Getting your SEX drive into gear

There’s not much David Garcia won’t do for sex with his wife, Ramona. He’ll talk dirty. He’ll flirt like he’s trying to pick her up. He’ll even agree to appear on YouTube sporting nothing more than a skinny black boy thong, a furry hunting hat and one hell of an embarrassed grin. One of three Canadian couples taking part in an online ‘intimacy’ experiment dreamt up by Johnson and Johnson brand KY, David, 33, and Ramona, 30, were chosen out of 150 couples from across the country who auditioned for the reality series, which tracks their sexual successes and failures on regular segments of the KY Intimacy Experiment. The thong? Part of the first episode that saw the Garcias skimpy shopping for each other. “Initially I said ‘no way, I’m not that type of animal’,” the Toronto small business owner says of the camera crew’s insistence he strut his stuff. “In the end, I didn’t do a full moon. But to be honest, the experience worked. We got out of our rut.” At sexual rut at 33? Join the crowd. Ever since humans first banged rocks together, the story’s been the same: No matter how committed and attracted you may be, things like kids, work, stress and responsibility literally seize the engine of your sex drive.

Posted in Health on 02/18/2010 - 0 Comments

Playing with the (adult) toy box

Shelley Taylor lifts a bean-shaped object off the shelf and holds it neatly in her palm. It’s shiny, black and has pretty floral decals across the top. Cute, I think. “This is one of our most popular items,” she says, handing over the smooth little ‘Nea’ in the back of Venus Envy, her adult toy store in downtown Ottawa. “It doesn’t even look like a sex toy.” She’s right. It really just looks like a shiny black bean—something Jack might have planted in the hopes of a beanstalk. On a shelf beside it, the ‘Mia’ vaguely resembles a slim case for reading glasses. “It’s rechargeable on the USB port for your computer,” points out Taylor. “Very popular with business women.” Turns out, sex toys are no longer the intimidating, rubbery and veiny things they used to be. In fact, some are so inoffensively and--it must be said--obscurely shaped that you really do have to read the instruction manual before using. Take the Laya Spot, for example. The description says ‘multi-speed clitoral stimulator’, but it looks like it would do a great job on my sore hip flexor and IT band. Same deal with the fashionable Gigi, a g-spot vibe that could double as a sort of battery-operated pestle. Then there’s Ottawa’s own award-winning couples toy, the We-Vibe and new We-Vibe II—complete with seven vibration settings, including the cha-cha—which was developed by Bruce and Melody Murison and will be featured at the Superbowl’s VIP gifting room on February 4 and 5. Superbowl? That’s not the only mainstream appearance the new generation of personal pleasure tools is making. A few shelves over at Venus Envy sits the glossy ‘Rabbit’—the clitoral and g-spot vibe made famous by a lonely and libidinous Charlotte York in Sex and the City.

Posted in Health on 02/18/2010 - 0 Comments

The psychopath next door

The day Isabella* met Eli* last May, she thought her luck had finally changed. At 24, the vivacious Ottawa woman had already gone through a virtual Bridget Jones' Diary of commitment-phobic, secretly married or leechlike boyfriends, only to be disappointed, hurt or bemused. But Eli, whom she met through online dating, was different. Tall (six foot three), dark (her big weakness) and handsome (bonus!), the 26-year-old was stylish, drove a great car and boasted a comfortable government job. He smoothly complimented her on being so young to own a hairdressing business. "He was charming, employed and tidy," recalls Isabella, "and the best thing I’d seen in a while."

Posted in Behaviour on 11/30/2008 - 0 Comments