This Week in Sex by the Nerve staff

Image of the Week

— From Girls Gone Wilder.

Hospitaliano!

Okay, remember when you were dating that kid in high school, and he made you a mix tape? (And for some reason, he drew sperm all over the label with white-out? Freak.) And you remember how you thought that was really sweet — and then you listened to it, and it was all, like, seventy percent Tool, and the closest he came to being romantic was Ben Folds Five's "Brick," and when you told him the song was about abortion, he just looked really confused and then fucked your best friend in a McDonald's bathroom? Well, that kid's probably just published his first novel to astounding critical acclaim, because that's how life works. But that's not the point. The point is, you thought musical faux pas couldn't get any worse.

Well, everything can always get worse. You could have been the Italian woman whose boyfriend stole an ambulance to serenade her. That's amore, all right. The poor misguided schmuck decided that because he didn't play an instrument, the next best way to express his love was with the piercing wail and flashing lights usually associated with emergencies, sickness and injury.

Unsurprisingly, neighbors did not find this cute, and called the police. There's some joke here about overzealous Italians. Find it for extra credit. – Carrie Hill Wilner

The Week in Numbers

2.3: Length, in inches, of ass cleavage visible on diminutive Canadian songbird Avril "Cleft" Lavigne during a recent concert.

1: Number of bra cups necessary to devise a makeshift face mask, as demonstrated by SARS-fearing Taiwanese farmers.

168,224,229: number of B cups it would take to cover all of mainland Taiwan.

2: Number of wombs present in a Brazilian woman who gave birth to healthy twins.

1: Number of babies in each womb.

0: Number of times the double-womb phenomenon had been recorded in Brazil before Wednesday's birth.

11,000: approximate number of Brazilian bikini waxes administered in 2002 at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon in New York City. – Sarah Harrison

Cop a Feel

You know the setup: there's a bachelor party for John from accounting. Just when the booze is starting to flow and everyone's getting rowdy, in walks an attractive law-enforcement official. She starts to give the party's honoree a stiff talking-to, and what do you know? Instead of getting a ticket, the groom gets to eats a banana from between her breasts, and the best man gets a hummer. A time-honored tradition.

So TWIS can empathize with a group of Israeli partygoers that quite literally grabbed the wrong end of the stick. This week, an Israeli policeman responded to complaints about a noisy bachelorette party. Turns out the rowdy women had ordered a male stripper dressed as a cop. Thinking the stripper had arrived, they began trying to undress and caress him. The bewildered copper told reporters that one woman "took off my shirt and untied my shoelaces," while another "started stroking me and called on her friends to join in." The officer complained and flashed his police badge, but the women just thought it was part of the act. Isn't there some kind of international safe word for these situations?

Reportedly, the policeman was able to extricate himself when his partner called for reinforcements, and the revelers were fined for trying to induce the Gaza strip. — Grant Stoddard

News Quiz!

Which of the following items has become a popular sex toy among Japanese women?

A. Vibrating Playstation controller
B. Vibrating Hello Kitty cellphone
C. Pokemon electric toothbrush
D. Honda’s turbo-engine vibrator

Scroll down for answer.

Wal-Mart Knows Best

The war on terrorism proved popular among Americans who have spent countless millions on flags and patriotic t-shirts in the wake of 9/11, so Wal-Mart has decided to cash in on the mania with a war on tits, ass and uninspired wordplay. The discount chain recently decided to pull Maxim, Stuff and FHM from its shelves, stating that the magazines' uninspired humor, forced prose and stale commentary were not well received by their customers: the gun-totin', plaid-wearing, flag-wavin', tobacco-chewin' folk otherwise known as the populace of our great land. Wal-Mart's lost revenue will be recouped via extra sales of Atlantic Monthly.

In a related story, TWIS has discovered that Wal-Mart has a history of this sort of snobbery. In the past decade, the chain has repeatedly banned material deemed beneath its customers' standards. Why? To combat the gradual dumbing-down of our capitalist society. Examples include:

— Nirvana's In Utero, found to be overwrought and derivative, and in no way a match for the spare, engaging aesthetic of their earlier albums.

— Leap of Faith, Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan, deemed to be too colonial and ingratiating a narrative to meet the average Wal-Mart shopper's standards, which are rooted in the works of Franz Fanon.

— The Swiffer Mitt, whose pure nonironic tackiness negates any feeble suburban-home-maintenance value it might otherwise possess.

— The last Death Cab For Cutie album, described by a Wal-Mart representative as "disappointing and saccharine."

Oh, wait. No, that wasn't a Wal-Mart representative, that was the mesh-cap Gestapo at the Kim's Video and Music on St. Marks Place, whose job it is to patrol the aisles and make sure everyone has appropriate credentials. Fuck you, Kim's kids, you can eat my indie dust.

And, oh wait, Wal-Mart didn't ban the mags with an eye toward our greater intellectual good, but because of prudishness and pressure from conservative Christian groups! Who'd have guessed? – Carrie Hill Wilner

Answer to News Quiz

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