15 January, 2009

Trendy Sex Not So Hot

Every new year is a time for trend prediction and, in 2009, even sex isn’t immune.

Karla Tolstoy, an Internet entrepreneur from Oakville, Ontario, and regular “Sexploration” reader, recently e-mailed asking about sex trends for the coming year. Karla is starting a Web site for couples and she wanted in on the next big thing.

The idea of a “sex trend” may strike you as odd, as if sex were like hemlines, or reality shows, or top 40 music — one of the fizzy bubbles that float pop culture — but in recent years there has been a lot of churn about sex. It’s all latex! No, wait, it’s goth! Swinging is back!

Even Candida Royalle, the pioneering erotic actress, director, author, and sex toy designer tells me she is amazed at how sex has been “gobbled up and spit out as just another trend.”

So here’s my 2009 prediction about trendy sex: It’s over.

While more information is good, sex-as-trend imposes pressure to conform. Never heard of a sex toy called “The Cone,” never been flogged by a dungeon master, or have yet to invite six strangers over for a little observational masturbation, also known as a Jack and Jill? How square. Hipsters have been so busy mining every tiny seam of our erotic underworld for nuggets of obscure novelty, and then feeding those nuggets into the crusher of pop culture, that those of us who have yet to attend a CFNM - Clothed Female Naked Male - party can feel hopelessly mainstream. (OMG!)

I recently guest edited and introduced a collection of sex writing selected by Rachel Kramer Bussel (“Best Sex Writing 2009”) and one of the most hilarious pieces in it is called “Silver Balling” by Stacey D’Erasmo. It’s the story of her quest, prompted by fear of being deemed uncool for not knowing the latest sex technique, to decipher the meaning of what proves to be a meaningless phrase. Read more >>

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