The Media on Sex

The vulture culture can’t leave alone the fact that Google’s executive chairman bought the penthouse of everyone’s dreams, a massive four-bedroom apartment with a private elevator. Surely this has nothing to do with the fact that Eric Schmidt might wish to entertain a sizable number of pertinent people when he’s in New York — no, no! Clearly he needs an enormous apartment to keep his affairs on the hush-hush.

The internet went into an uproar last week over reports of a man who’d been stung to death after attempting to “have sex with a hornets nest.” The story, which claimed that a man from the town of Ystad, Sweden, had died after receiving 146 hornet stings, including 54 to his genitals, turned out to be a hoax. But the use of insects for sexual purposes is no hoax. This post explores everything from penis enlargement to insect-related paraphiliae.

The message surrounding “panty gate” is clear: if you let your nine-year-old near “adult” undergarments, you’re going to turn her into an unrepentant sext-fiend, a modern (if digital) version of the town slut. It doesn’t even matter what kind of underwear Jenny Erikson buys her daughter — the mere fact that she is taking her into a Victoria’s Secret store is sufficient to turn her into a total nympho. Really?

So basically, according to Rush Limbaugh, seminars that are meant to educate people about how to lead informed, healthy and sexually satisfying lives are a secret ploy devised by a national conspiracy of liberal universities who are in cahoots with Big Tobacco. First orgies, then smokes! We couldn’t make this up even if we wanted to.

The Houston Press unceremoniously outted Sarah Tressler as a writer, adjunct professor and stripper, suggesting that she’s only doing what she’s doing because she wants a book deal and a movie made about her life. “It’s all pretty much what you’d expect,” he says. “Writing in the style that really, really wants to be described as ‘fearless’ and ‘intelligent’ and ‘funny’ and ‘sexy.'”

Sandra Fluke, who finally got her opportunity to share the views of Georgetown Law’s Students for Reproductive Justice, told those in attendance about the plight faced by women who need birth control not only to prevent pregnancy, but also to treat illness such as polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis. On his show, Rush Limbaugh responded that the only reason students care about contraception is because they’re oversexed.

Every year, the LA Weekly releases a sex issue. This year, their masterpiece about sex in Los Angeles is in the style of Chuck Palahniuk — if you gave him a tranquilizer and forced him to remain PG-13. We’re not sure if we’re thrilled or depressed.

The New York Times built on some of the points we made last week when we interviewed OhMiBod founder Suki Durham about the difficulties in running a small business when your niche is sexual pleasure.

On Tuesday, a naked man took off running on the 405 and later attacked a woman. Unfortunately, details of the attack were lost in the frenzy of news reports, which gave preference to amusing celebrity tweets detailing the situation as stars and well-known personages sat in their cars.

Pornography isn’t the problem, it’s a conduit. Through pornography, you are faced with desires with which one may not be comfortable, hence the response when the men in the article encounter women who enjoy these things and express them with them.