Wil Seabrook is a guy from my high school who has always been super talented. Back in school, my friends and I thought that he sounded like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam though he’s really come into his own since then and has developed a striking voice. He does great covers (my favorite was a cover of Sweet Jane that he did at an Earth Day celebration during my senior/his junior year) and he is very talented at writing original songs. He tends to self-finance his work (given that corporate funded music often sounds, well, "corporate") and, as such, he has recently offered to write original songs for people as a means of raising funds for a new project. I think it’s a great idea (imagine a song just for you to work out to, or just about you and your partner, or your family/kids) and wanted to share it with all of you. You can check out his web site here and read his email below:

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This was a recent iGoogle quote:

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
  - Aldous Huxley

But what if, like me and my colleagues, one is intellectual about sex? In other words, what if the thing that is "as interesting" as having sex is studying sex, talking about sex and/or writing about sex? When I learned that the vagina sits at roughly the same angle in most pre-menopausal women, I was thrilled beyond belief (I so enjoy learning about vaginas). Then there was the time that I learned about the average duration of contractions during male and female orgasm… or the days I have spent reading studies about prolactin release at the time of orgasm (which is related to feelings of satiation and contentment after sex, it seems) or oxytocin (the so-called "pair bonding hormone" which, with its release, is supposed to help human animals, like other animals, bond/feel closer). And, years ago, when I first learned about masturbation exercises to help men to improve their ejaculatory control and last longer during sex? It was, like, whoa there, tiger.

These have all been such exciting times for me! So what does that make me, aside from a total sex nerd?

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Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
  - Robert Frost

That’s an interesting interpretation of what it means to be educated. I would perhaps say that this reflects education, self-awareness and patience. Or maybe just education and patience, if to be educated also means to be educated in one’s own limits and sense of self and self-worth. I wonder… what types of sex news or information make you lose your temper or your self-confidence? Some people fall to pieces when they hear about rape, abuse or adultery. For others, it might be a fetish or monogamy or polygamy or a lawmaker who pretends to be against some sexual behavior only to be found out to be someone who privately takes part in that behavior.

In high school, I had an instructor (Russell Weatherspoon, one of the best I have come across) who taught me more about patience, self-awareness and being genuine than I was able to grasp at the time. I am still working on it now. He would seem to me to embody Frost’s interpretation of "education" though.

[Thanks again to my daily quotes oniGoogle for this gem.]

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Now THIS is fascinating. Defining something (like a video, magazine, etc) as "obscene" is often very challenging as the definition itself is vague and relies on what are described as "contemporary community standards". The "contemporary" part is key and explains how, for example, some of the nude magazines one might find in a convenience store today are not considered obscene, but would have been in the 1950s, perhaps.

Then there’s the issue of "community" - in many cases, what people say is offensive or obscene to them may actually be something that they like quite a lot in their own private time, but that they would never say publicly that they enjoy. Case in point: the various lawmakers who make statements or policies that seem to be against sex workers (such as prostitutes), against people who have sex outside of marriage, or against gay or lesbian individuals. And yet later on, it may turn out that they themselves either solicit sex workers, have marital affairs or have sex with members of their same sex. So that begs the question: how to get a better understanding of a community’s values or interests?

Enter Google. Some law professionals are suggesting that search engine terms may help to inform a community’s interests - for example, if a good number of people in a community search for information about orgies or swing clubs, then what does that say about the community and their standards? Interesting question. What do you think? Do Google search terms accurately reflect, or can they come close to informing (even if imperfectly) a community’s standards?

Read the full NY Times article here.

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Wow. Now here is an encouraging sing-a-long about testicular self-examination. It’s got some good information in it, aside from being funny. So men - check out your testicles. Do they look okay to you? Do you feel lumps or bumps that feel different or unusual to you? And those of you who have male partners - check out their testicles with either your fingers or your mouth (yes, really - it can be both fun and sexy) to promote the sexual health of your partner. And, of course, check out this video.

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