When I was leaving for college, my high school friends predicted two things would occur once I fled the nest, away from my WASP-y parents: 1) I’d become a chain smoker to complete my poetry-reading, philosophy-pondering image, and 2) I’d get it on with girls.

After four years at hippie-dippy NYU, surprisingly, neither of these predictions came true. Alas, while I still have no interest whatsoever in getting lung cancer, I do still have an interest in hooking up with girls. Except these days, I’m pretty much convinced it’s never going to happen.

This weekend I had dinner with a friend of mine who's having a bit of a problem with some friends. Two of her pals have started dating and are so, so, so in love and make sure everyone knows it by making out, snuggling, and pawing each other in public constantly. It's making everyone around them deeply uncomfortable, though, on the whole, my friend is very pleased that they're dating. She's not sure how to handle it, as it's not easy to say to a friend, "Your constant necking in front of me is grossing me out." So, she's taken to avoiding them, unless there are a lot of other people around. But it got me thinking -- how much is too much PDA? I'm dating someone new and we smooch in public, though not in front of friends, and I feel fine about it. What do you think -- when does PDA cross a line?

Here’s an interesting dilemma some of you may have experienced before: What do you do when you find yourself in a surprise make-out session and happen to be wearing the modern-day chastity belt known as Spanx? For Salon writer, Sarah Hepola, the answer is to fess up the moment his hand gets close to home. “If I’d known we were gonna make out,” she uttered to her newest — and unexpected — paramour this past Friday, as his hand edged closer to the “unmistakable elastic roadblock,” “I so totally would not have worn Spanx.” Oops! But what she discovered while wearing the unfortunate undergarment during a most inopportune time was a reminder that sex isn’t so much about perfection as it is about surprise — namely, the surprise of what’s underneath a person’s clothes, and, most importantly, his or her public exterior.

Oh Asylum, how happy are we that you’ve discovered our need to have praise bestowed upon our sacred lady flowers! So happy that we were inspired to compliment your wangs! Although your vajayjay compliment primer is certainly a valiant effort, now might be a good time to tell you that a comment like “Your vagina is so much hotter than my last girlfriend’s vagina” may just leave us closed for business. More important than what you say is what you must vow not to say in order to keep the peace down south. After the jump, 10 things that you should never say to our vaginas—at least if you want to see them again.

Our friends over at Asylum created a handy guide on “How to Praise Your Lady’s Vagina.” Do guys really need tips on stuff like that? What is the proper etiquette for a vagina conversation? Do women actually need vagina compliments? Anyway, “Your vagina is so much hotter than my last girlfriend’s vagina” inspired us to create a comparable list for the ladies. Face-to-face with a man’s penis, what’s a girl supposed to say? Our suggestions, after the jump!

When Courteney Cox is banking her post-“Friends” career on a show titled “Cougar Town,” you know the trend of older women dating younger men has reached its tipping point. The term cougar isn’t just a punchline anymore. And why should it be? As Demi Moore might say, “what’s wrong with women asserting their sexual needs and romantic desires with younger partners?”

Sometimes a kiss is more than a kiss. Sometimes it turns into friends with benefits, and in some cases, it signals the beginning of a dangerous liaison.

In the classic movie “From Here to Eternity,” as our DVD Movies Examiner,  Charles Wiebe points out, “The scene that will be forever remembered, arguably one of the most famous in the history of cinema; Lancaster and Kerr laying on the beach in an embrace as the surf foams up around them. She responds to his passionate kiss saying ‘I never knew it could be like this!’” Continue reading...

But their’s was illicit love.  If you are llying for love and telling yourself that the married man or woman with whom you are involved is really the love of your life — then it is may just be excuse to avoid commitment.

Most of you probably Google a date’s name before you go out with him — some of you probably Google his name before you AGREE to go out with him (I know I would)—but how many of you Google a date’s email address? If you think that’s a crazy idea, too stalker-ish or whatever, have I got a cautionary tale for you! Recently, a friend of mine we’ll call “Angie” met a guy she thought might hit it off with her roommate — we’ll call her “Sheila” — and set about putting them in touch. “But I’m actually attracted to you,” the guy said to Angie, to which she replied honestly that she was already seeing someone and, besides, he wasn’t really her type anyway (he’s heavily tattooed and pierced — something she’s not into, but her roomie is). “Fine,” he said, “But will your roommate put me in my place like you will?” Angie assured him that Sheila was no doormat and would put him in his place if need be. “And you told her what I look like?” He asked. Angie assured him that she told Sheila about his tattoos and piercings and that she was totally fine with it.

I am an aficionado of the kiss. No other act is so simple and so intimate. The light suction, the flick of the lip, the playful nibble, the deep advance and retreat of the tongue—a good kiss is like jazz, an improvisation of melodies, flirtatious staccatos, and passionate brassy crescendos. A good kiss is a rapport enacted physically, like sex, but more erotic.

“Hi Kristen, I have a problem that I think many women might have. I am a little embarrassed to have my boyfriend see me completely nude.  To me my body seems just average I guess, nothing spectacular and certainly not one I would call sexy. However, my guy likes to see me undress and worse, likes to have the lights on during sex! To be fair to him, he has never made a negative comment about my body. On the contrary he seems to like it!  I can’t help but wonder though, what is he really thinking when he sees me naked!”——-Callie

What’s he really thinking when he sees you nude? Two words: eye candy. And quite honestly Callie, he’s more than likely not thinking at all! Continue reading...

 

Can a hook-up turn into boyfriend material?

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Will Having Sex Make Him Want to Date Me?

A lot of women are conditioned to believe that all men want women for is Sex. Men are the enemy, as they only have one thing on their mind. They want to abuse you and use you, and when they get what they came for, they’ll leave. This is not true, well not completely.
It is true that men have an instinct and inborn desire for sex, as women have an instinct to have children, just like the primates who came before us.

It is true that women can manipulate men to want to be in a relationship with them by using sex as a tool. Continue reading...

When my grandma called me a few weeks ago to make me promise I’d go out with her friend’s grandson if he called me, I stupidly agreed. You see, my thinking was, What guy is really going to call some girl he doesn’t know because her grandma says she’s a catch? And even if he did defy my cynical expectations and call me, good old grandma told me a solid five times that he is just “so handsome, Lily, you have no idea. And witty, too!”

So when mystery man did, in fact, call a week later, I paused briefly before agreeing to lunch. I mean, if worse came to worst, at least I’d have something pretty to look at while contemplating ripping my arm off just for the excitement.

Never. Again.

“I see an exciting adventure in your future, a new sexual experience that forever changes you,” she said, tracing the sole of my foot with one soft fingertip. Her husband grinned at me from the bed. I sat half-naked in the overstuffed armchair and trembled with nerves.

This is not how I’d imagined my first — or any — threesome. I’m not bisexual, and I can count the number of times I’ve been physically attracted to a woman on one hand, with two fingers left over.

What better way to celebrate liberty than by letting someone ring your bell? So, this 4th of July, you should assert your independence. Your bikini line is already in tip-top summer form. You have the next day off, so no worries about kicking him out. Plus, you owe birthday sex to your country. Here’s how to fly your flag and get a man to salute you.

Cultural conservatives and grannies alike are bemoaning the end of an era. They wax on about a time when people wrote letters on parchment with fountain pens instead of posting OMG’s and WTF’s on Facebook walls. They reminisce over the days of proper courtship, when holding hands was considered forward. Many adults these days see the rise of internet communication and “hookup culture” as the undoings of society as we know it. While I love a good old fashioned postcard and swoon when I get taken out on a real date, I don’t think Facebook and hookups are going to lead civilization astray. In fact, I boldly assert that modern technology and modern “relationships” are the new frontiers of international diplomacy.

Laura Sessions Stepp, a Washington Post reporter, pissed off a whole lot of people a few years ago when she published a book about why hooking up is bad for women, called Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose At Both.

Now the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy have asked the controversial writer to host a podcast on their new site aimed at 20-somethings and sexuality, SexReally, which promises to educate women on sex and relationships, especially how to “steer clear of unplanned pregnancy.” Somewhat predictably, Stepp’s first podcast is chock-full of both outdated ideas about “what women want”—not to mention baseball metaphors all about how it’s a bad idea to “make a home run” with someone who isn’t your boyfriend!

Yesterday, NPR show “Morning Edition” explored a new a cultural phenomenon you may have heard of called “the hookup.” The hookup, the program explains to anyone living under a rock, is a social trend, born of the sexual revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s, women’s growing independence, and online social networking. It started among high school and college students but is now popular with recent grads who have entered the workaday world. “Young people from high school on are so preoccupied with friends, getting an education and establishing themselves, they don’t make time for relationships,” so instead of concerning themselves with finding a mate, they’re far more interested in no-strings-attached sex. Naturally, people are having a field day arguing the potential benefits and detriments of hooking up.

Easter marks the beginning of Spring, and there by the infamous Spring Fling season. While it may seem blasphemous, you can bag a man at church, if you’re subtle. Old peeps just love matchmaking! And what better place to meet a nice guy than in church? Here’s how you can turn Easter in to a real man-feast!

Last week, I rounded up some GPS cell phone applications that would help you to get laid, and here’s another! HereIAm sends emails with your exact location out on command to all your FWB’s, booty calls, boyfriends, etc. The treasure hunter hunks can track you down with the Google Maps-enabled app. Sit back, relax, and message, “First one to the X wins the booty!” [iPhoneFreak]