What you don’t hear on TV is that the crowd gathered around David Blaine is buzzing about his sex appeal.
David Blaine is hanging upside down in Central Park. I went at sunset yesterday to get the sex scoop on the scene. When I arrived, he was lowering himself to his fans’ eye level. Folks were jovial and intrigued. As David hung there signing autographs, he answered questions from the crowd. A woman asked how his “penis was doing.” He said that everything was fine, and a security guard explained that he has a catheter attached to it to contain his urine. One guy called out to him, “David, how do the girls look upside down?” David laughed, and one of his crew answered for him, “He has had ‘em that way before.” A petite brunette standing near his head seemed a bit embarrassed. Has he really tried upside down sex? We’ll never know, because David just grinned. A giggling woman pointed out that his grey-blue underwear was showing as he curled his back up to stretch. “Sexy!” she said to her girlfriend.I asked them why he has such sex appeal. She swooned, “his eyes,” which were hidden behind sunglasses that magically stayed on his upside-down head. Perhaps it’s more about his mystery than his eyes.
Today, I was on WHTU radio in Orlando, FL (on the phone from New York, of course). The Dixon and Willoughby show challenged couples to have sex for 100 days straight, and they wanted to know my thoughts on that topic. With two books about sex marathons making the media rounds, it has become a hot topic. It’s amazing to me that pop media is pressuring people to have sex so much that this is now being called a new “trend.” Most people get bored and stressed if they feel pressured to have sex every night. Then again, couples report that even if they were not interested in having sex when they started it on a “required” night, once they did it for a few minutes it was pleasurable and they were glad they did it. The lesson is that you don’t need to try to have sex every night, but if your desire is waning, you may want to try having sex anyway and you might enjoy it. In the Sexual Response Cycle, desire is suppose to come before excitement; yet, in reality, it is possible to begin sex without feeling desire — and then your arousal may rise. You wouldn’t want to do that for 100 days, but maybe just once in a while. Give it a try sometime if you’re curious. No pressure.
Sexual Response Cycle: Desire is Suppsed to Come First
In the background of an international CNN broadcast about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, two men (who were sent by the Howard Stern show) pretended to kiss and fondle each other. One of the men lifted his shirt while the other pretended to lick his chest. They never actually made contact, so it was obvious that it was a stunt. It made me wonder: If two women had been playing this prank, particularly for Howard Stern, wouldn’t they have actually had mouth-mouth contact? Women kiss for Howard all the time. This helps illustrate that in our society sometimes “straight” men make fun of being gay when they want attention; whereas women may actually experiment with same-gender kissing for attention. It was kinda funny, though…
In today’s New York Times’ article, “In Tangle of Young Lips, a Sex Rebellion in Chile,” it was revealed that teenagers in Chile are using social networking sites to arrange huge make-out “poncea” parties. Well, actually, the NYT is a little late to the party: Newsweek covered the same story six months ago. Also, the NYT story did not emphasize that the subculture of teens who call themselves “Pokemones” — the majority of those at these parties — do not represent the majority of Chilean teens. Chile has been known as a country with conservative policies, little sex education, and high priced birth control. Recent research has shown that Chileans are striving to improve sexual issues in their country. Much help is needed. The average age of first intercourse in Chile is about 17 — but studies have found that adolescents in Chile do not have the sexual knowledge or attitudes to help them use contraception and condoms for HIV prevention. It would be great if the widely read NYT story brings attention to teens in need of education and health care. Yet my concern is that the style of the article seems highly exploitative. They describe the hot action at the parties as follows, “boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings. A tangle of lips and tongues and hands, all groping and exploring.” Plus, a sexy slide show accompanies the online version of the article. Rather than promote the need for sex education in Chile, the NYT’s sexualized images of topless Chilean teens titillate and exploit an adolescent subculture. That slide show could even potentially do harm by alerting American “sex tour” operators to add these Chilean teen make-out parties to their itinerary.
The New York Times Freakonomics Blog today is running my article about the future of sex.
You can read my latest article in today’s New York Times Freakonomics Blog. It’s about the past, present and future of sex. They rounded up seven people “who have thought a good bit about sex and society” to discuss the topic in their Freakonomics Quorum. The others in the group are Taggert Brooks, Andrew Francis, Steve Landsburg, Rita, Pepper Schwartz, and Wendy Shalit. I also posted my piece alone in my Articles page on my website. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on it, so feel free to contact me here with your comments.
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