Tell the world what you are

Thanks to an excellent suggestion from Vamp in her lovely Jane's Guide review of SageVivant.com, it's now possible for you to get code to post on your Web site or blog to tell the world about what erotic personality you are! I've posted my information here so you can see what it would look like:

I took Sage Vivant's Erotic Personality Quiz and discovered I'm a Show-Off!

What is your Erotic Personality? Find out now.

So go ahead and take the quiz -- your results will provide you with code to place on your own site and share with friends.

Ladies with flagging libidos

For a sex health story in Glamour, writer Natasha Chilingerian is looking for anecdotes from women who got their sex drives back during a time in their lives when their libidos were especially low.

She's looking for stories from women who either made a major lifestyle change in order to get their sex lives back (quit a bad job, started pampering themselves in some way, etc.), or made small changes to boost their sex lives (bought sexier clothes, erotic novels, etc.).

She already has stories involving exercise, alcohol and cologne, so she can't take any relating to those topics. Also, she can only take stories from women who live outside of New York City.

If you have an anecdote to share (or if you know someone does email Natasha and describe your story, and include your full name, age, town, and, for fact-checking, email
address and phone number. Her deadline is Tues., June 19, at 5pm
central time.

Not in the Columbia Record Club, I'm guessing

Some things simply must be shared. These album covers are among them. Here's a sample. Unbelievable.

I talk to Chip August

Several weeks ago, Chip August (host of the podcast, Sex, Love and Intimacy) interviewed me. That interview is now live online. The sound quality is not the best, but if you listen with headphones or earbuds, it's much better than listening through your computer's speakers.

I like this interview because he asked questions that I think most people would have, and he allowed me to answer them (instead of talking over me like so many interviewers tend to do these days!). It's a great way to learn a bit more about what Your Erotic Personality is all about. Enjoy -- and feel free to post your thoughts here or on my Erotic Personality blog.

Sexual wisdom

In a world where the Creation Museum has financial supporters as well as visitors, and rich, uninformed white men still think they can make decisions about women's bodies, it is so damn good to hear somebody like Jocelyn Elders (former U.S. Surgeon General) speak rationally about sex. Dr. Elders is, by the way, 74 years old now but she maintains her educated candor about sexual matters. It's so refreshing to know she's out there.

She spoke recently at the SisterSong conference, and got two standing ovations. Why? Well here's a sampling of some of the things she said (these are taken from a marvelous post at Feministing.com):

"We're sexual beings from the time we're born until we die, and we need to make sure we understand our sexuality and realize that sex is about more than procreation."

"If men went through menopause, we'd know everything about it, but we still don't even know if we should be taking hormones."

On people who say condoms aren't 100% reliable: "Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms."

What is not refreshing to realize is that she would be even less welcome in today's narrow-minded White House than she was in the Clinton administration (which caved to panicked right-wing idiots over her remark about masturbation being natural and something that "perhaps should be taught"). Why are any of her remarks grounds for fear?

People think I'm a snob when I say that this country has adolescent views on sex. I'm not saying that there aren't other countries that could use some enlightenment as well. But when you consider that remarks like those quoted above do not encourage anything illegal, do not promote violence, and simply reflect a dispassionate view of human sexual behavior, it's disheartening to realize how many Americans would find her line of thinking objectionable or even immoral. How is it that we have existed so long on this earth without coming to terms with our sexuality? And what will it take for grounded, mature minds like Dr. Elders' to be understood and respected?

When are we going to shake off the Biblical mysteries bullshit and look at who we really are?

A better blog

Boy, if there's one thing this world needs it's another blog, don't you think? I mean, we just don't have enough people spouting off about how they feel about things, you know?

Yeah, yeah, I'm being facetious. If a blog has a purpose, it's got value. So, I hope you'll agree that my new blog -- Your erotic personality -- has a purpose.

What I'm trying to do is bring up topics related to the book that readers will want to talk about. With a non-fiction book like mine, there are so many issues that readers will undoubtedly have questions about. With this new blog, I hope to answer them. Or at least to tackle notions that never got addressed adequately in the book.

I hope you'll visit. I'm pleased to see that the conversation there is already fairly lively. It's with a service called Vox, and I've not used it much but it seems okay. Let me know what you think.