The Happy Trail

People love sex for various reasons. What you may not know is that there are numerous benefits, besides pleasure, associated with slamming the ham. Euphemisms aside, sex is more than just blind erotic pleasure. In fact, a ridiculous amount of studies have been dedicated to the analysis of some of our most intimate moments. The focus of this article will be on the more substantiated reports and studies, because there is some pretty ludicrous stuff out there. For instance, one study suggested that women who walk more “fluidly” were more...

Produced in 1846, the first pornographic film was an extremely short, black-and-white clip of a remarkably solemn middle-aged man gingerly inserting his penis into the vagina of an equally solemn middle-aged woman. Fast forward 169 years and you arrive at the present day, where the history of the pornographic tradition has seared an image of porn as something grim, sometimes violent, questionably consensual and frequently both misogynistic and racist into our cultural memory. Depending on who you ask, the phrase “porn star” will likely bring to mind the image of...

Men dominate politics. Currently women make up only 18.5 percent of Congress. Similarly, women only hold 24.2 percent of state legislature positions, with 20 in the Senate. Clearly, it seems odd that women make up roughly half the population, but only one-fifth of our Senate. Oh, and we still have not had a woman be our Commander in Chief. In the past century, our nation has made some progress. Today, it is no longer revolutionary when a woman runs for office. It is wonderful that we now have openly gay...

The question of the extent of one’s sexuality is one that has long haunted the Puritan idealism of America, threatening to shake the foundation of America’s sexual expectations. Yet that foundation seemed more or less durable until a man named Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) came along and shattered America’s conceptions of sexuality with his studies, and in particular, with something that is mentioned frequently but little understood – the Kinsey Scale. As one of the most influential pioneers of sex research in the twentieth century, Dr. Alfred Kinsey broke barriers when...

“O G-spot, G-spot, where art thou, G-spot?” Everyone is in search to find the G-spot. Although there are countless books, articles, videos and gadgets aimed at helping people find the G-spot, there is still debate as to whether or not it actually exists. While some people claim that they have found this  magic pleasure spot, others are unsure. The G-spot, named after the German gynecologist Ernst Gräfenberg, is located only a few inches in on the upper wall of the vagina. Some describe this mysterious erogenous spot to have the...

Usually silence is golden, although not always in the bedroom. Some people think that they need to buy a new product in order to make their sex life exciting, but there is often an easy fix: dirty talk. Dirty talk does not have to be an art form, it can range from using a few explicit words and phrases in the bedroom to playing out an entire fantasy. Of course, if you want to start talking dirty, it’s important to chat with your partner beforehand so you’re both aware of...

Halloween is a time for self-expression. The costume possibilities are endless; anything goes with Ninja Turtle, pirate and sexy nun costumes all passing as acceptable. Concerns are generally aimed at the latter costume, or any other costumes fitting into the “sexy” genre. Halloween is a strangely sexualized holiday, but even more disturbing are the social conditions under which it is sexualized. It is rather shocking to see a sexy hamburger or pizza costume, and yet these still sell. Overall Halloween sales are estimated to increase from last year. The National...

College, as we know, is a time for experimenting (and not just in Biology lab). We make a lot of discoveries about ourselves during our college years. Through this experimentation we are able to figure out our own likes and dislikes on a range of topics, including our sexual desires and kinks. Understanding sexual preferences is hard, and accepting them is even harder. Unfortunately, fetishes and kinks are highly stigmatized in our culture. To be clear, according to the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana, a fetish is “a...

For transgender and non-binary students—those who do not identify with restrictive gender labels such as ‘male’ and ‘female’—public facilities often fall short. In speaking with Denise Parry, a student who identifies as non-binary, it became clear that Puget Sound needs to improve the treatment of non-binary students. This would mean doing things like having professors ask students what their preferred pronouns are and eliminating gender essentialist statements. The most urgent matter is the one regarding bathrooms on campus. “The bathroom problem is still an issue for a lot of people...