from the stranger and more bizarre files:

There are days when I think I hop over to Salon just for my daily dose of oddity. They’ve got some really good articles – and after all, it’s pretty hard to put out an online-magazine-worthy article on sex every single day. These guys manage, but it means some of their stories are pretty bizarre.
I may never look at Mr. Bear the same again: this article on plushophilia is a really good case in point. Apparently there really is a whole world out there I’ve never discovered. Plushophilia, for those of you like me who have to admit ignorance, is sex with stuffed animals. Yep, you read that right. The guy they interviewed for the article has something like 1,000 stuffed animals at his disposal. He hasn’t had sex with *all* of them, mind you, but there is a definite sexual attraction to each of them. His favourite is a little stuffed racoon or something from a Disney movie. These people – plushophiles, to be accurate – even modify their stuffed animals, cutting holes in them to stick their private parts or sewing on dildos and such. Now, I’m big enough to admit that from time to time I’ve *slept* with my teddy bear (ok, it’s been a rough year, and Mr. Bear is very comforting) but I gotta say, he just doesn’t get the old juices flowing. Could be that I’m missing out on something very sexy and pleasurable, but I really don’t think so.
Sex is better in marriage: well, once again women have proved that they just don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. OK, let me clarify here: I don’t think that ALL sex in marriage is bad, nor do I believe that when you get married you should just don the housecoat and give up on the idea of ever having sex again. But sometimes, that’s how it ends up anyway, whether you want it or not. It’s a LOT of work to make sure that doesn’t happen. Most divorced women I know went through this sex-cooling-off (or drying up…), which of course may explain why they’re divorced. But the women in this article posit that women who are religious and virgins when they married are the most satisfied sexually. Well, of course they are, boys and girls – they don’t know any damn better!
I’ll make a giant leap here and state my belief: sex is best when both people really care about driving their partner insane with pleasure. It doesn’t have to be in marriage, it doesn’t have to even be in a serious relationship. If you can find a one night stand who really wants to drive you nuts and you feel the same way, I say Good For You!
Salon’s great, but I gotta find a wider variety of reading material…