dummy with a blog could think up.

       This isn’t to excuse the breach of promise, but maybe it’s a promise too many make too rashly when clearly it’s not an easy one to keep. And our culture expects you to keep it unlike in, say, France, marital fidelity seems more of a suggestion than an expectation and they have fewer heart attacks .       
       Then there’s the red-handed confession, which, to me, is the most awful part of the whole thing. Those we see giving the media the ol' mea culpa are always terribly sorry…when they get caught. Two days before, when everything was under their control, how sorry do you think they were? Sorry enough to hook up with the next receptive partner?

       “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women are merely players,” Shakespeare said and it just makes you wonder how many acts of theater you are witness to in a day when you think people are just talking. I know for the sake of convention that no one can say “I’m sorry I got caught. I had quite a racket going before then,” or “I can’t so "I do," because I know ‘I won’t,” refreshingly truthful as that might be. Heaven forbid. The show must go on. 

Tiger, Tiger...

       So Tiger Woods made some vague confession about alleged affairs and a local news station made it the subject of a viewer poll: Is that enough? Or should Tiger do more?

       This was a big LOL moment at Lust Never Sleeps. Do more? For who? For me? Well, I could use a new Blackberry if he’s going by Colonial Plaza this week. That would be good.       

       It was nice to see that the results of the CFN 13 poll showed that 73% of callers said yes this confession was enough, which I translated to mean ‘Who cares? Is it going to rain or what?” Good for you, Orlando. The only person vaguely near the 407 area code who gets a say in  this private matter is Mrs. Tiger.      

       That said, as a commentator I have a lot more commentating to do on our cultural expectations of fidelity and the tiresome art of the red-handed confession, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Is that enough? 

Just in case Tiger's reading this, he can donate here: 

A Hard Choice: Worst Sex Writing goes to....

       Steve Martin once said that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” and I kind of feel the same way about sex. Some music you just have to hear, some dishes you just have to taste and some intimacies you can’t describe. Words are as insufficient to convey them as a Ford Fiesta would be to convey the Pieta.

       If you have ever tried to write sex scenes you know how tough this is. I’m not talking about the digital mash notes we all occasionally fire off to some lucky winner, I’m talking about using words to do the jobs hands, lips and a couple of boxes of wine are usually employed to do. Sex scenes are murder to write convincingly. I write about sex every day but mainly from a removed, observational, my-isn’t-that-interesting POV, like Bill Bryson writing about the Australian box jellyfish. Much easier to put it to someone in person than on paper.

       Some people, god love them, will try, though. Some will end up with book contracts. Some won’t. And a very unlucky few will end up the recipient of an unkind superlative: the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award..

       Nobody wants to win the Bad Sex in Anything award, but I’m afraid this year's honor goes to American novelist Jonathan Littell for his intriguing analogies in “The Kindly Ones,” a Holocaust story told through an executioner’s eyes. It should be noted tout suite that Mr. Littell has nothing to worry about– the book has sold over a million copies in Europe and won France’s highest literary honor. Even some really beloved writers, though, can’t necessarily write sex. Case in point: past recipients have included Tom Wolfe, A.A. Gill and John Updike, who scored last year’s Lifetime Achievement award. It’s a tough, tough racket.

       But onward and downward to the two passages that nicked Mr. Littell this dubious distinction. What I’m going to do here is place them before you in a Mad Lib context – you fill in some of the words and see what you come up with. Then see if what he came up with was worse. Ready? Here’s one passage:

 “I came (adverb), a jolt that (verb, past tense) my (noun) like a (noun) scraping the inside of a(n) (adjective) (noun).”

       Yeah, I know. “Scraping” should never be going on in a sex scene, should it? It invites nightmares. SPOILER ALERT! Here’s the actual passage:

       “I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg.”

       Ew.

      Here's a really long passage, if you're interested. I have to admit, it’s pretty surreal at least and makes you wonder, when he describes a vulva has being “like a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks,” just who was the saucy little minx who inspired that?

Toy Talk: That Rabbit's Dynamite

         It was fate.

        Because I’m not a size queen and because animation is one of my favorite things it was an inevitability that I would cross paths with a Rocks Off toy called Ramsey Rabbit who looks like something off a cereal box. Ears included he’s the size of a Twinkie; in fact, if you break the clitoral stimulator off a regular rabbit vibrator you’ve got something in the size of Ramsey.

       You will have noticed by now that I’ve completely anthropomorphized this little creature, referring to “he” instead of “it” but we became fast friends; fast because he vibrates more quickly than hummingbirds wings and fast because usually I can burn out watch batteries before being done with this of 'research', but with Ramsey this wasn’t the case. Fast. Quick. Like a bunny.

       I mark our presumably mutual attraction down to two things:

       a) Ramsey is made of IntraMed, a silicone-like material that’s phthalate-free, non-porous, waterproof and hypoallergenic. It has a nice touch,  firm-but-silky, high-integrity

       and

       b) his protuberant features provide a lot vartiation. I didn’t even get around to his little cotton tail.

       Which means we have something to look forward to.

       You can buy Ramsey at Fairvilla Megastore and if you’re intimate with someone enough to buy them a vibrator he’d make quite a little stocking stuffer. And I mean that literally. It’d have to be a little stocking or he’d get lost. He make look cute and innocent but as someone in Monty Python once said “That rabbit’s dynamite.”