With all things familiar several hundred miles south, it was hard to ignore the absence of a go-to friend, someone to talk to about nothing and everything. Attempting to look on the bright side, I set a few goals for the months ahead. In order of importance: be more open-minded, do not hesitate if something intrigues me, and get more sleep.

In a matter of days, I arrived to class well-rested with an open mind, and voila, something intrigued me. Now for the detailed and non-sugar-coated version, I was actually lingering in the hallway outside of my first graduate-level business class. Well beyond five minutes late, I stood in the doorway, peering into a room full of men who were wearing suits and unamused expressions. Just before I took my seat, out of the corner of my eye, I was sure I had spotted a smile on the face of a stranger who was a dead-ringer for James Marsden. In a matter of seconds I politely acknowledged the return of my sixteen year-old self and waved goodbye to the shred of focus I hoped I could muster up for the remainder of this three-hour business class.

Not surprisingly, I have absolutely no idea what was covered in class that night, since I instead occupied my time conjuring up a socially acceptable opening line, given the fact that I had absolutely nothing to ask or tell. Inquiring about class was out, primarily because it is so uninteresting that I myself would stay clear of anyone who did. Besides, I was not paying attention. The three seconds of eye contact were not a justifiable basis either, since a late arrival to this class is analogous to a bomb detonating in any other place. Lastly, asking anything remotely personal would deem me a desperate stalker.

I had read “The Secret” on a flight to Colorado, momentarily enchanted at the ability to will things into your life through thought. About 20 pages in, I tucked that book into the seat-back pocket in front of me, for good. I was uninterested and harshly critical of anyone who fell for it, but I must admit that I did secretly and strongly hope that I would be assigned to the same semester project group as this person. Based on my amusing-to-others but horrible luck with scratch-off lottery tickets and fortune cookies, this was probably unlikely. So, either I have a new-found supernatural ability, or fate knew that I could have really used a friend. Our names were called and with a few minutes left in class, we were instructed to cover introductions and a very brief brainstorming session.

I do not remember the exact words we exchanged that night, but I know his were sharp and captivating. I also know that I probably overlooked some clever pun or enlightened retort, but I would soon hear my fair share. Over the next couple of weeks, I began to look forward to our conversations, entertained and at ease regardless of length or topic. Rather than your usual inattentive “checking in” repartee, we dove into sincere and purposeful thoughts, genuinely interested in what the other was saying, and able to pick up where we had left off.

Still, there was no rush to divulge every detail just yet, but rather we were revealing and discovering the little things at a slow, refreshing pace. Yes, I am still talking about a friendship, and one in which I was learning a lot about myself.

For example, I had made a comment about a friend in my past—quite cavalier in her regard for me—who had recently resurfaced and attempted to fortify the remains of our friendship.

My new friend urged me to tread carefully around anyone who questioned my passions or my choices. He said there was nothing wrong with cutting my losses. I hadn’t quite realized how great of an impact my new friend had made in such a short amount of time. That is likely because most of our conversations take place over drinks, each time at yet another bar he recommended, citing each as ‘perfect’. It turns out, he has a knack for discovering places that are everything you want and nothing you don’t, as far as bars go. Lively crowds, but pleasantly absent of annoyingly loud, over-dressed girls. Great music—as in a song you love, followed by a song you forgot you loved, without a hint of Britney Spears or Kanye West. In these places, it never takes more than a minute or two to get a drink, poured by a bartender in a wish-I-saw-it-first t-shirt. Just as promised: perfection.

I also treasure the always adventurous commute to our post-class drinks, which have become an excellent pre-established Thursday night tradition and the highlight of my week. As a side note, I am thoroughly impressed by my friend’s ability to dispense such thoughtful advice while holding on for dear life, contemplating whether to speak up to a female New Jersey driver who blatantly lies about having a good sense of direction.

Grateful for the rather frightening realization that I needed to make friends quickly in my new life, I took a chance, let my guard down, and discovered that it is possible to find a genuine friendship at this stage in life. What’s more, the rules of being friends with the opposite sex have, as far as I’m concerned, gone out the window.

Certainly I thought it naive to be unable to find fault in someone, but I knew this was nothing like the fast friendships I had made in the past. Those were usually with girls, and were based on some trivial set of values, masquerading as common interests. It was nothing like a high school boyfriend where passing notes and going to the movies on Fridays constituted a relationship. Instead of bonding over some shared activity, we became friends with each other because of who we are.

I have no problem admitting that I have outgrown many friendships from my past, but only recently did it occur to me that most of those friends were girls. At the risk of oversimplifying my logic, it is nothing more than the fact that guys do not “do” drama, are straightforward when I ask for advice, and they can “cut to the chase” so to speak. rather than exhausting the details of every single minute of the day. Also, a love of whiskey probably factors in here.

For now, at a time when life is and should be somewhat ‘up in the air’ I find no comfort in the adage that things will get better with time. Rather, life throws you into times when each day is just as harrowing as the one before it, and you have to actively pursue people and passions that make the day worthwhile. What works for me is the reminder that after a long week of work, where papers replace parties and reading replaces sleeping; something as routine as a Thursday night business class is actually all I really need. The truth is, regardless of what is splashed across yet another PowerPoint presentation, I get to see my new friend and for a couple of hours, everything else sort of fades.

More than 30 suspect brothels could be raided by police soon as Gov. Don Carcieri signed legislation Tuesday banning prostitution and making it a misdemeanor.

Rhode Island was, until now, the only state except Nevada where prostitution was not a crime. This began in the Ocean State as a loophole in 1980 when legislators passed legislation aimed at cracking down on people who sold sex in “public,” which was a major problem in Providence’s West End. Judges would later rule that the law actually made prostitution legal in private, and the brothels sprung up all over. The effect was that a law aimed at cracking down on the sex trade actually made it proliferate.

But the part’s over now.

This time, researchers collaborating between Germany, England, and Florida have found out that men are interested in casual sex no matter the attractiveness of the female asking them out. No more surprisingly, women are much more apt to judge the attractiveness of the person approaching them and are less willing to accept a sexual invitation should their suitor be unattractive.

The experiment was conducted via a questionnaire at three different colleges where the subjects were told to “vividly imagine” a slightly unattractive, slightly attractive, or very attractive person approaching them and asking them to “go out on a date,” “come back to my place,” and “to sleep with me.” The full results are below, but essentially men were willing to accept any of the three requests no matter the attractiveness of the person approaching them. Sixty-five percent of the men were willing to sleep with even the slightly unattractive female.

Women, on the other hand, were not as forgiving. Only half the women accepted the invitation to even “go out” with the slightly unattractive guy. Heaven forbid he ask to her to come back to his apartment or to go to bed with him—women accepted these invitations only 13 and 5 percent respectively.

Perhaps most tellingly, yet least surprisingly are the differences in responses between the males and females. Men wanted to get laid. Depending on the attractiveness of the female approaching them, men agreed to sleep with them between 65 and 83 percent of the time. Women, however, were only willing to sleep with the men who asked them out between 5 and 24 percent of the time.

Scientifically, this supports other observations that men tend to be much more sexual and really want to get laid while females tend to look for “good genes” in their potential sexual partners. But what does this mean for your every day life?

For the guys, look at yourself in the mirror because you’re probably not as attractive as you think you are, and the girls probably won’t even want to date you if you’re moderately attractive. Harsh, I know, but I didn’t make the rules. Girls — and I realize I’m running a fine line giving you advice as a male — do you think you could cut us a small break from time to time? Sometimes all we need is a bit of sex. Do you have to judge us so harshly?

Even if we knew what the results of this experiment would have been before it was ever conducted, it’s always interesting to be able to put numbers on every day life, even if it means that all men are skanks and all women are out to make us feel like crap.

OnlineBootyCall, a “casual dating site,” has compiled its list of the worst colleges in the US to hook up at plus a ranking of the top 10 schools to get laid with some of their own wording thrown in.

None of those top 10 “best” schools are here in Boston.

Worst 5 Colleges to Have a Booty Call

5. MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT is famous for its engineering and math programs, as well as their many brilliant pranks. We applaud their deft use of irony, when they named their two official school mascots: the “engineers” and the “beaver.” Sadly for students, the two never meet.

4. Oral Roberts University

Don’t let the name fool you, Oral Roberts is a Christian college located in Tulsa Oklahoma, where up until 2003, a strict dress code forced men to wear button-down shirts and women to wear long skirts. Its most notable alumnus is Ned Flanders. No booty for you here.

3. Princeton University

A common saying in the Ivy League is: “Harvard sucks, and Princeton doesn’t matter.” For good reason, this forgettable campus is bridled with stuffy Ivy leaguers too caught up in their tight J. Crew vests and Burberry scarves. With names like Archibald, Chance, or Skyler, you know these Harry Potter types are not getting any action.

2. BYU – Brigham Young University

This would have made our top ten best schools for Booty Calls back in the 1800’s, when having multiple partners was the rage in Utah. Nowadays, the Princeton Review ranks BYU as the #1 “Stone Cold Sober School.” Sadly, you’ll find no parties and no booty calls on this campus.

1. United States Military Academy at West Point

Just as they were ranked the #1 Best College in America by Forbes, West Point also came first on our list. With a male to female ratio of 85 percent, your chances of hooking up are looking quite slim. West Point’s free tuition is great for the budget, but terrible for booty.

Top 10 Colleges For Hookups

10. New York University
9. Maryland University
8. DePaul University
7. University of Georgia
6. Ohio State University
5. San Diego State University
4. University of Texas at Austin
3. University of Southern California
2. Florida State University
1. Arizona State University

HEY MIT KIDS! Does this piss you off? Is this patently false? Share your MIT hook up story in the comments section for a chance to win Heroes Season 3 on DVD

Why? Because we’ve been programmed to, thanks to–wait for it–school. “We were raised in the rhythm of a school calendar for…the first 20 years of our lives,” said Kirschner, who has appeared on top TV shows including “Oprah” and “Today.” “Summertime meant party time — which means we are conditioned to relax, let loose, and have more fun in the summer, (including) sex.”

The mindset induced by this calendar doesn’t evaporate after high school or college graduation; it translates into the adult world, too. Instead of spending most of the year fretting over lame stuff like class and homework, adults get suited up and head to the office. For us, summer means sipping cold margaritas, parties on the weekends, and taking much-needed vacations to the Cape.

“As summer approaches,” said Kirschner. “people begin to relax and (go to the) beach and pool parties. People are…more open. The sexy summer clothes come on. More flesh is exposed, and this is…seductive.”

For adults who are overworked and stressed out, summer vacations not only provide a much-needed escape, but more time for sex. And for parents who haven’t had time alone together since 1995, shipping the kids off to summer camp gives them the prime opportunity to do the wild thing and make up for lost time. (Ignore the fact that you spent six summers at camp; we’re sure your parents were outside gardening most of the time.)

And just as skimpy clothes and cocktails by the pool bring a smile to your face, warm weather and sunny skies can cheer you up. Longer days pump up the amount of serotonin and dopamine in your brain, leaving you glowing with happiness and desire. What’s more, seeing the sunshine is a godsend to those afflicted with winter Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) who spend the colder, darker months depressed, anxious, lethargic, withdrawn, and, predictably, with little to zero interest in sex. Symptoms of the less-common summer SAD include poor appetite, anxiety, insomnia, and — surprise! — an increased sex drive.

But don’t get too, um, excited. We’ve got some bad news. There’s something else that rises in the summer: the rate of infidelity. So should you be worried when you catch your guy staring at that skanky girl’s cleavage or when you notice your girl eying that jerk’s rock-hard abs? Maybe. Sometimes a glance is just a glance, but it’s easy for your “other brain” to do the thinking when the world becomes a tempting candy shop and everywhere you look you see girls dressed like cheap hookers who’ll do anything you ask for a hit of crack. But we digress.

Guys, listen up. According to infidelity expert Ruth Houston, author of “Is He Cheating on You? 829 Telltale Signs,” you are the ones doing the summer cheating. After all, it’s men who are known to cheat more often than women (or at least more men than women admit to cheating when taking part in research studies). Houston explains that the different reasons why men and women cheat have a lot to do with why men are the ones committing the summer affairs. Men tend to cheat for sexual satisfaction–and hello, summertime equals horniness-inducing visual stimulation overload. Women, on the other hand, tend to cheat for emotional satisfaction, and short-term hot and sweaty summer flings just don’t cut it. But there’s one exception: Women in their early 20s and below seem to stray for the sex, too, and they’re cheating nearly as often as men, according to researchers.

But eye candy isn’t just to blame, says Houston, who explains that this hot season provides numerous prime opportunities for taken men to cheat — and get away with it. Accordingly, there are three types of men who cheat in the summer:

1. The Recreational Cheater, who sees infidelity as a summer sport.
2. The Seasonal Cheater, who is faithful throughout the year but has a fling when his wife or girlfriend is away.
3. The Opportunistic Cheater, who will cheat if the opportunity presents itself and he doesn’t fear getting caught. For example he and the guys went on a camping and OMG, he couldn’t have predicted that a group of hot twenty-somethings would camp out next to him and enjoy skinnydipping in the lake! Jackpot!

Now we at Blast are well aware that there are exceptions to every rule; we know that many of you are genuinely good guys. But some of you — and you know who you are — are sneaky bastards jumping at the chance to “go fishing with the guys.” You know what we’re getting at here. Summertime makes it easy for cheaters to lie and leave their other halves completely clueless.

“Some men plan for their summer cheating, and it’s easy for them to do because it’s difficult to be detected, and the opportunities are there,” Houston elaborates. “If he has a business trip, he’ll say, ‘You don’t want to come; there will be lots of meetings and it’ll be boring for you,’ when really there often is a lot she could do while he’s in a meeting.”

And you should be wary of business trips. Very wary, said Houston. “Lots of workplace affairs start as emotional affairs and are consummated on business trips. Everything’s on the company’s expense: the hotel, the fancy meals, the drinks. Everything falls into place.”

Is your guy insisting on sending you on the trip of a lifetime (without him, of course)? If so, it could be a red alert. There may be a reason he doesn’t want to go with you: another woman.

“A man might send his wife on her dream vacation and say, ‘Oh honey, I’ll treat you to a spa trip this summer’ or ‘I know you’ve always wanted to go to Paris.’ What wife is going to say no?” Conversely, when young women have summer flings, Houston explained, they are usually spontaneous and are often when she’s on a trip with the girls. There isn’t the planning.

Houston shared a couple of stories from distressed clients who learned the hard way that their men were having summer affairs. Take “Slimeball,” who told his girlfriend he was going on a rafting trip with the guys. While he was away, his girlfriend bumped into one of his best buds, who knew nothing about the “trip.” Turns out her boyfriend was the only one of the guys who left town.

Or how about “Scumbag,” who said he was going fishing with his friends. But what happened when a neighbor asked to borrow something from the shed? The embarrassed wife discovered all of his fishing gear. The kicker? The loser had the nerve to bring back some fish when he returned.

In the fall, Houston is bombarded with clients who found out about their guys’ summer affairs. And the worst part? Some men get attached to the mistress and don’t want to let the affair go when summer is over. This, Houston said, is why you shouldn’t ignore that gut feeling. “You’re taking a chance when you look the other way.”

And Houston, who is no stranger to receiving angry comments from men who read her articles, would know. Before becoming an author and infidelity expert, she was cheated on by her first husband. Now happily remarried for nearly a decade to a man who went through the same thing, she hopes that her research will help mend marriages and relationships that have been scarred by infidelity.

So what should you do if you suspect or find out that your guy is cheating in the summer? “Never confront him unless you have proof,” warned Houston. “If all of a sudden he talks about going on separate vacations and he never has before, that’s a red flag. There are resorts and cruises where the husband can fish and the wife can go to the spa, and there are activities for the kids. You can all get away and do whatever you want. If he says, ‘I need to get away.’ Well you can all get away together. If he says he’s going to your vacation house and you suspect something, pop in and see how he reacts.

“If something is odd, just be alert,” she said. “Don’t go around peeking and sneaking, but be aware. You know your man’s behavior, and if he’s doing something out of character, then be alert, don’t just look the other way. Not every summer affair ends after summer. And if he gets away with it, he’ll try next year, or continue the affair throughout the year, and that’s a situation you don’t want to get yourself into.”

So the moral of the story? Make sure you shave your legs and buy your condoms because it’s summertime, which means it’s sex time. And please, don’t be a statistic: if you’re attached, keep it in your pants — unless you’re with your sweetie, then you can whip it out!

The Huffington Post dutifully points out that this commercial for Sprite has been banned in Germany.

Sprite wouldn’t even bother trying this out in the US.

It’s also blatantly racist. Do you see how far she is from the dude? Furthering the stereotype that all black guys are hung like horses. And we all know that it’s wrong to stereotype. We’re sure the black guys feel the same way. Who wants some soda company going around telling everyone you have a huge dick? I mean, seriously people.

“My dad calls me such an exhibitionist. He always says, ‘God, even when you were little, you were such an exhibitionist!’” the British tabloid The Sun quotes the 19-year-old as saying. “I could be 30 years old and just be like, ‘Screw it – I want to take it all off. I better take a picture of this baby before it all goes.’ I’m cool with my body. I’m cool running around undressed and all that stuff.”

It works. The girl has a body that should be illegal.

Life is good.

The suit alleges that “In enacting DOMA, Congress overstepped its authority, undermined states’ efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people.”

DOMA, which was signed in 1996 by former president Bill Clinton, defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. Since then, six states–including Massachusetts, which was the first to do so–have legalized same-sex marriage.

One concern about DOMA raised by supporters of same-sex marriage lies in the fact that same-sex married couples do not receive the same benefits as heterosexual married couples, including hospital visitation, social security payments, federal income tax credits, property inheritance, health insurance coverage, Medicaid, family leave, and pensions.

But despite the absence of such rights to same-sex married couples, supporters of DOMA see the core issue as the protection of the “traditional” family.

President of the Massachusetts Family Institute Kris Mineau told the Boston Globe that the lawsuit will have “no credibility in the federal courts.”

The Institute’s website states that the “primary purpose of marriage is…procreation, [so] marriage can only be the union of a man and a woman.” The site claims that the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage is a “travesty” and that its “endorsement of motherless and fatherless families is both reckless and dangerous.”

But supporters of the suit, including Boston’s Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), which filed its own lawsuit on March 3rd of this year, see DOMA as interfering with different tradition: the “division of power between the federal and state governments.”

Gary Buseck, GLAD’s Legal Director, says in a statement on the group’s website that “DOMA represents an…intrusion by the federal government into the traditional and historical power of the states to make determinations of marital status. By refusing to recognize any marriage of same-sex couples—and by denying these couples access to all federal rights, protections and responsibilities related to marriage—the federal government steps in and overrides these state-sanctioned marriages.”

Buseck praises both Coakley and Massachusetts for continuing the state’s “long tradition as a national civil rights leader” and “move to protect legally married same-sex couples from…federal discrimination.”

Trojan’s States of Pleasure Survey found that when it comes to getting it on, Boston ranks ahead of Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

So what’s the problem? It seems we prefer quantity over quality. Trojan is attempting to raise the pleasure factor with Trojan Ecstasy,  a new condom that will up the  “sexual pleasure and satisfaction quotient” in America.

The survey also found that  over half of all men and women wish they were having MORE sex and a whopping 71 percent of Americans are looking to increase their satisfaction.

To end on a not-so-happy note, one in three Americans are dissatisfied with their sex lives. So next time your significant other praises your – ahem – talents, blow him or her away with that stat and cross your fingers…or get a FREE Trojan Ecstasy condom here.

The Blast newsroom is way overstocked on pornography.

So take it. Take it all.

We aren’t smut peddlers, though. We have the funny, arguably tasteful and creative stuff like This Ain’t Star Trek XXX, This Ain’t Gilligan’s Island XXX, and Not Three’s Company XXX and G-rated posters to go with each.

You must be 18 or older. Seriously.

You have to register as a Blast reader to qualify. It’s free. Then leave a comment on this story, and we’ll pick three winners at random. You’ll get the DVD and the sexy poster to go with it.

By the way, the Star Trek one has Sasha Grey, who we interviewed for her first Hollywood film role, and Aurora Snow, we was on the cover of Blast in November 2007.

Leave your email address in the comment, and we’ll email the winners, asking for your date of birth.

Zarin Machanda, a Harvard biological anthropology graduate student and resident primate “sexpert” shared her thoughts on sexual evolution at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on June 18. Her lecture, “Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know about Primate Sex but Never Wanted to Ask,” covered some lessons to be learned from the sex lives of our closest links.

1. Be a lover, not a fighter

Our DNA may be 98.6 percent identical to chimpanzees, but their relative bonobos take a more human approach when it comes to the value of sex. According to Machanda, if two bonobos become anxious about sharing a resource like food, they will engage in sexual activity to relieve anxiety and then share the goods. “Let’s reduce tension with some sexual behavior, and then we’ll share some fruit,” Machanda explained. Bonobos will use this tactic for conflict resolution and stress reduction. So the next time the stock market crashes or rent is due, take a note from the bonobos.

2. Size matters

The need to compete and exert their sexual dominance has made male primates much larger than their female counterparts. For a male primate to survive and pass on his genes, bigger is always better — in more ways than one. “What would be your reaction,” Machanda asked, “if I told you a chimpanzee brain is the same size as a chimpanzee testicle?” The ability for chimps to reproduce frequently is just as important as their ability to think. According to Machanda, human males compete less, which changed these proportions. (Although some females who attended the lecture strongly suggested this was up for debate.)

3. Sometimes quantity is just as important as quality.

Quality can never be overrated, but when it comes to chimps, the good, old-fashioned quickie is key. Not that it doesn’t take a certain amount of patience. According to Machanda, who videotaped chimpanzee interaction in Uganda, male chimpanzees are experts in persistence. “He’s been shaking that tree for half an hour waiting for her to come down,” she said, showing a video of a male chimp coaxing a female from a tree. Eventually, his patience paid off. But when all is said and done, chimpanzee sex lasts a whopping eight seconds—less time than it takes to read this paragraph. This time frame allows females to have sex up to 50-60 times per day.

4. Don’t rule out the cougars.

According to Machanda, both human and chimpanzee males discriminate by age. “Human males are really interesting,” said Machanda. “It is almost always the younger, the better.” Chimps on the other hand, prefer to put age before beauty. “If you are a male chimp,” she said, “the oldest, sagging breasts female—that is your Venus.” Why? According to Machanda, the oldest females have proven their fertility, which makes them more desirable mates.

5. Attraction makes us civilized.

The defining factor between primate and human sexual interactions rests in the hands of the females. “One of the biggest differences with humans is that human females are permanently attracted to the males,” said Machanda. Instead of only desiring companionship during ovulation, human females are attracted to their mates at any point in the month. According to Machanda, “That has a lot of implications for our social system.” And our sex lives. It is this difference that allows humans to bond in pairs for life, and what makes our sexual practices distinct from our primate kin. “The human condition is very interesting in terms of sexual behavior,” Machanda said. “That is really, strikingly different.”

Machanda’s lecture was the first of three on evolution, as part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s, “Summer Nights at the Museum.” The next event, “Life’s a Niche,” will be held July 16. For more information, click here.

Specifically, I helped to cram the forty-five feet of pink and magenta fabric in the butt of a leotard so that when pulled through the legs, the “interior scroll” could then make its way out of the polka-dotted orifice and into the waiting crowd.

From there, the scroll was passed around like a beach ball at a baseball game, with the audience members laughing as they continued the circuit, making a full loop of the crowd with more fabric yet to emerge from the bespeckled birth canal of the drag queen onstage.

This is the story of Becca D’Bus, also known as Eugene Tan. This could be a superhero story — mild-mannered Eugene ducks into a telephone booth, quickly changes outfit, and becomes invincible in his green and blue leotard. Or perhaps it could be a stage actor’s story, with the makeup and costume giving Eugene an entirely different persona. Instead, it’s a little of both. By crawling into the jungle-flavored outfit with the over-sized false vagina and 45 feet of extra fabric in the caboose, Eugene becomes Becca, drag queen and performance artist.

“It’s not about gender,” Tan said of his craft. “It’s about ‘let’s wear something stupid’.”

Assuming the throne

It wasn’t always about impersonating a woman for Tan — there was a day when he was working toward a career that in comparison seems boring. There was a time when Tan was on his way to becoming an advertising copywriter.

“I had an internship in Hong Kong,” Tan said, “and some ads I wrote were actually sold.” Tan, who is from Singapore originally, came to the United States for college in 2001, and September 11 was his second day of classes at Emerson College.

After he graduated in 2004 with a degree in Marketing Communications and Theater Studies, Tan began work at The Theater Offensive, a queer theater company based in Cambridge, directing a production of “A Street Theater Named Desire.” Tan, now the community engagement director, says that his drag queen beginnings resulted from trying to increase public awareness of HIV/AIDS. “It’s important that we present a diverse face of queerness, that queerness doesn’t equal gayness, and gayness doesn’t equal gay-white-maleness,” Tan said.

“I don’t think I ever grew up wanting to be a drag queen,” Tan said. “I won’t say I fell into it accidentally. I think we landed in drag quite deliberately. We landed in drag as an extension of HIV/AIDS outreach. We were trying to find a more successful way to hand out condoms.”

Tan, by his own assertion, joined the drag-iverse in a “nontraditional” way. He says that many drag queens grew up in and around the scene, going to drag nights, and finding mentors within the arena. It takes a long time for a drag queen to garner street cred.

“It seemed like the older queens showed me a lot of respect before I deserved it,” Tan said of his quick entry into the realm. “The Theater Offensive bought me some respect in that scene.” Tan got his start through Wreckage, a monthly amateur drag night at Jacque’s Cabaret in the South End. Wreckage was an offshoot drag night from Traniwreck, an all-gender drag show also held at Jacque’s.

From there, the Becca D’Bus persona expanded in 2006 to several regular drag nights, including Perestroika, and the Jaded Lounge, which she hosted. In 2008, the Jaded Lounge became Cherry, Becca’s regular fixture at Jacque’s.

Regardless of whether it’s Tan or Becca, though, there’s one rule that remains constant.

“[My parents] have seen me in person in drag. The only thing my mom could say was, ‘don’t get glitter everywhere’.”

“Becca has no skin.”

It’s a running joke among the drag queens Tan works and performs with — Becca D’Bus has no skin. For a long time, Tan said, beneath each of Becca’s outfits was a leotard of one outrageous color or another. Becca has become more exposed lately, but flamboyance is still the status quo for her outward appearance.

Although his hair is already only a small fraction of an inch long, Tan insists he needs to shave the rest of it off — the eye makeup he applies extends far onto his forehead, and a smooth surface makes for more even coverage.

The first step in the hour-long makeup process is to break out the hairdryer. Remember, he doesn’t have any hair to dry, but the foundation that Tan uses as the first layer in his makeup is so thick it needs to be melted before it can be applied. Dermablend Corrective Cosmetics are designed to cover up scars, birthmarks, and tattoos, and it doesn’t come off easily.

“The market is burn victims and drag queens,” Tan said. “It’s thick enough that (your skin) could believably be another shade.”

From there, Tan adds contouring makeup and eyeshadow from his eyelids several inches up onto his scalp. He adds eyebrows above that, and painted-on eyelashes beneath his eyes. The lipstick is a blue and white mix for this performance, with lip liner accentuating the lips even more.

“When I started, I always did way over-sized makeup,” Tan said. “I would just line my eyes and wear a half-moon of glitter. Then I started thinking of shapes.”

Becca’s outfits are a homemade effort as well. In one corner of the cluttered drag room in Tan’s North End Boston apartment hang outfits from shows past, waiting for reuse. In another corner, from the floor to the ceiling, lay bolts upon bolts of gaudy fabric, waiting to be transformed into Becca’s next leotard.

“Often I start with fabric only, but just as often it’s a specific costume (I’m designing) and then I go buy fabric,” Tan said. Frequently, people tip him off about fabric sales in the Boston area, and Tan picks up whatever’s on sale. From there, he sews just about all of his outfits himself at a sewing machine perched on a crowded table.

His wigs, however, are held together more precariously. Many of the Becca D’Bus hairpieces, which rest on shelves above the door to the drag room, are composites of other wigs, held together with safety pins. One wig, a blue and green piece, is composed of seven smaller wigs.

“I try to look spectacular,” he said.

An exaggeration of femininity

The performance art piece was simple. Carolee Schneeman, a feminist artist, would climb, naked, on a table, slowly extract a scroll from her vagina, and read aloud from it as she continued to pull. “Interior Scroll”, the performance was called. (This photo equals 1,000 not safe for work words.)

Tan sought to turn this familiar event in feminist history into a drag spectacle.

“If a drag queen is an exaggeration of what it means to be feminine, then what is the drag queen interpretation of the Scroll?” he wondered aloud. And the result was to make everything that much bigger and bolder.

Schneeman’s scroll was 36 inches. Becca’s was 45 feet. Schneeman got naked and up on a table. Becca shed a bathrobe and climbed atop a chair to expose her speckled fabric vagina. Schneeman read poetry aloud. Becca performed to “Material Girl.”

“I’m interested in the way a lot of pop in the last 20-30 years is written with a lot of metaphor,” Tan said of his song choice. “Hollaback Girl has all this imagery… I don’t get it.” Becca D’Bus takes everything literally, though. During a performance called “Rain”, Becca sprayed the audience repeatedly with a squirt bottle.

“It’s really colorful and it’s super, super literal,” he said.

Not everybody quite understood the costume, though.

“He looks like Superman, doesn’t he?” asked a cab driver as Becca loaded her gear into the back of the taxi.

“Hello, nice paint. I’m Joey,” ventured one nerdy-looking MassArt student when Becca arrived at the performance hall.

Following the performance, Kate Bovitch, a friend of Tan’s from The Theater Offensive, summed up the dual personalities of Tan and Becca.

“Eugene can break into Becca when he’s not in drag. Right now he’s dressed but not playing,” she said. “I think that Becca is part of Eugene. I don’t think Becca can live on her own.”

This year, with the Electronic Entertainment Expo being 3-5 times bigger, there was, we experienced, a return of the phenomenon known as the booth babe.

These are not gamers, but the girls are expected to know just enough about the product to direct expo-goers to the nearest adult.

There was one glaring exception: The G4TV miniskirt girls. They were idiots. They made idiots look smart.

They popped over to The Beatles Rock Band booth and took over one of the mini stages so G4TV could shoot a promo of hot babes playing The Beatles Rock Band. The MTV Games guys made sure to set the game to “no fail mode,” which is fine; it’s a promo video.

But what made me keel over laughing, and what I just can’t get G4TV get away with, was when — and did I mention this was at THE BEATLES ROCK BAND booth? — one of the girls (the drummer in the pics) screamed to the entire room, “YEAH Let’s do Guns N’ Roses!”

The room went silent, followed by laughter.

Viva la booth babe.

The film is set to be released on June 22, but if you’re under 18, “No porn for you!”

The 31-year-old beauty, daughter of 1959’s Miss Canada, is on the cover of Playboy in May, and she dished on her upcoming films and her upbringing.

The singer and actress appears in a 6-page nude spread available May 15.

She stars as a drug-running, street-fighting lesbian in the upcoming “Bitch Slap,” which boasts the longest girl fight in cinema history, Playboy said in a news release this week.

Olivo told the magazine that she had to do “blatant lesbian scenes on a trapeze, in which I’m making out, kissing this girl between the legs and riding her so intensely I was more sore than a mofo.”

She also talks about how, attending Juilliard, she was encouraged to lose her virginity.

“‘Every time I sang about love,’ she told Playboy, ‘my 97-year-old mentor would say, ‘You can’t really sing a song like this until you’ve lost your virginity, and I can tell you haven’t!’” Her solution? “I lost my virginity in Rome in a park with a view of the Vatican—literally.”

Olivo appeared in two episodes of House, has a role on General Hospital, was in the Friday the 13th remake and has five more films to her credit coming up after “Bitch Slap.”

Hillary Scott, the million-dollar porn girl, is signed on for the cast of “Flight Attendants,” slated to hit stores in the fall. It’s got a plot and some dialogue, but it’s a pure, vintage porn scenario that the title kinda gives away.

“I am extremely excited to have some variety in my career again,” Scott said. “I look forward to working with old friends and new directors. I do not feel like I’ve done my hardest sex scenes or best acting performances yet and I’m very eager to have the opportunity to do those this year. I haven’t worked much lately, and I have lots of repressed desires and creativity that I can’t wait to release on camera for all of my fans!”

Scott started as Marcia in the original Brady Bunch porn flick that we reviewed in 2007.

You can bet we’ll tell you more about “Flight Attendants” later this summer.

“It’s a really great film to throw into contemporary American theater,” said Grey, looking more like the girl-next-door than the girl-doing-the-guys next-door in a t-shirt and jeans with oversized bronze earrings. Grey sat down with Blast during an appearance in Boston.

Born in Sacramento, California, 21-year-old entered the adult film industry in 2006, shortly after she turned 18. Since then, she has appeared in more than 80 films. “The Girlfriend Experience” is her first mainstream movie, and the work she is most proud of.

“It felt really natural,” she said of making the movie. “I felt completely in my own element.”

For a girl whose element is usually much raunchier, Grey found herself totally invested in “The Girlfriend Experience,” researching the role and even creating her character’s back-story.

She read blogs of real-life escorts and met with them as well. Her character, Christine (alias Chelsea), is guided by personology books and writes in her journal after every date, things Grey picked up from the escorts she met and thought would flesh out her character nicely.

Grey, who is engaged, said she doesn’t have a lot in common with her character.

“It’s quite different because I don’t have to go onto an adult set and pretend to be somebody’s girlfriend like Chelsea does, you know, I don’t have that intimacy with the people I’m having sex with,” she said.

But now, Grey is hoping to parlay her experience in “The Girlfriend Experience” into a mainstream acting career.

“It’s an uphill battle, so I know that,” she said. She has a few film offers and plans to get a casting agent soon.

“Even though I come from adult films, I’ve always felt highly respected from my peers and from my fans,” she said. “I have no problem having sex on camera but that doesn’t mean I have to look a certain way or act a certain way and if you want to hear my opinions, that’s great, and if you don’t, that’s fine too.”

She said working with Soderbergh was a new and thrilling opportunity for her. Grey praised his talent and direction. “There are the 10 probabilities of how the scene is going to be shot and he would come up with an eleventh one,” she said.

But working for the man who directed “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and “Traffic” could be nerve-wracking at times. Said Grey, “You go back to your hotel and you’re thinking, ‘God I wish I would have said this differently or done this differently.’”

Surprisingly there weren’t any sex scenes in the film, though it was about a high-class hooker portrayed by a porn star.

“It would have been too easy to say, ‘hey we have a porn star, let’s put her in a sex scene’, but most importantly what I think really distinguishes it is that this is a film about a certain type of prostitution. You have the cream of the crop women who are there for more than just the sex; they are there to create this fake bond where the client feels as if it’s real,” Grey said.

Hearing her wax poetic on the meaning of her film, it’s almost hard to believe a quick Google search will turn up video after video of Grey doing things your grandmother can’t imagine. But she’s a confident chick who has her reasons for her career choice.

“I’m in ultimate control, you know, I’m in control of my destiny whether it be adult films, music, acting, writing, anything. I would not be happy sitting at a desk nine to five,” she said.

Grey says the worst thing about her job is having to pick your battles and learn when to let things go, but she certainly seems to pick her battles well.

“Sometimes you might have strict guidelines and sometimes you might not, so I think that’s a really liberating thing as a young woman and as an artist,” she added.

Busy and loving it, Grey is launching her own adult film production company and plans to begin directing. She’s been promoting “The Girlfriend Experience,” working on her website, writing a sex philosophy book and she has an adult novelty line coming out this summer. “It’s non-stop,” she said.

Why is she working so hard? “I’m pretty proud of this but I try not to rest on my pride and I try to always challenge the last thing I’ve done,” Grey said.

Grey is trying to prove she is not just a porn star: she has a brain, an articulate voice and interests beyond sex.

“Music, writing, art, I really don’t have a limit, as long as it keeps my juices flowing. No pun intended.”

With people either thinking the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community deserves the same rights every other straight citizen has, or deserves to go to hell for even bringing up the issue, the debate continues with no clear resolutions in sight.

California’s Proposition 8, passed in November, changed the state constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples, eliminating same-sex couples’ right to marry and hurting the morale of gay rights supporters. At the same time, gay marriage acknowledged in seven states, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and District of Columbia, has disappointed oppositionists.

One impromptu activist has decided to talk about the human aspect and give these feelings a face.

Faces of Us is a photo campaign created by Brendan Davis with the purpose of bringing the fight for LGBT rights to the national spotlight.

The campaign is small but growing. It shows the  members of the LGBT community and their friends and political allies as people. People from all over the United States send in photos of themselves with positive messages supporting gay rights, expressing a general message that love has no boundaries.

“The fight will not be won unless every legislator in the United States sees that these are their constituents and that the LGBT community deserves full equal rights under the law,” Davis said. “The American queer community will not be recognized as first class citizens until every single person in the United States realizes that these people are their neighbors or their friends, or even part of their family.”

“Somebody who is a member of the LGBT community, or a human being for that matter, should not have to look beyond the place that they consider home in order to find equal rights.”

Davis was inspired to create this online movement after Prop 8 was passed in California. He explains that frustration came after he says the ballot question was only addressing gay marriage in California when there are hundreds of gays in the entire nation. The issue should be addressed at a national level and not on a state-by-state basis.

“The entire nation saw what the LGBT was capable of, especially when rights are taken away,” Davis said. “My frustration came from the fact that we were only talking about California and that we were only talking about marriage.”

Davis said marriage was an important issue in the gay community but that there were other issues like equality in the work place and hate crime legislation to address too. “There are members of the community in every single state and every single person deserves equal rights,” Davis said.

Although the issues have always been present, the release of more films like Milk, which won big at this year’s Oscars, increases conversations about equality amongst the general public.

Currently more than 30 states are represented with photographs and through the use of Twitter and local media coverage the campaign is extending. Davis hopes for every state to be included through photos of citizens and for the photos to reach legislators so that they, too, can see the people gay rights restrictions affect.

“The project is important because it shows that there are LGBT people and allies in every state and that the community is so diverse. We come in every variety. The reaction to the project was, of course, mixed. However, the positive definitely outweighs the negative,” said Davis. “I made the choice to leave the comments unmediated so we were experiencing anonymous negativity. I thought of turning off comments altogether, then thought better of it.”

Davis also wants to set up a traveling tour around the country with his campaign, showing people what he has done and how they can contribute.

“Harvey Milk said that, ‘unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people’s opinions.”

Director David Stanley and SexZ Pictures are putting together the dialogue-heavy “Fleshed Out,” set for release later this year.

The film’s synopsis reads like a really trashy paperback:

Lena (Kimberly Kane) is a cynical nymphomaniac whose idea of a good time is to hang out at the local sex club with her fuck-buddy Dan (Evan Stone). Lena’s worst nightmare is to be locked down into a serious relationship. As far as Lena is concerned, relationships ruin everything. To prove her point, she decides to take out her disgust on Maggie and Gerry (Hillary Scott and Voodoo), a seemingly sweet couple whom Lena catches cuddling at a local cafe. Lena seduces Gerry in the cafe bathroom and makes no bones in letting Maggie know it was her. What Lena doesn’t realize, however, is that Maggie is not the innocent girl she appears to be, but rather a psychotic police detective with a taste for sadism and a highly-evolved sense of propriety. That night, Maggie exacts her revenge on Lena, kidnapping her and paralyzing her with anesthetic to turn her into a sex slave for the pleasure of her and her fiancé. But, as the night goes on, and it becomes clear that Maggie wants to not only use Lena’s body but to destroy it completely, Gerry begins to lose his nerve about going through with his fiancé’s increasingly diabolical plan.

“Hillary Scott blew me away,” Stanley said recently. “She is everything you could want in a star: beautiful, confident, voraciously sexual and a great, great actress. She definitely rose to the level of a champion. I couldn’t have been more impressed and I can hardly wait for people to see what she did with the role. It’s a nasty, nasty performance. Truly terrifying.”

Scott previously started in high-budget porn films “Corruption” and “Upload,” which won numerous adult film awards last year. She was also Marcia in the Brady Bunch porn.

“It was great shooting Fleshed Out with David Stanley because I haven’t made a lot of movies over the past year so I really want each one to stand out and be special,” Scott said. “David crafted a great story and some awesome sex and I think fans will love this movie when it comes out.”

See the trailer here. We can’t show it to you on Blast, sadly.

Fleshed Out stars Hillary Scott, Kimberly Kane, Mika Tan, Nikki Rhodes, Mr. Pete, Justin Long, Mikey Budters, Voodoo, Evan Stone, Jax and Tommy Gunn.

Yes, sports fans, she was smooching the runners.

Dow was part of the “Scream Tunnel,” an exciting tradition as the yearly Marathon passes through the Wellesley College leg of the race.

In addition to being reputed as quite the kisser, Dow turns partying into an art form, as you’ll read.

Blast got up close and personal with — though we didn’t lean in for any kisses — with our new favorite blond Wellesley girl.

We also posted a gallery.

Soooo … what’s your story?

My story? Well I’d say I’m a small-town girl who goes to Wellesley, so of course I’m constantly trying to spice things up and party it up in Boston. I just like to have a good time with good friends.

What’s with “Wiz”?

That’s kind of an old memory between my friends and I involving a cruise to Canada, a bottle of tequila, an elevator, and some poorly placed restrooms. Imagine yourself a story and it’s probably what happened.

What gave you the idea to give out kisses at the marathon?

Kissing the runners during the marathon is a long-standing tradition at Wellesley.  It’s one thing the Scream Tunnel is known for.

How many people did you kiss? Any girls? Did you charge for your kisses?

I’d say about 30 guys stopped for a kiss and I even had 2 girls take me up on my offer. I should have been charging — it would’ve made up for the cost of sanitizer.

Were these pecks or full on smooches with tongue?

They were supposed to be pecks, but some of the runners got a little carried away and I actually had to push them back into the race.  As you can imagine, these were sweaty and generally nasty kisses — I wasn’t about to allow tongue on top of it. The only thing that skeeved me out a little was the one guy telling me, “You’re like my granddaughter!” after grabbing my face and laying a fat one on me right on the lips.

What was it like to see your picture on Boston.com?

I was pretty excited. Last time I was on there was a few years ago when I was volunteering for the marathon pasta party. I liked this image much better!

This one is just hilarious, and it’s a scarily accurate portrayal of the actual characters.

A G-rated trailed for Not the Cosby Show XXX recently launched on YouTube.

From All Media Play, the porn producers behind the spoof:

The movie stars a near perfect look-alike named Thomas Ward playing the father figure Cliff Huxtable in the entertaining 3 minute clip. The trailer has no nudity and showcases members of the entire family including Cliff, Claire, Theo, Denise, Sondra, Rudy and even Cockroach.

The movie is set for a June 2nd DVD release and will be distributed by Hustler Video.

The interracial sex comedy stars a wonderful interracial cast including Misty Stone, Monica Foster, Melody Nakai, Nina Devon, Cassidy Clay, Jenny Hendrix, Sarah Vandella, Tori Black, Lana Violet, Jaelyn Fox, Tyler Knight, Tee Reel, Danny Mountain, Scott Lyons, Dick James, Jay Ashley and more.

Not the Cosby Show XXX will be in stores everywhere June 2 from X-Play/Hustler Video. The movie is a hilarious parody and has nothing to do with NBC or the makers of the Cosby Show.

“The Girlfriend Experience” stars adult film star Sasha Grey in her mainstream flm debut as Chelsea, a Manhattan call-girl who offers her clients companionship and conversation in addition to sex: the girlfriend experience. Set in the weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election, “The Girlfriend Experience” follows the life of Chelsea for five days as she meets people she might not have been supposed to meet.

Magnolia Pictures will premiere “The Girlfriend Experience” On Demand April 30 and will release it in theaters in LA & NY Friday, May 22.

“The Girlfriend Experience” is Soderbergh’s twentieth film. He is best known as the director of “Traffic,” “Erin Brockovitch” and the “Ocean’s Eleven” series.

“Playboy has provided me with a lot of opportunities,” she said, boasting that she often gets to travel overseas as well. What most people probably don’t know about Frette, though, is her reasoning behind working with Playboy.

“When I did my first project with Playboy it was to write about (it) for my senior thesis project,” said Frette, 25. A women’s studies major at the University of California, Los Angeles, Frette wanted to write about her experience with playboy to examine the way women are portrayed in the media and how it affects their empowerment.

Frette considers herself a feminist, an artist, and a writer.

Her most recent endeavor will combine two of these aspects as she begins her position as the national women’s issues columnist at Examiner.com.

“I’ll be addressing pretty much anything that relates to women’s well being. That could range from health to political issues,” Frette said about the column, and added that her main purpose is to provide “better awareness about women’s issues and hopefully clarity on those issues.”

“I’d like to make people think about issues that haven’t been brought to light enough.”

The seemingly contradictory nature of Frette’s position doesn’t bother her. She recognizes that it’s unusual but called it the whole package. “That’s just who I am,” Frette said. She even sees her connection with Playboy as possibly being a positive thing for the column.

“Playboy might facilitate extra traffic to the page. Anything that can get people to read about important issues is a good thing. It’s kind of an interesting perspective I guess to present to a large audience. There are a lot of playmates that share my views but don’t really have the chance to present themselves as feminists so I’m glad I have the opportunity to do this,” Frette said.

Frette found a position at the Examiner while freelancing for other magazines. At first she took a different position, but after some discussions with the editors, decided that writing for the women’s issues column would be a better fit for her. Frette is excited to spread awareness and hopefully pose some new questions regarding women’s issues. She also welcomes feedback from readers about topics and opinions. “If it seems like an interesting suggestion, I’ll write a column about it,” she added.

Another hidden side of Frette is her artistic nature. She loves to paint particularly but said she loves to “create” anything. Frette’s website showcases some of her creations. “That has actually taken a backseat to my writing recently,” Frette said. “I feel that concentrating on more than one kind of art at once is very draining.”

In addition to her column, Frette also plans on publishing a book based on her senior thesis project at UCLA, which was called “Posing for Playboy from a Feminist Perspective: How Media Images Impact Women’s Empowerment.” It focuses on her feminist interpretation of her experiences as a playmate.

Her personal experiences and studies, Frette believes, will greatly assist her in giving advice and analyzing issues. Her first piece of advice for women? “Don’t worry about how practical a job or a college major is. If you chose something that might be profitable it’s just going to lead you down a road that you won’t enjoy. Create your own path.”

Juliette Frette has done just that.

The porn take-off on Scrubs is being produced by New Sensations. Directed by Lee Roy Myers, the newcomer who also helmed the company’s latest hit, The Office: A XXX Parody, the movie stars contract girl Ashlynn Brooke, Thea Marie, Shane Diesel, Jack Lawrence, James Deen and Ralph Long.

Other members of the Scrubs: A XXX Parody cast include Alexis Texas, Joanna Angel, Tori Black and Missy Stone.

“Scrubs’ is being made into a movie,” Braff said on Kimmel’s late-night talk show on ABC. “I wouldn’t get too excited – it’s a porno movie.” After the crowd cheered wildly, Braff exclaimed, “They got more excited! Someone sent this to me, this is not a joke. They are making ‘Scrubs’ into a triple-X porno. On the web they showed the porn stars that are playing each one of us.”

Braff and Kimmel then went through some cast photos and the porn stars that are playing them.

“This girl’s gonna be Sarah [Chalke, who plays Dr. Elliot Reid on the show],” Braff said, holding up a picture of Ashlynn Brooke. “I think it’s a good match.”

Braff’s porn doppelganger, James Deen, elicited the most applause. “My guy looks like there’s nothing the director would say that he’d be, like, ‘Nah, dude, I’m not doing that.’”

The release date for Scrubs: A XXX Parody is May 18.

Just remember that 2009 minus 1954 is 55 years ago.

“Playboy has an incredibly rich history and an intensely loyal readership,” said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, in a statement. “This is the perfect opportunity to offer them something they have always wanted and also a great way to allow a whole new generation to easily explore the magazine.”

The system uses Bondi Digital Publishing and Microsoft Silverlight, which is like Flash only no one actually uses it.

Bondi has a good reputation in this realm, actually. They did the software for The Complete New yorker.

“Playboy has been an exceptionally influential part of America’s cultural landscape for more than 50 years. We are thrilled to give people a whole new way to explore that history,” said David Anthony, Co-Founder of Bondi.

It was mid-day. Northeastern University student Sarah Alverston was sitting in the library staring blankly into a textbook that she couldn’t seem to focus on. She just had a fight with her boyfriend, and she knew she wouldn’t get anything done until she talked to him. So she sent him a text message.

“Sorry about earlier,” it said. “I’ve just been stressed out about other things. Want to meet me at the library? I want to see you.”

About 15 minutes later her boyfriend, Josh, walked up to her table on the second floor. He sat down and apologized as well for being stubborn. Then he gave her a look.

That look.

She knew what that look was for, and she whispered to him, “I can’t leave the library right now I have too much to do.”

But he told her it didn’t matter and winked. He motioned to one of the group study rooms. At first she thought he was crazy. There were people sitting right outside the room. Half of the door to the room was made of glass. There was no way. But then she got a rush of excitement and thought why not? It would be a great story to tell.

Alverston is certainly not the only college student who has performed sexual acts in public. One sophomore at Northeastern, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that part of her job when she worked at the library was to make sure no one was doing things “they weren’t supposed to be doing.”

Last year during Northeastern’s annual sex week, a magazine was put together full of articles about sex. The magazine was called “Stripped” and contained a list of “Top Ten Places to Have Sex on Campus.” The list included places like the college’s underground tunnel network and the saunas at the gym. Number one was the library.

“I know tons of people who have had sex in public places,” said Alverston, in a recent interview. “I thought it sounded fun but I never planned on actually doing it.”

Other students have admitted to similar sexual experiences, the scenes ranging from dorm showers to parking lots. Jordana Kerr, a sophomore psychology major at Northeastern admitted to doing the deed in one of the school’s indoor gymnasiums.

“I worked there life guarding,” said Kerr. “(My boyfriend and I) didn’t get a lot of alone time because we both had roommates. One night he came to visit me and we ended up having sex in the racquetball courts. It was thrilling and it was a fun experience.”

However, if someone were to get caught, the student conduct handbook mentions these types of incidents would be handled as “sexual misconduct.”

Despite prohibitions and threat of punishment, many popular television shows portray sex in public as a natural and desirable activity. An episode of Sex and the City deals with a man who can only have sex if he thinks he might get caught. An episode of Friends includes a discussion about the craziest place the characters had ever “done it.” Even Homer and Marge Simpson rekindle their sex life by doing the deed at a miniature golf course.

This generation did not invent the idea of having sex in a place besides a bed. The openness and in-your-face style however, is something new.

John D’Emilio, author of the book “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America,” thinks that every generation feels the need to be riskier than the one before it.

“It’s almost as if young people are pushing the boundaries one step further,” said D’Emilio. “Fifty years ago co-ed dorms didn’t exist, and now they do. And there’s no longer a curfew either. If you want to break the boundaries, you have to find a new way to do that.”

How Sex Has Changed

Public displays of affection are a pretty common sight around the streets of Barcelona. Media credit/mmoorr via Flickr

Alverston’s reason for having sex in the library was different from Kerr’s reason for having sex in the racquetball courts. Both of their parents however, probably didn’t think of performing a sexual act anywhere public, for any reason.

According to experts, each generation has had a different attitude about sex and adopted different ways of expressing themselves sexually as a reflection of the beliefs at the time. Sex in public did not used to be a normal practice. D’Emilio relates this trend back to the end of the 1800’s, when it was looked at with disgust.

“At the end of the nineteenth century there was public sex emerging,” said D’Emilio. “But it took place in neighborhoods that were deemed to be sex neighborhoods like red light districts where there was prostitution. This behavior was outrageous at the time.”

Those who were not labeled as outcasts of society kept sexual acts very private. It wasn’t until the emergence of automobiles and their growing popularity did that change. At a time when mobilization was much more plausible, couples began courting in their cars. Whether taking one another on dates to the movies or a remote place for privacy, sex began to move out of the bedroom for young people.

Sex was still relatively private though, and society built structure around this principle. Gina Ogden, a sexual therapist from Cambridge said sex was purposefully very repressed in the minds and practices of people in the past.

“Before and after the explosion of sex in the 60s and 70s, people were very constrained in their thinking of sex,” said Ogden. “There were male and female dorms. There was much less ability to be overtly sexual. During the Reagan years, I was a school psychologist at a boarding school. There was a big movement against ‘public display of affection,’ and people were getting expelled for holding hands. It was awful.”

The shift in how society views sex and also how people express themselves sexually has been a drastic one since then. D’Emilio thinks that societal acceptance plays a big role.

“What has really changed since then is that the assumption has become that young people will have sex before marriage. That’s just normal,” D’Emilio said. “It doesn’t push the boundaries.”

The 2009 Penthouse Pet of the Year is Taya Parker.

It was going to take a lot to best Mississippi-native Erica Ellyson, who we showed you last year.

You can be the judge. Parker was actually on the cover of Penthouse in January 2008 when we showed you Ellyson. It looks like she beat out 11 other ladies throughout the rest of the year.

Parker is 28 years young, 5′0″, 32D-23-33. She’s from Ohio and likes to live the quiet life when she’s at home. But she says that she never turns down a martini and loves her stiletto heals.

“I’m a perky, small-town daddy’s girl with a little attitude. I love to laugh. I always give people second chances (and sometimes third). And I’m always the life of the party,” she says on her website. “For me, there is no such thing as the ideal man. I like a guy who goes after what he wants, who has a goal and ambition. If I’m the goal … make it happen!”

As adult spoofs of popular television shows seem like the next big thing, we are laughing out loud watching The Office XXX porn parody that puts a buxom blond in place of the boss and includes plenty of interoffice action.

When the cameras enter the offices of Dinder Muffin, it’s up to ‘World’s Bust Boss,’ Michelle (Ashlynn Brooke) to make sure that the hard drives are hard and the water cooler is wet. And that’s why she’s not only the boss, she’s the employee of the month! It’s the must see XXX tv parody of the year, when a huge all star cast (that’s what she said!) stars in New Sensations hilarious hump-fest, The Office: A XXX Parody. The splooge and jokes fly with Ashlynn Brooke, Jenna Haze, Stephanie Swift, Alexis Texas, Gianna Michaels, Faye Reagan, Dahlia Denyle, Codi Carmichael, James Deen, Dane Cross, Ralph Long, Rooco Reed and Mark Wood. … This is one office where nobody gets laid off… but they all get laid!

The video features Faye Reagan, who we reported on when the usually naked-on-camera redhead got hired to model clothes for American Apparel.

The March 9 DVD has more special features than most Hollywood movies, including a bonus scene, in case you can’t get enough. The feature is 2 hours and 37 minutes.

Do you fantasize about being the next Monica Lewinsky? Now you can — and scandal free! Introducing the Head O State, the first presidential dildo.

And you thought the Rabbit was innovative. This dildo is 7 1/2 Obamafied inches, and comes in two patriotic colors: “Presidential Gold” and “Democratic Blue.”

Never before has a president given his constituents so much pleasure.

Keeping the state of our economy in mind an Obama O’ costs just $35. Know friends who voted for him? Buy three and shipping is free.

The dildo’s official website shows endorsements from Joe the Plumber and even staunch Republicans like Bush, McCain, and Palin who says “Drill Baby Drill!” Of course these quotes aren’t real, but who would have really been surprised if they were?

The timing of this release (pun intended) couldn’t cum come at a better time. One can only wonder, is this part of the Stimulus Plan?

“The format that has previously brought us maneaters, aliens, and predatory creatures from the sea is now being used for the finest in adult entertainment,” said porn producers at Pure Play Media, in a statement last week.

In “Tommy Gunn’s Cummin’ At You, standard stereoscopic 3D technology is used to try and give the viewer the next best thing to actually getting some.

Of course, it’s still a distant, distant second.

You can check out the trailer by clicking a href=”http://www.CumminatYou.com”>here. We’re not allowed to show it.

The DVD will work with all home theater systems and even comes with a pair of glasses.

The film, coming soon, will feature porn stars Tommy Gunn, Sindee Jennings, Riley Evans and Tony De Sergio.

Enjoy.

The result is scary: the more you want it the more likely you may be to get prostate cancer.

The study found that those subjects who were most sexually active at younger ages had more of a chance of developing cancer later in life. The researchers concluded that higher levels of sex hormones could lead to both the sex drive and the cancer.

So, it’s probably not the sex causing the cancer, but the hormones might give you both the drive and the disease.

“Hormones appear to play a key role in prostate cancer,” Dr Polyxeni Dimitropoulou, the study leader, told the BBC.

Prostate cancer is one of the leading health concerns among men. It’s the most common cancer in men in the UK, with over 30,000 new cases each year.

“We have so many movies in various states of production that it really pushes us to our limits and challenges what we can get accomplished. Our little production company is now bustling with non-stop activity,” said porn producer Jeff Mullen of All Media Play.

The latest series of spoofs also marks the emergence of starlet Teagan Presley as the new princess of poon and porn’s new “it” girl.

The Cosby spoof, “Not the Cosby Show XXX” starts filming Tuesday and wraps up just before the holiday.

Do you want it to show off in your dorm room or apartment?

Write a movie, music or video game review for Blast, and if we choose yours, you get the poster.

We’ll also throw some DVD’s, games and music at anyone whose article we use!

Email newsroom@blastmagazine.com for your shot at free stuff!

Hustler released a PG-rated trailer for the sequel for the popular Brady Bunch porn spoof: Not the Bradys XXX: Marcia Marcia Marcia!

If that’s not enough, there’s a dirty version of the trailer here.

“Marcia will do anything to meet pop idol Danny Jones but things turn sticky when her parents discover a returned envelope containing soiled panties & a dirty letter. When TeenPop Magazine reports the story, Marcia gets grounded & fears her life is ruined before Danny comes to her rescue by visiting her school.”

The film contains eight sex scenes and the DVD will have a ton of extra features, we’re told.

“Not the Bradys XXX Marcia Marcia Marcia!” replaces Hillary Scott with Bewitched porn star Teagan Presley. The DVD has eight sex scenes and more than five hours of footage.

“It is funny as hell,” said the film’s co-producer, Jeff Mullen.

“We’ve been getting requests for this new Brady movie for six months now and it’s going to be one of the biggest titles we’ve every released,” said Hustler’s director of sales, David Diamond.

The first parody gained national mainstream media attention and has opened the doors for bigger and more expensive porn spoof productions of popular television shows.

“A parody of the popular Brady Bunch television show, the sequel shows that Marcia will do anything to meet pop idol Danny Jones but things turn sticky when TeenPop Magazine informs her parents she sent the rock star a dirty letter and her panties in the mail,” the producers laid out the plot in a statement last week. “Marcia gets grounded & fears her life is ruined before Danny pays a visit to her school and comes to her rescue.”

Porn veterans Alana Evans, Mike Horner, Lynn LeMay and Ron Jeremy reprise their roles, as do many of the stars of the original film.

Teagan is the latest in a string of yearly porn superstars, so she gets the lead this time.

Check it out for yourself — GirlsGoneWild.com/Corrie. They put up the whole video, in high definition, for free.

“Girls Gone Wild met the 22-year-old Loftin at a club in Dallas, Texas during a nationwide search for ‘The Hottest Girl in America’,” Girls Gone Wild said in a statement. “Loftin was invited aboard the GGW tour bus, where she engaged in playful erotic banter with the cameraman before removing her dress to put on a Girls Gone Wild T-shirt. As a result of her sexy performance, Loftin will appear along with other celebrities and starlets in Girls Gone Wild’s newest title, ‘Hollywood Gone Wild,’ to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray Disc this winter.”

Well there’s the biggest effing surprise of an effing lifetime.

Here’s the scoop — before Paris’ lawyers get the video taken down or whatever. The video is pretty much just like everything Girls Gone Wild does: tasteless objectification of women and un-entertaining harassment.

And you’re talking to the guy that reviewed the Brady Bunch porno, boys and girls.

There’s a difference between professional porn and what GGW does.

We don’t normally cover the bullshit that Girls Gone Wild puts out, and I only put this up because it involves some form of news about the Paris Hilton show.

This video is actually kind of sad and disturbing to watch. There’s no sex or real nudity, just the guy trying to get her to take her clothes off and her saying “hi America” a bunch of times.

Download the video if you want. All I saw was a girl very, very desperate to be famous and some guys very, very willing to take advantage of that.

Minx started her podcast, Polyamory Weekly, in March 2005. She said it has been about “a cautionary tale; [a] tell-the-next-guy-what-killed-you kind of thing,” where she can be less preachy and more verbal exhibitionist, providing explanatory and narrative content on her show using previous experiences she has had as a basis to answer her listeners’ questions.

One of Minx’s main rules about hosting the show is that she doesn’t “want to give anyone advice.” She clearly states that over and over again, show after show. What she does instead, is provide a personal experience about how she dealt with a particular issue.

Polyamory is a term used to describe nonmonogamy, or having more than one life partner. Polyamory Weekly, now with over 170 episodes, has come up for new and different definitions for “polyamory” almost every week – whether it represents the standing of a relationship at a time or describes a lifestyle.

Minx had to learn the basics of syndicated podcasting as quickly as she was putting out episodes. With things like show notes, provided on the “Polyamory Weekly: LiveJournal” and on-air apologies for late episodes or technical errors, Minx tries to make the production of her podcast as open to the public as she can.

While she has managed to weed out these types of problems now, Minx said there were more than a few times she wanted to call it quits.

“About every other week [I was ready to quit],” she said. “Or every time I look at my email inbox in despair. I suppose it’s more that I wish I could do PolyWeekly full-time and really give it the time and energy it deserves. I never feel like the show is good enough.”

Armed with, “Many voices are more powerful than one,” a quote from the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto, Polyamory Weekly has become less about Cunning Minx and more about the Poly community that listens to her show. Some listeners aren’t even Poly themselves, or even pan/bisexual either.

One of the appeals of the show is its all-inclusive factor: love, which is honored in the PW tagline, “It’s not all about the sex.” With such a blatant exclusion on its own genre, Polyamory Weekly survives, not on the smut, but on the truth.

“A good percentage of my life and relationships, both mono and poly, have been about sex. About wonderful, kinky, sweaty, mind-blowing sex. And the other 80 percent of the time, they were about communication, laundry, text messages, lunch plans and Google calendar,” Minx said.

Already on episode 170, Polyamory Weekly is gaining momentum with the honest, brutal truth about loving more than one person at the same time.

Getting the word out about the show is the community of listeners themselves. In fact, Polyamory Weekly listeners are keeping the show running as much as Minx herself.

“Without [them] the show simply couldn’t have gone on this long,” Minx said,

With not one life-threatening email to date, Cunning Minx continues to interview notable Poly people like, Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, the authors of the polyamory bible, “The Ethical Slut,” as well as, the always well-spoken Michelle Bellanger, and high profile Tristan Taormino, author of “Opening Up”, all the while maintaining grounded in everyday poly relationships by adding a new segment dedicated just to her listeners to provide feedback on the previous week’s episodes.

While emails are always welcome, audio-mail is much preferred, and encouraged, Minx is always giving a voice to her listeners. Without focusing on sex, Polyamory Weekly is more than a public airing of dirty laundry and tasty tidbits of self-help polyamory.

Minx has expressed that the show is less a flashy audio one-night-stand, and more “a personal instrument of public change.”

Your mind is now that much dirtier.

This game’s launch marks the first part of a multi-year, multi-title agreement between Playboy and THQ for developing non-nude but “Playboy lifestyle-themed” games that are stacked with mini-games and pseudo wholesome challenges like frisbee throwing, bucking-bronco rides, water balloon fights, and jumping in the pool.

Players can customize their own low-resolution babe with bikinis, hairstyles, shoes, stockings, and accessories.

Get all that for $6.99. Just don’t let anyone see you playing it, or they’ll think you’re a douchebag.

You can be the judge as to whether this is beautiful and natural or bat-shit crazy. We say both.

Gennifer Moss, aka Earth Friend Gen, roller bladed around Portland, Ore. over the weekend wearing nothing but a string bikini bottom.

She has asked officials if she could skate totally naked. They told her no.

As the Associated Press points out, this isn’t necessarily rare in Oregon, where nude bike rides are common and shows with live sex acts are protected as free speech.

God bless the First Amendment.

We thank The Oregonian for this story.

Gen is a California native who is described as an organic-food-loving, enlightenment-espousing “yellow earth warrior” — The Oregonian had no idea what that meant and neither does Blast Magazine.

We could go into Earth Friend Gen’s whole shtick, but we’re just gonna link to her website and post a gallery.

St. Pauli Girl beer teamed with Maxim (we still say we’re better) to profile four finalists in their spokesmodel competition.

“This marks the first time in the 31-year history of the St. Pauli Girl spokesmodel that the beer has opened the selection process to the public and will let fans actually select the St. Pauli Girl,” the brewer said in a statement this week. “Voting will run through November 10, 2008 and the new St. Pauli Girl spokesmodel will be announced in January 2009.”

What are the qualifications? This year’s girl, Irina Voronina is 5′10″, super blonde, blue eyes and measures 35-25-36.

Tara Rice of Valencia, CA. Rice, a former Miss Teen California All American, is an actress and model who has appeared in magazines such as Maxim and films including “Austin Powers in Goldmember.”

Brooke Long of Chino Hills, CA. A model on the hit show “Deal or No Deal,” Long has appeared in films including “The Comebacks,” “Orange County,” “Gigli” and “Little Nikki,” on TV on “Entourage” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and in, FHM, Muscle and Fitness, Teen and ESPN Magazine.

Katrina Van Derham of Slovakia. An actress and model with an international flair, Van Derham has an extensive portfolio that includes appearances in Vogue, Marie Claire, Muscle and Fitness and FHM as well as on TV in “CSI” and “Monk.”

Jessica Hall of Quartz Hill, CA. An actress and model, fans might recognize Hall as a model on NBC’s “Deal or No Deal.” She has also appeared on TV on “Two and a Half Men,” “Fear Factor” and as a host on MTV, Playboy TV, Fox Sports Net and the TV Guide Channel as well as in the Adam Sandler movie “Click.”

You can see more photos and videos of the girls here.

Since St. Pauli Girl is a European import brew (and because of the sexy accent) I was partial to Katarina. Who do you like?