Love and Sex Archive

Love Issues

Culture

Valentine’s Day. One of the many holidays that started as a mix of a pagan festival (Lupercalia, a fertility festival) blended with a day in honor of some dude (St. Valentine) who died in an unpleasant way for the Catholic Church. No one runs through the streets anymore gently slapping women with the blood-dripping hide of a sacrificed goatskin to ensure fertility, but some of us would probably rather get hit with a dead goat than be subjected to the Hallmark cards and pink candy hearts of our modern Valentine’s Day celebrations. Continue reading →

Date Club

The rules of online dating

Culture

If you’ve found yourself single in the past few years, chances are you’ve considered signing up for one of the many online dating websites. And there are plenty to choose from, be it Match.com, eHarmony, OkCupid or one of the million or so others. If you haven’t taken the plunge or are still skirting the “free glances” fringes, allow this e-dating vet to share a little learned wisdom and perhaps ease the nerves. Continue reading →

Gay Friendly?

Sure, but Eugene’s queer dating scene has its limits

Culture

San Francisco has the Castro, Seattle has Capital Hill, Portland has the Burnside Triangle. In a smaller city with no gay district, center or bar, Eugene is a difficult place for men to date. And for a university town, where the UO was voted number one in Campus Pride’s Climate Index of gay-friendly colleges, it is puzzling that there are no designated queer spaces off campus. Many people will tell you, “Go to G.L.A.M. Continue reading →

Healthy Sex Toys

Pleasure parties for the eco-inclined

Culture

“I show up and transform their living room into a sex toy store. Lots of samples, lots of testers,” Kim Marks says. Marks is the proprietor of Oregon’s As You Like It – The Pleasure Shop and she devotes many of her evenings to putting on PleasureWare Home Parties, showcasing the store’s many ecofriendly and ethical sex toys and products, from glass dildos to phthalate-free vibrators.  Continue reading →

Apes Gone Wild

The sweet sex lives of bonobos

Culture

Having “hot animal sex” isn’t always a good thing. Take cats, for example. Male cats have spikes on their penises that bury into the vaginal wall during sex. Cats in heat aren’t yowling because they’re having a great time — it’s because they’re being stabbed by a barbed penis. And in the insect world, after praying mantises have sex, the female skips right past the pillow talk and bites the male’s head off if she’s hungry or stressed.  Continue reading →