News Update and a Call to Action

As our illustrious editor is currently in the Netherlands and the remaining staff left in Ohio are up to their eyeballs in schoolwork and various other pursuits, updates to Head will be incredibly sporadic until January when Meredith returns and whips us all back into shape. They'll happen. Just not very often.

That said -- Ladies! I'm sure you've all noticed that the price of birth control on college campuses has gone way up. I know I have, and my wallet is none-too-pleased. Why? Something called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, a terribly effective and well-thought-out solution that takes away federal money from this and other such useless institutions such as Medicaid.

So my advice to you is this: write your senators! Email your senators! Call them, visit them, throw notes tied to bricks through their kitchen windows, organize activist parties to do all of the above en mass, in the most annoying way possible so that they pay attention.

I know I will be. My dwindling funds compel me.

(source: msnbc.)

So Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs, Huh?

If gay marriage will bring about the death of the American Family, then maybe its time for it to bite the dust. This outwardly legal battle over 'what marriage really means' feels like a desperate attempt by conservatives to preserve the traditional Norman Rockwell Family. When you're politically conservative, you hold on to tradition, it's what you do, but even conservatives eventually change. Maybe they haven't noticed, but the 2.3 kids, ranch house in the suburbs, meatloaf in the oven family is an endangered species. With rates of divorce, domestic violence, infidelity, co-habitation, single-parent households, and adoption all going up, the 'normal family' is in the minority. No wonder the conservatives are scared.

Let's take a look at marriage for a second. Marriage exists for stability's sake. People who get married do it so they can raise their babies in a stable environment, have their money hang out in a stable bank account, so they can have stable sex in a stable bed, and get old with someone they don't mind being stable with. This used to mean a man and a woman, but things are starting to change.

As of June 14th, the political fisticuffs over gay marriage in Massachusetts is over. Legislators voted 151 to 45 against a proposed amendment that would exclude gay and lesbian couples from the definition of marriage. A good number of legislators who were originally in favor of this bill switched their votes at the eleventh hour, many as a result of talking to their gay constituency.

In Colombia, congress passed a bill that will give full legal rights to gay couples. This includes health insurance, inheritance rights and social security. Colombia's conservative president Alvaro Uribe backs this bill, making Colombia the first Latin American (and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) country to give gay couples all the legal rights as straight ones.

I'm not saying that it would be best to give up on traditional family all together. It still exists in some places, but it's undeniable that it's in trouble. So why not open up the pool, play the odds in our favor? The ideals of marriage--stability, love, and family--can still exist even if the face of it is different. Gay couples can embody these ideals just as much as straight couples, and allowing gays to marry legally will create more healthy marriages. In order to survive, marriage needs to evolve. Allowing gay marriage gives the ideals and family that are so important to conservatives and liberals alike a fighting chance. Massachusetts and Colombia have set an example that will hopefully be followed by the rest of the world. Charles Darwin would be proud.

Sexual Misadventure: Disappearing Act

Here’s one from the heyday of sexual awkwardness, Middle School I think they called it. About the time that I thought I had every last hairy, sticky detail of puberty figured out.

Warning: sort-of-gross mental images ahead!

So there I was, portly and acne-covered settling in for a little nothing-better-to-do masturbation. Given the time, I’d say I was still under the illusion that silicone-titted platinum blondes with airbrushed bodies and visible-woman ribs stretched out over hay bails and vintage cars were actually good masturbation fodder. Now that you’re good and creeped out, thinking about me spending a little alone time with Hef’s “beauties”, here comes the weird part.

Things were going as planned a few minutes (right, more like seconds) and I’d chalked up another wad to boredom. Aright, I thought, a little quick clean-up and I can get back to downloading Fastball songs on Napster. I’ll just grab this towel and wipe of my dick and…ball? I felt again. Okay, one more time. Roll call: L. B. Johnson, here. John Left Kennedy, present. Right D. Eisenhower…. Right D. Eisenhower…. Ike? And just like that it had happened. No hairy palms, 20:20 vision, but I had jerked one of my testicles completely out of existence! Panic set in. How many more sessions before the remaining one vanishes? I broke into a cold sweat. As I was making a mental schedule for my remaining orgasms (senior prom, wedding night, 12 oz Mouse season finales, etc.) the MIA nut reappeared, sliding gently into place like it had been there the whole time.

Relieved but confused, I tried to reproduce this missing man formation. A little pushing, twisting and moderate pain and voila! It happened again. With a little finesse I could slip the other up there too. Turns out that while whacking I had inadvertently pushed my testicle back up into the inguinal canal, the little cavity where my boys chilled before they dropped. Apparently, this is how sumo wrestlers guard their jewels. Boys, if you’re feeling playful give this tuck-away a try (if you aren’t already familiar). There are few sights stranger than a completely vacant scrotum, truly a delight. In fact, since prehistory human males have used this display to ward off unwanted sexual partners.

Epilogue:

Also worth mentioning is an event that took place some time later. A few friends and I were kicking it, watching CKY2K and lighting farts on fire. Maybe it was because I had a couple of Mountain Dews in me or maybe I felt that, since we were already bare-assed and holding Bics in our cracks, the situation wasn’t at risk of getting any more awkward, I decided to retell this mishap to my buddies. Keep in mind that I still wasn’t sure if this was something that everyone could do. So I gave them a play-by-play and was received with puzzled looks from everyone in the room except my friend Carl (fake name). Carl’s eyes lit up. He explained with a smile and a hail of “dudes” that he could not only perform the same testicular feat, but that his balls had punk’d him in the exact same way. What followed was to be the single greatest high-five of my entire life.


NOTE: my genitals are not actually named after the 34th, 35th, and 36th presidents of the United States of America…. yet.

Head will be taking a short hiatus so all the wonderful writers can pass their finals. More sexy stuff (including the results of The Great Condom Roadtest) next week. Stay tuned!
love,
Meredith

Impossible Sex Position of the Day

There's no reason we need to stay all hetero
with this impossible sex thing.

The Moon Cup Diaries by Meredith Wilson

DAY 1: Yay! My thirty-five dollar Moon Cup is here! All the way from Cincinnati! Aww, it comes with its own little convenient carrying pouch..whoah..it looks so...sciency...like a nozzle in a space station. Huh, it's the preferred menstrual collection method for some lady scientists in Biosphere 2. neat-o.

DAY 2 (first day of period): OW OW OW SON OF A BITCH OW OW FUCK OW...SHIT! It slipped out. Ok, fold in half, then insert...OW OW OW MOTHERFUCKER...ok.. It's in. Now, time to pull up the ol' pants and take this baby for a test drive...hmm, that's chafing a little bit, maybe I put it to far in...ooo that's chafing a lot. I definitely put it too far in. Good thing the package says easy removal...(25 minutes later) Oh Christ, this mooncup has vacuum-sealed itself to my cervix and it's not coming out!! This is what I get for trying to save the fucking planet! Fuck you, planet!! If I ever get this goddamn cup out of my vagina, im going to throw it right in the ocean and hope a dolph--oh, you just pinch the end and slide it out.


DAY 3 Ok, I've got this figured out. I slide it in so the stem hangs pretty low, then when I need to take it out, I just push like I'm gonna poop and then pinch the bottom of the cup part and pull. Ok, yeah, mooncup! Woo! Ok, going to insert it now..ok..on three..one..two..three *cringe*....that wasn't nearly as bad as last time. Huh, this is kinda comfy. Not as comfy as my soft, lovely tampons, but mooncups won't give you toxic shock syndrome

DAY 4: This mooncup business isn't so bad. I thought I was betraying my chain-smoking, wouldn't-know-flax-seed-if-it-bit-me-in-the-ass self by buying this earth-mother hippy thing. But first and foremost, I'm a cheap bastard and thirty-five dollars now is way better than 200 dollars over 10 years on tampons. Yeah, my fingers get bloody when I empty it out and wipe it off, but that's more time I spend in the bathroom and less time I spend at work. Plus, periods never really grossed me out, which is probably a pre-requisite to getting one of these things.

DAY 5: Good morning, mooncup! Isn't it a lovely morning? Look at you, all ergonomic and hypo-allergenic, what a darling you are! Oh, how nice! I can leave you in all night on my heavy flow day, and you dont leak all over my sheets! You're too kind. Oh mooncup, I'm so glad I bought you, lets be friends forever. Or at least for the duration of your ten year warranty.

www.mooncup.co.uk
www.thekeeper.com

News: So You don't Sound like a Dumbass

by: Molly Lehman

As though we needed reminding about the political-party breakdown in the Supreme Court, the Court recently ruled 5-4 to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions.

The decision, which was effectively split (surprise, surprise) between liberals and conservatives, will maintain the law Dubya signed into effect in 2003.

The ban has, essentially, politicians playing quack physician: rather than determining whether or not abortion should be performed, it regulates how it is done. This law is the first abortion-related piece of legislature to attempt to standardize the method of the procedure itself.

The ban, unsurprisingly, is on some seriously shaky medical ground. Partial-birth is much less common than other forms, making up only 10 percent of abortions performed. In the cases in which it is performed, however, it is usually a woman’s safest option. Currently no exception is in place within the law to allow it to be performed if a woman’s health is threatened.

So let’s back up and recap that: Essentially, the law does nothing but endanger women. Because there are other methods of completing the procedure, the ban will not actually prevent any abortions. However, it will deny some women access to the safest procedure available.

And why?

“Ethical and moral concerns,” say the judges voting to uphold it.

The conservatives were perturbed, they said, by graphic descriptions of the method. Of course, legislation really shouldn’t be passed according to what’s on a right-to-lifer’s bumper. Aside from that, of course, there are about seven other ways of performing abortions, and judges seem to have overlooked the fact that the exact same procedure is still legal if done in utero.

But then, medical “technicalities” aren’t really of interest here. This is much less about the actual law itself and much more about political preening. Abortion has been one of the hottest political debate topics since Clinton got a blow job, and it’s one of Bush’s specialties. It was Bush who signed the ban into law originally; it was also he who appointed two of the current conservative judges who voted to uphold it now.

Beyond all of this is a hard, abiding sexism on the Supreme Court. The majority opinion maintains that the ban was upheld in part because women receiving partial-birth abortions did not know what the procedure entailed. But rather than passing legislation requiring physicians to inform women of these procedures, they passed a ban on the entire business.

This decision, said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, writing the minority opinion, “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court—and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”

In an effort, ostensibly, to protect women, the Court has belittled them. Justice Kennedy claimed to only be protecting a woman from “grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she did not know,” but he seems uninterested in actually informing her.

Regardless of opinions on abortion itself, the upholding of the ban is only perpetuating weak laws and strengthening poor medical ethics. Let’s hope that the next time it comes around, the judges will do their homework.

Impossible Sex Position of The Day

Not entirely impossible,
but this takes one-with-the-universe in a different direction.

A Head Magazine Original: The Spooning Series part II

All photos by: Izabella Redzisz

Impossible Sex Position of the Day

The Knot:


To think it all started as an innocent game of Twister...

Nobody Wants Babies AND Pneumonia

Hypothetical situation: let's say that you're on the Pill. You take it regularly and never skip. You would be the poster child of good family planning if there were such a thing. One day, you pick up the wrong cup at a party and BOOM, you've got strep throat. Being the responsible, body-conscious lady that you are, you go to the doctor and get some antibiotics. Fast forward a month. The infection is cleared up, but you're still not feeling up to par. It turns out that you're hosting something else: a baby

How can this happen? Well, certain common antibiotics have been shown to interact with the Pill and make it less effective. This list includes: rifampin (brand name Rifadin), penicillin (Veetids), amoxicillin (Amoxil), ampicillin (Omnipen), sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (Septra or Bactrim), tetracycline (Sumycin), minocycline (Minocin), metronidazole (Flagyl), and nitrofurantoin (Macrobid or Macrodantin).

If you start taking any antibiotics while using birth control pills, ask your doctor if the two interact. Then buy a bunch of condoms, even if your doctor says you won't need them. A lot of studies about birth control and antibiotics have yet to be confirmed or even done. The jury is still out on other types of hormonal birthcontrol, like the Nuvaring, so use a back-up method when taking antibiotics on those too.

A Head Magazine Original: The Spooning Series part I

KINK 101: An Introduction to BDSM in Layman's Terms for the Frightened, Bewildered and Repulsed

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Fetishistic Mind by Denis Hart

Of all the cranks you've ever had to turn
you'll find that mine's no struggle to engage
provided that you know a couple tricks
and understand the fetishistic mind.
It isn't something easy like a smell
which triggers my instinctive urge to breed.
It's not a need for leather, latex, food
or fauna which impedes my chances for
a normal love. No, all those classics fare
just fine (I'm open-minded, keep in mind)
but what I need to bring the heat and take
you with me through the undiscovered, nay
the unimagined regions of the mind
and body's sense of pleasure doesn't have
to do as much with my bizarre, perverse
obsessions as it has to do with yours.
I'll only feel desire if I'm with one
who finds desire in something others might
deem sick, obscene, unnatural or not
of GOD, or otherwise embarrassing.

News: So You Don’t Sound Like a Dumbass

Although the former assistant secretary of the Health and Human Services Department is still as virulently anti-contraceptive and as much of a dumbass as he was before, Eric Keroack has resigned from his post. Despite campaigns by the Feminist Majority Foundation, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and plenty of other pro-woman and pro-reproductive rights groups to get Keroack fired from his position, the real reason for his resignation was legal issues with his pregnancy care clinics in Massachusetts. Although the reasons behind Medicaid’s legal action are not known, we’re all glad to hear that he’s gone.

Sources:
Feminist Daily News 3/30/2007
MSNBC

Impossible Sex Position of the Day

For the first series of Impossible Sex Positions of the Day, we will take a look at sex in zero gravity. With the aid of the hard-working men and women of NASA, we give you...

News: So You Don't Sound like a Dumbass

A sex ed teacher at the Wolcott School in Thornton, IL is in the doghouse this week for some unorthodox teaching methods. Parents of a class of 13-14 year olds are pissed off, horrified, repulsed, etc. that twenty-seven year old teacher Scott Groff had their children read aloud from a four-page handout of commonly asked questions pulled from the British website dedicated to AIDS/HIV prevention, advert.org. The questions were taken from the general inquiry section and include things like "Does my vagina look the way it's supposed to?", "Which STDs are transmitted through oral sex?" and "How do you french kiss?".
Maybe it was the thought of the words "oral sex" and "G-spot" coming out of their fourteen year olds' mouths that got to the parents, or the fact that Mr. Groff decided to not use questions from the specified teen section of the site. Either way, parents are calling for the suspension or firing of Groff.
If Thornton parents had put their hysteria to the side for a second, they would have seen that the more 'adult' questions were answered frankly and straight-forwardly, with an emphasis on safety, respect and communication between sexual partners by the writers at advert.org. The teen questions, most of which were related to dating and uncertainty over first times, are rather naive in a world where 4 in 10 girls become pregnant by age 20, 3 million teens a year contract an STD and half of the new HIV infections are occuring in people under 25.
Groff might have overstepped his bounds as an educator in creating an uncomfortable environment for his students, but I think he should be applauded for thinking that a 'comprehensive sexual education curriculum' should actually be comprehensive. A strictly scientific approach to sex leaves out the emotional aspect of it, something that I think can be blamed for the casual attitude we are seeing in Jr. High and High School kids towards sex. As we all know, a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

Chicago Tribune sec1, March 10, 2007
www.advert.org
www.sadd.org

Original Series by Amber

see more at: www.myspace.com/fuckinambercat

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION by Paul Evans

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

WHAT THE FUCK?! Sexual Misadventures of the Mostly True Kind

By: Jenny*

By my freshman year of high school, my best friend since fourth grade, Zoë*, and I came to a mutual realization of our crushes for each other. We were relatively precocious, both intellectually and in our sexual interests. Part of the appeal of our relationship was that we knew each other so well already, and weren't inclined to bother with boys at the time, being students at an all-girl school. While we were forced to be inconspicuous in a way, it was thrilling to be sneaking around behind a closed door where the parental passer-by assumed that we were gushing over Vogue when it was more likely that we were fucking against the wall along which the Vogue subscription was stacked.

Our sexual relationship was a blur of about five months of adventures that even included an art museum bathroom, but the most memorable encounter is what I refer to most simply as The Pirate Story. A challenge we had faced with fucking at my house was the fact that my parents removed the lock from my bedroom door when I was quite young so that I wouldn't get accidentally locked in my room, and never replaced it as I got older. It was a hasty job that left my door in a state that prohibited it from remaining fully closed, and the best we could do was to making a little curtain across my room and casually prop things against the door to keep it from swinging open.

My mom was out of the house somewhere for the evening, leaving just my dad there. We decided to do a little tying up, and as we gathered whatever low-fi bondage gear we could find about the room (it usually ended up being long scarves or satin belts), we joked about the prospect of my dad walking in on us. I proposed that we explain to him that we were pretending to be pirates, and that I had been captured. We amused ourselves by continuing to add flourishes to the pirate tale as she tied the knots around my wrists and took her clothes off, and couldn't have been very far along when I remember recognizing movement from my peripheral vision in the region of my bedroom door.

I don't really remember what he said. I assume it was some sort of inquiry as to what the fuck was going on, upon seeing his daughter tied to the bedposts of her bed, a little nightdress still on (thank god), with her best friend hiding under the covers in a way that suggested that she was naked, her articles of clothing strewn across my floor. In the shock of the moment, I burst into a fit of giggles. I offered my explanation quizzically, in a way that blatantly indicated that I wasn't pretending to buy it, either.

"We're playing…pirates?"

He asked what Zoë was doing, hiding under the covers.

"She, uh…was changing clothes, and wanted some privacy, so she went under the covers."

Oh, such a giant, terrible heap of bullshit.

Through all of this, my father expressed little emotion, aside from shock. He invited us to come downstairs in a way that was casual yet not merely a suggestion. After he carefully closed the door behind him, I was hysterical with amusement, while Zoë took more of an "Oh my god, holy shit" approach, understandably. Unable to locate all of Zoë's clothes in a timely fashion, I made yet another genius move secondary only to the pirate back story in supporting the "Oh-she-was-just-changing-under-the-covers" scenario by having her change into another of my little nightdresses, allowing us to match. After coming downstairs, Zoë relaxed a bit and we tried to make the pirate game we were so clearly playing more believable by discussing it at great length within earshot as my father uncomfortably went about his business on the first floor. We stayed in the same spot, laughing at not only the absurdity of our situation, but the far more dumbfounding eagerness to convince my father of our explanation indirectly, until my mother came home. As soon as she walked in the door, we ran back upstairs and searched for Zoë's clothes, and I remained under the impression that my mother was oblivious to the goings-on in my bedroom that night until I received a surprising direct address on the matter three years later, which explained why she had banned subsequent sleepovers shortly thereafter.

When I've shared this story with the few people that I have, I often get the sympathy of, "Man, it sucks that it was your dad who caught you," but really, it wasn't. My dad is the more liberal, nondenominational half of an otherwise conservative Catholic marriage, and I cannot imagine what my mother would've done had she come home early and up to my room to say hello to Zoë. I have a feeling that I would've stuck to my pirate story, though.


*Name has been changed

AIDS and STD Testing at Wooster

All right, men, in preparation for the post-Valentine’s Day blues, we decided it was important to advertise about STD testing and clarify some myths. Avoiding the trite and true “Myth: Truth: ” structure, here’s what we have to say. This information comes from reliable first hand stories and experience.

HIV:

The College of Wooster Wellness Center is offering free HIV testing on the 21^st of February, so open wide, and get ready to swab. This test is painless, and anonymous. For those who think this is superfluous, the College's anonymous 2006 Health and Wellness Survey reported that 70.5% of us are sexually active, with 27.6% of us having had more than 1 partner. Of the students surveyed, 75% of the students had never been tested for HIV. Read about HIV transmission: http://www.avert.org/orlsx.htm

Gonorrhea and Chlamydia:

Most men probably try to avoid this test at all costs because of the horror stories of that little metal poker that they use to swab the inside of your penis. Don’t cringe in horror quite so fast. There is another method. If you resist this idea, just ask for a urine test. Pee in a cup and get your rest results in a couple of days. For those wanting to be responsible, sexually active people, this is a simple test that should be taken.

Syphilis:

Testing for syphilis requires getting blood drawn. There is really no other option for those who are needle-shy. This simply consists of drawing blood, sending it off to check for the bacteria and getting told your results. This is also a recommended test since syphilis causes “damage the internal organs, including the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones, and joints.” Check out the site: http://www.cdc.gov/std/Syphilis/STDFact-Syphilis.htm#common

To read more about STD’s go to: http://www.cdc.gov/std/default.htm

Five Things Not to Do During Sex

• Don't write off foreplay, even if you're the connoisseur of quickies. Whether it's a casual hookup or a long-term relationship, spending time teasing, lavishing, and seducing your partner gives them particular attention that will get them much more revved up than they would be sans-foreplay. Foreplay can also make the sex more gratifying because of the increase of lubrication in women, plus there's a good chance that you'll want to be all over each other anyway, after at least ten minutes of holding out.

• Oral sex can run the gamut between never wrong and disastrous, depending on a number of factors such as the comfort level of the partners, communication, sobriety, and even the giver's familiarity with the genitals they're working with. Whatever the situation, be sure not to rush things, and don't be afraid to ask if you're not sure what your partner wants or likes. Pointers aren't just for virgins–good communication throughout your sex career leads to long-term good sex.

• Don't fake an orgasm. If you fake it once–particularly if you're not the greatest actor and get a bit overzealous–your partner might think that what they were doing worked well for you and that they should try it again, when in fact your faking it could explicitly mean otherwise. Even if your inability to come isn't a matter of technique (maybe your head just isn't in the game, or you're too drunk), it's still best to be honest and gently verbalize or not to make a big deal out of it then and talk about it when it's a good time or should your partner inquire. And, perhaps most concerning of all, it's a lie and can lead to other communication issues, in sex and in relationships.

• When it comes to anal sex, don't go from the ass to the mouth or vagina without changing condoms, washing hands, switching toys, et cetera. It's no secret that bacteria dwell in that general vicinity, and it's wise to try to protect each other as much as possible, even if it's a matter of latex gloves on the hands, a condom around fingers, or Saran Wrap between the mouth and the asshole. Gloves and condoms can also help prevent tissue from tearing by facilitating a smoother entry, and tearing can increase the likelihood of STD transmission.

• It's the cardinal rule, but still needs to be noted: do not allow yourself to do something you're uncomfortable with, or feel pressured to do. Being "caught up in the moment" is not an excuse to disregard condoms, having sex with someone you don't want to, or anything that could endanger your health, emotions, or sensibilities in any way. One act of unprotected sex can affect your health forever, and pregnancy can affect you for a lifetime, depending on how you or you and your partner decide to handle the situation. Be honest with yourself and clear about what your limits are.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Kat

From the Geek Corner:

The all-inclusive genre of speculative fiction (the technical term for science fiction and fantasy used only by the professionals and the hopelessly pretentious) is the Paris Hilton Vagina of the literary world. Nothing gets turned away by SF: it’s got elements of queer lit, adventure, romance, erotica, anything else you could possibly imagine. SF by its very definition breaks the rules of categorization, and this outlaw attitude within the genre allows for more experimentation than most other breeds of literature – sexual or otherwise.

Since most SF (other than the media darlings of the genre: Eragon, Harry Potter, and the like) is still fairly underground, writers have the opportunity to really delve into and explore more taboo topics without the fear of having publishing companies breathing down their necks. SF novels tend to serve any of these three purposes: they can be reflections of the sexual mores of our own society, they can experiment with sex as weird as they like, and they can be introductions to the kinkier side of sex for people who may not have had any other experience with it.

The Merro Tree, by Katie Waitman, is a perfect example, though sadly out of print. The main character, a humanoid alien, has a long-term relationship with another male alien, who is the equivalent of a large, sentient snake. The premise of this is of course to mirror our own society – although homosexual sex is not seen as necessarily bad, inter-species sex is illegal and immoral. The book has no explicit sex between the humanoid and the snake – the mechanics are mind-boggling – but there are enough soft-core examples to make it relevant, both with the snake and with a female jelly-alien. The comparison here isn’t with social acceptance of sex with amoebas and boa constrictors in our society, but rather with sexual acceptance in general. If you’re in love, Waitman says, or are bored, or just really want to have it off with a jelly-alien, you should be able to do so.

There are also books whose sex scenes are not meant to serve some high-handed academic purpose, but are in there just because the author felt like it. Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is one of these. In the second chapter of the book, the ancient queen of Sheba, here portrayed as a modern-day prostitute, swallows her john with her vagina.

He opens his eyes. … This is what he sees:

He is inside her to the chest, and as he stares at this in disbelief and wonder she rests both hands upon his shoulders and puts gentle pressure on his body. He slipslides further into her.

“How are you doing this to me?” he asks, or he thinks he asks, but perhaps it is only in his head.

“You’re doing it, honey,” she whispers. He feels the lips of her vulva tight around his upper chest and back, constricting and enveloping him. Neil Gaiman, American Gods, p. 30 American paperback

What is the significance of this? Well, for many people, it’s the first departure from vanilla sex in their young lives.
Yes –reading about someone being swallowed by a vagina can get you hot. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone has pristine Hollywood missionary position sex. It’s a big step for a preteen to make. The first fantasy book I purchased independently of my parents, at the age of ten, was a book called The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, which took on both tasks – the mirroring of society (in this case the problem of street kids and gangs) and including weird sex for the hell of it, of which there was a lot. In fact, this book was one of the first sexually explicit novels that I read, and my first exposure to fetishes and kink.

As more kids get into SF through Harry Potter, through Eragon, through Diana Wynne Jones and Ender’s Game, they’ll eventually stumble across the more obscure, boundary-pushing literature– engendering, perhaps, a greater tolerance for alternate sexualities, and, if nothing else, providing titillating masturbatory fantasies for geeky kids too young to fuck.

"Sextraterrestrial" by Andy Maloney, "Adventure!" by Kat B

THE CLUB BACCHUS EXPERIENCE by Stewart Campbell

For those of you who aren’t from the greater Wooster area, Club Bacchus is one of those mythically sketchy, but very public, places particular to small towns. One of those places that everyone knows about, but few have ever gone to. Despite the strong anti-vice sentiment of the town (the adult video store in Wooster, previously located on Liberty near Beall, was closed down after months if not years of protest that this sort of establishment is not to be supported in our "Godly" town. "Jesus doesn't like sex" some signs read) Club Bacchus persisted and rumors of its seedinees have inspired legions of legends. As a group of five strip-bar virgins, some of us writers for Head, we decided we had to visit. Last Monday, the 22nd, was the night of the premier of “Grindhouse Massacre”, a B-horror flick produced by the local Rottweiler Productions and starring some of the girls who work at Bacchus. Malt liquor in hand to act as a social, and intellectual, lube, we headed out.

After driving around the wrong side of town for 20 minutes, the car finally pulled into the tiny little parking lot of Club Bacchus. The first sign of play (some may say foul play) came in the form of a rather stocky man who stared us down from the cab of his truck until we were far enough away for him to resume whatever he was doing with his special lady friend in the front seat. The first step through those tinted windows was like a time warp. The black lights reflecting off of the stainless steel poles was reminiscent of a knock-off Studio 54. The cloud of cigarette smoke brought us back to the days before the smoking ban. The focus of the room was a slick, wooden stage surrounded by VIP chairs for the customers who wanted the pay-per-view experience. After we gave our ID's and got our wristbands from the shaky doorman we were greeted by stares and a silence that made me feel like I had interupted a religious ceremony of neither our time nor place. The men's bathroom consisted of both a urinal and a toilet behind a swinging door with no locks, but just enough space for a mid-show quickie. Strip clubs, I soon realized, took a particular brand of courage which I felt I would have been incapable of mustering had it been a show-girl kind of night.

After we were done bartering with the guy next to us for a King Cobra (he wanted to recapture his childhood), the movie started. The Grindhouse Massacre, which could have easily been another tit fest, turned out to be a surprisingly feminist commentary on the sexual exploitation of women within B-horror. A busty blonde named Mistress Midnight has just been told that her movies aren't selling. No one, from her producer (and agent) who threatens to drop her, to the director who claims he can't push her movies, believes that B-horror film can be a success without at least a little skin. After commiserating with a quartet of goth rockers, Midnight takes it upon herself to torture and kill her director and every actress in town who contributes to the cheapening of the genre she loves so much, making a home movie of the acts. There were a few especially gory scenes, but none beat the first murder. Midnight makes a deal with her director: She promises to sleep with him, if he promises to push every last one of her previous movies. When he comes over to her house later that evening, she makes him use some of her pre-made, acid-laced lube. The director starts complaining that the lube burns and goes into the bathroom. We still can’t figure out the director’s official cause of death, but we got to see his penis disintegrate in his hands. The ‘Oooooooos!!’ from the men in the audience were deafening.

As great as the film was, the crowd was a lot better. Thirty minutes and 40 ounces later, everybody was friends. Laura was engrossed in a conversation with three guys about their explosive diarrhea, Meredith was in the bathroom having a heart to heart with a redhead named Tabitha about her relationship, and Paul was trying to catch the eye of the Lowry cafeteria worker sitting at the bar. In the afterglow of surviving the infamous Club Bacchus we had a dance party in one of our dorms. Being back in the comfort of my room, surrounded by friends, it dawned on me how uneasy I had felt at the club. Seeing these women, these strippers, sitting at tables with their friends nursing a beer, reminded me that had I done some things differently, I could be in a place very similar to theirs. I once heard a story about a stripper who was paying her way through mortician school. Everyone's got a story to tell, but some you may not enjoy hearing.

SUBSCRIPTION by Craig Ruse

the old men and

the retards come

in the early mornings

to buy their

jerkoff magazines

while no one else

is around.

the old men try

to hide and stare

at the ground.

stacking their shame

between Guns and Ammo

and Sports Illustrated.

the retards come in

tired and smiling

from the night shift

at the grocery store.

they comment on the weather,

and politely ask

for a Hustler.

Plug and Play

by Liz Miller

There’s an exciting new way to “sync” with your iPod. The latest buzz in autoerotic pleasure is the OhMiBod vibrator and it’s completely compatible with your other favorite pocket rocket, the iPod.

Again, that’s an iPod plus a vibrator, not to be confused with the iVibe (another kind of vibrator that doesn’t hook up to your iPod). It’s kind of brilliant, and it seems to be catching on quickly. That is, catching on for everyone except Apple.

Jolene, an Apple customer service representative, told this reporter that she’d never heard of the techno-toy. In fact, our conversation went a little bit like this:

Jolene: Thank you for calling Apple, my name is Jolene, how may I help you today?

Liz: Well, um, I’m looking for an iPod toy, and I was hoping you could help me.

Jolene: Sure, are you talking about the iCat or the iDog?

[Those are the cute plastic creatures that bop their heads to the beat of the music, kind of like a more sophisticated dancing flower, if you remember those.]

Liz: Kind of, but it’s a different kind of animal. I’m looking for a vibrator.

Jolene: Uh, what.

Liz: A vibrator. You know, a sex toy. It works like those iDogs, except you insert into your favorite erogenous zone and it vibrates with the beat of the music.

Jolene: Oh, no then. Oh god no then.

Liz: So, you can’t help me today?

Jolene: Oh no, I um, I don’t think we sell that! But when you find it, you call me back and let me know!

Hopefully she’ll spread the word to the rest of the folks at Apple. Hell, maybe Steve Jobs will introduce it as the next Macworld convention, right next to the iPhone 2.

If the idea of throbbing bass, pulsating beats— oh yeah, and a vibrator— gets you going, too, you’ll want to check out this product. To enhance your experience while you, uh, pump out the jams, OhMiBod has even designed accessories to complement the vibrator. There’s everything from a garter belt to a special sleeve that allegedly will add a “softer, velvety” side to things.

No iPod? No problem; you won’t be left out. Even though OhMiBod’s Web site says it is specially designed for the iPod, it will work well with any device that has a 3.5mm audio out option (headphone jack). Even your computer. Or, you know, your car. But they don’t recommend it.


What I’d recommend: a night alone, a playlist full of fun songs (Peaches, Spank Rock and Girl Talk would probably do the job), a bottle of lube and, of course, OhMiBod.

For more information, including the OhMiBlog (testimonials) and “Club Vibe” (a place to access playlists that will get you really rocking and rolling) visit: OhMiBod.com

*Remember to give the same care to OhMiBod that you would with any other toy. Keep it clean, and for fuck’s sake, use a condom if you’re planning to share.