Sex: A Powerful Pesticde

As told to BBC's Technology of Business reporter Kabir Chibber, the product Exosect has recently been released in Punjab and West Bengal to combat rice stem borers. These pests have been terrorizing crops in India and in the past, were only partially controlled by "aggressive" use of chemicals. With the use of Exosect, pioneered by a UK biological control company, pest populations in agricultural units have decreased significantly.

And why do I care about insects roaming around in India? Well, to start, agriculture supplies 20% of India's large economy. But, mostly, these borers have been tricked by Exosect into believing male pests are indeed female. Unable to determine female from male borer, these flippant fliers launch into a life of confusion and often are left unable to reproduce.

Exosect achieves this "miracle" through sticky wax powder soaked in female pheromones. This powder is attached to males, rendering every male affected a female in another borer's eyes.

However roundabout and biologically cruel, this method is working not only in India but also to combat pests in apple orchards and moths in such esteemed places like the Royal Opera House and the Houses of the Parliament in London.

The sexual implications of such a breakthrough are numerous. For one, the successful reproduction and use of pheromones, even in such a simplistic biological context, could have repercussions ranging from stimulating human patients out of hypoactive sexual desire disorder to an extreme change in sex worker marketing. For more information on the science behind pheromones, please visit:
Sex, Smell, and the Genome

Product Review: Climax Pop Vibrator

I am no at-home vibrator expert. I know what all the crazy vibe/dildo combos potentially do; for example, the rabbit stimulates your clitoris while simultaneously pressing on your gspot through vibrations on several levels, including pearls on the shaft. I know what it means for a vibrator to have greater strength than another, or what the difference between a silicone and plastic vibrator might feel like. But, in my short lifetime, I've only owned three: two of which don't classify as anything beyond pocket rockets, and one which has been my sole proprietor to cater to any animalistic needs.

My sole proprietor, which I will name, uh, Odysseus, for the purposes of this review, is a medium length (4") bright orange plastic rod with four miniature metal rotating balls stationed at the top on a circular plane. The metal spinners take the brunt of the batteries' power, acting as a pulsating unit to titilate the hood of clitoris. The power of its double A is strong and loud. An apartment with thin walls is Odysseus' antagonist.

Enter little Blue, who I will now (ironically) refer to as Charybdis. He is less than 3" long with a spherical top (pictured above). He is silicone, waterproof, and powers on with those little buttons our posterity might stick in their hearing aids. Though soft, supple and discreet compared to the cacophony that is Odysseus, Charybdis loses his strength through the thick walls of the silicone. He is merely a pop dominated, at least in my corner, by his predecessor Odysseus.

And yet, Charybdis must not be discounted from the general market. He or any of his brethren (he comes in pink, orange, and Charybdis blue) might suit a clitoris-clad body not used to the pumping waves of Odyseus's buzzer, or a fresh perineum. His calm demeanor, classy small size and cute figure could be a welcome addition to any bedside drawer, especially for a vibrator rookie. In short, I would recommend the Climax Pop to anyone looking to try a vibe for the first time or looking for an easy travel companion. If a Climax Pop goes off spontaneously in your dresser, no one but the panties (and a garter or two) will know.

You can purchase a Climax Pop for an easy $15.00 at Babeland.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians: How NOT to Buy Lube

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Enjoying Safe Sex: A Guide for Condom Use

Sex is often like a choose your own adventure book. As you come to the page where you and your partner are both sexually aroused enough to seek penetration, you must decide: do you rummage around your drawers, wallets, even back pockets, and then rip apart the foil packaging, releasing the pungent smell of latex and breaking the moment to insure safety and prevent pregnancy? Or do you slip easily together, without thought, to reap the full benefits of such intimacy and truly "feel" one another? Each "adventure" has its pros and cons.

For most, however, the cons of having unprotected sex far outweigh the pleasurable pros. With most STDs showing no symptoms, a low rate of STD testing, and an increasing amount of people engaging in intercourse with multiple partners, condom-free sex is a gamble more risky than 7 slots (no pun intended...). And yet, according to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, released by the University of Indiana this month, only 1 in 4 acts of sexual intercourse are condom protected. This could be due to many factors--ranging from awareness to availability, but more often than not, negligent condom usage harkens back to the pleasure myth I outlined above. A condom adds a third sort of "skin" between partners; it dulls the friction on the shaft and head of the penis and, often, leads to drying of the vaginal walls. As one man on an OkCupid forum asking "Does sex feel better without condoms?" so crudely put it, "Fucking yes sex better without condoms, why do you think men get married?"

But the NSSHB reports that "adults using a condom for intercourse were just as likely to rate the sexual extent positively in terms of arousal, pleasure and orgasm than when having intercourse without one." Yes--sex CAN feel better without condoms, but it can feel just the same if not better with condoms, too--and it can be just as fun and sexy! (And you won't wake up the next day with that impulse to call for STD testing the next morning.)

In Babeland's How To Make Safer Sex Sexy, author Mykkah Herner, HR Officer for the Global Fund for Women, stresses knowing your products--from basic condoms to dental dams for cunninlingus. You can play with different products with your partner(s) to see what feels best for both of you. For example, do you like ribbed or studded? What about lubricated or lambskin? If you don't know for sure when you are in line at the grocery, you can get a sampler pack and try out all varieties with no extra cost. According to Condom Depot's 9th Annual Condom Awards, the best for a "non-condom" feel is the Crown Skinless Skin Condoms, awarded best condoms for all nine years. These condoms gained fame as some of the first condoms in adult film; they are the thinnest latex condom made but still completely reliable. Consumer Reports, by contrast, rates Durex Extra Sensitive condoms as the best condoms yet, with a strength and reliability rating of excellent. These condoms are also rated as the second best condom according the the 9th Annual Condom Awards.

Besides getting to know your products and experimenting with different kinds, Herner gives some additional tips for enhancing your safer sex. In #9, Herner mentions stashing your gear somewhere so you're "ready and willing." I've always found it fun to hide condoms under the pillow or in the mattress, so when the moment heats up, you can surprise your partner by putting the condom on them out of nowhere! No more rummaging and breaking the moment! In #2, Herner mentions accessorizing with your preventative products as a way to spice things up. In the same way you might hide a condom under your pillow, you can put a condom or dental dam in a garter belt, or "wear it under a skirt or dress and invite your partner to inch his or her way up your thighs to discover the prize." That way, your safer sex is fun, with your devices as a kind of treasure leading to the big act.

The Politics of Progestin-Only Birth Control

Regardless of Obama's new bill, between walking dogs in Brooklyn and prepping watches with lighter fluid at the Macy's photo studio, I have no healthcare--which means, firstly, that I no longer can afford to see a private gynecologist. But, never fear, healthcare-needy folks! Planned parenthood offers pelvic exams, paps, prescriptions and even maternity care for free pretty much everywhere. The problem is, it's a clinic environment; if you have an appointment, you still have to wait 30+ minutes to see someone, and then you are shuffled between receptionists and doctors for ages. Going to Planned Parenthood, at least in Manhattan, takes up your whole day.
Rants aside, once a doctor at PP did end up seeing me, she quickly was not only able to prescribe me birth control pills but also give me a year's supply (in packs of three) for free. However, she could not prescribe my original combination-hormone pills (estrogen and progesterone), the kind of pill most girls are on these days (e.g. low-ovral, ortho tri-cyclen). She said she could not give estrogen pills to a patient with any history of migranes--my first time hearing of this--so, the alternative she could prescribe, is the mini-pill, or the progesterone-only pill.
After reading that this "mini-pill" had to be taken at the exact same time every day (if you take it 2 hours later than usual, you must use condoms for 48 hours) and that 8 in 100 who take the pill end up pregnant (as opposed to 1-2 in 100, as with combination birth control pills), I panicked. What good is a pill that makes you paranoid that you'll get pregnant? With or without condoms (additionally), 8% is far too high.
These kinds of pills do serve their purpose, however. They are mainly distributed to women who are breastfeeding or are particularly sensitive to hormones so that they have a birth control pill option for their condition. And, progesterone-only methods outside of the pill (shots, implants) are proven to be even more effective than combination pills. Clinicians who study progesterone implants, for example, have found NO women who have gotten accidently pregnant while on said method.
But who cares--when only 2% of pill users actually use the "mini-pill" over combination? Well, with "all" the new healthcare laws springing up, as I briefly mentioned above, Planned Parenthood has attempted to contribute to the bandwagon of changes. According to their 9/14 press release, Planned Parenthood, in conjunction with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), will be working "tirelessly" to include birth control prescriptions under the basic preventative plan universal to Obama's reform law. What this means is that, if achieved, basic health care will provide birth control pills without gynecology and without co-pays. Birth control pills will then be available to all those too afraid, ashamed, or barred from accessing them through gynecological means.
However, this idea has, of course, struck a cord in many. Most argue that birth control pills are NOT preventative care; in fact, the use of hormones outside of their natural production can cause moderate to serious side effects and can even lead to cancer. Some also argue that making the Pill available without a physician's in-between could not only lead to a more rapid spread of STDs throughout America but also a pap-test diminuendo. Without the necessary gynecological check-ups to ensure your pill refills, would women still feel compelled to do those check-ups on their own time?

Somehow, in this great debate, the mini-pill has marked a middle ground between those opposing universally accessible birth control pills and those promoting them as a real way of combating unwanted pregnancy. Because the mini-pill does not contain estrogen, taking it is not associated with heart disease, gynecological cancers, deep vein thrombosis or other serious side effects associated with combination pills. Thus, the mini-pill can be taken by pretty much any woman. In addition, the effectiveness of the mini-pill does not decrease when taking other medications. It is taken every day of the month with no placebos, and is also proven to reduce menstrual bleeding, cramps and other associated discomfort. It is, on paper, a fool-proof prescription to be applied to the masses.

However, when any type of birth control pill is prescribed by a doctor, the patient is instructed to take it at the same time every day. This does not differ with the mini-pill except that it is 100% true. As I mentioned above, if you miss a mini-pill by over 2 hours in one day, you are at a much higher risk of an unplanned pregnancy until your next period. If you miss a combination pill entirely (24 hours), you can take two pills the next day and continue without much increased risk. This difference between the two kinds of pills is apparent to physicians and some women, but to adolescents or inexperienced pill users--it might seem slight, slight enough to cause an unwanted pregnancy. Although the mini-pill is a great invention of science for many reasons (hey! people with sickle-cell anemia can now take birth control!), as the one easy-to-obtain form of birth control under new health care reforms, the little green things might cause more harm than good. What fifteen-year-old can remember to take their pill at exactly 10:53 every single day? What 33-year-old working two jobs and a night shift to pay the rent? 8 pregnancies out of 100 women is far too high of a statistic.

Financial Domination

This past May, New York Times Magazine columnist and nonfiction novelist Daniel Bergner published The Other Side of Desire , “an exploration,” Nerve.com says, into every aspect surrounding “the far reaches of sexuality”--what most of us term “fetishes.” Although Bergner remains a triumphant researcher into the politics and psychologies of contemporary sexuality, with such prominent articles as What Do Women Want?, The Other Side of Desire scopes fetishism into four specific abnormalities: foot fetishism, sadism, pedophilia, and acrotomophilia (the strong sexual interest in amputees). His deepened account rings true; but, it does not enlighten the reader to the many other fetishes that abound throughout society.
A particular fetish, or some might say, kink, that just came to my attention falls under the broad category of BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism). It is what adherents to bloggers to Dr. Sue call Financial Domination—what one self-proclaimed submissive defines as “a domination set-up where the dom[inant] requests money and/or gifts from the submissive, and the submissive complies.”
Our anonymous piggy bank, who I will refer to as “Luke,” continued to describe Fin Dom as “fantastically simple”--at the touch of a screen linked to sites like PayPal or amazon.com, the domme receives money or gifts and the gifter—we'll refer to this role as “slave”--reaps an emotional and/or physical gain by pleasing said domme. But how simple can this be? When I first spoke with Luke, I immediately likened the roles of his various mistresses with Anna Nicole Smith and her relationship to 1994-billionaire-hubby J. Howard Marshall. So, what differentiates a Fin Dom situation from the sugar daddies and their little sex kittens plastered all over 21st century tabloids?


Although the Fin Dom/Sugar Daddy line is a gray one, the clear attribute that stands to separate these ideas is that with or without sexual favors exchanged, the slave (statistically male) in a Fin Dom relationship feels direct pleasure from the gifts he (or she!) bestows upon the domme. As Luke affirms from his own experiences, “When I'm feeling horny, I often masturbate to getting a girl some amazing experience, like paying for her to go to Bonnaroo or something like that.” Dr. Sue so concisely affirms: “For the submissive the idea of having a woman take money from him or manipulate him into a state of wanting to give money to her is incredibly erotic.”
Further, Fin Dom is often simultaneously indulged with a blackmail fetish. That is to say, the domme has complete power over her slave. If and when her slave does not comply to her wishes (which could be anything from an amazon wish list linked directly to a domme's shipping address to tickets for a vacation overseas), the mistress has full reign over the slave's private information and/or pictures and can post such things freely. For the slave in this situation, that kind of pressure surrounding financial gifts can enhance his/her feeling of submission and therefore, intensify their erotic response.
However, not all Fin Dom situations use blackmail—and not all slave/domme “couples” have a truly dom-sub relationship. In fact, many Fin Dom adherents maintain a more symbiotic partnership. As Luke explains, this power exchange from dominant to submissive on both sides is easily expressed through financial domination. During sex, where many girls involved in Fin Dom, Luke says, “just like to call me Daddy,” he is in the driver's seat. But, to get that well-rounded experience, “after I''m done being Manly Man, I can just log into PayPal and send some domme money, or go on her wishlist and buy that vibrator she's been wanting.” Luke explains the feeling of submission through monetary means further: “I like making a woman happy, giving something of myself to her. And in this cold, cruel capitalist society, what better way to do that then cash or material objects? It cuts through to the core of being submissive, which is a big turn on.” Sex or no sex, those who submit to financial domination really do love giving more than receiving.
As readers might imagine, the majority of Fin Dom relationships are established through FinDom-specific dating sites like dommesandsubs.com and findoms.com as well as through twitter. Members connect with others through their profiles; you are required to upload an image and choose what Fin Dom category you fall into: financial domme, cash princess, human atm, pay piggy or slave. From such criteria, members select who to chat with, usually through YIM (Yahoo Instant Messenger). The most common Fin Dom relationships stay digital—and Luke warns, that this causes “issues of trust to pop up.” As he further elucidates, “It's very easy for a sub to get frightened and run away, or for a college girl to get bored and leave without notice. For this reason, a lot of established doms demand tributes to even get their YIM names, or will block you within a minute if you don't pay instantly.” The “simplicity” of Fin Dom is yet again muddled. But hey—how might a sub find his domme(s) without the internet, especially now that Craigslist has pulled its adult services section?

For more information on financial domination, check out:

Site of a famous domme
The premiere community for financial fetish

MOIST

So, in a less intellectual turn of events, I've been trying to announce the truth about the word "moist" since I decided to start this blog in the first place. "Moist" has come up in casual dialogue throughout the years; first, in--I believe--9th grade English with a certain fair-haired Mr. Van Hueveveln (now famed for his MSNBC expose, "How to kiss like a poet). With hormones raging, my entire 75-person all-female and all-zestied class gathered around our teacher as he announced such vocabulary words as "tender," "titilating," and "supple." But "moist"--even more than "pert," or "crusty"--seemed to be the greatest offender of our childish minds.
The sticking point (or shall I say, congealing?) for "moist," however, is that our aversion to the word moves beyond sixteen into the ripe age of 30 and beyond--transcending our cultivated vocabularies and personally solidifying sexual encounters. "Moist," in the words of a 26-year-old colleague, is immediately "the most disgusting word, ever." It is, single-handedly, the number one unconscious response to the age-old question, "what is your least favorite word in the English language?" As a blogger reported on BoingBoing in 2009, "There's even a Facebook group called called "I HATE the word MOIST!" with more than 300 members." Surprise! In the last year, said facebook group has ascended to one of those "like" pages. So, accordingly, 20,821 people "like" hating "moist."

But what is it about this word that so irritates our ears and tongues? It seems, from the thesaurus, inherently obvious. Moist, at its most archaic roots, connotes the aftermath of a fever: that clammy, dank, nearly moldly wetness that breeds such household pests as earwigs and silverfish. Moist, then, is often that middle ground of dampness that takes a previously dry surface into another zone. Perhaps that is why, more recently, the word has become associated with that mysterious inner cave medical professionals and clinicians like to call the vagina.
However, in pornography ranging from hentai to hardcore and in hallmarks of sensuality from Salinger to Nabokov, this moist is sexy; in fact, it is more than sexy--it's fundamental. And yet and yet and yet! Here comes my (admitted) twinge of feminist theory: even when moist can become the essence of a sexual encounter, solely produced from the vagina*, it retains the idea of nasty; of fluids; of the un-condom-protected penis dipping in the whorehouse in New Orleans. Further, even, the connotation of moist today moves us from the nearly morbid smell of mold to the pungent odor of female genitalia.

As a wise woman recently said to me, "It's not just moist that bothers me, it's moist package." The two words, as a unit, transcend moist's ties with the aroused labia. Allied with package, moist keeps its medieval magic to the fullest.

*Obviously, wetness comes from the mouth as well during sexual acts. However, the mouth retains a constant wetness, whereas the vagina physically becomes wetter just from arousal. Here, we make the distinction between wet and moist. If that makes any sense outside of my ramblings...

Insights on Ok Cupid

Hey, I'm Lucy, a 22 year-old, freshly-graduated, prospective sexologist and previous sex columnist from Washington University in St. Louis. In my column, 'Sextras,' I attempted to expose current sex issues in the news and media through scientific and firsthand research. Here, I will do the same but I will also review sex toys and report on current trends in social policy relating to sex--both in New York as well as elsewhere. Without further ado, here is my personal as well as researched look into Ok Cupid--one of the most popular dating sites in the New York area.

While sitting over drinks with friends and probing them about their sex lives as I often do, one thing kept coming up--how much more often two or three of them were getting laid. And all thanks to a website I'd only heard of in passing--Ok Cupid. When I imagined my 20-something, youthful friends who have no shortage of new people to meet on a dating site, one so famed for "liars" and "creeps" nonetheless, I started to laugh. Really? How much more are they getting laid through mostly anonymous dating?
One particular friend, who I will refer to as "Greg," revealed that he went from not having sex at all for an extended period of time to having sex with different girls on a weekly basis--sometimes 2 or 3 per week. Greg also revealed that the majority of women he has met not only seemed to be looking for play (instead of a long-term relationship) but were "all fucked up in some way or another." Have the young ladies floating on Manhattan resorted to the one or two drinks-and-sex situation as a result of career frenzy, or because of their previous failures maintaining serious relationships?
Either or, the trend is real. As another friend of mine, who I will refer to as "Josh," offered, "I bang 5 out of 8 chicks that I meet from this website. It's fucking easy--these girls are horny as hell." Josh, who introduced Greg to Ok Cupid, has indeed found great success in the realm of hooking up from the site.
Greg previously had been a member of Jdate but found that the self-proclaimed "leading Jewish singles network" didn't offer the right community of women to date. Greg related, "I feel like Ok Cupid is more DTF [down to fuck]: a little dirty but the right vibe." But how does one get around this dirtiness and get right to the (consensual and enjoyable) DTF? Greg had a few words of advice. I will put it into three easy rules.
1) Brand yourself when making a profile. As Greg describes, "It helps to find a specific niche of the girls you are looking for within such a big website. Tailor it your profile like a resume—you only want them to see what the image you want to portray is."
2) Once you've created an attractive profile, find girls that you are attracted to by how good they look in their WORST picture . Greg explains, "If you are putting pictures on an online dating site, you are probably using your best. You dont look like that all the time!"
3) Send simple messages to the aforementioned females. Greg says, "My messages are very straightforward, 1-2 liners. The really slutty looking girls I just send a 'hey baby whats going on?' and in my real messages I either make a joke about something in their profile, or say something short like 'how was your weekend?.' From what I understand most girls get like 20 messages a day saying stuff like 'hey baby you want my dick?' all from like 40 y/o men too. So you've gotta be simple."
With a website with the most quick and easy form of hooking up with girls you might never meet trolling bars or hopping subway cars, such rules, I found, are quite necessary for a decently pleasant experience.

But being a girl on this dating site, as Greg referenced, is another matter. To extend my research into this particular realm, I decided to create my own profile, juicy_lucy87--a (mostly) honest internet portrayal of myself that I believed might appeal to the type of guy I search for: funny, adventurous, and intellectual. To put a cherry on top, I put up two decent pictures without showing any skin to try and keep away from those myspacey guys looking for easy pieces.


my profile picture

What I got in response to my Greg-guided creation was a mash-up of messages: some with witty banter reflecting my interests (especially zombie movies and pineapple pizza); others with overly wordy descriptions of our future sexcapades. As for looks, however, photos revealed many ethnicities but few (less than 1 out of 40 I'd say) I found myself attracted to. All of the men contacting me, though, made it clear meeting up would be in pursuit of a hook-up rather than a relationship. For example, one 20-something offered, "I'll be blunt, because it seems like being vague leads to misconceptions- you seem pretty cool, and you're super cute. Would you wanna get a drink sometime and talk about zombie movies and maybe make out?" Another, much less tactfully, simply wrote, "I'd really like to eat your ass."

As one Ok Cupid member reiterated to me just now in a chat, "We're on this site to play, aren't we?" Oh and we are. But perhaps I would have found more play--if, as statistics suggest--I put myself with a guitar in my profile picture, or I appeared more liberal or nerdy! Those seem to be the main characteristics portrayed on the internet that attract potential hook-ups. Greg serves again as an example with profile pictures where he is playing guitar and an emphasis on music throughout his information. Obviously there are many strategies to increase your rate of hooking up, but few to decrease the rate of creeps.
That's why, Greg says, there are always new people on Ok Cupid. He calls it "the cycle,": "Ok Cupid has a massive amount of churn, and very smart matching system—more and more people are hearing about it yet all the 40 year-old guys creep all the girls then they leave and more join."

So good news, eligible boys: with their high turnover rate and large population of creeps, "basically if you are remotely intelligent and somewhat grounded, you should be fine finding people to date on Ok Cupid." Sex assumed, not required.