Dear Abby, can we handle America’s next most influential ethicist? A long, worthy story on the tough love of Dan Savage. San Francisco proposes to ban circumcision. Sex-selective abortion are on the rise in India and five Texas sluts worth admiring. It’s all so last week: sex news you may have missed.

• Five Texas sluts worth admirin’. (HoustonPress)
• Dan Savage has become one of America’s most important ethicists. Are we screwed, or better at screwing? (WashingtonMonthly)
• Is the proposed San Francisco ban on circumcision constitutional? (Opposingviews)
• In India, aborting second-child female fetuses is one way to try for a boy. (WashingtonPost)
• A tale of two rape charges. (Reuters)
• Meet Baby Storm. How long can it grow up gender-less? (Time)
• Hooray! Majority of Americans believe same-sex relationships are morally acceptable. (TNRCM)
• Will California lend a hand in requiring the use of condoms on porn sets? (NYDailyNews)
• Call it crazy. Crazy! Mother charged for agreeing to sell her 13-year-old daughter’s virginity. (ABC)
• Six months later: Kim Kardashian is engaged. Is she going too far, too fast? (HollywoodLife)

I’m leaving town today, and won’t be back until Monday. From this statement, you should deduce the following:

1. there will not likely be a so last week post on Monday. In fact, let’s make it Tuesday and call it even.
2. there will be no other postings from me between now and then.

I now leave you with the latest hot sox podcast. It may not be up on itunes until next week, but don’t let that stop you from listening. I fell in love with the adorableness that is Sex Nerd Sandra many months, make that at least a year ago, at the Pleasure Chest in LA. In the past two years she’s come far (and come a lot, buh-duh-bump), and this sexy nerd is heading for the big time, I’m talking big, huge, throbbing time, no not really, I’m talking this girl is going to help take sex talk (even more!) mainstream. She’s about to start her own podcast for nerdist (I know it will be rad) and her writing is intelligent and full of the type of words that make you giggle. I feel like we’re on the same page in a lot of ways, and after talking with Sandra, I can happily declare “I’m a sex nerd too!”

We chat about what we both love to talk about most (sex!) as well as delve into masturbation (pillow humping!), sex nerdism, polyamory, and the clitoris. I promise you won’t want to miss this musical-less, but jam-packed podcast.

Listen now: Nerding Out: Sex Style

See Sex Nerd Sandra next Tuesday at Sexy Tales and Other Intimate Acts

Buy Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

It had been years before I realized I had left my specially picked (not the one above) Simply Blown green glass dildo behind. Back in the day, before Simply Blown had as many styles and colors to choose from, I was offered my very own glass didlo. I had never owned my own molten crystal glass dildo (that word molten makes me wet), and the thought that I could own it in green! green! made me very happy. Although I guess not that happy, since years went by, and I forgot all about it. Then, about three weeks ago I thought, “where is that glass dildo that those guys at Simply Blown gave me. I have no idea.”  It had been years since I’d seen it, and I have never even used it. Thoughts are powerful and just last week, whilst podcasting at my dear friend Fifi Jingles home, we started to talk about her arsenal of sex toys. She offered to show me her stash, and right there, smack dab in the middle of her stash, she pulled out a Simply Blown green glass dildo. She explained how I left it at her house for fear of breakage (silly fear, it’s a tough toy) and I had forgotten to come and reclaim it.

So reclaim I did. Last night I spent some quality time with the toy, and all I can say is WOW. I’m not normally an insert-something-inside-myself-while-masturbating masturbator, but that’s about to change. Using the glass toy really helped me learn about the build up of my arousal process. And I ejaculated a ton. That was fun. Watch more, and then go get your own glass dildo. Simply Blown makes lots of shapes and sizes (and toys for your bum too).

Watch the video on my youtube channel (I can’t get it to embed here anymore, why?!!!!)

Buy Simply Blown glass here too.

From the book Hot Sex: Over 200 Things You Can Try Tonight!

I’m having a realization these days about what I think about mainstream porn. It’s not that I don’t get why people enjoy mainstream erotica, or that I don’t approve of people making it, or watching it. I do get it and I approve of this message. Heck, I’ve worked for Candida Royalle and I made my own stuff , and even the work I did isn’t the kind of porn I watch. That’s because I don’t watch most porn. I realize most porn, the more mainstream sex stuff, it doesn’t do much for me. That, of course, doesn’t mean you can’t have hot sex as a result of watching porn, or as a result of reading it. You can, and lots of people do. Honestly, with the exception of a few videos, and a handful of pictures, porn isn’t what gets me going. Kissing is.

That being said, I love when CNN actually does a useful article on getting tested for sexually transmitted infections by talking about getting tested for STD’s (I prefer the term STI’s) in porn. I do believe that in porn, on the spot STI testing should be an option, and that’s the one thing that’s always bugged me about the standard 30 day testing “rule” in porn. This sort of scenario. What happens if Porn Star 1, let’s call him Hot Rod, after being tested on day one, Hot Rod heads out on a drunken sexfest and, over the course of the next 29 days, has interactions with 43 orifices. Hot Rod waits until he has to be tested again to find out he has not one, but two, STI’s that’s he’s contracted over the course of the last 29 days of sexing and festing. He didn’t have to figure this out for 29 days and he now has possibly passed his STI’s on to 43 other orifices. There’s no guarantee that this sort of thing won’t, or doesn’t, happen.

It has to happen.

I think most porn stars would call it an occupational hazard.

On the positive Pollyanna side (Pollyanna, a name by the way, that was given to me in college for a stoner game that my friends and I used to play), the porn community, and I’m talking the LA porn community, is not as large as one might think, and therefore news of a regular STI maker would definitely raise eyebrows.

So, if we look at that actors in porn get tested more often than people not in porn, then we can say, in porn they encourage, and act, on STI testing. Even if they are having more sex than your average frat boy, and not all of them are, there are lots of people out there not using condoms and not getting tested who don’t get paid to have sex. Of course porn testing should be mandatory, but so should testing of sexually active, non-monogamous regular “civilians” (a term used in porn to describe anyone not in porn) too. And let this serve as a reminder that we all need to be tested and on top of our sexual health.

And yes, porn valley is just one type of porn, and like I said, not the type that does it for me. Of course there are other alternatives, or as I prefer to refer to these types of erotica as, broader options.

In this week’s sex news: masturbation in the workplace and why it’s not against the law for one Brazilian woman. The Cambodian sex industry examined - how bad is bad? Atheists. Catholics. Being Takei is so gay. It’s all so last week, sex news you may have missed.

• Brazilian woman legally entitled to masturbate at work. (AOL)
• A brief tour of the Cambodian sex industry. (Slate)
• Atheists have better sex lives then the plagued-by-guilt religious folk. (DailyMail)
• The devil made ‘em do it. Catholic sex abuse. (WashingtonPost)
• If you can’t say gay, say takei. (NBCLA)
• Botox and better butts. The messages little girls get. (RHRealityCheck)
• Nicole Daedone and the slow sex movement. (Salon)
• Harvard.edu: An ivy league pornographic playground? (ZDNet)
• Rape, pregnancy and an unexpected apology.  (MSNBC)
• Add sperminator to the list. Schwarzenegger love child revealed. (ABC)
• Why people are committed to commitment. What makes relationships last? (PsychCentral)

The lowdown on today’s Hot Sox Podcast:

Fifi’s arsenal of sex toys

The box above belongs to Hot Sox regular, Fifi Jingles. Fifi, a former sex industry PR person turned yoga instructor, uses some of these toys more often than others. Her favorite dildo is by Tantus, a silicone dildo and butt plug company specializing in toys like this and this. I LOVE the pure wand, the stainless steel barbell that’s shaped like a big nose ring (the tip of the red penis is pointed right at it). Anyway, the podcast isn’t mostly about sex toys, it’s not mainly about anything except everything to do with sex, well, not everything but different things. It’s about sex, and dating because those are two things both Fifi and I like to talk about. And since Hot Sox podcast is always on the move, today’s broadcast is live from Fifi’s bedroom. In The Love Sex Connection, we talk about our personal growth, needing verse wanting love, polyamory, masturbation and Fifi’s arsenal of sex toys. Plus, sage advice, honest conservation and a run down of something sexy to do in every month of 2011. I know you want to know more.

Listen to the podcast now: The Love Sex Connection and that’s not an itunes link because I learned how to link to it otherwise, so YaY! - so no more having to go through itunes to listen to me!

Question: I would love to explore my kinky side, but can’t fork out lots of money for rope and paddles. Any ideas of what I can use around the house instead?

Answer: Thanks to my friend Jaeleen over at Bondassage, I’ve started to think of the whole house as a one-stop shop loaded with erotic accessories.

The kitchen is a fabulous place for kinky goodness and you can likely use things you already have, as long as you use your kitchen for more than take out. A fork can make for a great pointy or skin-raking device. A silicone spatula, or any spatula really, can be used for spanking. You can also try a wooden spoon. If you’ve got an apron you can use that to carry your implements around (naked underneath of course), or use it to tie someone up. Or use a men’s tie for bondage. A whisk can also make for interesting sensation play.

A clean Feather Duster can be fun for soft sensations, and an electric toothbrush (the inexpensive, disposable kind) works well on nipples and other erogenous areas.  A sleep mask is great for removing sight from the equation, and there’s a whole lot more you can feel when you can’t see.

This list is small, and just a start, but I’m sure you can figure out other objects that will work now too. Be creative, clean your implements and enjoy the experimentation.

Since this month is national masturbation awareness month, I’m foregoing a video review to bring you two great bits of masturbation material. But before I begin, my dear friend and fabulous sex educator Cory Silverberg, sends out a weekly newsletter, and this week, he begins by saying something worth repeating, or more accurately, copying verbatim, since the message is one I need to remember as well. He writes:

“It’s a common and understandable mistake that the word “sex-positive” somehow should me being positive about sex. But sex isn’t a discrete experience that one can evaluate as positive or negative. Even when we’re talking about something that appears concrete, like a physical sexual encounter between two or more people, there’s no simple way of naming or knowing what each person experiences, or what the encounter itself produces. So we need to ask. We need to stop thinking that we know what sexuality feels like or is like for other people. We need to remember that when we say things like “sex is beautiful” or “masturbation is great” these seem like cruel or ignorant lies to many people for whom the opposite has only ever been true. It seems like strange advice from someone who makes a living talking and writing about sex, but if you really want to help, if you really want to learn, what you need to do is listen to others.”

That being well said, check out Cory’s, “The Rights and Privileges of Masturbation” about analyzing your masturbatory practices and then being able to celebrate masturbation your own way. And then, go check out the Sex Positive Photo Project (there’s that “sex-positive” word again), where photographer Shilo McCabe continues to capture the faces and masturbatory practices of the diverse group of human beings who identify as part of her sex positive community in San Francisco. It’s a beautiful site dedicated to the feel-good reasons why sex-positive SF’ers masturbate. The photos are diverse, capturing fun, honesty and even hints of shame, and while I truly enjoy the appreciation and exploration of self-love, the truth is, I can’t quite shake what Cory said above.

As a sex educator, I seek to teach about pleasure, and I often forget about those in pain. Those who can’t touch themselves for some psychological, moral, physical reasons and who suffer everytime they hear things like “masturbation feels good,” and “it’s good for you.” It doesn’t mean I don’t think masturbation has amazing results it does, but it means I have to look at how I discuss masturbation for everyone. The last thing I want to do is make someone feel wrong for how they feel about touching themselves, even if touching yourself feels right to me.

Illustration by Benjamin Wachenje

I am not a professionally performing seductress, the kind who moves slowly around a pole, sliding, twisting and turning in a slew of mind-bending formations. I’m not the girl who gets on a lap and works it like she’s churning butter. I get in my head, and out of my body, as I witnessed in the series of classes I recently group-on‘ed at a pole dancing studio in LA. I tried making love to the pole, but couldn’t even wrap my head around the sexy walk, a trailing of left foot then right foot, accentuated with a swaying of the hips, that is the recommended gait of said instructor of pole dance. That and you need more than a bit of arm and leg strength to build up to powerful pole performance. I’m convinced I could have done it (and done it well) but for additional obstacles (besides my brain). One, the pole is cold and hard and I like warm and soft, and two, I hate wearing heels.

You don’t need heels to sexy walk, but heels make walking sexy. They accentuate legs and wearing them may even improve pelvic floor muscle strength. I loathe heels, can’t stand in them for more than a few seconds and would rather find a pair of combat boots for sex appeal. Yes, I’m making excuses for thinking I suck at pole dancing, but it allows me to figure out places I don’t suck. Places that I can still feel sexy without fear of the pole. Stripping is one of those ways. It’s sexy. If you’re with someone that’s going to get you naked anyway, it’s another way to get naked. It’s about slowing……it………down. Even slower than that. And making eye contact, which keeps you in connection with your partner. It’s way more about connection with yourself (if you do it in a mirror), or your partner, than it is about a pole.

Don’t get me wrong, pole dance is sexy when it’s done by other people and I get to admire their strength and talent. And stripping is sexy, when it’s done by anyone confident enough to own it. I like the personal”ness” of stripping too. How many pole dancers do you know who only pole it up for one person? Pole dancing can feed off a larger audience. Stripping can to, but it also makes sense to do it to connect with one other person. In pole dancing you connect with the pole.

So, why did I go from pole dance to stripping? Because it’s hot sex on tuesday and so today’s hot sex tip is move your body to feel sexy. Whether through dancing, stripping, pole dancing, bellydancing, it doesn’t matter. However you groove, let your body make sexy talk.

The biggest difference between pole dancing and stripping is that one requires you to swing on a pole and the other (may) require you to sit on one. Other than that, it’s all in how you move.

Pre-order the book: Hot Sex: Over 200 Things You Can Try Tonight!

Porn verse golf, is one addiction truly worse than the other? Sex and power in the military. Sex toy sales to match smartphone sales in the next decade and sex on the brain: the look, and feel, of orgasm. It’s all in So Last Week, sex news you may have missed.

• Pop culture academic Catherine Lumby writes a thought-provoking piece about porn and asks why we aren’t worried about men’s golf habits? (HomePageDaily)
• Military culture teaches us to suppress the rape of it’s own. (USAToday)
• Sex on the brain: Orgasms unlock altered consciousness. (NewScientist)
• What media teaches us about sexual health. (HuffPost)
• Sales of sex toys to match smartphones in the next ten years. (DailyMail)
• Shere Hite reports on the state of feminism and sexuality, and how someone should make a movie of her life. (Guardian)
• They hypocrisy of Bin Laden’s porn collection. (Examiner)
• Northwestern cancels human sexuality class after live sex show debacle. (ChicagoTribune)
• The unraveling of the Schwarzenegger-Shriver marriage. (LATimes)
• Not for the faint of heart: A Serbian movie featuring extreme torture porn. Too view or not too view? (Gothamist)