news for 6.26.07

i’m getting ready to leave town today (i.e., i still haven’t packed yet…) so these will be short and sweet! due to lack of sleep, these will also probably be not so inspired and not so funny…sorry!

* why MySpace is for freaks and Facebook is for preps

* a British man is accused of having sex with his bike…his claim, however, is that he was drunk and there was a huge misunderstanding…ya…that excuse only works for certain situations…ur penis in a bike spoke, not so much…

* Las Vegas searches for a new slogan in conjunction with their popular, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…”one possibility they are considering “your Vegas is showing,” i’m not a fan.

*the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is trying to comprise a list of ‘the 7 wonders of Florida.’ i tend to agree with much of the contenders but am a little upset that ‘cheap beer in gainesville’ is not included…$2 pitchers, really, can anywhere in the state compete?

*ecstacy causes “significant” damage to both long and short-term memory, a new study reveals. ecstacy causes “significant” damage to both long and short-term memory, a new study reveals.

*NBA draft this thursday! who is gunna go first Horford, Brewer or Noah?

*something i would know nothing about, this site claims to be the ‘compendium of coitus rejectus’ –> hownottogetlaid.com

is all this technology helping or hampering our relationships?

i recently had a mini-breakdown.
it was midnight and i was texting with a crush. it was cordial, but i was (at least i’d like to believe i was) being coy, cutsey and a wee bit flirty when suddenly i didn’t receive a message back. i waited about 20 minutes before i texted my friend to explain that he “just kinda didn’t respond” and that “it was weird b/c you coulda ended a convo then, but you also didn’t have to.” i waited another 20 minutes for her to respond – nothing. i was now beyond confused. was it possible that my texts weren’t going through? what are the odds of that after all? and if so, did it mean that he thought that i wasn’t responding to him? instead of simply calling him and asking what the deal was, i called my friend.
“did you get my texts?”
“no!”
a ha!
in a panic i sent a text out to 4 other people, who already know how neurotic i can be, asking them to please text me back b/c i was concerned i wasn’t able to text in the first place.
no responses.
still not convinced i began calling these friends just to confirm that they had not, in fact, received my texts. finally some relief – an hour after the initial non-response, a friend told me she was getting my texts.
what was i to think? did my crush hate me? was there something wrong with only some of my friend’s phones? why did others not answer my phone pleads at 1:37am? didn’t they grasp that i was on the verge of a short circuit myself?
technology is supposed to make us more connected. we’re supposed to be able to communicate faster and more efficiently. instead its just left me panicked and confused. (albeit with something for the drama queen in me to feed off of…)
this isn’t the first time technology has failed me either. i have nightmares, almost weekly, of people attempting to google my name.
i’m blessed (i mean this VERY sarcastically) with a very original name. when you google me, you get me. maybe this is a good thing to some people, but maybe some people don’t have a picture posted of them on a site they have no jurisdiction to control. a picture that is from 7 years ago – you know the REALLY awkward years. i have considered contacting the site manager many many times, but have always wussed out. (if you do in fact know my real name, please realize that admitting this publicly is more difficult for me than talking about failed attempts at anal sex…so please, please realize that everyone has their bad years…don’t make me google you!)
the larger point – technology allows us more access to people, but at a price.
people’s myspace pages and facebook profiles are really just products of what people want us to believe able them, not necessarily true reflections.
and bootytext messages make relationships so hands off that you don’t even have to hear a person’s voice to arrange a rendevous. a simple 😉 ususally suffices.
i fall victim to it also.
obviously i freaked about a text. i have profiles on both myspace and facebook. and i have friends who are in relationships with people they have meet on online dating sites.
technology does have its perks.
all i’m saying is it really sucks when you’re waiting for a text at 2am and you’re not sure if its coming because a) the person doesn’t wanna talk to you b) the person is too drunk to operate a phone or c) your goddamn phone service is a F*%@ing piece of S$^t! 😀

news for 6.23.07

* i don’t really care about celeb related stuff (or, at least i don’t feel like including it here) but, this is kinda funny. paris hilton’s handwriting looks like that of an 8-year-old… it’s analyzed by a handwriting expert here, who basically suggests, hilton’s a retard. no duh!

* do people really cheat more over summer because the warm weather affects their hormones and if so, is FL a literal hotbed for cheaters year-round? **thanks C for this :)**

* the 10 most bizarre beers – think beer for dogs, champagne beer and a beer+milk beer called bilk among others

* even more budget cuts at UF means harder times in college of liberal arts and sciences…

*President Bush tries to make crocs chic…b/c the pure hideousness of them isn’t enough to get a certain friend of mine to stop wearing those gross things…

*sex advice from casserole bakers…ex) “what’s the sexiest noodle? if you’re actually using it in foreplay, you’d have more options with something like linguini than you would with something like ravioli.”

*the science of gaydar – if sexual orientation is biological, are the traits that make people seem gay innate, too? totally interesting (and l o n g) piece…here’s an example of what you can learn: research suggests that the index fingers of most straight men are shorter than their ring fingers, and for most women they are the same length or longer. gay men and lesbians tend to have reversed ratios.

i guarantee u just checked your hand! lol

porn + birth control = ?

there’s been a lot written recently on whether women on birth control (which raises estrogen levels) are as interested in porn. Example A. but as a female who is (both on bc and interested in porn) i find this hard to believe. indeed, could i possibly be any more interested in porn? very, very doubtful…and also there have been periods when i was not on the pill and i honestly have not seen much of a change in my sex drive. which is exactly why i LOVE this article – Example B – which essentially finds that the pill + porn = perhaps less horny, perhaps no difference. through intense independent study (the author basically phones her friends to ask ’em…) we get gems like this:

ladyfriend1: man! i really need to get off the pill
ladyfriend1: actually no i don’t, i’m deleteriously horny as it is
ladyfriend1: anyway. i think i totally stare at the genitals? the vaginas specifically? whenever i watch porn i start to suspect that i am a lez
ladyfriend1: cause the vaginas are like all i care about, i’m fascinated by ’em

and the truth is all the women i know would say something like that (well, not all of them, but, i guess i would say something like that is the point…lol)
anywayz, its funny, plus i wanted an excuse to post this picture. after all if you want me less interested in porn show me a pic like that! like the covers of cheesey romance novels is this not a HUGE turnoff? now that’s something i think we can agree on!

is facebook gearing up to take over the world?

how facebook could crush myspace, yahoo!, and google.

i love (not even lurve, but love!) the first line in this article:
“there comes a time in every young person’s life—soon after teething, usually—when she must make a momentous decision: MySpace or Facebook?”
i’m a facebooker (granted i’m on both), which makes sense since the author of this article says of facebook: think of it as the Volvo of social networking. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that my first car was a blue volvo s40 (oh how i miss that car…)
the author of this article is also on my side, he hypothesizes that with the addition of instant messaging and a more efficient, larger e-mail system, facebook, not chaotic myspace, is positioning itself for global internet domination.
as someone who checks their facebook religiously, i don’t think he’s that off base…

how much sex are you having?

as a rule of thumb I’m usually against telling your partner just how many people you’ve been with. it inevitably leads to a problem – she’s been with too many, he’s been with too few, neither of them want to imagine their beloved with anyone else, etc. not to mention who is totally honest about their number anyways? which is exactly the qualm i have with a new study done by the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
the study found that, on average, men sleep with 7 people over their lifetime, women just 4.
the federal study says that because it collected the data from 6,237 adults, aged 20 to 59, “using high-tech methods to solicit candid answers” (i.e., computer-assisted self-interviews) these are probably the most accurate numbers out there on americans’ sex lives.
other numbers of note:
* 29 percent of men and 9 percent of women report having 15 or more heterosexual partners in a lifetime
* 16 percent of adults first had sex before age 15
* 15 percent abstained from sex until at least age 21
* 25 percent of women and 17 percent of men reported having sex with just one person in their lifetime
* 11 percent of Americans were virgins before they got married
while i applaud any effort to find out this kind of information and i see merit in it’s usefulness (whether its generating more support for sex education, shedding further light on the importance of STD prevention or increasing funding towards birth control distribution or ‘planned parenthood-esque’ organizations) i still can’t help but believe that even anonymous self-reporting will have it’s liars, especially when dishing this sorta dirt to the federal government.
perhaps what i’m getting at is that information regarding people’s sex lives is so seeped in societal and cultural biases and beliefs that it often elicits such shame and anxiety that there are few people who will even admit to themselves just how many sexual partners they have had. not to mention someone who is 59 could easily forget a partner when examining their behavior over a lifetime. further what definition of sex is being applied here? does sex include sexual activities such as oral sex (ala Bill Clinton) or anal sex? when i was a virgin several men used to like to recommend anal sex as a way for me to retain my virginal status – luckily i was smart enough to know better – but i’m sure there are more than a few people who have engaged in that and still believed they were not having actual sex.
and perhaps i’m also coming out of the closet as a big old slut here (or, as i like to refer to it, just a sexually charged woman) but who are these women who only sleep with 4 people their entire lives?!?!
even my most tame friends, who are by the way in their early 20s and with a lot of sex before them, can count a handful.
my point – while it’s good to be informed you have to take this information with a grain of salt.
am i off the mark here, but, do you think these numbers seem accurate?

sex toys go green

as a testament to just how environmentally conscious our society is becoming, activists are waging war on sex toy manufacturers who use ‘phthalates,’ a chemical compound family which is responsible for making dildos, vibrators and “love dolls” have that soft, pliable, life-like feel. their complaint? using phthalates is like bathing in DDT.
several scientists disagree and claim there is simply not enough research to suggest what these compounds can do to our bodies.
so what are we to do?
first off, put a condom over sex toys. makes sense if you think about how difficult some are to clean (not that I’m talking from experience regarding ultra-ribbed dildos or anything..)
secondly, there are plenty of toys made with silicone (making them also dishwasher safe and virtually indestructable), the catch is that these toys often cost a little more. but they are available nontheless.
as am i tonight, anyone have plans? after all, friday night and a sex toy just isn’t the same (even a green colored ultra ribbed one…not that i own that or anything).

news for 6.22.07

* new study suggests older siblings have higher IQs, and as a big sis i would have to agree! 😉 i mean, come on bro, u know i got away with so much more shit than you as a kid! who was the one who got grounded for throwing a party at the neighbors while he was supposed to be house sitting even tho mom and dad could clearly drive by the place and see the plethora of cars outside?

* i’m a total foodie. and anyone who watched Top Chef Season 2 knows about Marcel and foams. well, turns out molecular gastronomy has entered the cocktail world. in London you can now order a Smoked Old-Fashioned, made with whisky, sugar syrup and tobacco AND leather and smoke essence. it’s described as “sucking your granddad’s old sofa – but in a good way.” weird and yet totally intriguing.

* in literal trailer trash news: caught in a love-triangle, a 24-year-old homeless man went on a 24-hour robbery spree too win his beloved over by buying her a new trailer for the two of them to live in and escape her ex-boyfriend who had just been released from prison for – surprise, surprise – a pair of armed robberies in 2004. what a lucky, lucky woman to be choosing between two such fine men. perhaps ABC should inquire about these dudes to be the new Bachelor?

* in April we learned that one year after college graduation, women working full time earn just 80 percent as much as their male counterparts. now comes news that it’s the majors women are choosing thats the culprit. you mean going to school to get your MRS is not a good life strategy?

* a woman is found with a blood-alcohol content of .50 two-hours after she stopped drinking (for perspective: .08 is legally intoxicated in FL and most experts say that at a .50 one would likely experience death…) insert your own, ‘that’s nothing, one time i drank…’ comment here ____________________________________.

* apparantly pop culture and politics are causing the t-shirt industry to boom. i mean who wouldn’t want a shirt with this on it:

(it’s available here…)

* only 4% of Americans between ages 20-59 are virgins. ironically, in an unrelated study only 4% of Americans between ages 20-59 have never been drunk…

* i love Tom Ford (as evidenced here). so, i’m not at all surprised and not at all unhappy that he will be the new face of his own fragrance line also called, not surprisingly, ‘Tom Ford.’ you gotta love this guy’s ego!

*anyone else annoyed by grown women, especially capable successful ones, who still talk like little girls? ya…me too! so is NYU professor Sheila Wellington who explains that their babyish sounding voice figuratively screams: “take care of me, be sweet to me, i’m vulnerable, i’m weak.” gag! new rule: speak your age

* why do men pee in the shower? apparently there are three types that do: pigs (‘i do it all the time’),liars (“I’ve done it, but, like, it’s not something I do”) and publicity whores (“only at the gym, baby”). who knew?

‘Guys not so naughty, gals not so noble’

there’s been a lot of news lately suggesting that men and women don’t regard sex so differently. i can’t help but think this is not a recent trend, but that today’s generation of women are just more apt to admit it. indeed i’m proof positive of that. i also can’t help but think it’s a great trend. the more we know, the more we’re willing to admit and the more outspoken we are the better sex we’re going to have. gone should be the days of faked orgasms and ‘it’s ok, it happens to everyone’ comments.
following this trend, a new study from Emory University suggests that when men see a picture of a naked woman their eyes go first to her face. similarly when a group of men and women were given pictures of couples having sex the men’s eyes tended to first go toward the females face, women, on the other hand, gazed first at the actual sexual activity.
the biological explanation is simple: “women can tell by looking at naked men whether the guys are in the mood, but women’s bodies don’t reveal much. Which is why men home in on their faces.”
Woohoo! further justification for my penis obsession!!!

can someone help William Fonvielle?

have you performed your good deed of the day? b/c William Fonevielle of UNC could sure use your help!
he’s attempting to lose his virginity and has listed it on Facebook’s new marketplace forum. (for free of course)
I have to say tho, advertising that you’re “very loyal” (READ – clingy!) is not a marketing ploy i woulda utilized.
regardless, if you’re in the giving mood and have a facebook account you can view the listing here.

news for 6.21.07

*According to a new study, approximately eight percent of dreams people report contain some form of sexually-related activity. similar to real life, absolutely no male respondents reported having their partner experience an orgasm during their dream (4% of women could report they did).

* Gainesville area police are cracking down on DUIs after the death of Lt. Corey Dahlem the night of the Gator’s Basketball National Championship. word to the wise – avoid University Ave. like the plague (oh and don’t blow…)

*new eating disorder de jour –> Diabulimia: where diabetic girls skip insulin to lose weight. the ingenious practice may lead to coma or early death

* Forbes releases the most expensive ways men compensate for their penis’ (also known as a list of the most expensive cars in the U.S.)

*another Gainesville bar bids adieu (at least for a month…) – Shamrock closes to reopen downtown as Brophy’s Irish Pub and a new bar will open in its old location

* ever wonder if one of your neighbors has genital warts (or, for more practical applications, the flu)? whoisisck.org uses google-maps technology to allow people to post their illnesses (relax, it’s anonymous!) and also to check out who is infected in their area

* my friends and i honestly thought of this idea awhile ago…man, we missed our chance! beer-sicles. brazillant or berserk?

*an idea i certainly did not think of: making an internal ‘pussy’ cast…yup, display a plaster of your vagina on your mantle. the sites pitch: “in the plaster casts you get a real sense of the shape, texture and volume of the vagina and in clear resin you can see even more. imagine a view through the inner and outer lips right deep down into the hidden mysteries within.” well then…

*Newest aphrodisiac in South Korea – slime eels

* In other weird asian sex news – every April in Kanamara, Japan they have a Fertility Festival, where there is a parade for an enormous pink penis… observe:

june is gay pride month

and here at naked on university avenue we honor sex and relationships of all shapes and sizes!
so, in celebration we suggest the following:
1) stock up on your gay paraphernalia (ps – i actually do have those suspenders pictured below – no joke!)

2) see that homosexuality is found in many species (studies suggest all-male orgies among giraffes, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, gray whales, and West Indian manatees…further debunking the “unnatural” theory)

3) re-examine your stance on gay marriage(b/c love is love)

4) get drunk and make out with your fav gay friend (or bartender as the case may be…)!

i’ve done it all, your turn now!

and yet this commercial is on the air…

granted i saw it on MTV at like 1:30am, but still. funny.

men and women have fairly equal sex drives

A new study from the University of Florida (go gators!!) finds: “Bachelors might have sex on their minds more than their single female counterparts, but once in a committed relationship, men and women have similar attitudes toward the act.”
Not surprisingly they just think about sex differently: women placed more emphasis on the emotional aspect of sex while men focused more on the physical act. “Men were much more likely to find sex personally and physically pleasurable, while women were more likely to think sex violates social taboos.”

lonely? abnormal or weird? there’s hope for you yet!

screw match.com, Radar magazine offers you the web’s most obscure dating sites. An example – dailydiapers.com…not just for the Depends sect but for anyone who just enjoys “plastic pants, rubber diaper covers, and/or sissy clothes.” Also included in the list – dating sites for Mormons, amputees, those infected with herpes and people obsessed with Star Trek (rest assured, there is a special interest group for those into klingons…) among others.
I honestly couldn’t have made this up if i had tried…

i lurve jim halpert

I’ve recently become obsessed with the NBC version of The Office. I rarely watch TV regularly so i usually wait and watch an entire season of a show on a random Tuesdsay night (i.e, this past Tuesday night). Well, turns out, like many women, I have fallen in love with Jim Halpert. I also currently have no real life love interest or crush (sad, but true). I’ve therefore come up with a new idea. Instead of potentially getting in trouble by accidentally contacting a former booty call while black out on a random Sunday at 3:03am (i.e, this past Sunday night) I have decided it’s much better to put my lovelorn feelings on a random ‘i love jim halpert from the office’ message board. (if anyone knows of one, lemme know, btw…lol) think about it – i’m still professing my love, still fantasizing about a man (albeit a fictional character) but this time i’m doing it with little consequence (besides to what’s left of my dignity, which frankly was long gone about 4 months ago…)
PS – You can catch all episodes of The Office here or here

shouldn’t condoms be marketed to those who engage in casual sex especially?

Pigs with Cellphones, but No Condoms from the NYTimes
a recent condom ad is causing some tails to wag…
the commercial, which was denied air time by both CBS and FOX, depicts a pig at a bar surrounded by head-turning women. the pig then goes to the bathroom, grabs a condom and magically turns into an incredibly attractive man who in return now attracts the gorgeous women. the tag: “Evolve. Use a condom every time.”
so what’s the problem?
apparently the issue is with the fact that the condom is being touted as a vital part of achieving sexual pleasure not just as a means of birth control or disease prevention for committed couples. previously, condom ads were usually only advertised as serving the later.
if you ask me, it’s ridiculous.
condoms are important – period. and it’s a reality that some people engage in recreational sex and often after meeting those people at a bar. (indeed, i would probably be a sexual novice if that weren’t the case…)
i can’t agree with NYU professor and media critic Mark Crispin Miller more when he asserts, “I mean, let’s get real here. Fox and CBS and all of them are in the business of nonstop soft porn, but God forbid we should use a condom in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.”

your (late) week in sex…

better late than never, right?
horoscope
of note, it says i’m supposed “to get lucky” this week…let’s all keep our fingers crossed! lol

objectification is a two-way street

I admit to checking out other women’s boobs. I’m not sexually interested in them, but, rather, curious how mine compare. Are hers perkier than mine? Bigger? Rounder? Firmer looking?

My guy friend admits he’s an ass man. The more “bubbly” the better he explains. He doesn’t like wide butts only those of the “sticking out there..shelf” variety.

It all makes me think how unfair it is. Push-up bras and other shapers, enhancers and firmers aside, anyone can size up a woman’s physical assets just by looking at her.

But as a self-proclaimed penis lover, I don’t ever have any idea what I’m getting myself into before I literally get into his pants.

Sure the stereotypes abound – he has big shoes, his hands are huge. But I have generally come to find (or, rather not cum to find) that those are usually poor predictors.

I am also the kind of person who always wants what they can’t have. I regularly find myself looking around my classes, at bars, waiting in line at Starbucks wondering just how big Joe Schmoo’s johnson is. Is he girthy? Meaty? Circumcised? Long and thin? Tasty and kosher?

Much like my interest in boobs, my penis obsession is largely fueled by scientific interest – I just want to know what he’s packing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not picking on guys who may be below the estimated average penis size of 5.25 inches (when hard, relax dude). Indeed, super large penises, like extra large tampons, scare me. I am just curious as to what size it is and what it looks like.

On the whole, my obsession does have a logical root though. Samples of average length penises’ simply don’t tell the whole story. There are so many variations on the form that are, for the most part, undocumented.

My obsession is also nothing new. It’s no coincidence that some of the greatest works of art, pieces that are now deemed “classics” are of men’s nether regions – the David, several Da Vinci sketches or Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. What was once a celebration of a man’s manliness is now tucked away in extra support boxer briefs and I can’t help but wonder why?

When Mark Wahlberg played Dirt Diggler in 1997’s “Boogie Nights” he used a prosthetic for his now infamous closing scene even though the male frontal nudity was probably only a nanosecond long. Why the shame Marky Mark?

He’s not alone. Think Austin Power’s penis pump and pop-up internet ads for penial implants.

It all makes me kind of chuckle. Our society is so boob obsessed that seeing a pair of tits is about as un-noteworthy as passing a Greek shirt on Wednesdays.

My larger point is this – objectification is a two-way street. Why is it so socially acceptable for women to pose in Playboy, for men to frequent strip clubs and encourage drunken girls to make out with each other? Why are boobs everywhere and far from taboo and yet penises so concealed? If so many women are willing to, literally, put it all out there, then I think it is only fair that men do the same.

ode to the clucker

my freshmen year my life revolved around a few things
1 – driving around half my dorm room floor – i was the only one (or perhaps the only one nice enough) who had a car
2 – crying about men (some things never change…)
3 – spending my nights at cluck-u
The clucker has since gone through various changes (it was Dirty Bird’s b/c they didn’t wanna pay the franchise fees… and then reopened under new management as Sloppy Gator – which had nothing to do with the spirit of the clucker…) and it will soon become condos. how sad.
i know i should have so many memories of that place (i would literally spend 6 nights a week there), but unfortunately, i can’t recall half of them.
but anyone of a certain age can wax poetic about free beer at 3 (when it was still Natty b/f they switched to the dirty, nasty South Paw) bottomless beers for $5.95 (was that the price? lol), when the stripper pole was added, french fries served until 2am, that only one stall in the girl’s bathroom worked at any given time, when the position of the bar changed, playing nudie photo hunt, going behind the bar to make your own shots, finding the girl outside the side entrance crying in the parking lot (btw – that girl was usually me!) and watching people wash off X’s on their hands in the bathroom (why didn’t you guys know Henry too?)
i recently ran into a former bartender from there (who am i kidding his # is still in my phone) and i laughed about how i never even had a fake-ID back then. “i was only 18!’ i told him. ‘do u think we didn’t know or cared?’ he replied.
oh the good old days…
the first beer i shared with my father was there…i received my first college booty call while there…got into an actual fight with a boy out front…danced under the tent on football games…always said hi to Spencer and avoided the other meaner brother…danced on the pole covered in electric paint after a day-glo…engraved my name into a purple tabletop…hid in the bathroom when my crush entered the bar…took pictures with the dude (they called him jew boy) who used to dress up in the chicken suit…helped mop the floor up a few nights…spent every major drinking holiday there…refused to pay gameday prices as i was a regular…
and i’m sure i’m not the only one! so here’s to you clucker! you will forever be remembered, albeit in the hazy minds of college alcoholics everywhere!