Nerve Insider : from the archives

From the Archives: "Brave New World" by Mike Albo

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:11:00 GMT

Every once in a while, you stumble upon a piece of writing that makes you feel like maybe your desires are a little more legit than you’d felt before. In his essay “Brave New World,” Mike Albo explores the idea of gender monogamy, a sexual utopia in which he can have a long-term partnership with a man who is free to sleep with women on the side. I think it’s important to explore the limitations of our self-definition; even though it’s tempting to define your desires, is it keeping you from getting what you want? Approaching the topic with candor, wit and mathematical equations, Albo has touched on the kind of relationship I’ve been looking for my entire life. So, I mean, of course I love it.

Okay, fast forward to last week, a year or so later. Friend B calls and tells me how he and his boyfriend (let's call him aB) had some kind of ménage a quatre with Boy X and his friend, yX. Friend B exonerated himself from any guilt for this act by saying he didn't know that Boy X was Boy X until after their little four-way roundelay. That weekend Friend B had a party. I found myself on a rooftop with X, B, C, aB and yX. Jealous, freaked out and insane, I tried to employ the attentions of F, xG, and D(V-x) to retaliate. My life that night became a large calculus equation that I would never be able to solve.

But what do you think?

— Caitlin MacRae

From The Archives: About Last Night…The Boyfriend

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:19:00 GMT

I got my first boyfriend when I was fourteen. It lasted one month, and the month happened to be February. So for Valentines Day he gave me a small stuffed Grateful Dead dancing bear from the head shop he hung out at, and a butterfly necklace from Claire’s that broke the next day. Just like Carrie Hill Wilner, ten years later I still don’t know what exactly makes a boyfriend, but I do know that somewhere in between Meg Ryan movies and popping the big question, we do get some pretty great stories out of these guys…

Check out Carrie Hill Wilner’s “About Last Night…The Boyfriend” and follow her deceptively endearing journey to discovering that sometimes wanting that “confusing horrible freak-out sex” can really be quite comforting… — Alexandra Godfrey

From the Archives: Sexual Amnesia and “Nocturnal Omissions”

Nicole Ankowski — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:27:00 GMT

Working here at the Nerve offices, I’ve found it’s completely natural to have sex on the brain pretty much always. When you spend your day figuring out the perfect words to parse the graphic, lovely photos from The Daily Siege, or mining the Nerve archives for steamy personal essays from years past, and when you are a sexually frustrated twenty-three year old, yes, you will spend much of your day thinking about boning.

But reading Betty Ross’s essay, Nocturnal Omissions, I felt a resonance different from the kind I get from reading hot fiction about gay sex. Because I don’t explicitly remember most of the sex I’ve had. I tend to chalk it up to having been drunk at the time.

My friends can regale me with detail after detail of their sex lives, but when my turn to spill comes around, I usually can’t muster anything more few brief, qualitative sentences. Ross’ essay explores the idea that sex – despite the amount of time, energy, and money we spend trying to figure it all out down to the littlest detail – may not actually be a memorable thing (also, this new study suggests that it may be true on a biological level):

But in making compelling or attractive points about the loss of sexual memory, they all miss the point: We don't need the bells and whistles of high-art fantasy sequences or Hollywood melodrama to engage in a fantasy about forgetting and sensuality — we live that amnesia every day. All of us remember less about our sex lives than we do about what it feels like to stub a toe or what we had for dinner last night. It is an unspoken truth that no matter how much time we spend obsessing about it, sex — even without the benefit of a Charlie Kaufman screenplay — is an inherently forgettable experience.

— Caitlin MacRae

Read the entire essay here.

From the Archives: I Did It For Science: Injaculation

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:34:00 GMT

In this I Did It For Science report, British hottie Grant Stoddard enlists a buddy to help him achieve injaculation, aka “enlightened consciousness through orgasm without the expulsion of seminal fluid, vis-â-vis strategic pressure on the perineum.” "Huh?" you say? Okay, here's what it means:

“A couple of minutes in and fast approaching the point of no return, I located what Taoist's refer to as the 'million-dollar point,' the spot nestled between a gentleman's love spuds and his rusty bullet hole. I pressed hard and felt a strong, constant pulse on my perineum. Just before orgasm, the pulse became arrhythmic, then graduated to a panicked pounding, like a palpitating elk heart betwixt my legs. Trying to really concentrate on the feeling was extremely difficult. I was just hoping that I survived long enough to give the scientific community my theory on why people spontaneously combust.

Then, immediately prior to the moment where I'd typically soil the bed linen, I saw for a brief second what all those pony tailed forty-somethings had been proselytizing about. The build-up to orgasm was momentarily more intense than usual, but the feeling soon vanished as quickly as it had arrived. I continued to press hard for a minute or two, concentrating on the subsidence of pressure in my rig. I withdrew my fingers from my undercarriage and propped myself up on my shoulders, disturbed and underwhelmed by the whole ordeal.”

Read more about Grant’s self-experimentation, as well as how his friend Brian’s experiences. Anyone out there an injaculation fan?

From the Archives: Your Mother Was A Fish

Nicole Ankowski — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:14:00 GMT

A word of warning: this Sunday, May 11, is Mother’s Day. Buy a Hallmark Card, dammit! Or, if you and your mother have a special sort of relationship, I guess you could share these stories with her…

A.M. Homes’ tells the mother of all tales:

“She had a dressmaker split the center seam, separating her so she could walk, and went through life with her legs covered in thick green scales, a brocade, fossilized by the sea into leathery chaps like a cowboy would wear. Men found her scales incredibly attractive; it was considered good luck to rub her thighs. They all wanted only one thing, to get into the space between the scales, the alligator purse that had been perfectly protected. The sweat of their palms stung her skin; she found them repulsive.

She moved to Massachusetts and took a part time job doing women's work sewing tassels on loafers in a shoe factory.”

...read “Your Mother Was a Fish” in its entirety, here.

You’re more into poetry, you say? Check out “My Mother’s Penis” by Carissa Neff. Don’t forget the batteries!

And if you love funny-sad, smart-sexy-strange (who doesn’t?) check out Lisa Carver’s personal essay, “All About My Mother.”

And The Modern Materialist brings you a scary way to put the disembodied voice of your mother inside your refrigerator…

From the Archives: I Did It For Science: Ladies Night

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Before Rev. Jen Miller did it for science…Grant Stoddard did it. A lot. For this experiment, he stripped down and manned up…and gave it his pole-shimmying, lap-dancing all for Ladies Night. The picture above isn’t Grant, but read the entire piece to see him for real…

From the Archives: The Lengths of My Deception, by Craig Davidson

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:39:00 GMT

Oh, lying – whether you consider it an art form or just a weekend hobby, these little fictions make up a surprisingly large part of interpersonal communication. They’re accepted, they’ll never really have the chance to be questioned. I exist, comfortable in the knowledge that if I stretch. But when it comes to fabrications, you’re bound to be found out. I learned that lesson when I started wearing padded bras. Anatomy is a hard lie to fake – you can finagle your way around it, keep the lights low and the hands strategically placed, but sooner or later, my lack of boobage always came to light – I mean, really, who did I think I was kidding?

Craig Davidson, first man ever to lie about the length of his member, wrote this sly essay for Nerve’s Secrets & Lies Issue about compulsive lying, the importance of honesty, and what happens when you’re less than truthful about your peen.

The evening progressed, as did our drunkenness. We ended up at her place. R. fixed some drinks and we drank them and found ourselves making out on the sofa.

I realized my mistake: I'd told a lie that, if events advanced down their natural line, stood a 100% chance of discovery. It was like telling a podiatrist I had twelve toes before taking my socks off — an expectation I could not possibly fulfill.

From the Archives: I Did It for Science: Nude Photography

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:07:00 GMT

In this piece, Grant Stoddard uses his adorable English accent to try and woo women out of their clothes, and in front of his camera. It turns out that getting paid to photograph live, nude girls isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds…But he snapped some good ones, anyway.

"How do you want me?" she chirped.

Truth be told, I hadn't really thought about what would happen once I got Jesse naked. Proactivity is not my strong suit. "Uh," I stalled. "How about we take some pictures of . . . some of the postures . . . from yoga class?"

"Excellent idea!" she said. With one hand, she pulled her belt off; with the other, she brushed her dress to the floor. She wasn't wearing a bra or panties, and went from fully clothed to totally naked within a half-second. It was like that scene in Naked Gun where Lt. Drebin pulls his entire suit off with one hand.

"Er . . . would you mind getting on the bed for me?" I stammered. This was intimidating. Not only did Jesse have a good ten years and five inches on me, but was also completely blasé about getting her kit off for a random nimrod with a camera. In the midst of a party she was hosting no less. Fierce. Like Anthony Michael Hall in Weird Science, I had masterminded a scenario where I was in a room with an older, smarter, cultured, naked woman, and I could only imagine tossing off in the bathroom. I think I've been clothed in the presence of naked women for about twenty-five seconds in my entire life.

Read about all three of Grant’s photography sessions here. And yes, there are pictures!

From the Archives: Bad Education

Nicole Ankowski — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:42:00 GMT

I have had sex in a public bathroom, only it happened with my live-in boyfriend in between tequila shots at a local bar. Why didn’t we just run the half a block home for a quickie, you ask? It was probably something to do with the tequila, and something to do with thrill-seeking desire when you’re in a stuck-in-a-rut relationship. Needless to say, we got our thrill, but it was certainly nothing like Stephen Elliot’s...

"Hit me," I said. Or I might have said, "Hurt me" or something else. But whatever I said was lost in the fabric; she didn't hear me right. She thought I said "Choke me" and gripped my throat, squeezing my windpipe shut. My breath was gone and I saw stars as she pulled on me frantically.

Dive into Elliot’s personal essay Bad Education and take a peek into the kind of life all us desk jobbers secretly fantasize about, from living in your car, to wandering the country aimlessly and ending up in a place too perfect-looking to be an accident…

— Alexandra Godfrey

From the Archives: I Did It For Science: Cock Ring

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:53:00 GMT

In this “I Did It For Science” dispatch, our willing sexual guinea pig tries a cock ring on for size.

“Initially, my genitalia looked as contorted as it felt (remember the play-doh spaghetti factory?). After a little while, it felt really good in my girlfriend's hands and seemed more sensitive than usual. The tip of my old chap became bigger and darker than normal and my entire rig had taken on the appearance of a weightlifter's neck by the time I entered her. Would an overwhelming positive reaction from her mean that I'd have to dress up my cock like the singer from Judas Priest for the duration of our relationship?”

See what happened later, as Grant Stoddard goes a little deeper. For science, of course.

From the Archives: Stranger Than Friction

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:51:00 GMT

As a lifelong masturbator and mild hypochondriac, I’ve definitely experienced phases that left me genuinely concerned that my habits might lead to some permanent damage. That said, I can honestly say that my self-love has ever necessitated serious medical intervention — unlike Kevin Keck, Nerve contributor and fellow masturbator, who chronicled the embarrassing results of his solo routine for our Shame Issue. A word from the wise, kiddies: motor oil was designed to lube one thing and one thing only, and it ain’t your junk.

It was what I always wanted to hear: my penis was a marvel fit for serious scholarly research. But it was a bittersweet revelation. My little man would end up in the mason jar reserved for freakish wonders, not the decanter marked "Huge Discovery." It was more likely to wind up in the gawkish halls of a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum than the Smithsonian.

Read more here...

— Caitlin MacRae

From the Archives: “The One” Is the Loneliest Number

Nicole Ankowski — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:56:00 GMT

As a college freshman, determined to find my husband the same way my older sister had — in a dormitory laundry facility — I became an over-zealous, premature seeker of “The One.” Barely eighteen and a few weeks into my first year of college, I thought I had found Him in my first crush. We didn’t meet in the laundry room, but we did meet in a dorm room over orange lines of crushed up Adderall and Natty Light-filled Solo cups, which was good enough for me. It was love at first sight, and we were going to be together forever, just like my big sister and her husband. Until, that is, he dumped me two years later. Apparently, I just wasn’t “The One” for him.

When I read Tobin Levy’s personal essay about being dumped with this exact same line, it spoke to me, as I’m sure it will for many of you, too:
“The number of people I'd slept with could be calculated on the hand of someone who'd lost a few digits to an auger. I wanted to date, experience innocuous trysts and, as much as the phrase now makes me want to walk off a roof, the "sex and the city" lifestyle. For the next five years, I did.”

Although I may not have been pushing thirty when I got served, it was just as painful when my roommate handed me a copy of He's Just Not That Into You in hopes of convincing me to stop sleeping with the idiot….I wish I’d just read Tobin’s essay, instead.

— Alexandra Godfrey

From the Archives: I Did It For Science: Kissing Boys

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:10:00 GMT

Ah, a little rainy Monday morning venture into the “I Did It For Science” archives…check out Grand Stoddard’s same-sex experiment, from way back in the 0-1:

Experiment:
To document and extrapolate upon the subject's maiden voyage into homosexual experimentation.

Hypothesis:
Unlike all great explorers before me — Columbus, Vespucci, Captain Kirk — I'd been commissioned to boldly go where only men had gone before. I suspected I would find a new world of forbidden pleasures that might make me forget about home for a while.

Materials:
Noxious Bacardi cocktail (1700ml)
Black-and-white photo booth (1)
Hispanic male (Luis)

Want to read Grant’s entire report? Check it out here.

From the Archives: Angels, Ghosts and Strangers

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:46:00 GMT

New York City has a sneaky way of getting inside of you. If you’re not careful — which most of us aren’t — it will sweep you away like a tortuous sometimes-lover, the one everyone has been intimate with, but no one can really belong to. Even so, we obsess. NYC’s vastly different boroughs, intricate neighborhoods, and complex personalities (often radiating from every street corner) have the ability to breathe life into us, while simultaneously leaving us as lonely as an autumn leaf fluttering into a damp gutter. Just as soon as the city presents itself to us, it sneaks away…and we are stuck, starting over.

“I was enthralled by the bedlam of the place — girls in love with girls, boys with boys, two boys in love with one girl who was in love with P. The beds were strewn with sex toys, and no one ever slept. That galaxy has now imploded. So has the Murray Street crew — guys skateboarding in CK briefs and feather boas through the living room, girls scratching on the turntables. G. and B. are in jail now. I loved both of them, but I haven't written either one a letter.”

Join Jardine Libaire as she takes us on a walking tour of her New York City. From excitement to loneliness, she masterfully intertwines her path through the streets with her path in life, love and the pursuit of her self….

— Alexandra Godfrey

From the Archives: I Did It for Science… Subway Sex

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:26:00 GMT

Have you ever done it for science? Grant Stoddard did…many, many times. From Real Dolls to happy endings, he ventured where most men hadn’t gone before. Thankfully, he lived to tell us all about it. I was amazed to find that Grant’s first column came out way back in August of 2001. I think it’s time to resurrect the madness and the glory. So every Monday we’ll be digging back into the archives, and bringing some kinky sexual experiments back into the light.

To assess the effect of the New York subway system upon sexual performance.

Getting down underground will turn me on. Or maybe just speed me up.

Girlfriend (1, sans knickers)
MetroCard (2)
Metro Transit Authority Subway Car (1, uptown)

We all need something to look forward to on Mondays, right? Check out the first-ever “I Did It for Science.”

From the Archives: Head Case

Nicole Ankowski — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:28:00 GMT

Originally published in the Nerve Bisexuality issue, Chris Rockwell’s “Head Case” is a straight guy’s aw-shucks defense of c*cksucking:

Not to brag, but my dick is a resoundingly handsome piece of work. While not the biggest in any given locker room, it points perfectly straight, bereft of any bumps or bulges. Its peaches-and-cream complexion is not unlike Kate Winslet's might be on a blustery day. It has a faintly vascular look but falls far short of those scary, veiny porno dicks that resemble Iggy Pop's forearms. Its only shortfall: try as I might, I can't get the bastard into my mouth.

Before any gay dudes attempt to locate Mr. Rockwell on Facebook, please keep in mind that Mr. Rockwell is a “pseudonym of a writer living in New York City.” Well, at least they can still dream. Check him out here. — Joey Hood

From the Archives: The Big Tease

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:12:00 GMT

Happy Vernal Equinox, yo. It’s the official start of Spring…and with that in mind we take a trippy look back at “The Big Tease,” in which intrepid reporter Vanessa Grigoriadis crashes Spring Break 2001. Don’t let the dated “Whasssups” fool you…this piece still packs a punch, and manages to get beneath the wet T-shirts and thongs, to a more meaningful place.

The gender imbalance may be a downer for the guys, but it's a treat for the hundred thousand-odd girls who saved up their allowances to come to PCB (for the Tennessee girls, it cost three hundred dollars each to spend the week). For the first time in many of these girls' lives, it makes no difference if they're short or tall, white or black, fat or thin: They are desired, even by captains of the football team, guys who normally wouldn't stoop to asking them about math homework in the cafeteria. And it's all because they were the type of girls who were wild enough to come down to spring break. "This has been the best two days of my life," says Alyson. "At least, my life so far."

Not that there aren’t a lot of meaningless sexual acts, as well. Enjoy them all, right here.

From the Archives: The Last Times I Partied Before Starting AA

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:09:00 GMT

Maybe the day after St. Patrick's Day isn't the best time to post this piece. Maybe it's the perfect time. Maybe I’ll let one of the feedback comments describe this piece for you: “Engaging. Terrible. Desperate. Lovely.” Here’s how it begins:

My Russian friend Nini and I are toasting vodka, a shake of pepper in the bottom of the shot glass. We drink two bottles, quart bottles. A lot of alcohol for two little pixies. Some boys arrive, friends of hers, Russian guys who hardly speak any English. They're all over us, they're not picky, they want to get laid. The cute one pushes the hair out of Nini's eyes when she pours. She gets to pouring at a whole new pace. The glass bounces on the floor. Fling, that bottle's done, fling, another one's gone. I realize at one point that the conversation is happening entirely in Russian, and yet I'm yelling and being yelled back at.

Can a piece of fiction utterly tell the truth? Check out Matthew Klam’s classic Nerve story.

From the Archives: Sex Advice From… Irish-Americans

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:49:00 GMT

I actually conducted these interviews my damn self, one year ago…and boy did these fabulous Irish-Americans educate my non-Irish ass. For the low-down on poppers, whiskey dick, and getting over Catholic guilt…check out Sex Advice From…Irish-Americans.

How can I get over my Catholic guilt?
I mean really, you can't. I had a breakdown the other day because I didn't go to mass for Ash Wednesday. It doesn't matter how long you've been a recovering Catholic, you can't get over the guilt.

Leprechaun hats, lube, and more, right here.

From the Archives: Photons

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:00:00 GMT

It’s difficult to imagine a more sensual, intimate, consuming relationship than the one described in Photons – a relationship made even more tantalizing because the intimacy isn’t between two (or three, or four, or however many) people, but between a woman and light. Justin Tussing delicately and weirdly twists a fixated sexual tension around brightness, a lifelong liaison of proximity without touch that, like any obsession, toes the line between creepy and tender.

There was no limit to the way light knew the woman. It knew her in the sudden flash of headlights and by the glow of alarm clocks. It knew enough to touch her neck thinking: I am heat. I am heat. Light found her from distant clouds and from the pale skin on the insides of her arms. Light saw those things that weren't the woman only as angles to approach her.

Read more here…

— Caitlin M.

From the Archives: The Undergraduate

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:09:00 GMT

We’ve all been on one side of the forbidden-fruit fantasy, whether as the object or subject, but what is it about the limits imposed by marriage that makes the seduction even more alluring? David Amsden takes on his accidental, repeated sexual experiences as the other man in the married woman/cougar fantasy, deconstructing his decisions and mistakes for all of us to see.

Our clichéd, juvenile fantasy of getting with older women — propagated, no doubt, by those damn Pepsi ads in which a tank-topped Cindy Crawford maliciously teased two prepubescent boys — had eventually transmuted into an acute desire to get with married women. We talked about it constantly. Bounced it around in our overeager minds, picked it apart: The mysteries inherent in the age difference. The things that we, who knew nothing, would learn. The prohibited wants and concealed vulnerabilities, a simmering component to any committed relationship, magnified by marriage, finally going berserk. What could be better?

His ultimate conclusion is witty and, to my mind, sort of surprising – here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.

— Caitlin M.

From the Archives: Groupie

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:03:00 GMT

Arthur Bradford’s titillating personal essay “Groupie” revels in high-octane doses of sex, ashtray regrets and rock ‘n’ roll. Originally published in the 2005 Nerve Music Issue, “Groupie” is a heartwarming ode to starfuckery concerning Mr. Bradford’s “relationship” with a buxom axe-grinding Swede. “Most women, after all, could pick up strange men without having to be in a band. I thought I had won Eva's heart by saving her from the pepper spray and then charming her on the bus,” Bradford wrote. The tragic end result was wedged in Pamela Des Barre’s cleavage over a decade prior. It’s rather nice to see the rock n’ roll shag gods flip-flop over such f*cktarded gender roles. “Groupie” is Penny Lane’s just desserts.

— Joey Hood

From the Archives: Lost in Manila: Trying Not to Cheat on My Wife

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:06:00 GMT

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere may be dreaming of running away to white sand beaches…but what happens when warm weather doesn’t solve all your problems? Peter Gottlieb found himself alone in a tropical paradise, where “the word for love and the word for expensive are the same.”

We talk so long, she gets in trouble with the manager. She's different from other Filipinas I've met. She's darker than most, and like most of the citizens of the world, Filipinos look down on dark-skinned people. Skin-lightening salons are a common sight in the mega-malls of Manila. Instead of giving in, Sarah flaunts her darkness. She has incipient dreadlocks in her hair and wears colorful beads in them — on the street, she's mistaken for a foreigner. Other Filipinos think she's Jamaican or Cuban. They speak in English to her. She laughs or gets angry when she overhears passersby whispering about her in Tagalog. She tells me she's never had a Filipino boyfriend.

Want to get lost, as well?

From the Archives: Love Is a Four-Letter Word

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Talking dirty is a tricky proposition…how dirty is too dirty, and when does dirty talk simply turn into a bad B-movie script? Adrian Colesberry used to fear the four-letter words (in bed), until he developed an ingenious formula. Learn from his mistakes...

But as soon as I rolled back on top of her, I started backpedaling. Why hadn't I just said, "I'm sorry. Dirty talk embarrasses me, and I just don't think I can do it." How hard is that? Then I had a happy thought: "Maybe I'll die in the act." For a couple of minutes, I concentrated on f*cking her so fast that I'd give myself a heart attack. But I ran out of air before I ran out of pump capacity.

Read the entire essay, you dirty little toe-sucker, you.

From the Archives: The Original Pin-Up Girl

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Long before La Lohan was a glint in her papa’s eyes, Bettie Page made a pin-up splash throughout the world. And long before Gretchen Mol took a turn as the notorious Ms. Page, Nerve’s Lorelei Sharkey interviewed the reclusive, religious and remarkably down-to-earth Ms. Bettie Page. Check out this vintage interview, with the Queen of Bondage (even if she hates that title)…

Bettie Page's humility has always gotten the best of her. Figuring that at age thirty-four her modeling days were over, she graciously stepped down, dropped out, found God and enrolled in Bible school. Unaware of her overwhelming -- and ever-growing -- impact on collective American sexuality over the years, she lived simply and quietly, as always. Although some of Page's more obsessed fans have recently brought the extent of her popularity to her attention (hence all the mystery about her whereabouts), she doesn't pretend to understand it, nor has she exploited it.

See what really went on behind the scenes, and with the whips and chains…read the entire interview here.

From the Archives: “The President’s Penis” by Erica Jong

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:10:00 GMT

As the nation surges toward the elections, powered by hope, hatred, or some mixture of the two…it’s interesting to take a trip back in time, to when Hillary was the first lady, and Monica was on her knees…In this essay from August, 1998 (can you believe—almost ten years ago?), Erica Jong takes a look at power as aphrodisiac, and what happens when the nightly news turns into a soap opera. Fave quote: “Worse than f*cking individual women is f*cking the nation.” Not everyone agreed, of course. Check out the fiery feedback section, where readers varied from calling Jong a red-blooded a American to Clinton a “red” Communist. Do you miss the nineties...or has nothing changed?

From the Archives: Which Sexy Film Are You?

Nicole Ankowski — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:27:00 GMT

Once in a while, a film gets a reputation. We go to see it, not because it’s the prettiest movie or even the smartest, but because we know it will put out. To these movies, we dedicate this quiz. Find out which Infamously Sexy Film you most resemble by answering these twenty-five questions.

— Gwynne Watkins

From the Archives: The Jeffrey McDaniel Show

Nicole Ankowski — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:10:00 GMT

Need a little help writing love poems for the big Hallmark holiday tomorrow? I’m not sure you need follow poet, professor, and author Jeffrey McDaniel’s lead…but these poems might very well make you ache, remember what it’s like to try to hold back when you’re on the brink, and validate your fears: Yes, other people also imagine horrible games of Ex-Girlfriend Jeopardy.

You’ll laugh, you’ll wince, you’ll think about Winona Ryder’s lips in a whole new light.

From the Archives: Secret Agent

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:19:00 GMT

Got the Monday morning blues? Sick of the same-ol’, same-ol’ at the office, and craving some excitement? Writer Arianne Cohen took a drive on the wild side, to see what it would be like to work as a private investigator. Check out her evening spent tailing SUV’s and cheating spouses…

I crane my neck to see what she's doing. Is she on her cellphone? Redoing her makeup? Snorting a line? Crying? McKeever keeps one eye on his rearview mirror. He pulls out the photograph from the husband. It's a poorly focused headshot of a copper-skinned woman with disheveled reddish hair, bright pink lipstick and a suit jacket pulled over a low-cut blouse. McKeever studies client photos. "Sometimes you look at the photo and think, 'I don't think so.' And sometimes you think, 'Yeah, probably.' You can't always tell, though. As my mother says, there's a lid for every pot."

Think you’d be a good suburban spy? Check out the private dick’s working life, here.

From the Archives: Truth and Dare

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:37:00 GMT

As a teenager, all David Amsden knew of sex was “a white flash, a scene from a movie, a mirage. Sex was Sharon Stone's parted thighs and flaxen smudge of pubic hair, paused on the television screen. Sex was Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore and Michael Douglas, Demi Moore stripping on stage. Sex was me superimposing myself into these scenes while pretending — somewhat pathetically, I know — that these were the phantom women whom I loved, and who loved me back.”

That is, until the first time he watched people actually having sex, the eroticism all the stranger since they were his close friends, and just a few minutes before he’d been in the bed with them…

We all play Truth or Dare a handful of times during adolescence, and for the same reason: a means of saying "let's fuck around" without having to say "let's fuck around." But while other kids used the game to initiate some earnest French kissing and, maybe, to catch a brief flash of bare ass or nipple, we elevated it, I'd like to think, into the realm of high art. The Truth component was eliminated. This was key. Ours was a game of undiluted Dare, forcing the Truth behind our intentions that much closer to the surface. We recognized, at least subconsciously, that all teenagers are amateur submissives, eager to have their vulnerability exposed and exploited. As a result, our dares were both creative and explicit. Some highlights from past sessions: mutual masturbation, boys kissing boys, girls handcuffing boys to trees, and, like a scene straight from one of those Primetime Live pseudo-exposés, one girl going down on two boys at the same time.

Do you dare? Indulge your inner voyeur here.