In the December issue, we learn all about what men are really thinking. Or rather, what Cosmo editors pretending to be guys think men are really thinking. The article "Guy Love Diaries" ostensibly features relationship journals from two real men, but we have a hard time believing "Paul, 29" used the term "BFF." Also, he writes:

"When girls get together at showers and bachelorette parties, they usually talk about boys and swap sex techniques. Sara always comes back with new sex tricks and great fellatio.

How could a man know that "wedding shower" is really code for "getting sex tips from Grandma and Aunt Janet?"

In both guys' diaries, they mention that they like it when women pig out in front of them, but stay skinny. Cosmo explains:

"Men fear they will marry a gorgeous girl, and then a couple of years later, she'll let herself go and put on 100 pounds. If you're not eating in front of him, he's nervous about what might happen when you let your guard down later on.

Josh Duhamel must have been terrified when Fergie had to gain 17 pounds for her role in Nine. Yet curiously, he didn't stop loving her! Fergie's secret?: "In Italy, Catholic boys are raised to believe that there are two types of women: the Madonna and the whore. And me? I'm both."

That may work for pop stars, but Cosmo advises you drop the whole "Madonna" thing in the bedroom. There's one dirty move guys "crave" and "you're gonna want to drop the magazine and do it on the spot." Thing is, it isn't actually a "move"; guys just "want to be wanted." Tips? Try sneaking up behind your boyfriend while he's on the phone and grabbing his penis, putting lotion on your nipples and dragging them across his chest, or taking his dick to "massage his tip all over your upper body — lips, cheeks, breasts — all while maintaining eye contact." That should give him a hint.

(Click to enlarge.)

The Killer Inside Me is set for release in 2010; its five minute trailer promo gives away a good chunk of the plot, which seems to involve quite a lot of graphic violence against women. This isn't particularly surprising, considering the long-standing media fascination with sex crimes, and the rising acceptance of rape scenes on prime time television (we're particularly reminded of the Last House on the Left trailer, which clearly showed a very young actress being raped). However, the level of violence shown in the clip is striking, and given the context, quite disturbing.

The film is based on a 1952 novel by the same name by writer Jim Thompson. According to Wikipedia, the novel centers around a young deputy sheriff living in a small town in western Texas, who has always felt the presence of some sort of "dark rider," to use the Dexter-terminology. Lou Ford is a sadistic monster, but he generally keeps his sociopathic tendencies under wraps (except for that one time when he sexually abused a young girl as a teen). As an adult, Ford takes up with a prostitute, in an apparently consensual sadomasochistic relationship that ends in her death. He then attempts to cover her murder by embarking on a series of killings, which ultimately ends up exposing his "sickness" to the world.

Judging by the clip, director Micheal Winterbottom has decided to stay pretty close to the source material. It's clear that Ford is a fucked up dude, who escalates from isolated acts of torture to beating his lover until her face is memorably described as "stewed meat, hamburger." Gwen from Sociological Images writes:

Clearly, Casey Affleck's character is a sadistic asshole (the cigar on the guy's hand), but in the promo, at least, the graphic, sexualized violence is reserved for women…who also appear to like it, at least for a while. Jessica Alba gives in to him, and apparently starts a relationship with him, after he pulls her pants down and whips her. Perhaps that's because she's a prostitute; of course she'd like a dominant man who plays rough, right?

The thing is, you could make this movie and tell the same story without actually showing all the violence in such a graphic way. Movies imply things all the time. It's a choice to show this type of violence toward women as a form of entertainment…and to show the women liking it.

Full disclosure: I'm a horror movie fanatic, and I generally don't shy away from violence on film. I have no problem with Tarantino, and I've seen more of the Saw franchise than I'd like to admit. And yet, Gwen's final comments hit the nail on the head as to why this is particularly bothersome. Not only do we get a truly horrific glimpse of Jessica Alba's face after she's been beaten to death, but we also see the start of their relationship, which begins with a beating, followed immediately by passionate, consensual sex.

It's this series of events that bothers me. Less than a minute in, we see him carry a screaming Jessica Alba to the bed, where he turns her over and whips her with his belt while she screams in pain. Suddenly, something changes - he's no longer an abuser, but a lover. Now, there is nothing wrong with enjoying some healthy, consensual BDSM, but those relationships don't start out as a brutal attack. As far as I can tell, it appears that the first time these two characters meet, he begins to act out his violent fantasies upon her, but it's turns out O.K. (for awhile), because she likes it! This is a dangerous way of approaching sexual violence, for although she may be enjoying the spanking, it is clear that she is never in control. And this is the main problem with portraying rape fantasies and BDSM sex: If there is no discussion of power-play, it just ends up sending the message that women like rape or want to be beaten. Furthermore, Lou Ford's penchant for violence is explained away simply as a "sickness," which, while it may be good for the plot, glosses over the prevalence of rape culture. In making this an illness, particular to one individual, the movie is able to dabble in the same tropes that we see over and over again, and exploit the thrill of watching violence against women, without touching the greater issues at play. So unless Winterbottom is willing to delve into the dynamics of consent/control, The Killer Inside Me will be no better than a snuff film.

"The Killer Inside Me" Promo [Sociological Images]
The Killer Inside Me (Novel) [Wikipedia]
The Killer Inside Me [IMDB]

It's hard to read the details of Caroline and Steve Cartwright's case, reported in the Telegraph, without giggling a little bit. Their sex noises apparently drowned out neighbors' televisions, and aural witnesses described them as "unnatural" and ''murder." The sounds were apparently so disruptive that the city installed a decibel-meter in the Cartwrights' home, which found that the couple reached 47 decibels (a suggestion that neighbors may be overreacting: 47 decibels is actually below the level of normal conversation, according to several charts). Cartwright and her husband were banned from "shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance." They were convicted of violating the ban, and now Caroline Cartwright is appealing — she says that her sex life deserves respect, and that a sexual psychologist will testify that she can't help making noise. So is she right?

Well, folks, I Googled "women's sex vocalization" so you don't have to (though if you'd like to know what a) rats, b) mice and c) brunettes sound like while engaged in intercourse, by all means go ahead), and I came up with a book called The Male Sexual Machine, by Kenneth Purvis. The book's overview makes the specious claim that "the practice of gynecology has brought millions of women to a greater understanding of their own sexual health, its male counterpart, andrology, remains largely an unexplored field" (sounds a little like a certain Onion article), but it does offer some semi-intriguing evolutionary explanations for women's sex sounds. Apparently a woman's moans speed a man's ejaculation, possibly improving the odds of simultaneous orgasm and thus of conception. And somewhat more upsettingly, female moaning may have evolved to attract more male partners to the area, back in monkey-times when most sex was group sex. All of Purvis's arguments seem like they deserve a pretty big grain of salt, but it is possible that women's sex noises have a biological basis. And while most of us can keep them in check when we're, say, staying at our parents' houses, there's an element of the involuntary in the sex moan, and it's not hard to believe that some people might have trouble stifling it.

So should they be obligated to try? For my part, I've never really been all that bothered by loud sex. I lived for a while in a part of a co-op affectionately known as the Sex Hallway, and later shared an apartment with a woman who had a really distinctive — and frequent — keening fuck-moan. In both cases I at first found it a little hard to look people in the eye after I'd just heard them boning, but I got over that pretty quickly and generally found their vocal antics harmless. My years of communal living have taught me that I'd much rather hear people fucking than fighting. That said, I get why one might not want to live near people whose sex-sounds carried across the street — not everyone wants to imagine their neighbors going at it. The question is, do we have the right to demand a sex-free airspace? Or does Caroline Cartwright deserve to moan her heart out, since her cries are, after all, far from "unnatural?"

Image via Telegraph.

Woman Claims Order Banning Her From Noisy Sex Is Breach Of Human Rights [Telegraph]

•  A 35-year-old woman from Japan is believed to have drugged and murdered five men over the past few years. Police believe that she was deeply in debt, which may have been the motivation behind the killings. •  A study from Indiana University has found that using lube makes sex better for women (well, duh). Both water and silicone-based lubricants were found to reduce the risk of vaginal tearing and genital pain. •  Stroller manufacturer Maclaren has announced a recall of one million strollers - all strollers sold since 1999 - after twelve children had to have fingers amputated from being caught in the hinges. •  Canadian researchers report that women with "denser" breasts are at a higher risk of seeing breast cancer return. They examined over 300 breast cancer patients, and organized them into low density, intermediate, and high. The women with high density breasts were much more likely to have cancer return within five years. •  Women taking medication for depression are more likely to give birth prematurely, according to a recent study. Another finding showed that without medication use, women who displayed elevated symptoms of depression during pregnancy were no more likely to give birth preterm than their healthy peers. • On Saturday, hundreds of women in South Africa donned their bikinis and paraded through the streets of Johannesburg. The day-long event raised money for breast cancer research while breaking the world record for largest bikini parade. • Over the past five years, UK-based charity Childline has seen a significant rise (132% since 2004) in the number of calls received regarding sexual abuse by women. However, they do not believe that more women becoming abusers, but rather that more boys have tended to call the helpline. "Many would find it shocking that any woman - let alone a mother - can sexually assault a child. But they do," said Sue Minto, head of Childline. •  Sad news: The natural birth center at NYC's Bellevue Hospital has closed. The birth center was one of the only of its kind to cater to mostly poor, immigrant women on Medicaid, but it was apparently shut down in September due to budget constraints. •  Relatives of Janice Webb, a Cleveland woman who has been missing since June, say that they have not given up hope that Webb is alive, despite fears that she may be among Anthony Sowell's unidentified victims. •  On Sunday dozens of Muslim women gathered in Fremont, California to discuss hijabs. Many of them report facing hostility and prejudice: "There's a lot of covert discrimination out there," said one of the organizers. •  A senior Burmese diplomat has announced the possible release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for the majority of the past two decades, but her supporters at home and abroad hope that she will be free in time for next year's election. • Research on rabbit penises indicates that artificial penis tissue could one day be grown to help men with diseased or damaged penises, or simply those who want bigger dicks. Reassuringly, a writeup of the study notes that "if the scientists do try and help people with this research, naturally they will not use rabbit cells with men." •  The pro-rape Facebook group organized by the University of Sydney's St. Paul's college is apparently not an aberration: one student wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald that ''St Paul's boys are notorious for their sexist behaviour, referring to women as 'holes' and some of the co-ed colleges have 'don't speak to women days.'' • Scott Roeder has confessed to the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, and plans to use a "necessity defense," arguing that the murder was "justified to protect the lives of unborn children." • A 23-year-old Kansas City man has been arrested for marrying a 14-year-old girl in a Muslim ceremony — under Missouri state law, he would have needed a judge's order to do so. • Members from the Westboro Baptist Church have been protesting outside the Sidwell Friends School, where Sasha and Malia Obama are enrolled as students. Protesters carried signs with anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-Obama slogans. • 

The latest to take porn to task for ruining modern fucking is Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams. She writes,

Convenience, ubiquity, and the goal-oriented, money-shot, male-centric perspective of most porn (hint: women don't need to see that much fellatio) have changed us. Much has been written on how porn's transformation into the modern sexual lingua franca affects women – the pressure to be bush-shaved and adept at pole dancing didn't come from Oprah or Martha Stewart. But porn has changed men too – what we expect of them, what they demand of themselves. And the problem is that thinking you can learn to make to love to a woman from watching porn is like thinking you can learn to drive from watching "The Fast and the Furious."

Her point is that dudes who watch too much Ron Jeremy think that women want to be jackhammered — or, more upsettingly, that they enjoy a man "withdrawing his member at key moments to thump it on" them. Williams's piece is pretty funny; about the latter technique, she writes, "You know what description you never want a woman you've slept with to apply to your sexual technique? 'Baffling.'" But do men really need to "learn to make to love to a woman?"

Williams writes that "unlike other recreational pleasures — bowling, baking pies — sex, unless you're a swinger, isn't something people get much firsthand observational experience with," and speculates that some turn to porn for its "instructional uses." She also says, "sex isn't just a matter of doing what comes naturally." To which I thought, it's not? Yes, it's true that your first encounter with your high school boyfriend (or girlfriend) is not going to be the most mind-blowing intercourse of your life. And Williams is right about the necessity of communication: she writes, "I have nothing but admiration for anyone who's ever had the guts to simply come out and ask a lover what works and what doesn't." Me too. But the idea that sex is a skill, like bowling, for which we need instructions, actually seems like part of porn culture to me.

To be clear, I don't think Williams is suggesting that guys bone up (sorry) on a million different techniques before bedding women. She seems to be arguing for talking to your partner, not believing everything you see on the Internet, and not taking yourself too seriously — all of which sounds like good advice. What I'm dissatisfied with isn't so much Williams's argument per se as the whole idea that people have to be "good in bed." It's a concept promulgated not just in porn but in magazines, which imply that you don't really have a good sex life unless you know 32 ways to massage the taint. And in terms of commodifying something that's supposed to be fun and (usually) free, convincing us that we need professional advice on sex is almost as bad as telling us we're not allowed to have pubic hair.

Both sex advice and new sexual techniques can be fun and hot. What's less hot is the idea that sex is just one more area where we have to achieve — and where we're supposed to pay other people money to help us do so. If, as Barbara Ehrenreich alleges, late-stage American capitalism has produced the life coach, it's also spawned a crop of sex coaches — magazine editors and self-help book writers devoted to helping us win the game of satisfying a lover. But unlike capitalism, sex should be a game where everybody wins.

Though Williams, with her emphasis on fun and communication, is part of the solution, her claim that guys can't just do what comes naturally is part of the problem. So, of course, is porn, privileging huge dicks and ridiculous moves over actual enjoyment. But maybe the pornification of sex wouldn't be such a problem if we weren't worried about "doing it right." Maybe we could keep porn in its proper place — entertainment, not instruction or comparison — if we weren't constantly told we needed to compare or instruct ourselves. Maybe what we need is not so much to critique porn, but to get past it — to stop thinking so much and just fuck.

How Not To Make Love Like A Porn Star [Salon]

Watson begins by acknowledging that the words "good wife" are saddled with centuries of baggage: "In a postfeminist world, the word 'wife' on its own sounds quaint enough," she writes, "and 'good wife' conjures up images of blissed-out 1950s housewives admiring their hostess trollies. Good wives are what women had to be before we fought for the right to be good at something else." Still, she argues, there's a difference between being a subservient wife and being a "good wife," and she offers a four part charter to help women separate the idea of being a "good wife" from being a Stepford one, pushing women to make their husbands a priority, to find time for sex, to "beware resentment" and to "be kind and supportive."

Watson's argument, backed by authors Lionel Shriver and Ayelet Waldman, is that women often treat their husbands poorly, putting them last in line when it comes to attention and affection: "Even women who would never call themselves feminists have bought into the idea that men are bottom of the list after their personal fulfilment, fitness routine and, of course, the kids," she writes. Watson's charter is filled with tips and tricks from the likes of Waldman, who claims that couples should create "who does what?" questionnaires to get a sense of how the domestic chores are split, or from Shriver, who says she has to remember to "to remember to treat my husband as well as I treat other people."

The "Good Wife Charter" itself seems to be steeped in marital stereotypes: women withhold sex from their husbands, women put their kids above their spouses, etc. It's meant to be a piece that celebrates healthier partnerships, I suppose, but something feels a bit off about it. She's trying to prove to women that being a good wife is more about being an engaged, caring partner than adhering to the 1950s relationship playbook, but it reads as though marital roles are still centered around a lazy, chore-inept husband and a frazzled, overworked wife.

In fairness, a "How To Be A Good Husband" piece, written by a man, is tacked on to the end of Watson's article, but that's steeped in stereotypes as well: "Talking is important. Talking and listening. I know it can be excruciating, but wives need conversation. They cannot exist on grunts alone. You must save that for the pub. If you don't, you will be nagged. And nagging, as we all know, is the marital equivalent of waterboarding." Yikes.

Overall, Watson's piece offers advice that could really apply to either partner in a relationship: be kind, be involved, be willing to help out. I'm not sure it's entirely helpful to continue to strive to be a "good wife," as much as it would be helpful for both partners to try to bring as much as they can to the relationship. "We have become socialised and media-ised to think it's all about us," Watson writes, "Ask yourself, why did I marry this guy in the first place? But the other questions to ask are, why is he married to me? What's he getting out of it?" Perhaps a better question would be "Why did we marry each other? How can we help each other out?" A "good wife" or a "good husband" is really no match for a "good partnership."

The Good Wife Charter, And How To Be A Good Husband [TimesOnline]

A 38-year-old woman wrote to Godson, concerned that her re-entry into the dating world, after leaving a marriage of 13 years, was being derailed a bit by her pubic hair; specifically, the fact that she has any. The 27-year-old she's now dating was "shocked" to see that she had hair on her genitals, and as the woman notes "I do look after myself (hence the gym) but I don't think that a permanent tan and Brazilian wax should be deal-breakers in a relationship. Or am I just hopelessly outdated?"

Godson's answer, though it comes with a great deal of apologetic buildup, is basically yes. She explains to the woman that the pornification of the world is greatly responsible for younger men's tendency to expect a hairless woman. "There is something hugely irritating about being forced to conform to an aesthetic ideal instigated and perpetuated by the porn industry," Godson writes, "but, like keeping one's armpits and legs smooth, it is now expected. If your boyfriend has been conditioned to expect a tidy Brazilian, he may genuinely find anything else very off-putting."

Oh. Okay then. Because men have been "conditioned" to expect Brazilians, this woman needs to have one right away. We wouldn't want this woman to have any say over her own pubic hair, would we? I mean, she clearly states that she doesn't think Brazilians are necessary for a relationship, but apparently she's wrong in Suzi Godson's eyes, as only a woman who conforms to her boyfriend's pube desires really deserves relationship status. "Though the feminist ethos of your "take me as I am" argument is perfectly valid," Godson argues, "your boyfriend's reaction is instinctive - and in the face of something that is honestly perceived as a turn-off by one partner, rational arguments simply do not work."

Look, if the guy is so turned off by this woman's pubic hair that it really is a sexual dealbreaker for this couple, that's a conversation this couple has to have. But instructing a woman to wax simply for a man's happiness, regardless of her own personal preferences, is ridiculous. Just because men are "accustomed" to a certain thing, it doesn't mean that women have to do it to make them happy. And if a man really can't handle it, maybe it's not the pubic hair that has to go.

Sex Advice: Do I Need To Wax? [TimesOnline]

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about vibrator sex, NYC, and shark sex. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

What's The Best Position For Using A Magic Wand During Sex? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

The other twin continued to grow, living inside Kang's stomach and crushing her internal organs. Doctors say this condition is very rare, but Kang is recovering well from her surgery, and is going to be just fine. • Self magazine has ranked the top 10 healthiest cities for women, based on disease rates and other factors. Topping the list is Burlington, Vt., which boasts a large number of co-ops and organic food options, as well as low rates of diabetes, cholesterol and hypertension. •  According to a doctoral thesis out of Spain, students aged 11-16 have generally resigned themselves to bullying. They believe that it is "something natural" and has always happened. They also found that girls viewed bullies differently than boys. Girls tended to empathize with the victims and associate negative feelings with the bully, while boys focused more on the shame of being a victim. •  Researchers have discovered a rather odd link between morning sickness during pregnancy and cognitive ability. Apparently, children whose mothers suffered from nausea and puking tend to score slightly better on cognitive tests. Doctors believe hormone levels may be to blame. • Devout Muslim Rabia Sarwar allegedly tried to slit her new husband Sheikh Naseem's throat, saying he's emotionally abusive and made her drink alcohol, eat pork, and wear revealing clothes. He's unharmed, and she's been charged with attempted murder. • The American people apparently have as low an opinion of Sarah Palin's qualifications as they did of Dan Quayle's. • Also, Iowans can relax: Palin isn't giving a speech in your state... yet. • The US currently bans people with HIV from entering the country, meaning there hasn't been a major AIDS conference here since 1993. However, Obama says he will reverse the ban next year. • Rev. Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, will become the first female head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which her father helped found. • An Iraqi man accused of running his daughter over with a car because she had become "too Westernized" has been found in Atlanta after a search. • A study found that Swedish mothers who ate more vegetables during pregnancy were less likely to have children with type 1 diabetes. No word on what happens to babies whose moms eat a lot of Swedish fish. • Hillary Clinton's meeting with Pakistani women today went poorly, perhaps because she modeled it on "The View" — or perhaps because she joked about "not talking about security issues," while the Pakistani women want to talk about... security issues. • Pat Robertson responded to Obama's signing of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, which would allow hate crime prosecution for crimes based on sexual orientation, by saying, "The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians." Because not letting Christians persecute gay people is apparently the same as lynching them. • On facing Jaycee Dugard's kidnapper Phillip Garrido in court, the woman he raped 32 years ago says, "It's always been just under the surface of my life, and I thought this was in its box and put away. But this Pandora 's box is open for me, and now I'm dealing with it again on a different level, like I've been victimized myself." • Two waitresses are suing Hooters after they were forced to buy the hideous orange uniforms out of pocket. It is illegal to demand employees buy uniforms if they are required to wear something other than "everyday street clothes." "I don't think that could confuse the Hooters uniform clothes as part of someone's ordinary wardrobe," said their lawyer. •  A recent study from Harvard University has found that men, regardless of their sexual orientation, are most attracted to faces that look most synonymous with their gender. In other words, gay men like very masculine looking men, while straight men are attracted to the most feminine-looking women. • 

The Naked Fat Girl Extravaganza Glamour promised after the huge response to showing plus-size model Lizzie Miller's belly in the September issue is finally here, and it's nothing short of a "revolution" (according to Glamour).

(Click images to make them larger.)


In her Editor's Note, Cindi Leive repeats the declaration she made when the photo was unveiled on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

As Kate Harding wrote earlier, "it's a good effort... But let's not kid ourselves - this isn't a revolution. Yet." Seeing seven models with average-sized bodies (deemed "plus-size" by the industry) along with an article on why that's such a rarity and Glamour's promise to change that is great. However, using the hyperbolic term "revolution" only draws attention to what hasn't changed. Rather than a full length fashion spread, all the models are crammed together into one shot. They're also naked, which solves the problem of finding 7 designer ensembles bigger than a size 4.


Though Glamour has used plus-size models without comment in the past, the "revolution" hasn't really spread to the rest of the magazine. The only larger lady not on pages 198-199 is a non-model learning to make her "hot self look sleeker, curvier, whatever-er" in a Spanx body suit. (Thankfully no one had to model the shapewear thong.)



As Ms. Leive mentions, the model featured in the issue's one fashion spread that ran immediately before the plus-size model article is quite Twiggy-esque.


Of course, no one is angling to have thin models banned from magazines in lieu of larger ones, but aside from the liberal use of inflatable monkeys, the story didn't scream "revolution."


The rest of the magazine features the usual articles on the products every woman must buy to ward off wrinkles, in addition to answers to readers' questions on acceptable sexual behaviors ( "Should you pee with the door open when he's home?" and "Is it ever OK to sleep with your ex?"). Larger models are not featured in any of the posed pictures accompanying the beauty, health, and sex articles, because apparently Glamour can't find the requisite plus-size long johns, bras, and pink boxing gloves.


Let's face it. At any size, we ladies need magazines to guide us through the day-to-day problems we face. Like whether or not to date vampires.


And as always, the cover was chock full of lies.

Earlier: Coming This Fall: More Naked Fat Ladies In Glamour
Glamour's Plus-Size MOdel Photo Unveiled on Ellen
Naked Fat Girls On Ellen! Sort Of!

Lucy Davies of the Telegraph interviewed Hef in advance of the publication of his autobiography, and her article focuses heavily on his early life in Chicago. She describes a number of Rockwellesque scenes: "we see him haunting newsstands, devouring comics; lying on his bedroom floor scratching out his own versions of Jekyll & Hyde for his friends" and "he is charming on the subject of his childhood, sprinkling the story with a confection of period detail: soda fountains and hayrides; ping-pong in the basement; girls named Candy and Betty who he tried to impress by jitterbugging in his 'red flannel shirts, yellow corduroy pants and saddle shoes.'" But all was not sweetness and light! Hefner says he grew up in "a very typical, conservative, puritan home… [where he] wasn't getting many hugs and kisses." And indeed, he frames his creation of the Playboy brand as a reaction to a culture that wasn't hugging him enough. Of his early moviegoing experiences, he tells Davies,

In that darkened theatre all things were possible: I escaped into wonderful dreams of adventure and romance. But the Hays Code [strict censorship guidelines governing moral standards in film introduced by Will Hays in 1930] destroyed all that. Eventually even the married couples on screen slept in twin beds. I was very connected to that kind of repression early on.

And when he was thinking of creating Playboy, he says,

I looked back on the roaring Twenties, with its jazz, Great Gatsby and the pre-Code films as a party I had somehow managed to miss. After World War Two, I expected something similar; a return to the period after the first war, but when the skirt lengths went down instead of up I knew we were in big trouble. It turned out to be a very conservative, serious period – socially, sexually and politically.

Hefner's not without a point here — a culture of sexual repression is bad for everyone involved. But it's telling that he chooses to figure this repression in terms of skirt lengths. Brooks Barnes of the New York Times notes Hefner's commitment to the pro-choice cause and the Equal Rights Amendment, and these shouldn't be discounted. But sexual freedom for Hefner is still largely the freedom of men to look at women, and this is a pretty narrow view both of human sexuality and of how to combat repression. I'm firmly in favor of the right of women to wear short skirts, but the fact that dudes can see our legs doesn't necessarily mean we're sexually fulfilled, and the existence of a soft-core men's porn mag doesn't really do much for women.

Davies's inclusion of Hefner's first editor's letter in Playboy drives this point home, as well as reminding us of how poorly, in some ways, Playboy has aged. The letter reads, "If you're a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is meant for you" — Hefner himself now falls outside his original target audience. The letter continues through some hilarious use of the second person — "We like our apartment" — to the famous and now self-parodic-sounding statement, "We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d'oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex." Davies calls this bohemian act "delightfully hammy," until you get to this: "If you're somebody's sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion." Ouch — a "female acquaintance" may be good for a discussion of "Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex," but she better not pick up the publication that aims to teach men how to talk about these things. Instead, she should stick to her ladymags.

It's tempting to say, especially after reading Barnes's Times article (with its unbeatable title, "The Loin in Winter"), that Hefner's reign is over. Barnes writes that Playboy Enterprises "said earlier this year that it would consider acquisition offers, something that was believed to be unthinkable while Mr. Hefner was still alive." He also points out that Hefner's ex-girlfriends have embarrassed him by publicly calling him a "control freak" — and while some will always take a "yeah, bra!" attitude to the 83-year-old's "relationships" with ever-younger women, to many these dalliances are beginning to seem ridiculous. Barnes's funniest criticism is of the Playboy Mansion itself, whose game room apparently "smell[s] musty," and whose grotto is now "like a fetid zoo exhibit."

But while Hefner-bashing offers some schadenfreude-y fun, the man did popularize a cultural attitude with disturbing staying power: the idea that a woman's sexual availability is the same as sexual liberation. Again, Hefner deserves praise for his support of actual feminist causes. But when he describes his magazine as a response to "repression," he conflates male desire with social freedom, a conflation that's now so totally ingrained that Ariel Levy wrote a book about it, and women everywhere live with it every day. I'm not against porn directed at men, as long as the women involved consent. But I am against pretending that making such porn and distributing it to a wide audience — as Barnes writes, Hefner "essentially did for sex what Ray Kroc did for roadside food: clean it up for a rising middle class" — is somehow empowering for everybody, and that pretense is Hefner's biggest "legacy." Hefner tells Barnes, "We just literally live in a very different world and I played a part in making it that way. Young people have no idea about that." Unfortunately, I do.

Hugh Hefner: Interview On Playboy [Telegraph]
The Loin In Winter: Hefner Reflects, And Grins [NYT]

If you've ever read about the paralegal who keeps on seeing some dude she calls The One Who Cries for lackluster sex, the sweet but dim college boyfriend who doesn't seem to realize his girlfriend doesn't love him anymore, or the lady who followed her cheating boyfriend to Mexico, as well as that guy who comments obsessively on every post, and wondered, Who are these people? Well — they are real. And they have all the tattoos you'd expect.

From left: The Polyamorous Paralegal, The Horny Editor Visiting The 'Rents, and The Expat New Yorker Trying To Make It Work In Paradise.

Analyzing all of humanity's sexual habits — or even all of the city's — based on a self-selecting sample that is, as Yang writes, comprised of "bizarrely oversharing New Yorkers motivated by the impulse to brag or, as often, the urge to fling their terrible abjection in the face of the world," seems a little daft, but the editor of the feature, Arianne Cohen, hazards a few conclusions anyway. "Married Diarists have approximately triple the amount of sex as single ones (even twenty-something singles) simply by dint of sharing a bed," she writes. "Manhattanites are more likely to have intimacy issues, while Brooklynites are more likely to cheat. As for which gender has sex on the mind more often, I'd say it's a draw — though men are more likely to masturbate, somewhat commonly in public bathrooms."

And, whoo boy, is there a lot of masturbation. Communications technology, in making us all reachable, in giving us all the permanent option to do something or someone else, has made us each subject to "the nagging urge to make each thing we do the single most satisfying thing we could possibly be doing at any moment." Human relationships are a menu of choices, constantly updated via Facebook. "In the face of this enormous pressure," Yang writes, "many of the Diarists stay home and masturbate." (And, though they can't have helped, maybe it's not really the cell phones that bring it out in us. Joan Didion seems to have made the exact same point about the tendency toward option paralysis in this city — minus the self-abuse — when she wrote in 1967, "Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach. Just around every corner lay something curious and interesting, something I had never before seen or done or known about.")

Then there's this:

An inordinate number of Diarists find themselves at the brink of enjoying one sexual experience, only to receive a phone call or text from another potential suitor. They become a slave to their compulsion and indecision. Consider these snippets in a week of one Diarist, who is deeply conflicted between her Pseudo and Ex:

2:55 p.m. Pseudo G-chats me. Looks like he might be interested in hanging out tonight after all. 9:30 p.m. Meet up with Ex and friends at bar. Text Pseudo to see if he's up for doing anything.

2:20 a.m. At a bar with Pseudo and other friends. Ex drunk-texts me: "Wanna fuck?" 3:17 a.m. Half-bottle of wine plus mucho beer plus a few rounds of shots leads to me texting Pseudo, "Let's get out of here and go back to my place." 3:18 a.m. Pseudo texts back, "I don't feel like dealing with you."

11:45 p.m. At a bar with Pseudo. Ex drunk-texts me.

1:30 p.m. Ex calls and wakes me up. Says he needs to talk in person. 7:49 p.m. Text Pseudo and tell him about convo with Ex. Pseudo replies that he's sorry, he hopes I end up getting what I want. What the hell does that mean? I have no idea what I want, clearly.

This compulsive toggling between options winds up inflicting the very damage it was designed to protect against.

This would be funny if it weren't absolutely true.

Yang, with the diaries, paints a picture of an aggressively devil-may-care kind of young New York that isn't entirely aware of its own contradictions. We seek romance, but avoid emotional exposure. We hedge "The anxiety of appearing overly sincere" against "The anxiety of being unable to love." One 26-year-old diarist says, of his girlfriend, "I want to love her. And I should. I just, well, don't. She's the best girlfriend anyone could ever hope to have. I wish that were enough to love her." Another, aged 39, spends a moment every Sunday looking for M4W posts by Steve, "a disgusting person I slept with back in April," on Craigslist.

There's a thick vein of neurotic self-loathing in these stories, which, though rarely elegantly expressed, has its own kind of appeal. Maybe we shouldn't be asking what the sex diarists tell us about our behavior, but what our willingness to read their reports says about us.

A Critical (But Highly Sympathetic) Reading of New Yorkers' Sexual Habits and Anxieties [NYMag]