Sex and the University ~ the blog

One year, shortly before graduation, the mother of a friend came to visit him at college. As they walked across campus after dinner, a young woman he knew stopped to say hello and ask where he was going. "He's going home," his mother snapped. "Alone."
Has it really come to this? Has adult obsession with college sex reached such a pitch that a parent assumes that every cordial conversation will, without his or her intervention, end in frantic intercourse?
Actually, we understand parents' alarm. College today is portrayed almost exclusively as a sexual free-for-all, where undergrad action is effortless and frequent, where randy young things not so much leap into the sack as never leave it in the first place.
Rolling Stone calls it "the booze-fueled culture of the never-ending hookup." In her book "Unhooked," The Washington Post's Laura Sessions Stepp sniffs that hookups are as "common as a cold." Bill O'Reilly airs furtive footage on Fox News of "pure debauchery" at Brown University's annual SexPowerGod party. And of course, in Tom Wolfe's impossible-not-to-cite novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons," set on a campus where sex is in the air -- sorry, where the air is "humid with it! Tumid with it! Lubricated with it! Gorged with it!" -- students practically major in "herky-jerky . . . bang bang bang." One envisions RU-486 available at the dining hall salad bar, next to the croutons.
But as the Class of 2011 settles in on campus this month, we're betting that the students are discovering the cold-shower truth: The type of action they're likely to get is more hanky than panky.
We say this at our own peril. As the editors of IvyGate, a blog that dines out on all that is base and scandalous about the Ivy League, we have written about students and sex once or twice. It's hard not to, when even the smallest incidents get hyped to the max.
This year, two weeks before Valentine's Day, we posted an e-mail that the beleaguered master of a Yale residential college had sent to his charges -- subject line: "Shower Stalls are for Showering" -- asking an unnamed intimate couple to please stop clogging the bathroom drain. Hilarious? Absolutely. (The man has a PhD!) Did we give it a second thought? Nah. Not, that is, until a New Haven newspaper got wind of the professor's plea. And then the Associated Press. And then about 130 news outlets worldwide, including the "Today" show.
It wasn't the first time, obviously, that a campus sex story had been blown out of proportion. Last fall, the New York Daily News ran a thoughtful, nuanced article with the headline "WILD SEX 101: S&M Clubs, Nude Parties, Porn, X-Rated Romps Rule at Columbia." Having gone to Columbia, where we had experience with only the third item on that list, we read eagerly. Had the school really become a "playpen for sexual hijinks" in the months since we'd graduated? By e-mail and instant message, we canvassed some friends for our blog: Forget the kinky part; how often are you having sex at all? Here are some of the responses:
"Once every six months. Columbia is a rough world for single people."
"The average in the engineering school is probably like once a semester."
"Either I missed out or everyone else in college isn't having sex at all."
"Random hookups do happen, but it is probably rare for most students. At night people just go back to their rooms and finish their homework, or maybe heat up a Hot Pocket."

Tantalizing! Having eaten a Hot Pocket or two ourselves, we will vouch that there's a lot more truth to these kids' answers than what you see on CollegeHumor.com. Statistics bear this out. In a 2000 Zogby poll, 40 percent of students nationwide reported that they were not "sexually active" -- a term left vague enough to include everything from kissing to soliciting strangers in a Minneapolis airport men's room. At the country's top schools, the dry spells approach levels not seen since 1930s Dust Bowl Oklahoma. Harvard's health department reported last year that 47 percent of students there said they had not yet had vaginal intercourse. (Numbers not adjusted for homosexuality, apparently.) At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a 2001 survey found that only 51 percent of undergrads had lost their virginity; at Princeton the same year, the student body was 44 percent pure.
Parents and other interested parties often confuse having had sex with having sex regularly. One landmark 2000 study found that kids have an average of 10.8 hookups in college. That seems like a lot. But the math works out to only 1.35 hookups per semester -- and remember, some of these incidents are merely make-out sessions. This is what we're getting so worked up about?
More devastating to the idea that everyone is constantly hooking up is the evidence that students hugely overestimate the notches on their classmates' mortarboards. In 2005, a survey of four universities found that while 80 percent of students had had one sex partner or fewer in the previous year, only 22 percent thought that the average number of partners was that low. In a similar survey in 2002, most guessed that three or more was the norm.
Even the MD/PhDs of college nookie -- sex columnists at student newspapers -- often talk the talk rather than walk the walk (of shame). At Yale, prototypical sex-scribe Natalie Krinsky parlayed her "Sex and the (Elm) City" column into a prominent profile in the New York Times and a book deal. "Chloe Does Yale," a peek into "what goes on behind these proper ivy-covered walls," was published in 2005.
Funny thing about that sex column, though: It contained very little sex. Krinsky's topics included first dates, shopping for vibrators and even a saucy question about oral sex, but never explicit material from her own life. Her skills were playing reporter and confidante, not exhibitionist. Krinsky knew that her scandalous material was mostly talk. "You are young, you are hip, you are beautiful, and you are smart," she wrote in one column, a letter to incoming Elis, "and if you're anything like any one of your classmates, you are ready to bonk. You are ready to bonk a lot. Well freshmen, you have come to the wrong place. At Yale, it seems we discuss sex far more than (admittedly) we actually have it. This is essentially the reason for my job. I talk about sex. A lot."
Some people will no doubt be thrilled to hear that college chastity levels remain high. A new book by Wendy Shalit, "Girls Gone Mild," follows up on her 1999 tract, "A Return to Modesty," which argued that the sexual revolution of the 1960s has overshot its original goals of liberation and turned into its own kind of oppression. Instead of feeling empowered, Shalit now writes, young women feel pressured to act "bad" and sexy at increasingly early ages. The solution: good old feminine purity. Not the repressed, Victorian kind but a new, deliberate sort. A student group at Harvard called True Love Revolution has a similar goal: premarital sexual abstinence. The group made headlines earlier this year for merely existing, and commentators -- mostly conservatives -- greeted it as evidence of a backlash against college "hookup culture."
Indeed, chastity is as rampant as ever -- at least at the more privileged schools, where for the most part, it's not intentional. In 2001, David Brooks profiled "The Organization Kid" -- the happy young workaholic who, between hockey practice, a cappella rehearsal, problem sets, SAT tutoring, Model U.N., AIDS research, human genome mapping, clerking for appeals court justices and cutting a debut solo album, has little time for the "character building" that used to occupy university life.
Brooks touches on the social repercussions of this omnivorous lifestyle, such as friends penciling in appointments with one another. But what he doesn't mention is how the hyper-commitment of college life means that kids end up doing everything but "it." For one thing, there's the time factor. As one male friend told us, in response to our query about the Daily News expos¿, "I've kind of got a girl right now, but we're both too busy to actually have sex. I think a lot of people are in my boat, and they deal with it by commoditizing and scheduling time for sexual pleasure as they would a meeting with their adviser."
Improbably, it's a recent comedy -- a movie whose plot turns on vomit, penis art and a fake ID issued to one Mr. McLovin -- that gets it right. Next to "I Am Charlotte Simmons," "Superbad" is nothing less than a documentary of our time. The story of two best friends on the eve of college, it nails how our generation's culture really is based on drinking and hookups -- but also how at the end of the night, even with girls who are eager and boys who score booze, sex remains elusive.
Sometimes it doesn't happen because the guy is uncomfortable; sometimes it's because the girl doesn't like the guy. And sometimes sex does happen for dweebs who've just ridden in a police car, fired a Glock and been punched in the face by a robber. (Okay, that last one may be unique to the movie.) If there's a sequel -- "Superworse"? -- all of these characters will hook up in short order at college, and then every now and then until they graduate.
In other words, they'll be gettin' some. Literally -- some. As in, a medium amount.

mailto:jcbeam@gmail.com
By Christopher Beam and Nick Summers
Christopher Beam and Nick Summers co-founded the blog IvyGate.

Okay, so I came across this news story a few days ago. Basically, women around the world are supposed to rejoice, for illustrious doctors have come up with a new type of surgery, called ... wait for it ... the G-Shot! They can inject collagen into your pussy, thus plumping up your G-spot area, with the ultimate goal of increasing your sexual pleasure. Brave reader, awaiting you are multiple orgasms and a reinvigorated sex life! Er ... thank you, science?

Sure, yeah, orgasms are super. Multiple orgasms? Even better. But still, my reaction to the G-Shot is still a big Blech!

First, there are health risks: There are 68 risks that are associated with the G-Shot. Orgasms are sexy, sure, but for some reason, nodule formations just don't get me hot and wet.

More seriously though, I feel the G-Shot's major turn-off is the extreme importance that it is placing on the female orgasm. The fact that a woman reported that getting the surgery increased her self-esteem just kind of illustrates that unpleasant implication of the G-shot: So if a woman can't orgasm at all (or can't have multiple orgasms or ejaculate or whatever), then does this mean that she's a sexual failure and should be terribly disappointed in herself?

Don't get me wrong, I think the female orgasm is important. In fact, I love that female sexuality and sexual pleasure and orgasms are now discussed in relatively mainstream settings and are taken seriously. After all, one of the goals of the Women's Liberation movement was in fact to promote women's sexual satisfaction, hence the rise of Our Bodies, Ourselves and The Almighty Clitoris, and the fall of the man who would pump the woman for four minutes before collapsing and falling asleep. That the female orgasm is acknowledged and is even put on a pedestal in some circles is a huge improvement on the silence that used to exist.

However, I'm starting to think that we're taking things a little too far. Don't get me wrong; I love fucking and I fucking love orgasms. However, I don't think they're the be-all and end-all of sex. That cheesy saying about the journey being just as important as the final destination applies here, I think.

There's something very lovely (to put it lightly!) about orgasming, but there's also something very appealing about fooling around for hours upon hours, exploring the body of another person, teasing him or her, playing with different spots and positions. Sure, in the end, perhaps no one's orgasmed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can't equate four hours of sexual exploration with an orgasm or two, but you can't rank one above the other either.

I think that in our time-crunched lives, sex has become in a way almost standardized and institutionalized. There exist books telling us the best ways to have sex, maybe to save us the time and "trouble" of figuring it out ourselves. Plus, with so little time, we actually have to schedule sex. In this kind of setting, no wonder why sex has become painfully goal-oriented! I've experienced that myself, and it kind of sucks to pressure yourself to "succeed" and make your partner come. So no, the G-Shot isn't really helping, because it just tells us that indeed, you actually can fail at sex, and its idea of a cure to this "problem" is by offering to insert bits of extraneous protein into your pussy.

God, with all the pressure to "win" at sex, no wonder why I see so many sex advice columns inundated with women looking for tips on orgasming. It's telling that the columnists usually respond by counselling these self-tortured souls to masturbate in a low-pressure, comfortable setting, to just forget about orgasming, and to just go with the flow.

I try to keep this perspective when it comes to sex. Sure, it's difficult and it doesn't always occur, but I'm trying. Truthfully, right now, my only "goals" when it comes to sex are the following: To have fun and to do it often. Sure, orgasms are important too, but hell, I'm also pretty happy just gettin' some.

- Yun

My biases for rock, metal and punk may be completely over the top, irrational and unyielding, but when I read about all the good that this kind of music presents the world, my spine tingles.

Enter Fuck for Forest, a Norwegian eco-activist porn organization. What do they do? They fuck each other's brains out in order to raise money and awareness against deforestation and other environmental catastrophes. This is all sorts of awesome in a world which could seriously use a daily dose of awesome. It is now common place to "give" to charities through consumerism (Product Red, celebrity adoption, anything Oprah comes up with), which makes FFF all the more refreshing.

To start out, one reason I immediately love them is that I discovered FFF because they had sex on stage during a Norwegian metal festival. Ah, metal, annihilating preconceived notions of normative behaviour since 1970. The two main protagonists, Leona and Tommy, gave a brief talk to an audience of more than 5000 at the music festival about ignoring dwindling reserves of nature at our own peril. After the quick chat ended, the couple shed their clothes as the aptly named metal band The Cumshots began to shred their way through "Go Forth and Fuck." The two were there, front and center, she perched on a main speaker, he standing behind her, the band growling all around them, the audience stunned and excited, all surrounded by a serene, picturesque mountain lake scenery. Awesome!

Sex sells, definitely. Ironically, FFF's biggest problem is moving the funds once they receive them. So far, they've raised over $100,000 but because they are essentially a porn organization, groups such as the WWF in Europe refuses to take their money for environmental causes. Tommy and Leona are, understandably, utterly fucking bewildered. "What is morality when people are destroying the world?" retaliates Tommy when the WWF black labels their organization. Mainstream organizations are much, much too prude to accept tarnished, pornography money. Meanwhile, across the ocean in the USA, the porn industry is a multi billion dollar a year industry which puts its money God knows where. So, like the very metal they fucked alongside, they turn to less mainstream, less orthodox venues. They have turned their attention, and checkbooks, to Brazilian indigenous people and Costa Rican deforestation problems, hoping that their cumshots will be able to make a difference in the world.

In 1969, Yoko Ono and John Lennon made headlines when they stayed in bed for peace during their honeymoon. Their hotel room was constantly crowded with reporters and other media goons - sure, the Beatles were still the biggest band in the world and Beatlemania had yet to fade from anyone's memory, but in reality, they just wanted to see John Lennon and Yoko Ono consummate their marriage. But now, when two activists consummate their passion on-stage, they get a hefty fine, they get ostracized from mainstream activism (the feeling is mutual, I'm sure) and are forced to basically beg larger organizations to take their money for a good cause. Echoing Tommy's words at the music festival, "how far are you willing to try and save nature?"

“Friends, Romans, fellow porn-watchers, lend me your Internet browsing histories.”

Okay, all bad attempts at literary references aside, I’m serious: Readers of this blog, help a person out. Give me some recommendations for porn. Please.

Oh, wait. First, a disclaimer: I don’t want to delve too deep into my feelings on porn, on my stance on the never-ending “porn is pro- or anti-woman” debate. The truth is, I’m still in the process of figuring this out myself. I haven’t yet decided where on the spectrum I stand; all I know is that sometimes, for better or for worse, there’s nothin’ that hits the spot better than a good self-lovin’ session with some good porn. (Pun intended.)

The problem I have is … Where’s the good porn?

Of course, everyone’s taste in porn varies. I’ll tell you what I like, and you’ll see why I’m so goddamn frustrated about the lack of my “good” porn. Let’s start off with the good ol’ hetero porn. Usually, this stuff doesn’t cut it for me. This type of porn simply mirrors exactly what I see in our heteronormative society every day.

Sure, there are different faces, different body shapes, and different variations on power structures during sex (“Oooh! He’s waiting for her to come before he does anything to pleasure himself – how revolutionary!”), but essentially, I still always see the same two actors in everyday life as I do in my hetero porn. Thus, why would seeing a porno featuring a girl seducing a guy (or vice-versa) turn me on? I can find that same old routine in one of the many billboard ads or TV commercials that hawk low-rise jeans or some “exotically-named” perfume.

My gay roommate tried to help me, by sharing his prized collection of the “hottest gay porn out there”. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t turned on by all of the double-penetration and anal-stretching and circle-jerks that I saw. But I guess I’m kind of self-centered because sadly, when I watch man-on-man porn, my poor little ego ends up crying out plaintively, “But where do I come into the picture?” I guess part of me needs to live vicariously through porn, and I simply can't do that when the principal actors in a porno can survive and thrive on cock alone.

So that leaves me with just girl-on-girl porn. You’d think that I’d be happy with the selection; there’s a lot of that stuff floating around, after all. Unfortunately, I’m not pleased with my choices, and to be honest, I don’t think it’s because I’m “picky”.

I think that a lot of the “lesbian” porn that circulates is primarily aimed towards men. Why? To be frank, it’s in how the women look: They all look so damn … straight. Long hair, fingernails that look like they’d rip vaginas into shreds, half a pound of makeup on the face, spray-on tans … I could go on.

Yet, to go on a brief tangent, at the same time, I actually kind of dislike this sort of thinking of mine. I dislike knowing that I’m placing these women on a Lesbian-o-meter. Who am I to judge how “queer” a person should look before I decide that she’s “authentically queer”? Who am I to presume that lipstick and long hair makes a woman any less of a lesbian than a motorcycle and a crew-cut? Again, this is something that I still have to work out for myself. Until then, I’m a little sad to say, the truth is that this is how I feel.

Anyway, back to my point. For better or for worse, most mainstream lesbian porn out there strikes me as ersatz and tacky, pandering more to those in the Girls-Gone-Wild fanbase than to people like me: a horny queer girl looking for some, well, to put it bluntly, some hot dyke action.

So that’s it. Please help me out. Surely I’m not the only person who finds the sex scenes in The L Word (which can be found on primetime tele-fucking­-vision, of all places!) to be ten times hotter than the stuff from hotlesbiansluts.com. And surely I'm not the only person kind of frustrated by this!

- Yun

In order to get quality health treatment, our doctors or health care providers need to know our sexual orientation and our sexual practices. But coming out to your doctor can be an intimidating process. Here are some tips for coming out to your doctor.

Difficulty: N/A

Time Required: 15 Minutes

Here's How:
1. If it's time for you to get a new doctor, try got get a gay friendly one.
2. Be aware of the health risks for lesbians.
3. When you check in at your doctor's office ask for a "health care directive" form. On these forms you indicate what kind of end of life care you want and you can appoint a Health care representative. The health care representative will have the power to make decisions for you if you are not able to. You can also indicate who you want to visit you in the hospital.
4. When filling out the new patient information form, leave blank any questions about birth control if you are not using any birth control. When your doctor asks about birth control, this can be your opening to come out to her.
5. Don't write your sexual orientation on the form. It's best to disclose that information face-to-face with your doctor to see how she reacts.
6. If you can help it, meet your new doctor for the first time fully clothed. You will feel more comfortable and less like there is a power-imbalance.
7. Come out. If the doctors asks you about birth control, simply say, "I'm a lesbian, I don't sleep with men." Or if you are bisexual say, "When I'm with men, I use XX birth control, but with women I practice safe sex by using latex barriers."
8. If the issue of sex doesn't come up, tell your doctor that you understand the importance of open communication with a health care provider for quality health care and that it's important that she know you are a lesbian. Notice what her reaction and comfortability are.
9. Remember the reason you are coming out to your doctor is so that you can receive the best treatment possible. In order to get good care, you need to have a good relationship with your doctor. If your doctor seems at all uncomfortable with your sexual orientation, look for a new doctor!

Thanks Kathy

Aw.... isn't that sweet! Try explaining THAT one to the kids...

As mentioned in my post last week, today is Blog Against Sexual Violence Day. (Pssst: It's not too late to join in!) Basically, you blog about anything related to sexual violence in a collective effort to raise awareness.

So for today, I'd like to blog about gender inequality (which can and does lead to violence). I was talking to another girl today, and we were both complaining about the complacency surrounding gender equality that we seem to see quite often in today's society.

We agreed that it annoys and frustrates us when people, especially other women, claim that gender equality is here and here to stay. Likewise, it's even worse when said women, believing the fight for gender equality is over, try to distance themselves from anything remotely resembling the word feminism. (It's the new F-Word, I've been told.) Sorry to break it to everyone, but ... gender equality still doesn't exist, and feminism is still just as important as fucking.

Sure, women can vote, but why is it that in the House of Commons, only about 20% of the seats are held by women? Sure, rape is treated more seriously now than before, but would you want your best girlfriend walking on St-Laurent at 4 am ... alone? Sure, there are more women in the military, a traditionally male-dominated field, but what's up with the prevalence of sexual harassment and the subsequent lack of punishment?

Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't want to be pointing fingers at anyone. It's pretty easy to get complacent about any issue these days. We're all busy people suffering from information and sensory overload. News reports that make it to the front page get a fair bit of attention from the public for the first couple of days. But after a week or so, the subject slips from page A1 to page A27 and ends up getting squished between the margin and the Bell ad with the talking beavers. The same thing occurs to us, as an issue that seemed so unjust and outrageous two weeks ago now slips away to the backs of our minds.

This is especially true in the case of gender inequality and people of my age. Hell, I wasn't even born early enough to see the first fights and victories for women's rights. And so, by the time people in my generation were old enough to read our ABCs, it seemed that such issues were already considered back-page filler fodder.

Gender inequality is not old news though; the fight for equality for all genders has taken new forms. For example, it's gone international, manifesting itself in the modern-day slave trade. Last year, the first human-trafficking charge in Canada was laid on a man who smuggled Chinese women into Canada and forced them to become prostitutes. In fact, the revelation that 80% of modern-day slaves are women speaks loads about the unequal status of many women around the world.

Want more stats about non-Canadian women? In Afghanistan, 40% of all marriages are forced arrangements. At least 33% of all women have been beaten, abused, or raped at least once. I have to wonder, how many people who fall into the second category are also part of the first? Though technically not slaves, these women are still enslaved, by virtue of their gender.

The fight for gender equality has also moved to challenge the general lack of respect towards anyone who isn't part of the gender binary and doesn't follow its prescribed roles. Keeping that in mind, I see homophobia and transphobia as proofs of present gender inequality. Cases of homophobia are well-documented, but transphobia, not so much. There are some well-publicized stories, though, such as those of of Tyra Hunter or the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Even simply by skimming Facebook discussion boards, I see people insisting that anyone besides men and women simply "can't exist". If it's so difficult for some people to even realize and accept the fact that more than two genders exist, then how can we say that equality between all genders is present?

I guess the point of today's post is to just remind myself and anyone else reading this that gender equality is not universal, nor is it even 100% present here in Montreal. It's hard to be aware of everything all the time - or at least, it definitely is for me - but when it comes to gender inequality, I'd like to see it brought back to Page A1.

- Yun

It's no secret that I'm an Etsy addict, so here are some of my favourite sex-inspired finds this week...

Who knew a penis could be so darn cute? Spend those lonely nights cuddling up to this Billy Boner Amigurumi Penis for only $15. Read about the crafty 22 year-old seller here.

This print sums up my life philosphy! I want it. My boyfriend tells me I'm banned from buying any more gocco from Etsy, but what he's actually saying is, "Only get ones that you really, really like, baby!" (he called me an "inveterate spendthrift" yesterday - I don't know what it means, but isn't that just the sweetest pet name?). Evil Vices is available for $15 from Olive47, who may or may not be the bastard daughter of Tammy Faye Bakker...crazy televangelists.

Take the role of Officer Kinky to a whole new level with this red hot necklace, available for $14 from Seattle-based Melissa of Chuckles Central. I imagine it offsetting a black dress with wicked fire-engine stilettos.

Enjoy the slight perversity of storing your birth control pills in this little wallet stolen straight from Strawberry Shortcake, $5 from Plastichearts.

I have ambivalent feelings about turning old. Like 60 years old. Part of me has no doubt that I won't even make it - dumb luck can only carry you so far. However, what if I do? Then I can look forward to going senile - not that it'll be a long trip. I look forward to that. I'll be able to say and do anything with total impunity! The only downside is that I may not realize what power I have. It's like being a baby: you don't realize what you have until you're too old to use it to you full advantage. Except, instead of tiny and cute, I'll be medium-sized and wrinkled. If I make it.

Hopefully, by the time I'm sixty-four (the new forty, really), matter transporter thingies will be commonplace. Why such a vested interest in this technology, you ask? Well, a couple of weeks ago, this article popped up in my Gmail links bar. If this technology hits the mass market, whenever I please I'll be able to nip over to Germany for a little midday romp in the hay, 50% off that is.

It's all good and dandy for an old fart like myself - I'm sure as hell not getting any (in this scenario, I am not married). I get to take full advantage of Germany's aging population, and thus growing niche market, and get to diddle some 20 year old. That would be awesome. Old guys always date young, pretty girls. In this case, however, I won't have to worry about poison in my drinks. Heart attack from physical exertion notwithstanding, this seems to be a sweet deal all around. It assuages all the politically correct (read, intellectually mundane) people who believe everyone should have everything. The old guys are getting some. The owner of the brothel just tapped into an penetrated market. The only people who lose, really, are the 20 year old hookers. But, who cares about them? They're marginalized, young women whose lives are dictated by the great dick-tator: their pimp.

I can't even imagine what these girls must think when an old lump of flesh hobbles into the brothel. First of all, people who frequent brothels aren't the most upstanding bunch of individuals the planet has to offer. Second, these people are old. Third, if they didn't go to the brothel before the discount, you know that they're taking advantage of cheap sex, which somehow sullies even the most noble of the intentions. I'll bet that the discounted brothel is like the discounted airlines: no frills. No foreplay, no talking, no lights, and definitely no happy pills.

Apparently the website promotes this new tactic by proclaiming that "life begins at 66." I wouldn't ride these old guys too hard - we don't want Germany's infant mortality rate to skyrocket.

So a couple of weeks ago, I found myself nearly sleeping with a guy. We clicked. I wanted to do it. He wanted to do it. But in the end, we didn't. What had gone wrong ...?

He told me I was hot and sensual and sexy. That was kinda nice. It's always nice to get compliments, right? But then he pretty much ruined it by saying four fatal words that extinguished any chance of anything happening between us: "You look so exotic."

His words made me think of sex tourism, an industry pretty much fueled by the promise of "exotic" people to sleep with, and supported by an underlying mindset of colonialism, racism, sexism, and classism. His comment on my "exoticism" made me feel cheapened and objectified, not to mention angry and completely turned off.

However, things aren't that simple. This incident made me really reflect upon my Chinese heritage, something that I don't do often or in much detail. As the first person in my family to grow up and spend my formative years in Canada, I've often had identity issues.

When I was a kid, I tried to renounce my Chinese background. My eight-year old self cringed when I saw what my grandmother had packed in my lunch box, and I'd look longingly at Sam Joyce's Lunchables snack kit instead. I went through a phase where I wanted my mom to call me "Amy" instead of "Yun", my birth name. I stiffened when the kids in my mostly-Caucasian elementary school spoke Chinese-sounding gibberish ("Ching chong shee shaw") and would ask me what they just said.

I gravitated towards other Asian kids like me, kids who grew up in Canada and were also trying to navigate the path between fitting in yet accepting their ethnic and cultural backgrounds. However, despite our mutual experiences, we never quite discussed our Asian heritage, possibly because we were ashamed of it. We, the first and second-generational Asians, even shunned the "new" Asians. These were kids who had come to Canada more recently, and thus were "more Asian" than us, whatever that meant. Looking back, I feel ashamed by that, though I can sort of see the reasoning behind it too. We were just trying to compensate for our differentness by distancing ourselves and refusing to acknowledge it at all.

I thought long and hard about this stuff while I was walking home, still slightly horny, though no longer for that guy. Yeah, I took issue with his words because I found them to embody ideas and mindsets that I found intolerant and colonial. But at the same time, I wondered: What if I was so bothered by his comment more because I was once again feeling that shame of being Chinese? How much of my anger was fueled by my disgust towards the beliefs that lay beneath his statement, and how much of my anger came from that underlying fear and shame of my childhood, of being associated with my heritage?

And to take it even further, the type of life that I lead right now - one that involves casual sex with and attraction towards people of all genders - isn't exactly one that garners approval among traditional Chinese families. It's just not something that "good Chinese girls" do. But why do I do it? Is it subconsciously just another way for me to distance myself from my heritage?

Until that incident, I'd believed that I was no longer ashamed or embarrassed to be Chinese. Sure, I knew I hadn't yet developed to the point where I could fully take pride in my Chinese background the way I'd like to, but I'd previously thought that I was on the road to doing so. That comment from the guy really threw me off, because it led to me questioning just how far I had developed after all. But I guess self-evaluation isn't a bad thing; it's just a damn hard thing to do.

- Yun (not "Amy")

PS: By the way, for those who are interested, next Thursday is Blog Against Sexual Violence Day. To participate, all you gotta do is write about anything having to do with gender-based violence, be they experiences you've heard of, links to further resources, or your own thoughts. Even small gestures count, yeah?

The vagina dentata, or toothed vagina, is a myth that exists in some cultures. The belief is this: behind a pussy’s lips lie rows of razor-sharp teeth, ready to chomp down on whatever comes their way. Vagina dentata can be seen as a metaphor for men’s (and society’s) fear of female sexuality. Women are sexual predators, temptresses, and seductresses. Men should steer clear of their wickedness and women should be branded with a warning label: Danger! Sex may result in your death or castration. Whether the myth is part of an ancient Chinese folk story or an Aboriginal tribal legend, the concept of the vagina dentata is also present in our society (albeit in many altered forms).

The anti-rape condom, or Rapex, is a new product which has a design guaranteed to perpetuate the vagina dentata myth. After hearing a rape victim state, “If only I had teeth down there,” Sonette Ehler, the inventor of the product, was inspired to create the condom-shaped device lined with sharp hooks. Any man who tries to rape a woman and inserts his peeper into a Rapex will be unpleasantly surprised and momentarily incapacitated. While it currently awaiting patent approval before it can hit the shelves, there is already objection to the device on the basis that women could seduce their ex-boyfriends or other assholes while wearing Rapex in order to get back at them. Pricks beware.

Femdefence (or the “stabby tampon” as I fondly call it) is similar to Rapex, except instead of a condom with hooks, it’s a tampon with a sharp pin attached to the end. However, this product is imaginary, and was only designed to help spread awareness about sexual violence against women.

Beyond product design, the vagina dentata can also be found in representations of female sexuality in pop culture. Possible spoilers for uh, GoldenEye, Dracula, and Hard Candy.

Consistently ranked amongst the top 5 best Bond Girls, Famke Janssen’s over-the-top performance as Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye demonstrates that female sexuality is dark, dangerous, and deadly. Onatopp is hands-down the most original Bond babe with her legs up. Like a true black widow, Onatopp kills her victims during sex by squeezing them to death with her thighs. Not only a psychotic killer, she is supposedly the first girl in the whole Bond franchise to orgasm.

above: see Onatopp in action, courtesy of youtube

Lucy Westenra, the virgin-turned-vampire in Stoker’s Dracula, demonstrates the phenomenon of vagina dentata. While this time around our femme fatale’s fangs are in another place, Lucy’s sexuality is still deadly. As a vampire, Lucy is evil and impure. She’s also quite the seductress and described as being more beautiful than she was when alive. Lucy proves to be a danger for society and her actions beg for Van Helsing and his friends to plunge their stakes into her and nail her…in her coffin.

Not quite a femme fatale, Haley Stark in the 2005 film Hard Candy is nevertheless an example of how female sexuality can result in male castration or death. Haley is a teenager who, after meeting an older man over the internet, decides to go home with him. As the plot unfolds, it becomes evident that Haley suspects the man to be a pedophile and had planned their meeting in order to wreak havoc upon his life (and his manhood). The poster of Hard Candy is proof of the vagina dentata phenomenon as it shows Haley standing in a bear trap as bait. The pedophile is attracted to young girls (who he sees as helpless) and only later finds out that Haley is using sex to reel him in.

I would sleep with Slash, Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler in a heartbeat. In that order. Slash is just plain cool; perhaps I could receive some of his coolness like an STD, but the good kind. Jagger and Tyler transcend any gendered normative behavior - I have a sneaking suspicion not only would it not be weird, it would be awesome as well. Curiously though, I would not sleep with any of the Beatles, definitely no one of the punk inclination, or Kurt Cobain. The Beatles lack any depravity (Lennon's obsession with Yoko Ono notwithstanding), punk people, to quote Mr. Vicious, "don't even like sex" and I couldn't be paid to touch Cobain, even with a disease-ridden diplodocus at the end of a ten-foot pole. These categories are not all-inclusive. Chances are though, my not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that list would not grow quickly.

Sleeping with someone as a plainly visceral reaction to puberty still requires a significant amount of brain power, regardless of the troglodyte behind the humping. So many factors get inputed into an as of yet unknown Sex Equation. If the number pops out positive, get your humping cap on; if it comes out negative, bring out the standard fake phone number with six digits; if it comes out neither (ie. zero), the convincing factor will be amount of alcohol consumed. Scientists say gravity is the most unifying force in the universe - they obviously have yet to discover fermentation.

It doesn't really matter how sexually advanced someone is, the people they diddle serves one purpose alone, pleasure notwithstanding: it defines them. Like anyone who's ever talked about the Beatles and the Stones in the same sentence, when comparing the two, it all boils down not to what their respective cultural and musical impacts are, but who you align yourself with. The Beatles make love (though perhaps somewhat obsessively and mostly subvertly as the 60s wore on) and the Rolling Stones fuck (if that Pierre Trudeau story is at all true). The same goes with sleeping partners - I'd do Slash in an instance because, let's face it, I'm trying my hardest to replicate some of his cooler aspects - my hair is getting there, length-wise, and his top hat is stunningly difficult to find. Likewise, Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler are my sort of cultural role models - they can do no wrong. Punk, as much as I love it, is not something I would want to devote myself to; as for Cobain, why would I want to define myself like the man that obliterated rock with 4 minutes of distorted, angst-ridden, self-depreciating bullshit? Not even I am that heartless.

The thing about cliches is that somewhere, sometime, they were true. So, for example, when a girl stumbles from guy to guy during her first year of university and "she's lost" or "she's trying to find herself in her newfound freedom," there's a modicum of truth in that. The more people you sleep with, the harder you are trying to define yourself concretely in a manner that, not only will it yield a personal sort of satisfaction, and not only will it look good from the outside, but it will also lead to many more partners and situations where any self-definition is obviously superfluous. And that's really the point of life - to know thyself so well, you no longer need to know thyself.

One of my best friends is a girl who will kick her one-night-stand out of her bed as soon as the fun is completed. As she has many times re-iterated to me the frustrations that come with having to physically repel someone who wants to hold you after you've just has sex with them and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. Poor darling, she just wants to sleep after sex and this stranger won't stop hugging her. I'm similar in a sense, I don't enjoy having sex with strangers and I will beat a person down if they touch me and I don't know them (ye have been warned).

Yet when it comes to sex I'm really just a kitten. Treat me well and listen to me, and I will do anything to make you happy. And after sex? kiss me a couple of times, stroke my hair and then go to sleep! I don't want to hold your hand and talk about my feelings. Not unless I'm in a particularily euphoric mood, and we actually have something worthwhile to say.

On that note here is a particularily crude flash video for you all to enjoy;
Bang Bang Bang
- Jehan

Clicking on the links will take you to a full-length news article.

• While current Prime Minister Abe continues to deny that the Japanese military forced women to work as comfort women in wartime brothels, Japan's ex-Prime Minister says Japan was responsible for wartime sex slaves. Read three women's accounts of their brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese here.

• Sex slavery isn't in the past, and it isn't limited to Third World countries: it's a problem in Vancouver, where sex slaves are trafficked from Asia to work in "massage parlours". First Nations women are also frequently victims of sex abuse - and it isn't reported in the mainstream media.

• It's also a growing problem in Britain, where young women from impoverished countries (especially Lithuania) are imported and forced to work in brothels. It's estimated that 4,000 women are forced to work in Britain's sex trade at any given time - and if they manage to escape, they are often deported back to their home countries, where they face the same cycle of violence. The Telegraph reports that women can be bought for as little as £1,400. Read one Nigerian woman's account here.

• What's being done? Britain has set up a task force to combat human trafficking, and has signed the European Convention on Human Trafficking. The Protection Project works to "to influence policy and practice in the war against trafficking". The V-Day movement discusses sex slavery here. PBS features the world of sex trafficking here.

Trying a new Sudoku puzzle is like sleeping with a new partner. Every person is a puzzle, and every puzzle is different. For me, the fun part, the challenge, is the exploration of a new puzzle. I love trying to figure out what makes each and every person sexually tick. And even if I don't figure out the puzzle completely, that's okay. I don't feel "robbed" and I've learned to not take it personally; I gave it my best shot and above all, I had a great and fun learning experience. Besides, there's nothing that absolutely guarantees that I can't try the puzzle again a week later.

I love learning, and therefore by extension, I love sleeping with different people. I've often wondered where I got this casual attitude about sex from. It certainly wasn't something that was instilled in me when I was young.

I grew up in a rather average suburban family. I was raised mostly by my mother alone. She wasn't a stereotypical Chinese mom, but still, sex, having sex, and talking about it was quite taboo in my family, until very recently. I went to a typical high school. Maybe it was a little more artsy and liberal than most, but it certainly wasn't the Gomorrah of Fred Phelps' nightmares either.

The first time I had sex was exciting and funny and awkward and cute and fun ... but it was not serious. I wasn't in love with or even loved the guy. We had sex because it just felt right at the time: We enjoyed each other's company, had chemistry, and were eager to explore each other more.

I don't quite know when, why, or how my outlook on sex changed. I just know that one day, I realized that I no longer saw it as a purely emotional act between two people sharing a deep connection. The somewhat Disney-fied idea of sex - that sex was only for someone you thought was The One - no longer appealed to me. Instead, I saw sex as simply being great as a source of sheer, mindless, fun. Casual (safe) sex was not something to be frowned upon; in fact, it made perfect and logical sense!

Such is the mindset I generally bring with me to any new sexual encounter: If we're attracted to each other, if we click, if it doesn't hurt anyone, then why not do it? If it goes over well, then why not do it again two days or two weeks later? If it didn't work, well, that's okay too. We can let it go and stay friends only, or even stay as strangers.

Does all this make me promiscuous? Probably. I'm still young and discovering myself, but I feel no shame in admitting that I may very well be sexually promiscuous. According to Dictionary.com's primary definition, I am merely "having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis". That's not such a bad thing, if everyone's getting off and no one's getting hurt, right?

There are some people who see promiscuity as a completely negative characteristic. No doubt, my actions would be looked down upon. But after a lot of contemplation, I've come to realize that I really don't care.

It's their prerogative to believe what they want, but I know myself. I know that being sexual is not synonymous with being depraved, perverted, stupid, lonely, or lazy. More importantly, I know that I am not depraved, perverted, stupid, lonely, or lazy. And the people I care about, the people who know me, are aware of that as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a new Sudoku puzzle I'd like to try tackling.

- Yun

I find this HIGHlarious! Since I bought my friend a cute pack of gum at MultiMags with this quote on it, instead of using one of my most hated words, I say "I just killed some kittens". Fine, it's disturbing but then you think about the fact that it's not actually TRUE!

Ok So I can say the word "vagina" all freaking day long but "masturbation? Can't do it. It's like "menstruation" and "moist": I just HATE those words.

Getting back to the point, I know people that almost never (or never, but that must be a lie!) pleasure themselves. I don't get it. I mean, you are alone, you are horny, do it! Even if you are NOT alone but can do it 'under the radar"... DO IT!

How many people here masturbate 5 times a week? How about five times a day?

What's the weirdest place you've ever done it (with yourself...) ? Ok, I'll tell you mine and then you tell me yours! I was on the bus to D.C. (a 13 hour bus ride), bored and horny, with no one sitting beside me. Put my long jacket over myself and voila! And then I was relaxed enough to sleep for a couple hours. I would have loved a cigarette though... hum...

people are showing just a bit more skin around our fair city these days. things are heating up. with our new ahead-of-time schedule in place, spring is taking root. finally. so let's participate. it's time to start breathing in some of that out door fresh city air. mmm.
recently, i had the pleasure of chatting with one of those quintessentially-montreal cabbies that are seemingly bred here and only here. our conversation, although it was mainly mr cabbie talking and me listening, bordered on creepy. i won't hold it against him though, we're all entitled to make observations. and what's more, we all know the girls of montreal are, by some twist of genetic good fortune, some of the hottest per capita around the country. and the men, for the most part, are not half-bad either. and this particular cabbie was insistent. he let me know just how much he loved the women in this city. i could practically sense his impending boner and, as my luck goes with cab drivers around this city, i couldn't help but wonder, why me? again. but those are tales for another time. i'll just say he likes it when the clothes start to come off in the spring time too. one slow layer at a time. first the gloves come off, then scarves are shed to reveal faces that are more than just eyes again, and bare legs with skirts become the new norm. needless to say it's his favourite time of year.
and now i'll agree. the cabbie was right. spring is skin. so let's all enjoy, do our part and give the man something to pick up his day as he tours the streets. surely it will pickup someone else's day as well. this is a call to all of those hot ladies and men alike to get out and start moving. let's breath some more love into this air. and if love's not in the cards, i'll settle for some good old-fashioned lust. let's go.

I have never ever ever had sex outside a commited relationship. I don't mean a commited relationship in which we're going to get married but one in which I have not heard the words "will you be my girlfriend" pronounced. Hence, now that I find myself in such a relationship-less sexual relationship I don't really know what to do with myself. In fact, I don't even know if I am capable of separating my emotions from the act of having sex, and if I cannot do that that what right have I to be in this sexual entaglement to begin with?
I would love to know if men feel the same, do men get this emotional attachment, or is this purely a female problem?
- Jehan

I was listening to “Stormy Weather,” and got all nostalgic, thinking about past relationships, and the music I associate with moments frozen in time: image => people, props and positions. Indelibly printed into my mind, those songs send me over the sentimental edge every time I hear them. Its amazing, how only within the auditory presence of these songs do those particular mixtures incite my weak spots; those intoxicating potions made of feelings, smells and touches…

Its cheesy, yeah I admit: be prepared to eat a whole jar of cheewhiz. But fuck that, I’m the one shagging/making love/fucking, and the only other person subject to my fixation on playing music, is well, fucking me, so they (usually) don’t complain.

I chuckle a bit to “Ghettomusic” (Outkast), get a bit teary to “Dinner Bells” (Wolf Parade), and am overwhelmed by the power of past loves and longings- and shagging. (And I say shagging because I’ve picked up that silly term from my silly British boyfriend). By far the best shag I’ve had to music was to Antonios Carlos Jobim: Brazilian bassanova, yes, the musical antithesis to appropriate fucking music. No, I made love to his music, maybe that’s why it was so incredible, in that special “only you my love!” kind of way, where you’re gone in the moment, and the world blacks out.

When you listen to Ghettomusic by Outkast while doing a 69, its like Aphrodite and Ares having sex, and by that I am not likening myself to the goddess of beauty, I am pointing out the personification of war and sex fucking, hate and love fucking: opposites attract. Boy, that was um, interesting sex.

“There’ll be no more dinner bells, left for you to ring.” – Wolf Parade. Sad. People come and go, and sometimes we never see them again, and you think wow I could pass that person (whose touched me down there) and not say a word. But things lighten up. And with the passing of time, new music and new people are born.

Dating. I say "fuck dating" and as my best friend said to me a couple days ago: "Dating is way too overrated, who even dates anymore?"

Well, I tried this dating thing people speak of and turns out, it ain't my cup of tea. I got shafted after three "dates" and lots-o-sex. Thank the Lord Jesus up above(i like to be dramatic sometimes...) we had sex because if not for that, these three "dates" would have given me NOTHING (bitter much?).

After the girl called me and told me that she wasn't ready for a relationship and the whole shabang, I started thinking: perhaps I was too used to being in a relationship that I just didn't know how to date? Then, I started thinking about my "mistakes".

First mistake: I talked too much about my ex. I'm very well aware that the subject of the ex is a big nono usually but she's a very good friend so I couldn't NOT talk about her. Also, as the girl was going to attend a party of mine, she was actually going to meet the ex. I don't think that helped.

Second mistake: Introducing her to almost three quarters of my friends present at my party. I believe that was a bit too quick. Again, I didn't really clue in.

Third mistake: Now, this mistake wasn't mine. While chatting during my party, my good friend declares that when "Marie comes to Toronto next time, you should come too!". Alright, even I knew that was wrong!

Fourth mistake: Calling her the day after our first date and emailing her to tell her how much fun (fun=good sex) I had with her. Apparently I came on too strong. I say "pffff" to that.

So basically I suck at dating. I just want to meet someone that I get along with and chill and not necessarily have to go have drinks and go out and ask questions about each other... We can do that step by step.... while watching tv, smoking a joint or playing Nintendo.(Okay I didn't list "playing Nintendo" as a mistake because she really did like that idea, hehehe) It's so comfortable to be in a relationship and dating is the opposite I find. I never actually dated my ex; it just happened!

There goes another rant from Marie. If anyone has anything to say that I should know about the world of dating(especially lesbian...or bi), go right ahead. Stay tuned for more ramblings because I'm full of them.

Okay, so maybe it's old news, a little bit, but I just can't not share it. A friend of mine sent me a link to this news article: Apparently, some theatre in the US was forced to change its marquee from The Vagina Monologues to The Hoohaa Monologues, because some parents found it "offensive".

Okay, skipping over the sheer idiocy (and the irony) of the name change, because that's just too easy to make fun of, I'll ask instead: What is it about vaginas that so often gets people's goats?

Strangely enough, I think this situation actually can find its parallel in Harry Potter: You know how everyone's afraid to say Voldemort's name, because he's such an all-powerful wizard? And how they have to replace his name with You-Know-Who instead because they're so scared of him? I think that's what's going on with vaginas.

People are scared to death of vaginas, because vaginas are representative of sex, an act that traditionally is seen as dirty and forbidden and terrible. Thus, they must resort to veejayjays or down theres or hoohaa instead. Vaginas are the Voldemorts of this world. (They even start with the same letter! 'Nuff said?)

Furthermore, why is it that the word anal, as in anal-retentive, is used relatively often and without fear? There doesn't seem to be a stigma attached to anal the way there is with vagina, even though an anus strikes me as a body part that's a hell of a lot dirtier than a vagina can ever be. So really, it's totally the sexual aspect of vaginas that gets people scared.

You know, it's stuff like this that makes me wish for another huge Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. In the ensuing media explosion, we were constantly bombarded with stories of sex and sex and even more sex. Over the space of a couple of months, we heard all the gory details about Bill and Monica's sex lives: their sexual intercourse, their "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", their oral sex, and if you were lucky enough to hear it, their "kinky" use of a cigar as a sex toy.

It's not that I bear any ill will towards Bill Clinton or any other hapless politician following his pecker. In fact, I don't believe that what goes on in a person's bedroom (or on the expensive mahogany desk in the Oval Office) should be exhibited for public judgment and scrutiny. No, but just pause for a minute, and imagine what would happen if George Bush was caught bangin' his intern while in office ...

... The world would undergo a temporary sexual renaissance of sorts: For a glorious few months or so, their sexploits would be splashed across newspaper headlines and blaring from primetime newscasts. For those wonderful few months, sex would be completely demystified and stripped bare. For those liberating few months, there would be no stigma placed on sex, and people would actually be unafraid to talk about it in public.

And maybe, hopefully, it would be during those few months that The Hoohaa Monologues could regain its rightful name again.

- Yun

I fuck, therefore I am. We all know people like this. Their entire sense of being is totally wrapped up in their ability to get laid eight days a week. And this applies to girls as much as it does to guys, what's more, stereotypical representations notwithstanding, I'd say that girls, while not as vocal about it, are far guiltier than guys. Let's face it, it is much easier for a girl to go up to a guy for a good lay out of the blue than the reverse is possible. As a tangent, I was at a power metal concert on Friday night at a small ex-strip club on Parc, and the opening act had a female lead singer. This made me think of other metal bands with female leads, like Girlschool, and it made me wonder what the groupie situation is like backstage. See, male metal leads apparently have a plethora of women waiting to place themselves in compromising situations while their boyfriends wait patiently. But the power here lies with the women - they come up to the metal star, they are much better looking, and save for what actually gets done, groupie sex is totally feminist. But, when the lead is female, I'm not sure exactly how this works. People who go to underground metal shows, myself included, aren't usually the best looking fuckers on the face of the planet - metal is dirty, raw, and heavy, and you won't see the latest fashion in the pit. Regardless, at this point we have ugly men approaching powerful women at the head of a metal band seeing if they'll score. I really do wonder what it's like backstage.

ANYWAYS, getting back to my original point. The power of girls to define themselves in terms of their latest conquest is incredible. The new woman, present since the sixties, lives in the city alone, gabs with her girlfriends freely on sex and by and large treats men almost as if they were disposable, which, I'm sure many guys don't mind too much as long as they are throwing it in fairly often. These people fuck to be. The most interesting point about this statement is that it stands to contrast with the original, ostensibly more intellectual, statement. The comedy lies in the dichotomy between fucking and thinking and popular lore tells us that those who fuck to be cannot think to be.

So, what does it mean to fuck to be? What exactly does a sense of self wrapped in latex create? It could mean that these people are unhappy and vapid, looking to fill their vacuous life with senseless pleasure. But that is way to simple an explanation. Descartes thinks, therefore he is, and because he is, through philosophical meanderings, proves that God exists. And this is what people who fuck to be do as well. Maybe God doesn't exist, but god definitely does. And that shift key makes all the difference.

If one fucks to be, one is firmly rooted in the sensible, pleasurable world. Though there are emotional and intellectual levels to sex, it is primarily an activity to feel. And fucking is nothing more than the path to the best orgasm possible, and while there are religions and traditions that espouse the greatness of the orgasm as the medium to communicate with whomever, I'm much more interested in the post-coital coma that follows as a result. Lying there, naked, sweaty, blank. Even if it's just for a couple of seconds, you don't feel anything. After that may come the pleasure, the guilt, the anger, the instinct to flee, but for a couple of seconds, the feeling is blank. It is a feeling of nothingness. And this nothingness is not a nothingness of negation, but a nothingness of otherness. During the small coma it's not that you feel nothing, but it's that you don't feel something. This not-something is the not-something of death, which is nothing of life. And so sex is a birth that leads to the blank post-coital coma, which is a death. And in this death, there is a boundless freedom, for it is not-life, not-bound. What is death? It's not life, that's all we know. And since we know life and we can put limits on life, we have no limits on death. In that state of blank nothingness we are limitless, we are everything, we are god, and so we are ourselves.

This past week, one of McGill’s student newspapers, The Daily, ran a story about CheckTonight. CheckTonight is an online “informational tool” that enables people to send in their health information (specifically their STI tests) and see the results from other members on the website. The site was created to help people look up potential lovers in order to ensure that they don’t have the clap, the syph, or whatever other names the cool kids are calling VDs these days. The benefit of the website is two-fold: users can practice safe sex and yet avoid that “unpleasant talk” – and mood-killer –about having an STI. Hmm, a website with a purpose to facilitate guilt-free hook-ups…I won’t be surprised when this is incorporated into Facebook profiles.

CheckTonight is not the only online network which revolves around STIs, but unlike CheckTonight (which denies membership to those who tested positive for an STI), these sites are created for people who already have one. Online dating sites for people with STDs (such as stdmatch.net and the herpes-themed MPWH.com) are more than just a way to look up hotties with um, something in common, but are also outlets for sharing frustration, embarrassment, and the sense of feeling like a social leper. The sites also simplify the otherwise complicated issues that surround dating with a disease. By registering on stdmatch.net there’s no need to worry about the opportune time to enlighten your partner of your condition, or how they will react to the news. There’s also no need to worry about infecting your partner (seeing as they already have the STI), making it easy to tell them that you burn for them (both literally and metaphorically)…now that’s truly guilt-free dating.