I just have to start off with this great video, Business Time, from the group Flight of the Conchords. It’s just as funny, maybe even more so, than my previous favorite, Ooh Girl – An Honest R&B Song.

So Greg had an enormously popular post discussing the latest sex research and media portrayals in What Do These Enigmatic Women Want? Here I do my thing, providing a round up of all things sex-related.

To put you in the mood, I’ll start with funny sex, then go through neuro, anthro and public health themes, and wrap up with some basic info sites and a couple places to explore more.

Funny Sex

Bonobos – Let’s Talk about Sex
Of course we have a bonobo sex video! But not just any video. It’s a music video.

Dr. Petrya Boyton, My Geeky Valentine (and not a PR sex survey in sight!)
Dr. Petra shares some of the geekier valentine links she has gotten. Some funny stuff.

Regina Lynn, NSF Management Had Time to Surf Porn?
A great take on the recent “scandal” of government employees doing NSFW activities

Natasha Mitchell, A Poet Responds (with Sexually Selected Verse)
Sexual selection and the mating mind. It starts: “So evolution has made the human brain a phallus. A frontal protuberance that is rather callous.”

Neuro Sex

Scicurious, Friday Weird Science: Sex in an MRI, Is That Romantic or What!
Kinda cramped – but, hey, there’s no standing in the way of science. You can also get the full paper, Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal

Imagilys, Functional MRI of Sex, when Science is Hot!
Look at the ways the brain lights up!

Helen Fisher et al., Romantic Love: an fMRI Study of Neural Mechanisms of Mate Choice
It’s big but not long – the pdf, I’m mean. Give it a second to load. One of the leaders in this area (she has her own website), even if she’s a bit hard-wired in her views. You can also see her discuss Drugs or Love? in this YouTube clip, as well as her TED presentation on The Science of Love.

Scicurious, Which Porn Gets You Hot, Baby?
Debating the effectiveness of different types of erotic clips – and some very funny writing too.

Richard Balon, and J. Allan Hobson, Basic Drives: Eating, Sleeping, and Sex — The Dana Guide
I liked this overview since it played sex within the frame of basic things that animals do. Plus the Dana materials are always good on the neuroscience side.

John Grohol, Why You Can’t “Just Say No” In the Heat of the Moment
Sexual arousal – we forget how powerful it can be

PhysOrg, Kisses Unleash Chemicals that Ease Stress Levels
Kissing better than holding hands for drops in cortisol and rises in oxytocin (the latter just for men) in this lab study

Carey Goldberg, Antidepressants May Damage More Sex Lives
Perking up mentally might not help you perk up physically

Dave Munger, Sex-Ed in the Real World: Do Intentions Affect Actions in the Heat of the Moment?
Intentions don’t matter for actually using condoms. Previous behavior is a much better predictor.

Kurt Kleiner, People in Love Are Blind to Pretty Faces
“Only eyes for you” – love trumps the roving eye

The Neurocritic, Spanner or Sexual Object?
Men respond to sexy pictures by treating women more like objects – and the Neurocritic takes on the study and the media commentary

Anthro Sex

Susie Bright, Feminism Times 8 – A Come-to-Momma Talk
A great feminist take on the controversy over the “octo-mom”

Fran Mascia-Lees, Are Women Evolutionary Sex Objects?
A provocative essay from the popular magazine Anthropology Today – fat, boobs, and hominid sex.

Vaughan Bell, Read This, You Sex Machine: The Birth of PR
Edward Bernays and the birth of “sex sells”

Hannah Seligson, The Orgasm Gap
Why do so many women not report having an orgasm? What’s the problem?

Daniel Schweimler, Dark Side of Argentine Sex City
La Plata – sex workers, health problems, and the blind eye of police

LL Wynn, Reviews of Pyramids and Nightclubs: Gracefully Written, Academically Constipated
Lisa responds to reviews of her book with the great subtitle, “A Travel Ethnography of Arab and Western Imaginations of Egypt, from King Tut and a Colony of Atlantis to Rumors of Sex Orgies, Urban Legends about a Marauding Prince, and Blonde Belly Dancers”

Fox News, Nursing-Home Sex Becoming More Acceptable
What happens in the nursing home, stays in the nursing home

Laura Agustin, How Does the Sex Industry Look? A Facebook Album
Trying to see what the sex industry really looks like through online photos

Show-n-tell, Web Affairs
An artist does participant observation in an adult video web community. It’s almost ethnography, but she made a creative effort out of it.

Emma Boyes, I Live Out My Sexual Fantasy as an Online Escort
“Virtual sex pays real money” – a story of sex work in Second Life

Regina Lynn, Next-Gen Sex Gets Its Jollies From Web 2.0
How social networking, amateur video and a porn industry trying to catch up are meshing on the Internet

Public Health Sex

Elisabeth Pisani, Does Oral Sex Protect against HIV? Suck It and See
A nice summary, with an important caveat, on a very cool study on antibodies, immune systems, and oral sex. Wisdom of Whores in general is a good site on sex, science and public health.

David Tuller, After Hookups, E-Cards That Warn, ‘Get Checked’
Not your typical Hallmark card!

PhysOrg, AIDS Becomes China’s Deadliest Infectious Disease
And that’s finally driving the government to change its playing down of the problem

Dr. Marty Klein, Great News for Parents: Internet MUCH Safer Than You Thought
The latest, best report: “there really is no significant problem with sexual solicitation of minors online”

Tara Parker-Pope, The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity
And they can’t even smoke a cigarette after they’re done! For more on this particular moral panic, see Judith Warner’s The Myth of Lost Innocence

Basic Info

Corey Silverberg, About.com: Sexuality
A frank and informative guide to all your pertinent questions

Scarleteen: Sex Ed for the Real World
No preaching here. All those awkward and important questions answered, with a focus towards teenagers and young adults learning about sex.

To Explore More

Rachel Kramer Bussel, Best Sex Writing 2009
A blog that covers what she finds provocative and informative out on the Internet

Dr. Marty Klein, Sexual Intelligence Round Up
A round up of some smart stuff