The Year in Sex

It was quite a year for sex. The orgasm reached Godly status while the clitoris hit an all-time low. We lost Bettie Page and Playgirl and gay marriage got left at the American altar. Here are some of the sex news highlights and lowlights for 2008:

Playgirl Calls it Quits

Established 35 years ago as a feminist response to Playboy and Penthouse (Playboy sued Playgirl in 1973 for trademark infringement but settled amicably), the magazine could never seem to quite figure out who its audience was: women or gay men, a dilemma, it seems, that followed Playgirl its to it’s grave. As the magazine’s final editor Nicole Caldwell worked to take the magazine back to it’s roots interspersing shots of naked hotties with articles on issues like abortion and equal rights. Publisher Blue Horizon Media wanted fewer articles and more naked hotties preferably ones that would appeal more to gay men. The schizophrenic focus has resulted in the January/February 2009 issue being its last. The Playgirl Web site will continue (playgirl.com) but the graphic content is geared more toward gay men. For $19.55 a month you can all the “100% Man Juice” you want.

Online Cheating Takes it Up a Notch

In the old days, affairs had to be conducted by actually leaving our homes and carrying on a secret second life. Now, it seems, our partners can literally carry on a second life right from their comfort of their home…online. In fact, earlier this year, David Pollard’s marriage ended when his Amy caught his online character having an affair with Linda Brinkley’s online character on Second Life, the online computer game where players create a, well, second life, for their online characters (called avatars). BTW, guess where Pollard met his first wife? Online, of course. They even celebrated their union with a virtual marriage…on Second Life. Get out more people!

Life Imitates Art

This summer, David Duchovny, the actor who plays the sex-obsessed main character on the television show Californication checked himself into real-life rehab for sex addiction after allegedly cheating on his wife, actress Tea Leoni. A little more than a month later, he checks out, apparently “cured.” Leoni, it seems, begged to differ and the couple announce their split soon after his release. The story raises much debate about whether sex addiction is real with some experts claiming it is an addiction on par with drug and alcohol addiction while others believe it to be more of an obsessive compulsive disorder, that is “sex addicts” simply can’t stop having sex. Others believe it is a great way to justify cheating on your wife and getting lots of publicity.

Barack One, Gays, Zero

Despite Barack Obama’s history-changing election as president of the most powerful country in the world, California, Arizona and Florida voted to ban gay marriage.

Viginity A Hot Commodity

In September, 22-year-old Natalie Dylan (not her real name though her picture is all over the internet, go figure), a California grad student partnered with the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada to auction off her virginity to the highest bidder in order to pay for school to become, get this, a marriage and family therapist. Speaking on the Tyra Banks show, Dylan claimed the auction idea was mainly stemming from her commitment to feminist studies. Dylan is writing her college thesis on “the dichotomous relationship between virginity and prostitution.” With bids as high as $3.8-million (U.S.), I’d say virginity has the upper hand in the relationship. My only question is, considering there is no real way to prove a woman is still a virgin (see last week’s column) how is the winning bidder going to prove he isn’t buying used goods?