Free lube!

Well, you'll get free lube if you participate in an Indiana University study about women, the sexin', and the lube (repeatedly called "sexual lubricant", which makes me laugh because I'm 12 on the inside).

From the study description:

Women who decide to participate in this study will be asked to complete a detailed questionnaire about themselves, their sexual attitudes and their sexual behaviors. After completing this initial questionnaire, we will ask you to come to our study website every day for a period of five (5) weeks and answer a brief questionnaire about your sexual activities and any products used during sexual activity that day. We will send participants an e-mail reminder each day for five weeks. We will also send all participants three (3) small bottles of a personal lubricant via U.S. mail. After participants receive these lubricants in the mail, we will ask them to use these lubricants for sexual activity (either alone or with a partner) for two specific weeks during the study and then to stop using the lubricants for the remainder of the study.

And then you'll get a reward! Who doesn't love a nice reward?

In addition to the free lubricants that you will receive during the study, women who complete the study will also receive a gift card.

Free lube! Gift cards! I'm so there! Doitdoitdoit!

The truth about something or other, but it's not sex

I'm watching The Truth About Female Desire right now. If the intro is to be believed, then I am in for some kind of campy '70s sitcom about SECKS. There are lots of female symbols floating around, horn music, and various doin'-it-related words rolling about behind photos of the cast members. One of the words? Clitoris. It's really the only one you need to know.

The music is so gawdawful and porny.

The voiceover promises a wide variety of sexual orientations (including "swingers"!) in the group of 8 women who make up the study group. Remains to be seen, but all of the participants are young, thin, and feminine. It's like The Real World, even down to a pimped out apartment, but In The Interest Of Science.

Next: drunken conversations about sex! The introduction of the study team from the Kinsey Institute! The shocking revelation that sexuality studies don't really care too much about women's sexuality! Or even women!

Speaking of women, we have:

- Amy: 23, straight, busted grill, haver of dirty public bus sex.

(And this is intercut with an experiment involving mapping the clitoris with a cool, underwater camera. Surprise: sometimes it's a really tough thing to find.)

- Hannah: 25, straight, sneaky masturbator.

(And here the doctor who is performing the experiment refers to the clitoris as "the part." Nice!)

Blahblahblah, swelling, clitoris, swelling, image maps. Penis drawings. Blahblahblah.

Lots of stupid, probably drunken conversations about heterosex. There is an annoying American women who is annoying and American. Aging vaginas. "Vulva." Plaster casts of vajayjays done by a super-cute, punk rock sculptor.

- Julie: 23, straight, constantly horny but incredibly boring.

- Carlene: 38, straight, married, 5 billion children.

Porn! Women like it! Or not! Carlene? Realllllly likes porn.

Revelation: women are sometimes bisexual. The producers had to get the participants drunk to get them to admit this. Also, Kinsey scaling!

- Kaz: 22, lesbo with shocking lip piercing.

Second revelation: sometimes women get turned on by things that don't match their sexual orientation. Or their species. Just sayin'.

Carlene: kind of a whore.

Blahblahblah, fertility, attraction to men, blahblah, spotting attractiveness of men by touching, that thing about testosterone and finger length.

- Charlie: 26, straight. Surprise.

- Emma: 26, straight. Yawn.

Masculinity, testosterone, symmetry. Kaz shows a preference for masculine features, and we go into some kind of effed up bullshit about gender. The word "femme" shows up.

Inhibition! Fantasy! Dirty porno music! Alcohol: it makes the ladies into whores.

- Andrea: 28, and I'm gonna guess heterosexual.

Drugs! Pheromones! Sexual depressants! Evil trickery regarding the placebo effect.

Submission fantasies ... gah.

Annnnnd: part 4, orgasms. The lesbian has the best description EVER. G-Spot! Ejaculation! Hollllllaaaaaa!

--

Well, there you go. 4 hours of a rigid documentary about sex condensed into a nice wall of text. If you've ever had sex with women, or thought about having sex with women a lot, or have read a book about women who have sex, or ARE a woman: total waste of 4 hours of your life.

10xfast: watchin' the bad documentaries so you don't have to do it yourself!

Happily Ever After

If you're anything like me, you're ecstatic when you come across a women-owned/run sex toy shop you haven't seen or heard of on the Web, for many, many reasons:

1. D.C. seems to lack in the women-centric kick-ass sex shop category.
2. Online, you can look, look, look at all the nifty vibrators as long as you want.
3. Picking out gift packs can take a long time, and I get antsy when salesclerk -- however friendly, innovative and educated they might be -- are drifting in and out of my space with those eager beaver eyes.
4. Picking out a special surprise may take visiting one, two or thirteen different sites. With Firefox, I can tabulate each sex shop site and compare prices! (I sound like my mother, only use "sale item" in the place of "sex shop site.")
5. Finding out that there is a site out there that offers vegan-friendly tasty tattoos? Priceless.

Early to Bed is a Chicago-based shop and they offer everything for the beginner to the pro. They even have a blog! Some love from Ladies Who Munch to the Early to Bed Blog!

Now, who wants to throw a lesbian-orientated sex toy party? Takers?