The year in sex

Virtual cheating. David Pollard's marriage ended when his wife discovered that his avatar was having a virtual affair Linda Brinkley's avatar on Second Life. The pair has now tied the knot in the virtual world and are engaged in real life,

Saddest byproduct of online gaming after virtual cheating.

With the explosion of MMORPG's (multiple massive online role-playing games, like Second Life and World of Warcraft), the number of online gamers is growing, ergo, the number of Game Widows. Only about 10-20% of those who play these games become obsessed but considering that World of Warcraft alone has about 10 million players worldwide, based on population statistics, there are probably one million Game Widows for that one game alone.

Most disturbing offline relationship trend.

Outsourcing aspects of your relationship. At breakingupiseasytodo.com, they'll send your dumpee a 'kind' or 'mean' breakup message via email with an audio attachment. The 'Rejection Hotline,'(rejectionhotline.com) is a number you give someone you don't want to call you that will give them a recorded rejection so you don't have to. A rescue call service (cingular.com/voiceinfo) will call you at a predetermined time during a date so you can make a quick getaway if things aren't going well. And, if a relationship leaves you with more than memories, use an anonymous and free STD E-card to notify past sex partners about exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

Most callous use of technology in a breakup.

Blogger Sandra Soroka dumped her guy by changing her status to read: 'Sandra is letting Will know it's officially over via Facebook status.' Close second: Wikipedia.com owner Jim Wales used his own site to announce that he was no longer seeing his girlfriend and former Fox News correspondent Rachel Marsden. Then he personally gave her the news via Instant Messenger.

Best example of life imitating art.

David Duchovny, the actor who plays the sex-obsessed main character on the television show Pornification checks himself into real-life rehab for sex addiction.

Most non-groundbreaking aspect of an otherwise massively groundbreaking moment.

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.

Most extreme example of Sarah Palin mockery.

Okay, making fun of Republican Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel but some folks went to further extremes than others. To that end, the winner by far was the: 'I Masturbated to Sarah Palin' video circulating on YouTube.

Most under-reported sex survey results.

Despite alarmist media reports that paint a picture of out-of-control sex-crazed teens engaged in high-risk sexual activity, according to the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN) adolescent sexual health is actually improving. Based on a province-wide, school based health survey in British Columbia from 1992 to 2003, the percentage of youth who had ever had sexual intercourse decreased for both males (33.9% to 23%) and females (28.6% to 24.3%) and the percentage who used a condom at last intercourse increased for both males (64.4% to 74.9%) and females (52.9% to 64.2%). Among students who had ever had sexual intercourse, the percentage that had first intercourse before age 14 decreased for both sexes.

Most bizarre and ultimately useless sex survey results.

OkCupid.com polled 10,000 college students to come up with fascinating results such as the fact that apparently redhead college girls are eight percent more likely to have a threesome than blonde or brunette college girls, students with tattoos prefer missionary position over cowgirl and vegetarians enjoy giving oral sex 2.5 times more than carnivores. Now how would we have got through 2008 without knowing that?