It provides all the benefits of early-onset dementia (mood swings! personality changes! lack of judgment!) while simultaneously allowing you to spend time with someone you may not recognize a few months from now.

As time passes, your crush will inevitably fade. You’ll stop idealizing your partner and start thinking of him as a person who has some flaws. If he’s basically a good guy, this is a positive development, one more step along the road to Creating a Healthy Relationship with Realistic blah blah Boundaries blah blah Suburbs blah Kids. But if he’s a freak…

Many of us are completely taken aback when our boyfriends reveal some hitherto unknown talent for Olympic-level douchery. But here’s the thing: almost inevitably, when a problem arises, it is related to something your dude already warned you about months ago. You just weren’t listening. Because you had Alzheimer’s.

Well, Alzheim no more! I’ve compiled a handy list of red flags: statements that, even in the throes of passionate week-and-a-half-old love, should make you take a second look at the person you’re dating.

#1:

HE SAYS: “I’m not really looking for a girlfriend.”

THAT MEANS: “I will never be your boyfriend.”

NOTES: Are you OK with never being his girlfriend? If so, mazel tov! If not, well… it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to be in a relationship. Don’t be that girl who thinks she can make a dude’s commitment issues disappear with her vagina.

#2:

HE SAYS: “Some people think I drink too much.”

THAT MEANS: “I need booze to live.”

NOTES: Yes, you’re in college, and everybody drinks. Drinking can be lots of fun. You know what’s not fun?

Being in a relationship with an addict. Think back to the most horrible child you ever babysat – the one who wouldn’t stop putting crayons up his nose, and threw a fit when you tried to stop him. It’s exactly like that, but for “crayons” read “cocaine,” and for “child” read “terrifying man-baby.” At every party, you’ll be the girl going, “honey, maybe it’s not good for you to have that fifteenth beer,” and he’ll be like, “don’t you try to change me,” and then he’ll throw up on you. Stop trying to take care of him and start looking for a guy who knows how to take care of himself.

#3:

HE SAYS: “My ex-girlfriend was such a bitch.”

THAT MEANS: “I am such an asshole to my girlfriends.”

NOTES: Yeah, things didn’t work out, and that’s rough, but the fact that he’s still talking crap about her indicates that he can be petty, resentful, and, frankly, a little trigger-happy when it comes to assigning blame – all qualities you will get to enjoy over the course of your doomed relationship. If you’re one of those girls who honestly believes that EVERYONE he has EVER dated is terrible, and that you are the ONLY non-psychotic female he’s ever touched (because you can save him, of course), well, enjoy it while it lasts. When you break

up, be prepared for people to start asking if you actually kill kittens for fun, or if it’s more of a religious thing.

#4:

HE SAYS: “My ex-girlfriend was so amazing.”

THAT MEANS: “Get ready for some unflattering comparisons!”

NOTES: Look, relationships are about three people – you, your boyfriend, and the Bavarian gymnast you eventually recruit for a three-way when things get boring. His ex might be a Pulitzer-winning underwear model who spends her weekends curing cancer and giving puppies to sad orphans, but unless she was hit by a bus and you met at her funeral, there is no reason to discuss her. He left her, she left him, whatever, it’s over, and you are what’s happening now. Don’t date someone who treats you like a runner-up.

#5:

HE SAYS: “I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you.”

THAT MEANS: There’s no verbal translation for this one. Just maniacal laughter and the sound of a revving chainsaw.

NOTES: Someone who is “afraid” that he’ll hurt you is, in fact, going to hurt you. He’s not even afraid of it. He’s actually bragging, in that “I am hot and losing my magical candy penis will no doubt crush your soul” way that dudes still, somehow, believe we find attractive. The “girls love bad boys” myth is the most pernicious excuse for assy male behavior in the history of space and time, and this line manages to be sublimely arrogant while simultaneously making no sense.

Why does he think he can hurt you? And, if he’s going to hurt you, why should you want to hang out with him? Here’s a hint: you don’t. Subject him to the No Sex Penalty immediately, and go find someone who does not aim to disappoint.

[SUPER AWESOME SCREEN CAPTURE taken from sydlexia.com. He is a bad dude! Do not be Player 2!]

Lots of people were inspired and made hopeful by Hillary Clinton’s relative success as a candidate, which was undeniably historic; even if you preferred Obama’s policies (as I did), Hillary Clinton made it possible to believe that someday, some woman might be elected President of the United States. Many of the same people were disappointed when Obama picked Joe Biden, Long-Time White Dude, to be his running mate. He could have chosen Sebelius! Hell, maybe he could even have chosen Clinton! What is Grandpa doing at the party?

Then, John McCain picked Palin as his VP.

You see, the press has been operating, for many months, under the following three assumptions: 1) women supported Hillary because she was a lady, 2) women who supported Hillary hated Obama, 3) these women (who, one must assume, are Democrats) are so fuzzy on the whole “politics” thing that they will vote against Obama even if it means supporting a candidate who has basically nothing in common with HRC, because women always vote with our emotions and simple logic (as in, “if you can’t vote for HRC, vote for the most similar candidate”) is beyond us.

If you believe all this, then nominating a lady on the Republican ticket was a super-savvy move! Women, the theory ran, would be so blinded by vagina that we’d rush to vote for McCain and his Special Lady Friend, and we’d ignore the fact that, in his years as a senator, McCain has persistently voted against the rights and interests of women.

So yes, at first, I was insulted. (“Does McCain really think I’m going to vote against my own interests because he’s picked Token McLadypants?”) Then, I was despondent. (“Oh, my god, people are going to fall for this, my right to choose is DOOMED.”) Now, however, as more and more information about Sarah Palin surfaces, I am absolutely ecstatic. Because Sarah Palin is her own – and her party’s – worst enemy.

Let’s pick an issue. A simple issue. Something like… oh, let’s say, birth control. Sarah Palin has stated publicly that she will not support education about birth control in public schools. Then, of course, her 17-year-old daughter got knocked up. Gosh, it sure seems like some education about birth control could have prevented that! Or perhaps, if her birth control failed, some EC – though it’s unlikely Palin would support that, since evangelical Christians (of which Palin is one) tend to believe that it constitutes abortion (which Sarah Palin is adamantly against) even though there’s no evidence that EC can terminate a pregnancy once it’s begun. Then again, by talking about “evidence,” we’re veering dangerously close to the realm of science, to which Sarah Palin is also opposed: she has supported teaching creationism (or, as it is also known, “Magic Jesus Studies”) in public schools, and doesn’t believe in global warming.

Let’s move on. Surely, since Sarah Palin is opposed to birth control and abortion, she’ll support teenage mothers who choose not to abort their unplanned pregnancies, right? I mean, they represent everything she’s working so hard to create! Wrong: Sarah Palin chose to cut funding to the Passage House center for teenage mothers. To be fair, she also cut funding to several other programs aimed at helping at-risk or troubled teenagers, and apparently did almost nothing to address the failing educational system of her state, so she seems to be against children in general – at least, once they’ve left the womb.

Voters will be glad to know that Palin isn’t wasting taxpayers’ money. Instead of spending it on things like education or support for people in need, she’s concentrating on the essentials, like shooting wolves from helicopters.

Yes.

That’s right.

Sarah Palin supported a government-funded program to SHOOT F–KING WOLVES FROM GODDAMN HELICOPTERS. You get in the helicopter, fly over some wolves, and shoot them. This is a favorite hobby of hers, apparently! She wants taxes to pay for it! You cannot make this up. This is one more step in Sarah Palin’s lifelong campaign against nature, which also includes a proposal to drill in wildlife reserves, and probably a “kicking baby squirrels to death” initiative we haven’t heard about yet.

So, yes: Sarah Palin hates children, animals, and knowledge, is wrong about pretty much everything, and is usually wrong in a spectacularly bizarre fashion. She’s probably her party’s greatest liability at the moment. However, even if she doesn’t become our next Vice President, there’s a chance that she could end up running a country. She has extended her support to the Alaskan Independence Party, which wants Alaska to secede from the United States, so she could very well wind up becoming the new Empress of Coldsvania. This, combined with drilling in wildlife reserves, means that in a few years, we may actually invade Alaska in order to get control of its oil.

We’ll have to watch out for the Alaskan army, though. They’ve got those wolf-shooting planes.

[IMAGE 1: The terrifying maw of Sarah Palin, taken from uberdesi.com]

[IMAGE 2: Sarah Palin wins yet another victory over the Godless caribou that plague our nation. Yes, it's really her. She's "pro-life," you see, which explains why she spends so much time killing things. Image from the Sydney Morning Herald, www.smh.com.au]

Here’s the deal: Camille Paglia was the Ann Coulter of the ‘90s. She wrote a book, Sexual Personae, which dealt “shockingly” with issues of sex and gender, in that it basically re-iterated the talking points of idiot wife-beaters across the nation. (Here’s a sample quote: “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.”) This book turned her into a popular media personality, and spawned countless essays and TV appearances; she was the go-to girl when conservatives needed to call upon some random crazy to bash women.

The peak of her career, of course, came when she took it upon herself to defend rapists, by saying that women who got drunk or wore skimpy clothes in the presence of men deserved to be sexually assaulted, because men simply could not be expected to contain their awesome sexual power. In her words, “woman’s flirtatious arts of self-concealment mean man’s approach must take the form of rape.”

However, I also enjoyed it when she claimed that women should be beaten for getting uppity (“much violence against women originates in emotional territory that they already command… women are in total, despotic control of their marriages”), and that feminism turned dudes gay (“middle-class men, neutered by office life and daunted by feminist rhetoric, are shrinking… male homosexuality is increasing, because masculinity is in crisis”). It is true, however, that nothing beats the opening chapters of Sexual Personae, in which she claims that only men are capable of creating civilization and technology, because… wait for it… they stand up to pee, and their urine streams help them transcend nature.

Yes, she actually says this.

No, I am not kidding.

Yes, it’s in the chapter where she says that women’s periods make them incapable of rational thought. Check it out.

Now, this is the thing, boys and girls: you cannot make a permanent career out of shocking people. Before long, you run out of obnoxious things to say (“only a dude could have created this Diet Coke, because it is so sparkling and transcendent – like male urine!”) or else people get tired of you. People got very tired of Paglia. The last time I saw her, she was on a Star Wars documentary special, claiming that “there is nothing sexier than Darth Vader.” This triggered, in any rational viewer, two responses: a) yes, there are lots of things sexier than Darth Vader, and b) why is that crazy old lady on my TV?

For that matter, why is she presenting lectures on feminism? It’s true: as reported by the infelicitously named journal Arion (say it aloud a few times), Paglia recently delivered a lecture on just such a topic. Her main thesis: that the feminist movement excludes dissenting points of view. Her main supporting point: no-one will accept her, Camille Paglia, as a feminist. Here’s a sample of her epic whine:

“When my first book, Sexual Personae, was published by Yale University Press in 1990, that 700-page tome on art and culture was compared by Gloria Steinem, who clearly had not bothered to read it, to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. When an op-ed I wrote on date-rape for New York Newsday in January 1991 was reprinted via syndication across the US, there was a huge reaction, including what was clearly an organized campaign of vilification: the president of my university in Philadelphia was besieged with calls from around the country calling for me to be fired from my teaching job.”

Yes, it’s true, Camille: when you say that women are incapable of creating culture, and stand up in support of rapists and wife-beaters, people might not think that you are a feminist! They also might not want you teaching their children, given the whole “rape is hot – GO DO SOME RAPING, KIDS” issue. (“You have to accept the fact that part of the sizzle of sex comes from the danger of sex. You can be overpowered.”) It’s not that we’re fascists; it’s simply that we tend to believe paid teaching professionals should not endorse crime, or, for that matter, blatant stupidity.

The fact is that feminism has one basic premise, which is that women deserve full equality and full human rights. If you agree with that, you are a feminist, and there is plenty of room within the movement for debate on how to achieve those goals. Paglia clearly doesn’t agree with it, and she never has – so her choice to carp about being “rejected” or “excluded” from the movement that she routinely attacks is just more baseless attention-mongering from a woman who’s built her career on empty ploys for notoriety (well, that and an apparently staggering love for men’s pee-streams).

I must say, though, that her lecture did impart one very astonishing fact: somehow, despite all reason, Camille Paglia still has a job.

Ladies, gentlemen: I am a slut.

No two ways around it: I like sex. I like sex with lots of different people. I like sex in lots of different ways. I like talking about sex. I like writing about sex. So I go out, and I hook up, and I do not always stick around to cuddle. This doesn’t mean that I’m all messed up inside, or that I need men’s approval (if you look at my “to do” list, you’ll see that “caring about men’s approval” is on the bottom, directly beneath “personally oversee the freezing-over of Hell”), or that I can’t be faithful or intimate when I fall in looooove.

It’s tough to define my motives for sleeping around, but, if I had to make a guess, I think it might have something to do with the fact that I have a huge freaking pleasure center in my crotch, and it feels good when people touch it. So yeah: I’m a slut. I call myself a slut. I let my friends call me a slut. I even let my dude call me a slut, although that happens exclusively in bed.

When a stranger calls me a slut, though, well…that hurts. Especially if that stranger is a girl.

“Slut” used to be a boy’s word. It originally meant a woman who didn’t keep house – as in Shakespeare’s immortal lines, “Where fires thou find’st unrak’d, and hearths unswept, there pinch the Maids… our radiant Queene, hates Sluts, and Sluttery.” (Ah, literature.) Now, of course, it pertains to a different sort of dirty girl. That haven for sophisticated discourse, Urban Dictionary, defines a slut as “a girl that’s f*cked so many guys she can’t keep her legs shut any more.” This pretty much captures our culture’s overall level of respect for sexually experienced women.

The idea that sexual women are worthless derives, pretty clearly, from a time when women were property; yes, ye olden days. Days when your father could trade your virginity for a goat. In that time, if you had the gall to bone someone before marriage, you damaged Dad’s goods, and might therefore cause him to get a low-quality goat, or no goat at all. It wasn’t really a moral question so much as a question of ownership; your body belonged to Dad or Husband, not to you, so using it for your own pleasure was equivalent to borrowing someone’s car and bringing it back with a broken headlight and a big dent in the hood.

One problem with this line of thought: women are not cars, and, though I am no historian, I think we’ve pretty conclusively decided that owning people is bad. Yet, in today’s relatively goat-free economy, people have managed to hold onto the idea that sexy girl = bad person. (If you wonder why there’s no corresponding stigma for guys who get around, it’s simple: there were no price tags on dudes’ cherries.) Hell, we still have events where Dads proclaim ownership of their daughters’ virginity. As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more your Dad owns your vagina. Oh, and also: barf.

I’ve gotten into the habit of automatically ditching or dismissing dudes who engage in slut-bashing; if they’re too insecure or childish to deal with an assertive, confident, sexual woman, I honestly don’t have it in me to care about their opinions. Girls who slut-bash, though, are more complicated. Their words actually sting, because, silly feminist that I am, I believe in sisterhood, and I want to know why they can’t be sisters of mine.

It’s sad to say this, but women can be bitterly competitive amongst each other – and our bones of contention, so to speak, are usually attached to dudes. The active reasoning behind most girl-on-girl name-calling seems to go like this: I am a perfectly fine cow, and no-one will buy me, because they’re all getting free milk from you, you big dairy whore.

We all want love, or sex, and we’re all scared at times that we’re not going to get it. Therefore, if a girl flirts more than you do, she’s a slut. If a girl sleeps with more guys than you do, she’s a slut. If a girl does things in bed that you don’t want to do, she’s a slut. If you worry that a girl is more attractive than you, she’s a slut. And it all comes back to that basic insecurity: the fear that she might steal, or keep you from meeting, your man.

Look; you are pretty. You are sexy. There are people in this world who want you, exactly as you are, and exactly in the way that you want to be wanted. I don’t care who you are – I know this to be fact. If it can work out for me, I’m pretty confident that it can work out for anyone. Everyone has a match, or several, and you are going to meet yours. Another woman’s success, or beauty, or charm, does not detract from yours. So, stop calling girls names because you’re scared. Just go out into the world, and ask for what you want.

You know, like us sluts.

This is why I like bicycles. They actually take you places – useful! – while providing you with the toned leg muscles and mighty forearms of a god. Also, if you ride in the city, biking can totally kill you. That’s always exciting.

I’ve just started biking in New York. This weekend, I rode from 125th Street to the South Ferry. That’s right: I traversed pretty much the entire island of Manhattan. You may all bask in my accomplishment now. (Note: I am aware that some people ride much harder, and for much longer distances, than I have. I don’t want to hear from them! Get your own blogs, hippies.)

By the end of the trip, I was sweaty and exhausted, I looked like hell, and I was riding a wave of pure giddy euphoria. This, for those keeping score, makes biking exactly like sex, except for the fact that your bike can’t give you chlamydia. I highly recommend it.

Here are some tips.

Things That Will Help You

Water! It’s summer. You’re going to sweat in ways and from places you never imagined possible. Stop when you need to, and when it’s practical, and drink some water, so that you don’t collapse.

Helmets! There are lots of ways to die on your bike. (This is part of the appeal for you, remember? You are a badass.) Keep a helmet on, and it’s marginally less likely that you will die from a head wound. Key word: marginally.

Ugly Clothes! Your skinny jeans are not a good choice for biking. Nor are heels. Nor are skirts. Nor are shoes with laces (they will tangle around your pedals and mess you up). Wear shorts, Vans, a tank top. Look at pictures of Starbuck for inspiration. In fact: look at pictures of Starbuck, period. It never gets old. The woman fights Cylons! You can definitely face the modern-day equivalents of Cylons, which are cabs.

Friends! It’s good to ride with someone who has more experience than you do. They can show you the ropes and point out what you could be doing better. They will also make you feel ashamed to puss out and ride more slowly, more fearfully, or for a shorter distance than you really want to. Shame: the key to accomplishment!

Common Sense! Keep your eyes on the road. Analyze the obstacles that are ahead of you, and the obstacles that may arise. Keep your ears open, too, so that you can hear things coming up behind you. The best way to avoid danger is to see it coming, and steer clear of it.

So, my darlings: if you keep these things in – HOLY CRAP A CAB – in mind, as I said, you will – WATCH THE DAMN ROAD – you will stay safe and – KEEP YOUR KID OUT OF THE INTERSECTION DICKWIPE – enjoy your time – ROLLERBLADES? WHO THE HELL HAS ROLLERBLADES? – biking in the city. I hope.

WATCH THE BUS!

[PHOTO 1: This girl is not wearing ugly clothes! Danger! Courtesy of backcountry.com]

[PHOTO 2: An artist's representation of how far I biked. Did I mention, that, by biking, you can help to save the planet? That's right. Bask in the glory. Courtesy of fas.org]

Yet, deep inside, I felt that I was being unfair to Maxim. In spite of all the jokes, I had never really read it. So, this week, I sat down with Maxim, to let it explain to me, in its own words, what it’s all about. Here, for your edification, is a transcript of our date.*

SADY: So, Maxim – it’s funny that we’ve never talked, face-to-face, like this. I mean, I’ve seen you around. We have lots of mutual friends. Yet I’ve never really tried to get to know you. So, what would you like to do?

MAXIM: Grab some cocktails at Beatle Bar. Just know that the dark-haired beauty who’s hitting on you is probably a prostitute.

SADY: They always are, aren’t they? But I kid! My friends warned me that you had a risque sense of humor. They also tell me you’re interested in “Sexy Time,” which, I have to tell you, is one of my favorite hobbies! I hear you had a really fun idea for dressing your girlfriend up like a cop. How did that go?

MAXIM: Tell her it’s her night to be in charge. She’ll get off on the power trip of a billy club, leather boots…and tiny black hot pants.

SADY: Wow! One whole night of being in charge! That’s really generous of you. It only leaves you 364 days in the year to control her! You’re not actually going to put her in charge, though, are you? She might get uppity.

MAXIM: Give her a pair of handcuffs, but leave the key at your place. When she’s not looking, cuff her to the foxiest jailbird at the party. You’ll have no choice but to take both of them home.

SADY: Oh, I get it: dishonesty, non-consensual restraint and kidnapping. That’ll certainly show her who’s boss! I don’t want to bring the mood down, though – I hear you also support strong women who break the rules.

MAXIM: Japanese model/actress Serena Kozakura won her appeal in the Tokyo High Court, overturning a lower court’s sentence of 14 months in prison for willful destruction of property. How’d she do it? The Double-D Defense: She convinced a jury that her boobs were too big to fit through the 28-centimeter-wide door hole she was accused of making and crawling through. Japan hasn’t seen bombs like these in 60 years!

SADY: Whoa, Hiroshima/Nagasaki humor! Those bombs killed around 199,000 civilians, or so I’ve heard. It’s hard to tell, what with the terrible, lingering diseases and second-generation birth defects and all. You are edgy! Got any more good ones?

MAXIM: A blonde who suspects her boyfriend of cheating on her goes out and buys a gun. She goes to his apartment unexpectedly, opens the door, and, sure enough, finds him naked in the arms of a redhead. Well, now she’s angry. She opens her purse and takes out the gun. But as she does so, she is overcome with grief and points the gun at her own head. The boyfriend yells, “No, honey, don’t do it.” “Shut up,” she says. “You’re next.”

SADY: Wow, a suicide joke. Edgy AND classy! That’s a fine balance.

MAXIM: A couple have not been getting along for years, so the husband thinks, “I’ll buy my wife a cemetary plot for her birthday.” Well, you can imagine her disappointment. The next year, her birthday rolls around again and he doesn’t get her anything. She says, “Why didn’t you get me a birthday present?” He says, “You didn’t use what I got you last year!”

SADY: Huh. Another “women should die” joke. It seems like this is sort of a recurring theme for you. Can you talk to your friends about this?

MAXIM: “Let’s say you’re trying to get your girlfriend to admit she’s cheating, and you already know what’s happened,” says [Neil] Strauss. “Play dumb and pretend you don’t know and she’ll dig her own grave by overexplaining.” Just a metaphoric grave? Damn.

SADY: So, we’re back to killing your girlfriend. I don’t want to pry, but it seems like you’ve really got a problem with relationships. Can’t you name one happy couple?

MAXIM: A 33-year-old known only as Zoltan made news in Georgia by marrying the robot he built. Zoltan and his womandroid have a happy relationship, not only because she doesn’t have voice capability, but also because she surprisingly has no presidential aspirations.

SADY: Oh, yeah, because it’s bad when women have careers, and, um… talk, I guess. Maybe, after you kill us all, you can invent a race of robot slaves to replace us! You know, I should probably leave now. It’s just that I have to get to work early and I should feed the dog and my roommate just texted me to say that she’s locked out – no, my cell is on silent, I can just sense it – and I left the lights on and the water running and, actually, the last time I saw my apartment, it was on fire, so I should go check on that. No, you don’t need to kiss me good-bye. I’ve got, um… flesh-eating bacteria, that’s it. We probably shouldn’t get too close. No, I’ve got your number. I’ll call you. I’ll call you. No, really. I promise.

[PHOTO 1: Maxim is committed to diversity and healthy body image, as you can see by this photo from Maxim Mexico via photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com. I can't imagine why they'd call this a "disaster," can you?]

[PHOTO: A poignant image of a young couple in love, from Maxim.com. Note how the woman is a nagging, scary blur in the background! Experts have not yet determined what sort of facial deformity this young man has.]

No? That’s what makes my exes special.

When I saw that my former beau was posting pictures of sexually adventurous Brooklynites, I had to call him up.

“Those ladies sure do like to lick each other,” I said. “Why is that? Are they tasty? Are they all covered in nacho cheese?”

“Girls do this,” he said. “Every time I get out the camera, they start making out with each other. I take picture one, they’re friends, picture two, they’re friends, picture three, they’re sucking face. I just stand there, like, ‘I didn’t ask for this! This is all on you two!’”

Kissing girls, to be honest, is trendy. Right now, one of the biggest songs out there is called “I Kissed A Girl.” It’s by Katy Perry, and it’s got all the right props: drinking (“I got so brave, drink in hand”), a Lolita vibe of horny-yet-so-far-untouched experimentation (“It’s not what, I’m used to / Just wanna try you on / I’m curious for you”), and, most depressingly, a boyfriend lurking just out of sight, reassuring us that this girl isn’t really a lesbian (“I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”).

These things may be familiar to you from, oh, every girl-on-girl porn film ever. (The video doesn’t exactly shy away from that association.) Like those movies, the goal of the song is to present both girls as femme (“soft skin, red lips, so kissable”) and desirable to men, while also suggesting that sex between girls isn’t really sex at all (“ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent”) and that what these two kids need is a dude to occupy the center of their silicone sandwich.

See, here’s the thing: I’ve kissed girls. I’ve kissed boys. I’ve liked both experiences, because I just plain like kissing. I think it comes down to the Kinsey Scale and the vagaries of human nature – even my Midwestern pastor-in-training mom thinks “everyone’s bisexual,” so that’s no big earth-shaking statement. It also comes down to my mad-scientist-in-training approach toward sex in general: you don’t know what you’ll enjoy until you try it, so why not try everything that looks good?

It’s also about the fact that people change over time. Someone might live as a Kinsey 2 (“predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual”) for years, then go up to a 5 (“exclusively homosexual”). I’ve gone back and forth between 3 (equal interest in both genders) and 0 (exclusively straight people have the lowest score on this scale – and I’m not going to make any jokes about that, no matter how much I want to). Once, in the months following a particularly bad breakup, I was X (“asexual”) – I tried making out with people, cute and funny and nice people, and found that it was about as fun as putting a live slug in my mouth.

So, given this, I don’t know why I’m so disappointed in the Katy Perry song. I think it comes down to the fact that, no matter how much she may get off on making out with her girl, or on bragging about how naughty she is, she is not really going to open up her mind to what that might mean. “It felt so right,” she sings, “don’t mean I’m in love tonight.” Her boyfriend, after all, might mind that. It’s safer if it “ain’t no big deal.” No matter how much fun she’s having with that girl, she’s going to stay straight. That seems like a pretty sure-fire way to avoid learning about yourself, and – in the long run – to make yourself very unhappy.

As for my friend, our conversation moved on to other photos from the same party, including one in which a boy and girl were kissing.

“It’s really beautiful, actually,” I said. “He looks so into her.”

“Yeah. He’s gay, though,” my ex said. “I was like, ‘oh, an ironic makeout.’ But after a while, I wasn’t so sure.”

[By the way, if you'd like to hear a really fun song about all this, click here. For a smart and realistic song, click here. Don't say I never did you any favors.]

[Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/katyperry]

I know! I know! Everything that I do is intended to give John Sellers – and, by extension, all men – raging boners. I think of him all day long, from selecting my outfit in the morning until the moment that I slip between the covers to dream of his sweet, manly embrace. I imagine that it’s much the same for you. He is Details writer John Sellers, for God’s sake. The female half of the world hangs on his every byline.

Yet, in his recent piece, “The Hollywood Gross-Out Girls,” it’s clear that we have failed him greatly. It’s ostensibly about women who make fart jokes (or burp jokes, or poop jokes, etc.) and how horrible they are. (I know, right? Having a functional set of organs is totally grody. It’s even worse when women aren’t ashamed of their own bodies! Yuck.) Yet its underlying theme is far simpler: J.S. wants women – all women – to know that their purpose in life is to turn him on.

“It would be one thing if these female Shreks were cut from the same cloth as Roseanne Barr or Rosie O’Donnell,” he writes. “But the trouble is they’re all smoking hot. It’s their job to primp and preen and push stuff up to look sexy.”

That’s right: their JOB! Take a look at the offenders that he lists in his article: Cameron Diaz (burped on TV), Sarah Silverman (makes poop jokes), Avril Lavigne (spit in public). You might look at this list and think actress, comedian, musician. You would be wrong. No matter what these ladies do to earn a living, they share the same occupation: provider of masturbatory fantasies to John Sellers. And they are failing.

So, what does this gentleman find sexy? It’s clearly not fat chicks! Or Cameron Diaz! So, what is it? Tell us, John!

Most guys would agree that it’s kind of hot when women aren’t too girly. Far from being rendered intolerable by a few tomboyish traits, a woman who wants to go to a baseball game with you or skips a glass of rosé in favor of a few Buds at your favorite dive bar is a turn-on.

Got that, ladies? When you sacrifice your own interests so that you can do whatever your boyfriend wants, it’s TOTALLY HOT! Who wants a girl with her own hobbies, or – God forbid – her own favorite drink?

And lots of guys find a girl dressed in a hoodie, T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers to be sexy.

OH THANK GOD. It’s okay to wear pants sometimes, because they give dudes hard-ons! Before this article clued me in, my entire wardrobe consisted of sparkly thongs and high-heeled platforms. Let me tell you: the winters were tough.

Yet, although John has generously allowed us to wear clothing and drink beer, we’ll never be able to match the glory of real live dudes. Farting? Spitting? Running for President? Dudes have it all covered.

If we want to hang out with someone who behaves like a man, we’ll hang out with, you know, an actual man.

Of course. So, John: I know it’s cute when girls wear sneakers and know how baseball works – it’s like dogs wearing people clothes! – and gross when we act like “men” by, like, having autonomy and not tailoring our every gesture to please the dudes. But can you give us an example? Is there, perhaps, an actress on whom we could model ourselves?

See Natalie Portman, who rapped and swore mannishly (and hilariously) in a much-YouTubed Saturday Night Live sketch but has preserved her schoolgirlish appeal.

Oh, thanks John! That’s…. wait. WHAT? “Schoolgirlish appeal?” Oh my sweet Jesus, he likes women who act like little… EW.

EW. EW. EW.

Wait. Hold on. Let me collect myself.

OH NO OH GOD I CAN’T EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

I don’t have to explain why this is bad, do I? Everyone knows that it’s not OK to excoriate women publicly for not being “sexy,” because that’s based on the assumption that women exist to service men sexually, and that their worth is determined by men’s desire or lack of desire for said service. You go to college. You get it. So I’ll put aside the social critique, and say, simply, this:

I don’t normally laugh at fart jokes. But, for some reason, the idea of Cameron Diaz pinning this man down and farting on his face until he cries… well, that’s hilarious.

I have good news for you. He read my article. We talked it over. And we’re ready to go public.

Here he is.

It’s been a whirlwind romance. When I first saw his Craigslist post, “Mr. Right Iz Here Waiting 4 U,” I knew I was in for something huge. Mr. Right! There! Waiting 4 me! I never dreamed it could be so easy. Yet, when I looked into his eyes – or, perhaps, more accurately, the portions of his eyes which could be viewed through the slits of his oh-so-cunning neon-green sunglasses – I could no longer restrain my passion. I simply had to respond.

Our dates, of course, are wonderful. We stroll through New York, patronizing the various vendors of airbrushed shirts. We go to ATMs and withdraw cash, making fans of $20 bills with which to rouse each other to erotic frenzy.

To be sure, he has a “history.” He may be a bit of a “player.” Yet I cannot hold this against him. He’s a young dude. He gets the girls. To put it quite simply: he do what he do. All men have their youthful escapades. But he’s not a simple man. He’s complicated, brooding, deeply sensitive. Here he is, caught in a moment of reflection:

So pensive! So thoughtful! He is thinking, no doubt, of his next record to be produced. Will he challenge the people, shake them up, revitalize the form itself? Or will he fail himself and his ambition yet again, delivering merely a dreary and moderately well-produced record which succeeds on the force of his sexual charisma alone? Art is such a cruel mistress – truly, as D.H. Lawrence wrote, a “bitch goddess” who feasts on those who best love her. L’ennui! L’ennui!

As for our more intimate moments, well – this is what sex looks like.

That’s right, ladies. Beneath that fan of $20s, my man is completely nude. I don’t mean to make you jealous, but – oh, who am I kidding? I do! I do! I’m in love, wonderful, all-consuming, soul-shattering love, with Mr. Right. Though you may have your pick of the world’s lesser men, you will never match the glory of our eternal passion.

You may have heard something about a certain voice-mail that my gentleman caller left on a tawdry little website. To be honest, I’m shocked by all the commotion about it. I may as well confess: I made him leave it. I can’t have these photos of my boyfriend posted all over, where any woman could see them and fall under his spell as I have done.

So, bitches: back off of him. Mr. Right iz all mines.

Don’t worry. You will. And soon.

The New York Times Magazine is running a cover piece by Gould this Sunday. It’s ostensibly about “the dangers of oversharing on the Internet,” and is actually the culmination of a breakup sadder and less significant than anyone could possibly imagine. The story goes like this:

Josh blogged. Emily blogged. They blogged together on Gawker. They screwed. She blogged about them screwing. He read her blog about them screwing. He wrote an article about her blogging about them screwing. She wrote an article about his article about her blogging about them screwing. Gawker blogged about her article about his article about her blogging about them screwing, and so the whole universe devoured

itself, as in the end of Southland Tales when the two Seann William Scotts finally meet, thereby creating a rift in the time/space continuum.

This, by the way, is why my boyfriend is not allowed to read CollegeCandy.

I am not shy about using my intimate life as fodder for my blogs. I will tell you which vibrator I use, what kind of birth control I prefer, how I deal with breakups (hint: drinking), which arguments I’ve had recently and why, who I’ve slept with, and what I’ve regretted about those experiences. I like to think that I’m not the focus of these pieces, and that I only incorporate personal anecdotes when they serve to illustrate some larger, more important point. I also don’t use real names, because I am not an insane person. Nevertheless, if you know me, you know who I’m writing about, and you know why.

Of course, I’ve gotten myself into trouble. Back in the days of LiveJournal, I wrote that my best friend’s boyfriend “lied a lot.” I was not invited to their house for several months. (To be fair, he said that he had been an astronaut; this claim has never beensubstantiated by NASA.) More recently, an ex learned about my pregnancy scare via CC; he e-mailed me to say that he would “never read my blog again” and informed me that I had “wrecked his image of me.” His image of me, apparently, included a womb barren and untouched by man; what this says about him, or me, is open for debate.

We don’t even need to talk about the time that I inadvertently placed my diary on the “shared files” portion of my hard drive, thereby making it accessible to everyone on my college campus. Do we?

Okay, we do: I transferred three months later. Some wounds just don’t heal.

As I’ve come to know more writers, I’ve realized that I, too, am blog material. For those who have never found an unflattering description of their dating choices online (or read the pursuant “right on!!!” comments), let me assure you: it is a harsh realm. Yet it’s only fair — and, to be honest, no more than I (or Emily Gould) ought to expect.

“My only advantage as a reporter,” Joan Didion wrote, in 1968, “is that… people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling someone out.”

That, really, is the point — the point of Josh and Emily, of me and my (nameless) boyfriend, of everyone who writes and lives and writes about living, on the Internet or in print. Relationships are a delicate balance of listening and speaking, revealing yourself and helping the other person feel safe enough to be revealed. Writing is about laying your mind bare, relentlessly, without regard for the people who might dump you or yell at you or hold you in contempt. Being a writer, or dating one, is a paradox. You have to establish trust and intimacy while simultaneously acknowledging that, if an incident makes for good material, it may very well become public knowledge in the near future.

So, yeah: my boyfriend doesn’t read CollegeCandy. There is no way in hell that he’s going to hear about my drinking binges or bad hookups or the fact that I repeatedly and insistently compared an ex to Kevin Federline (with image links!) before I am ready to tell him. I may, however, e-mail him this piece before I post it.

He writes. He might understand.