Organ Grinder:
News for Pervy Little Monkeys

Your CPU is your largest sexual organ, after your brain and your VCR.

I was at a party the other day and a fellow I had just met began a conversation with a phrase I'm hearing more and more often: "So… <blank> tells me you're a sex columnist." This is generally followed in one of two directions: Either he will tell me some scandalous detail of his behavior (A delightful local comic once told me "When I'm in the green room …I just can't keep my pants up!") or he'll ask a bunch of very respectful questions that usually lead to my opinions on porn.

So we head into the latter direction and he tells me that he's dearly in love with his wife, has been for twelve years. Let me tell you how FUCKING COOL it is to hear that from a man who's wife is not even in attendance. Too often marriage and misery have piddled in the same pool, so if you're happy and you know it… TELL PEOPLE for God's sake. Anyway, we start talking about porn and his wife and I ask him if he's into porn and he says yeah, sometimes, and I ask him if she's into it, and he says "well no, she's…well, feminist might be too strong a term… but she's really into women's empowerment."

I'm into empowerment, too. I'm also into explicit audiovisual material. (How's that for a euphemism? Imagine if the Victorians made porn with sound? Darling, open your limbs, I'm going to spend in your pocketbook. It's too scary.) What I'm not into is sifting through bins of Bitches-In-Heat this and Barely Legal that and quite frankly, it all gets a bit much sometimes. Besides which, you can NEVER tell from the cover what the tape is actually going to contain. There should be a place… a place a person can go any time or day, from the comfort of her own home to research these things so she can go into the porn store informed, march right up to the nice bearded man behind the desk and say in a loud voice "Do you have a copy of Bend Over Boyfriend 2? Here's five dollars, I'd like to rent it, please." This is a particularly entertaining scenario if her husband is standing beside her with a big grin on his face.

That's where the Internet comes in. I know, I know, you're thinking of all the pop up windows and the spam and the nasty little surprises in your cookie cache. The way I look at it (and I look at it a lot) is this: you don't go trolling around in foreign cities, wandering into every scummy strip bar looking for a classy joint. Why go that route on the net? Start somewhere that your local sex columnist recommends and move out from there.

My favorite jumping-off site for women & couples is www.libida.com. It's an all-purpose site that manages to be entertainment and excellent marketing all at the same time. Libida features erotic stories, photos, chat rooms, health columns, and a very well organized shopping site for sex toys, books and videos. The how-to section includes tips on masturbation, and an illustrated guide to giving head. The link section includes health, free speech and erotic sites with women's interests in mind.

I first encountered the site when I was looking for a reasonably curated selection of sexy video for women. Included in the content types that you can search are such categories as "women's pleasure", "spiritual sex" (break out the candles and patchouli) and even "plot + sex." Well, zippedy-doo-dah, someone finally cares! Another excellent feature on the bottom of every video review is a helpful referral: "If you liked How to Fuck in High Heels you might like Sugar High Glitter City or The Ultimate Guide to Strap-On Sex " Just an example. No particular reason why I bring it up… but if anyone has a copy of Sugar High Glitter City, I want to see it. For purely journalistic reasons, you understand. In addition, all films are rated on the "Libida-Meter" on the bottom of the review: Explicitness, Romance, Cinematography, Acting, Plot, Men's Physical Appeal, Chemistry, Women's Pleasure, Breaking Taboos, and Racial Diversity.

Now that's the kind of information I want on my superhighway. Ladies, if you're curious about smut but turned off by the strip, check out a place that puts your interests first. Gentlemen, if you suspect your wife is too 'empowered' for porn, introduce her to Libida.com. She might just surprise you by having it in her favorites file already.