What Race Should My Sperm Donor Be? (CNN)

My first thought was to have that multi-child egg-planting procedure so I could have four or five or six babies of various races. I don’t want to get, you know, racial.

But then, why not just go mixed-race? One child, a real mongrel. What’s a better word for that? Cur? Half-breed? Mutt?

Just got my own DNA readout:

23% Abzhui

12% Sangtam

34% Kittian

18% Arbëreshë

13% Tai Lü

What? Did they just take my money and make up words? Look at me. Do I look Tai Lü to you?

So I described the kind of man I want. Big, you know? I told them, you know, I like it kind of rough. Then they told me that the man doesn’t, you know, literally do the deed. I won’t even be awake!

So I just gave them my rules:

1. Don’t give me the cheapest or the most expensive. Cheap, you get what you pay for. Top of the line, you get lots of extras you don’t need. Give me the most economical (second cheapest).
2. I buy fresh. No cans. No frozen.
3. I’ll have what she had. The one driving that red beemer.
4. I don’t mind drive-through.

Fifty Shades of Teenage Gray

I’m grounded for the day because my boyfriend got me back home last night after midnight. My mom threw a fit. She does not understand what’s going on between Marcus and me and I am not going to try and explain it to her. I can’t even explain it to Marcus.

So now I’m here alone and I thought I’d count the shades we’ve got up in here:

18 lamp shades

11 window shades on the house’s sunny side

5 pairs of sunglasses

6 patches of shade under the shade trees

2 ghosts – Granny and Pop-Pop

3 more ghosts – the cats Fishy, Whiskers and Whiskers Junior

1 “shades of all the things I dream up to pass time!”

4 shades (Mom, Dad, my brother and me) (non-PC term but I’m black so I can use it)

…and what do you know, that’s 50 shades.

Ask Sister Theresa: Can This Marriage Be Saved?

Dear Sister Theresa,

We are five lovers, recently married in Goosefeather, California.

We are:

Carl,  assigned sex = male, gender identity = male, sexual orientation = cis

Eunice, assigned sex = female, gender identity = female, sexual orientation = cis

Nancy, assigned sex = male, gender identity = female, sexual orientation = cis

Tom, assigned sex = female, gender identity = male, sexual orientation = cis

Brad, assigned sex = male, gender identity = male, sexual orientation = gay

Our problem is that Brad, our only non-cis marriage member, is having trouble fitting in. Or adjusting, might be a better way to put it.

We have “hit the social scene” searching for a solution and have found 4 new potential marriage partners:

Paul,  assigned sex = male, gender identity = male, sexual orientation = bi

Cheryl, assigned sex = female, gender identity = female, sexual orientation = lesbian

Lucy, assigned sex = male, gender identity = female, sexual orientation = intersex

Gordon, assigned sex = female, gender identity = male, sexual orientation = polysex

Do you think Brad may find a more complete true-love connection if we add these prospects to our marriage?

Sister Theresa responds:

Wow. You guys have got me in a bit of a pickle here. When I was Brother John, I had some strong ideas on this subject, but now that I’m Sister Theresa, I’m lucky to get my wimple on straight in the morning.

Why British Women Are Insecure About Their Nipples

First, a salute to the Oxford team that has performed this valuable study. I have been interested in nipples for years. It’s more than a hobby for me. Some might say I’m obsessed.

Whatever the case, at last we have some fresh, new, hard-won data.

The research team investigated the nipples of ten thousand women, with a few cross-dressers thrown in. This was not some casual study. There were metrics.

Each set of nipples was measured and graded according to four separate attributes: size, three-dimensional shape, colour, and aspect. A scale from one to ten was used to supply a value for each attribute. No specific meaning was assigned to any particular nipple code, although on my visit to the university, I did hear 3-1-2-10 referred to as “angelic” once or twice, and 8-6-9-2 as “befitting a chimp.” Just normal, casual, ongoing theorizing.

The researchers did not want the women to catch any vagrant expressions on their faces as they took the measurements. For this reason they all wore identical rubber pullover masks in the shape of the current Prime Minister.

With a  woman’s nipples coded, the researcher would remove the mask and ask the woman to please make herself decent.

“I’ve seen your nipples,” the researcher would say.

“Oh, yes?” was the typical response.

“You may say that I’ve graded them,” the researcher would say.

“Have you then?” the woman would say.

“I have indeed. Do you know what I think?”

“Why, no. I haven’t a clue.”

“You haven’t a clue? You know your own nipples, I suppose?”

“Of course I do. I’ve had four children and two husbands.”

“How would you describe them, in so many words?”

“Well, my youngest has red hair…”

“Your nipples, I mean. How would you describe your nipples? I’ve coded them here in my notebook,  you know, but now I want to know what you think of them. Are you proud of your nipples? Have you named them? Do they reflect your personality? Do they have a mind of their own?”

“My word!”

“You seem unsure of yourself. Are you insecure when the conversation turns to your nipples?”

“What’s that?”

“Just my phone. Would you unbutton again for a moment, please.”

“It has a camera, your phone?”

“It does indeed. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get a quick shot of your breasts. Just for our clinical debriefing in the pub tonight… Hey! Don’t do that. Insecure, that’s what you are, all right. What a pity.”

Scientists Want To Know: Are Men More Attracted to Women With Redder Genitalia?

Pretty in Pink

What does the color of our genitals have to do with evolution? Scientists Want To Know.

[Headline and subheads, Slate]

10 facts based on my team’s experiments and studies:

1. When the male member is bright red, in all or in part, the female is not attracted to it. Other unpopular colors: blue, mauve, and green.

2. In the female, flourescent purple and green pubic hair is becoming increasingly popular.

3. Identifying oneself as a scientist does not gain one automatic access to a woman’s genital region. In fact, even saying that you’re a doctor doesn’t work well on a bus or subway car.

4. If a woman’s careful rouging of her genitals causes the couple to be late to the ballgame, more harm is done than good.

5. When using a standard color chart to measure and record a woman’s hue “down there,” standard lighting is required for consistent results. Holding a flashlight in your teeth and going up under the skirt will not provide a true reading.

6. Some colors are scarier than others. A lot scarier.

7. 0.4%  of women demonstrate a “chameleon” effect. That is, the color of the intruding male organ will cause the female genitals to change to a matching color. In many cases, when the color goes black, it won’t go back.

8. Some scientists claim that the sense of smell here is more important than the sense of sight.

9. If you’re paying $100 for it, as opposed to $10, you’ll probably appreciate its color a lot more, no matter what it is.

10. 71% of the scientists on my team recorded incorrect data because their glasses steamed up.

What Two-Thirds Of Wives Admit About Sex

[Headline, Huffington Post]

Which two-thirds of wives, you ask. Is it the two-thirds who aren’t like your own wife? Because we know that there are a lot of women out there to whom we aren’t married. Sometimes, just for fun, we pretend in our imaginations that we are married to one of these women. Such little dreams rarely include anything like mowing the lawn or fishing another chore out of the job jar.

Or is it the third of wives who are like your wife, plus a fourth third who are even worse than the other thirds? That is, will your wife and Angelina Jolie admit the same thing when it comes to sex? Sex with you, that is. They say that Angelina will always be kind – consider all those adopted children – always be kind, unlike her curmudgeonly father, that old poop. I did like him in Runaway Train, though.

The funny thing is, there are those guys out there who are always saying, “Come on, you know you want it. Admit it.” So it’s natural that you would think, “Yeah, two-thirds of women (excluding your wife) really want it. They should admit it.” Or, always the contrarian, perhaps you think, “Hah, they don’t really want it and if they had any guts, they’d admit it, instead of telling me they had a long day and they just want to read for a minute and then turn out the lights and go to sleep – quit pawing me for God’s sake.”

That’s what you’d think, being a guy. But you would be wrong. There is a whole lot more to sex than, you know, sex. It’s not all about your double bed, after the kids are asleep, with the lights off, after you’ve taken a shower and brushed your teeth and got a picture of one of those other two-thirds of wives firmly fixed in your mind. When they’re alone, you don’t think wives talk about butterfly kisses? Lingerie? That time in high school when they did the guy in the ferris wheel?

The bottom line is this: what women want and think and feel, especially about you, you don’t want to know.

Finally, A Movie About Circumcisions

[Headline, Huffington Post, 01/30/12]

This blog existed, originally, to host movie reviews. I expected to write many a word about foreskins. I was ready to write about afterskins as well, if any such should be found and filmed.

Imagine my disappointment at the dearth of material. How many reviews can you write about Moolaadé? And that’s female circumcision, which is not what I had in mind at all.

Eventually then, this site became a hangout for soreheads who wanted to ban circumcision, and for circumcision queens (don’t ask). Scuffles broke out. A pecking order developed, based on foreskin square-footage. It was an outrage.

So I cut and ran. I sliced off that part of the blog.

Sure, when a movie like “Neanderthal Cut” came out, I spilled a little ink over its depiction of Mankind’s first (inadvertent) circumcision, by chert. And “The Shame and the Glory,” about the artist Graarbeaart, who would paint only ripe tomatoes and the circumcised penis.

Are circumcisions making a comeback? They were so big during the silent-movie era! Can this blog finally stop temporizing and take the subject in hand? I’ve heard that the combination of IMAX and 3D has many directors interested in movies that compare and contrast the circumcised and uncircumcised member. Polling as audiences exit the theater indicate that 85% of men are indifferent to the images, cut or uncut. The other 15% have strong feelings. Matters are more confused with female audience members. Confronted with a 50-foot “thing” in its original wrapping, many were not sure just what they were looking at. Whatever it was, however, most agreed that it wasn’t worth the $14 ticket.

Why Strong Women Make Better Wives

[Headline, Huffington Post]

My wife asked me to twist off the lid of a jar because she couldn’t. I couldn’t either. We fished out the lid-opener tool and used that.

What if my wife had been strong enough – or at least didn’t have arthritis in her hands – to just open the jar? What if I had been strong enough? Later I got mad at a guy in the fast lane and totalled our car.

Conclusion: strong is good.

My wife asked me to “squeeze her as hard as I could.” She said, laughingly, that I could probably crack her ribs if I tried hard enough. I gave her a good squeeze. She frowned. “Is that all you’ve got?” she said. “My personal trainer could squeeze me so hard my shorts would fall off.”

Conclusion: strong would be good for me, but not so much for the personal trainer.

At the company Christmas party, I had one or two nogs too many and when the CEO’s executive assistant strayed under the mistletoe, I gave her a big smooch. She was not strong enough to resist. On the other hand, my wife put a hammerlock on me that left my arm numb for a week.

Conclusion (times two); strong is not good.

My wife and I took a test that appeared in Parade Magazine. The results indicated that she had the strength of her convictions, whereas I was a boob. I told her that if she didn’t increase my allowance, based upon the fact that I needed more money to keep me going  since I wasn’t too bright, I would divorce her. She was able to call my bluff and as punishment, refused to give me a cent for two weeks. I had to run a tab at the bar and without a dollar bill in my hand, the pole dancers wouldn’t come near me.

Conclusion: strong is not good.

Final conclusion: strong is good. My wife told me to write that.

5 Must-Know Facts About Sex

[Headline, Huffington Post, 01/11/12]

1. It’s ok to mix sex and food. For some, it is essential. (a) Is it possible to cook a good dinner, including hor dourves and dessert, while having sex? Sure. We won’t get graphic here; just know that it’s no problem. Care is necessary so that no one gets scalded or cut. (b) Comfort eating can be a big help during the rigors of intercourse. (c) Don’t snap your gum.

2. It’s ok to spread out the act, timewise. Pace yourself if you want to. Attenuate the friction by taking the whole day, say, on and off, to complete your business. What’s the rush? You’ve got the rest of your life, unless you’re on a date. Get started, take a break for Kelly Ripa and bagels, re-engage, argue about your finances, lose interest, do a little blow to rekindle, re-enact that time you were both unfaithful but now can laugh about it (only if you’re really high), and so on. There is no shame in temporarily wandering off, unless it’s to a strip club.

3. It’s not ok to call it sex when it’s really something else, like, say, exercise. Don’t count out loud, as if you’re doing pushups. Don’t play that little game where one of you chases the other, both of you shrieking with laughter, and you wrestle her to the ground, if that chase runs longer than three hours or twelve miles, whichever comes first. Normal relations never include lifting your partner repeatedly over your head.

4. It’s not ok if either of the two partners in the act does not realize that it is actually going on.

5. An exception to #4: If you can only enjoy sexual congress when asleep, it’s ok to tell your mate “Good night, Honey. Knock yourself out.”

Saudi Report Claims Women Who Drive Will Have Sex

[headline, Huffington Post]

I was in a cab last night. The neighborhood convenience store is only four blocks away, but I have a sprained ankle so I couldn’t make it there on foot. All I wanted was a six pack of Tecate and a bottle of Tequila Don Julio Añejo to put in the beer, but when you can’t walk for free, you’ve got to pay for the ride (Life rule, which applies to women and gambling, as well as transportation). Otherwise, you’re dry all night, like in Saudi Arabia, where drinking and women drivers are banned.

The taxi driver was a woman. I gave her one block of small talk and then asked if she would have sex with me. “I’m driving, aren’t I?” she said.

So the question was, should I wait out the three remaining blocks, then hobble into the store and get my brew and tequila, and then hobble back out and have Trudi (for that was her name) drive me home, before we had sex? Or should I put off my purchase and just have her pull over in front of the Robinson’s house and join me in the back seat? In Saudi Arabia, Abdullah would be driving me to a chicken fight while I toked on Turkish hash in the back seat. No tough decisions necessary.

I believe in restraint, so I told Trudi I was going to buy my drinks first. I could tell she was disappointed by the way she gripped her gear shift. She told me that she had got behind the wheel for the first time at the age of fifteen, and had had her first child nine months later. When we got to my place, I asked her to come in and have a beer with me and then we’d retire to the bedroom. She looked at me like I was crazy. “Get out of the car?” she said.