Unlocked on Late Night Local News

Unlocked is blowing up in the local media. Last night both Fox 61 and NBC 30 interviewed the editors of the Wesleyan sex magazine, Yannick Bindert '10, David Wolovsky '10, Karla Suarez '11, and Shannon Sun-Higginson '10, for the 11 o'clock news.

NBC's spot (not embeddable) shows a group of happy-go-lucky college kids on a sex magazine publishing adventure, while Fox's is all "is it art or is it PORN???" and tries to muster shock at Wesleyan's financial support of the apparent ravishing of America's youth.


Ride the wave, guys.

NBC 30: One Sizzling College Mag

Fox 61: Wesleyan Sex Magazine

And now that you're interested, Unlocked is holding interest meetings this week. Anyone who wants to model or photograph for the upcoming issue should show up at Usdan by the couches on Thursday (3/26) at 5, and for those interested in writing an article a meeting is at the same time and place on Friday (3/27) .

Unlocked Interest Meetings
Date: Thursday 3/26 and Friday 3/27
Time: 5 pm
Place: Couches in Usdan lobby

Unlocked Makes Courant Feel Sexy; Is On Gawker

Unlocked coeditor Yannick Bindert '10 contemplates Jacob D''s body.

Perennially Wes-bashing (More here. And here. And here.) Manhattan gossip blog Gawker, failing to do any sort of journalistic footwork on its own,* commented on an article in the Hartford Courant about Wesleyan's (unofficial) sex magazine, Unlocked.

Obligatory copy-pasted excerpt here:

"We note that Wesleyan, the most annoying liberal arts school in the US, has launched a new sex magazine called...wait for it...Unlocked. Uh, unless this is like Wesleyan's 267th different sex mag, may we just say about time, kids? Despite the fact that almost nothing in all of collegedom could be more tritely predictable than a sex magazine at Wesleyan (pictured: a photo shoot), this news was enough to warrant credulous coverage in the Hartford Courant"

(Picture of Jacob D '11 Via Gawker, Via the Courant)
Of course, there's a variety of anti-wes comments for you to read. My personal favorite comment is one by Mount Prion:

Mount_Prion 2:13 PM

I assumed that picture was cover art for a new MGMT album before I read the article.

Of course, both articles fail to take into account that nobody really believes Unlocked is "edgy," but rather, simply falls into the category of "another student magazine that focuses on things students like to do"... in this case, each other.
Hartford Courant: Wesleyan Sex Magazine Features NudityHartford Courant: Behind-the-scenes Unlocked photo shoot
Gawker: People Still Care About College Sex Mags
*Of course, i'm not doing much better by simply posting a link to the blogpost itself. Pot, meet kettle.

Lecture: Foucault and Sexual Freedom

Russell House lecture tonight with Jana Sawicki, Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at Williams College. Part of this semester's Center of the Humanities lecture series on human nature:

In an interview conducted just before his death in 1984, Michel Foucault suggested that homosexual activists might advance sexual freedom by turning away from the discourse of sex-desire and exploring the possibilities opened up within an ethics of pleasure. Cultivating pleasure, he claimed, was more likely to enhance sexual freedom than appeals to the trope of "desiring man."

Professor Sawicki asks, what is the ontological status of the pleasures that Foucault invokes? Why turn to an ethics of pleasure? Finally, why refuse the discourse of desire? Insofar as queer theorists (Judith Butler, Leo Bersani, Michael Warner) rely heavily upon psychoanalytic theory, they appear to have rejected Foucault's sustained critique of the discourse of desire. Are there good reasons to be wary of this reliance upon psychoanalytic thought? Or, must we burn Foucault?

Date: Monday, November 3
Time: 8-9:30 pm
Place: Russell House - Millett Room, free

Dirty Words; A Literary Encyclopedia or Sex

On campus tomorrow and looking for something to do other than Trivia Night at La Boca? Check out another sweet-sounding event at Green Street Arts Center:

Dirty Words; A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex
Our favorite contemporary authors on an irresistible subject: sex. From sexual relationships to sexual positions, from the classics to contemporary twists, Dirty Words collects the most provocative definitions of the most outlandish sexual terms, as defined by some of today's most exciting writers. Editor Ellen Sussman is joined by the region's "literati" for an evening of readings that step in where time-honored discussions of the birds and the bees fall short. Featuring live readings by: Sussman and Sam Brumbaugh, Rand Cooper, Thaisa Frank, Dan Pope and Mary-Ann Tirone Smith. Due to mature content, this event is recommended for people age 18 and up. Advanced Reservation is recommended.

When: 7 pm on June 24th, 2008
Where: Green Street Arts Center at 51 Green Street
$$$: $5 suggested donation

Chicks in the City

Wesleyan alumni Jon Golbe '06 and Jess Lane '06 have come out with their newest video, "Chicks in the City" just in time for the Sex and the City movie premiere. Who has the better cast? It's hard to tell...

Green Porno: Sex to Die For

So you're done with finals, kinda bored, and maybe looking for something sexy to pass the time? This is the total opposite of that, unless you get off to Isabella Rossellini wearing bug costumes and simulating arthropod intercourse.

Check out Green Porno, a series of eight bizarrely hilarious (and informative!) short videos written by and starring the classy actress. Rossellini starts each clip by saying "If I were a... [insert bug name]", and then using life-size costumes, puppets, and animation to imagine herself as the male half of each slightly anthropomorphized coupling (unless the bug is hermaphroditic).

Here's a preview:

Fight brain rot! The full videos are here.

Alumni in the Real World: Mary Roach

The first in what may or may not become a sporadically updated series of posts about successful Wes grads important enough to merit substantial Wiki pages (a.k.a. evidence that there's hope for more in life after graduation beyond living in a shitty Brooklyn apartment and reliving college during weekend brunches with fellow alumni):

Mary Roach '81, a Psychology major during her days at Wesleyan, is a well-published journalist and science writer who fuses extensive research on obscure topics with an often morbid sense of humor in such books as Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (which was featured on an episode of Six Feet Under), and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, a study of the weird mysteries of sexual physiology which was published earlier this year and topped bestseller lists.

An excerpt from her website bio:

I grew up in a small house in Etna, New Hampshire. My dad was 65 when I was born. My neighbors taught me how to drive a Skidoo and shoot a rifle, though I never made much use of these skills. I graduated from Wesleyan in 1981, and drove out to San Francisco with some friends. I spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor before landing a half-time PR job at the SF Zoo. My office was in a trailer next to Gorilla World. On the days when I wasn't taking calls about elephant wart removal surgery or denying rumors that the cheetahs had been sucked dry by fleas, I wrote freelance articles for the local newspaper's Sunday magazine. Eventually, my editors there moved on to bigger things and took me along with them.

I mostly write books these days, but I still write the occasional magazine piece. These have run in Outside, National Geographic, New Scientist, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine, as well as many others too embarrassing to name. ...I often write about science, though I don't have a science degree and must fake my way through interviews with experts I can't understand. I also review books for The New York Times.

My first book, Stiff, was an offshoot of a column I wrote for Salon.com. It was sort of a reported humor column, wherein I covered things like vaginal weight-lifting and amputee bowling leagues and the question of how much food it takes to burst a human stomach.

I have no hobbies. I mostly just work on my books and hang out with my family and friends. I enjoy bird-watching--though the hours don't agree with me--backpacking, thrift stores, overseas supermarkets, Scrabble, mangoes, and that late-night "Animal Planet" show about horrific animals such as the parasitic worm that attaches itself to fishes' eyeballs but makes up for it by leading the fish around.

In an interview with Salon.com, she describes the sometimes hilariously awkward sex research involved in the process of writing "Bonk", which included studies of couples having sex in MRI machines, bonobos being shown gay porn, and getting it on with her husband while a doctor took notes.

Somebody get this woman on campus!



Links:

• maryroach.net
• Salon.com: Archive of Mary Roach columns
• Salon.com: Mary Roach, "Bonk": Getting it on for science

25 Ailments That Can Be Cured By Having Sex

In one of my more odd experiences since entering the blogosphere last fall, Fiona King recently emailed me to tell us:

We just posted an article "25 Ailments That Can Be Cured By Having Sex." I thought I'd bring it to your attention just in case you think your readers would find it interesting.

The oddness is of two parts: first, why is it that Fiona is writing in about it, while Jessica Hupp wrote the article, and second: why email me instead of Wesleying@gmail.com? I wrote to ask her these questions (not to mention how it is she came to be a Wesleying reader in the first place), but no response to date. I mean, granted I spend hours and hours every day on their parent site "100bestdatingsites.com," but I tend to use a fake name and email.....

So, after waiting a few days for a response, I've decided that the article would in fact be of some interest to our readers. In no particular order, I think #1 is obvious, #24 sounds really unfortunate, #4 doesn't sound too appealing for the guy, #6 was inevitable and #13 is my favorite.

Unlocked 2, Get it Get it

Unlocked #2 is out, in color and only one dolla, featuring:

• Amish Sex Fiction
• 101 Places to fuck before you die
• Behind the scenes at the Sex Workers' Art Show
• The hottest fruit you will ever see

On sale in Usdan, Tuesday (today) and Thursday during lunch and dinner.

Sexual Health Expo submission glitch

Lisa Currie, Director of Health Education, wants to let you know that there have been some problems with the Sexpo proposal form:

There is a glitch with the Sexpo Proposal Form on the WesWELL website. [...] I’m putting up the proposal form in a Word document that can be emailed to WesWELL instead.

If you have submitted a proposal and did not get a confirmation page (or the form simply reset), it was not received. Please re-submit it. My apologies for all this!

For more information, check out the Sexpo site.

Sexual Health Expo 2008 wants you!

Bursting with WesWELL goodness and not content with sending us just one announcement, Rebecca Broches '08 wrote to us regarding this year's Sexual Health Expo:

WesWELL is looking for student organizations and individual students to help make the day a success—some ways you might get involved include tabling with educational materials, fundraising for relevant causes, educating on relevant political issues, presenting a workshop, or developing a poster presentation, but we want to hear your creative ideas as well!

Go here for more information about this year's Sexual Health Expo, as well as past years' events.

Proposals are due by February 10, through the online form at the aforementioned website. Email WesWELL with any questions, or call Lisa Currie, Director of Health Education, at 860 685-2466.

Date: Friday, Feb. 29
Time: 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Location: Exley lobby

Mmmmm sex toys!

Lubricants, Butt Plugs, and Vibrators…

OHH MY!

Sexuality Discussion & Sex Toy Workshop with Megan Andelloux From the MIKO SLRC

When: Wednesday, November 14 @ 7:30pm
Where: Exley room 58
Who: Sponsored by WesWELL and Adelphic Educational Fund

Mmmmmm pills and condoms

You know you use those handy bags of assorted condoms, or maybe you use the pill? Time to give some feedback on the wesleyan birth control campaign! What's your favorite condom, wesleying? Mine are those beyond seven/kimonos... anyway.

WesWELL, the Office of Health Education wants to know what kinds of safer sex supplies we should be offering. We have an online survey up through December 1st, so please help us out!

The survey is here.

(p.s. Wesleyan students only, please, with apologies to all the non-Wes Wesleying readers.)

Unlocked Magazine Wants You

In no way am I trying to suggest that Wesleyan isn't weird, but you have to admit that sometimes our quirky free-lovin' spirit falls a little short. Ben Kuller '10 and Yannick Bindert '10 think that wesleyan is due for a good dose of artistic sexual expression in the print format. That's right, they're developing a wesleyan sex magazine titled Unlocked Magazine and it's about time! Come on everyone and show the world wesleyan can be a little kinky and live up to it's reputation. Besides we don't want Harvard to beat us forever on this one!

WE WANT YOU
Thats right folks, Unlocked (the Wesleyan Sex magazine) is looking for models. We're looking for every possible gender, body type and sexual expression. Photo shoots may be explicitly sexual, rabidly political, or just fun and hilarious. Do it alone. Do it with a friend. Do it with a fuck buddy. Do it with your future partner for life. All you need is a sense of humor and a willingness to do something a little wild, and if you're not comfortable with what we propose, you can tell us to go fuck off.

If you're interested, email unlockedmag@gmail and yes, you can be totally anonymous if you'd like.

Yannick thoughtfully adds:

Ladies, Gents, Zes.
Unlocked is also looking for writers, photographers, marketers, stylists etc etc. so dont think the only way to contribute is to pose naked for us. and, lets be real now, we go to wesleyan. We are def a wierd gem in a rockfield, which is exactly what this magazine stands for. All models are 100% themselves and the amount of nudity is up to the model.

So even if you're camera shy don't let that stop you short of contributing! Personally I'm excited to see just exactly what comes of this! (ha ha...)

The Smarter You are, the Less Sex You Have

So someone apparently decided we needed a medical study to prove what we all already knew--that the nerdier you are, the less sex you end up having (especially if your nerdiness tends to manifest itself in the maths and sciences).

After surveying thousands of high school-aged respondents, the study found a significant relationship between IQ and sexual experience. As Gene Expression explains:

Students with IQs above 100 and below 70 were significantly less likely to have had intercourse than those in between. Also like the other study, they found teens with IQs ranging from 75 to 90 had the lowest probability of virginity (the authors note this is also the same IQ range where propensity towards crime peaks).

Depending on the specific age and gender, an adolescent with an IQ of 100 was 1.5 to 5 times more likely to have had intercourse than a teen with a score of 120 or 130. Each additional point of IQ increased the odds of virginity by 2.7% for males and 1.7% for females. But higher IQ had a similar relationship across the entire range of romantic/sexual interactions, decreasing the odds that teens had ever kissed or even held hands with a member of the opposite sex at each age.

While these authors leave off at grade 12th, it would seem plausible to expect that this relationship extends beyond high school. To explore this, plenty of interesting facts come from a 2001 campus sex survey by the joint MIT/Wellesley college magazine Counterpoint (PDF). Looking within and between colleges, IQ appears to delay sexual activity on into young adulthood.

By the age of 19, 80% of US males and 75% of women have lost their virginity, and 87% of college students have had sex. But this number appears to be much lower at elite (i.e. more intelligent) colleges. According to the article, only 56% of Princeton undergraduates have had intercourse. At Harvard 59% of the undergraduates are non-virgins, and at MIT, only a slight majority, 51%, have had intercourse. Further, only 65% of MIT graduate students have had sex.

The student surveys at MIT and Wellesley also compared virginity by academic major. The chart for Wellesley displayed below shows that 0% of studio art majors were virgins, but 72% of biology majors were virgins, and 83% of biochem and math majors were virgins! Similarly, at MIT 20% of 'humanities' majors were virgins, but 73% of biology majors. (Apparently those most likely to read Darwin are also the least Darwinian!)

Of course, math and science majors at Wesleyan are more oft than not to boast of their virility by joining the facebook group: People who, despite an Interest in Science or Math, are socially apt and have fantastic Sex Lives. But, you know, the facts don't lie.

Xiaoxi gets Vagina Power

Before introducing the real topic of my post I must tell you a story:

This weekend, I lost my dignity. Without going into too much detail, I'm just going to say that it had to do with a boy, a drunk dial and a few booty calls. Oh, and I threw in some tears, too. Anyhow, you'll be glad to know that his number is no longer in my phone. In fact, I even took him off my recent calls list, so there's no way for me to call him now. Ever.
Unfortunately erasing his number did not help me get my dignity back. Neither did spending an exorbitant amount of money the next day and calling it "retail therapy." Not even consumerism and the global commodity chain could help me. I should've known: has Das Kapital taught me nothing?

At length, a ray of hope:
Alexyss Tylor, the harbinger of truth and Vagina Power. I watched the video on YouTube (this show actually aired on a TV station in Atlanta). Reader, I invite you to feel it with me:

Most hipsters would regard this little video as ironically funny, but I believe that it is, truly, poignant. I still don't have my dignity back, but Alexyss has helped me learn from my past and move forward with an empowered Vagina. Thank you.

Nasally-Administered Sex Drug

How's this for a byline: "Now entering Phase 3 clinical trials: the first real, honest-to-God, horny-making, body-shaking, equal-opportunity aphrodisiac." Yeah, that'll grab...pretty much anyone's attention.

New York Magazine reports on what might be the biggest thing to happen to sex...ever?

Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colorful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry—a small white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odorless, colorless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works.

And it’s coming to a medicine cabinet near you. The drug will soon enter Phase 3 clinical trials, the final round of testing before it goes to the Food and Drug Administration for review, and with the FDA’s approval it could reach the market in as soon as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: Putting that inhaler up your nose and popping off a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as few as fifteen minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel “genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,” not to mention “a strong desire to have sex.” Among men, who’ve been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is, shall we say, richer:

“With PT-141, you feel good, not only sexually aroused,” reported anonymous patient 007, a participant in a Phase 2 trial, “you feel younger and more energetic.” Said another patient: “It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire. . . . You get this humming feeling; you’re ready to take your pants off and go.” And another: “Twice me and my wife had sex twice in one night. I came in [to work] and I just raved about it: ‘Jesus, guys . . . 58 years old and you don’t do that.’ ” Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don’t typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire of humming, throbbing, tingling, and double-dipping. Or as patient 128 put it: “My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.”

The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: Where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes straight to the brain itself. And there it goes to work, switching on the same neural circuitry that lights up when a person actually, you know, wants to.

“It’s not merely allowing a sexual response to take place more easily,” explains Michael A. Perelman, co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a sexual-medicine adviser on the PT-141 trials. Though he cautions against jumping to conclusions, he’s hopeful that the drug represents a breakthrough. “It may be having an effect, literally, on how we think and feel.”

(continue)

Holy crap. Can you think of the societal effects?? It'll be like that Simpsons' episode where Homer and Grampa Simpson try to market a love tonic and everyone is convinced all the adults have become reverse vampires...

From his treehouse, through a telescope, Bart observes men chugging the
tonic and running indoors to their female partners.

Bart: OK, it's not *painfully* clear the adults are *definitely*
paving the way for an invasion by the saucer people.

Milhouse: You fool! Can't you see it's a massive government conspiracy?
Or have they gotten to you too?
[he and Bart start wrestling]

Lisa: Hey! Hey, hey, stop it! Stop it! Why are you guys jumping
to such ridiculous conclusions? Haven't you ever heard of
Occam's Razor? "The simplest explanation is probably the
correct one."

Bart: [condescending] So what's the simplest explanation?

Lisa: I don't know. Maybe they're all reverse vampires and they
have to get home before dark.

Everyone: Aah! Reverse vampires! Reverse vampires!
[Lisa sighs]

-- "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy"

Stanford Blog SexEd Video

Galen Panger, a student at Stanford, just emailed us to tell us about the new Unofficial Stanford Blog. They suggested a link to a video they made called The Undiscovered Sex Tape of George Xander Morris who explores the variety of sex toys.

Sex Workers Art Show

(I almost wrote "Sex Workers Love Show").

From the website:

"The wildly successful cabaret-style show is hitting the road again, bringing audiences a blend of spoken word, music, drag, burlesque, and multimedia performance art. Intelligent and hot, disturbing and hilarious, the performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitutes' rights and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry.
...
The show includes people from all areas of the sex industry: strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, internet models, etc. It smashes traditional stereotypes and moves beyond "positive" and "negative" into a fuller articulation of the complicated ways sex workers experience their jobs and their lives. The Sex Workers' Art Show entertains, arouses, and amazes while simultaneously offering scathing and insightful commentary on notions of class, race, gender, labor and sexuality!"

This event is sliding scale by donation. Bring a buck, or twenty bucks. Also bring flowers for Lola, but don't tell her I said that.

Date: Tuesday, February 20th
Time: 8:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Campus Center MPR

Worst Thing to Staple to a Paper

If you're extremely ballsy, this would be the most hilarious thing to hand out at parties with your name and number written on the back. Also quite possibly the worst thing you could ever staple to the back of a research paper. (You know, except for kiddy porn)