Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This should be interesting..

If you've ever watched porn, you've probably gazed with a sense of perplexed wonder at the crazy entanglements the performers manage to get themselves into (and out of). If you're like us, you may have even tried a few with mixed results. The point is always to experiment; however, in many cases some sex positions are not only uncomfortable and decidedly not sexy, they can be borderline dangerous as well. Here are a few we definitely advise against if you aren't a world class pair of gymnasts...

More »

Having been together since 1988, my wife and I have pretty well run the sexual cycle; from hot, youth driven four-times-a-day beginnings in our early 20's, to flat, work stressed periods, pre- and post-childbirth and everything in-between.

We've visited swing clubs (as voyeurs), played with every sex toy imaginable, watched porn, done it in public, had sex while driving, experimented with tantra, and covered literally every inch of our living space in every position possible. So, after 24 years or marriage and counting, what ground is there left to cover?

More »

nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Looks like they've caught it.

For those of you who don't follow the machinations of Burning Man, the annual festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, this column may not hold as much meaning as those "in the know," so to speak. For us, however, this year's event is bittersweet for two reasons; first, the event sold out for the first time in its history and we happened to have tickets firmly in hand, and second it was to be our last venture to the playa for at least 2 or 3 years as we'd decided beforehand to take a break (seven in a row merits it, no?). We've made many friends over all these years of attending and seeing them one last time amidst the dust and heat was something we'd been looking forward to for many months.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We think Freddy's made his way to the playa this week after all. He always finds a way!

Alas, we made the decision to give up our passes and skip our 10 day odyssey this year to focus more energy (and financial resources) to our store reopening, which is on schedule for early September. There's a lots to be done, including painting, installing new flooring, acquiring display furniture, and building our podcasting studio to name a few tasks, and taking such an extended period to basically party away didn't seem prudent.

More »

nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Yeah...ain't gonna happen in those shoes.

So, we're cruising through our 20th anniversary earlier this year, blissful as can be, when we decided to do what (we assume) most couples do on a regular basis; that is, evaluate our relationship.

A "state of our union," so to speak.

And though we found things to be pretty darned good, considering our overall length of time together - 23 years and counting - there was one glaring deficiency in an area of our marriage one wouldn't normally associate with the owners of an adult store. For all our sex toy experience, porn knowledge, and consultations with hundreds of couples, sex experts, and adult industry contact, we had slowly and steadily stopped having sex ourselves.

Because we actually track our sexual activity on our website, we could examine the numbers and see that, from a peak of almost five times per week in 2005 and 2007, we had fallen off to less than two encounters every seven days.

Of course, with the national average being around that very number, we might have concluded that everything was fine and dandy, believing this pattern of reduced sexual activity to be a normal and natural occurrence in any relationship. Heck, we weren't exactly unhappy with the situation. Life went on just as it always had, except instead of planning hot dates and opportunities for intimacy we'd instead settled into a routine of the peaceful and predictable. Life was good, so to speak. However...

More »

DigitalImages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do the hot temperatures have your libido running low?

We're not complaining (well, maybe just a little), but summer sex has been a bit, shall we say, lacking. The return of normal temperatures has our non-air-conditioned house sweltering during the mid-day, despite marine layer cooled mornings and ceiling fans cranked all the way to max, making for laziness in every facet of our lives.

The house doesn't reach a sex-appropriate temperature until midnight, and by that time we're usually an hour into slumber; the only motivation overcoming these doldrums is the fact we have to "review" sex toys for our website, and even then we're only halfheartedly throwing ourselves into action.

In addition to relaxing our respective libidos, dishes are going longer in the sink, we're eating more take-out to avoid cooking, and our workout regimens have been virtually non existent. Again, not to complain, but we're probably going to have to resort to pulling out the porn DVDs pretty soon to fire things up.

More »

anankkml / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Your favorite suburbans are back.

It's been a while since we last appeared in LA Weekly's After Dark LA blog. Many of you probably don't know that we began this column more than five years ago in the print edition of the LA Weekly.

Alas, cyber memories are fleeting and our decidedly down-tempo take on sexuality within the confines of a monogamous, long-term marriage seem almost, well, quaint given the sensational and provocative content now flooding sex blogs, social networking sites, mobile apps, and web presences across the ever faster digital pipelines.

Texting and smart phones are now the chosen communication medium and devices of choice, respectively, and as parents we find ourselves more and more becoming the lecturing kind rather the hip and informed these days.

"Back in OUR day, we walked 20 miles through the snow and didn't have no newfangled Internets," so to speak. Sigh.

More »

It's only natural that, after 22 years together, we'd experience periods of sexual dry spells. In fact, we'd be surprised if most couples in similar lengthy relationships enjoy our level of intimacy and frequency even during our lulls. True, we do run an adult business, giving us access to toys, videos and whatnot to keep things lubricated, so to speak; however, all the porn in Chatsworth can't rise the level of passion once a pattern sets in.

For us, that pattern had been the shrinking of our sexual world in both time and space, meaning we had found ourselves engaging in sexual activity only during certain hours and then only in our bed. The couch, kitchen counters, shower, public park and other prime locations to get intimate slowly eroded away over time, as well as the creativity we'd once infused into sexuality; i.e. lingerie, massage, going out to dinner, candlelight dinners etc.

Sex itself had finally devolved into the two of us crawling into bed late after a long day, exhausted and in our worn T-shirts, trudging our way to (maybe) climax and immediately collapsing afterward into deep sleep. Days would then pass by before repeating this routine before we visited San Francisco in October.

More »

"If he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture?" U.S.politician Christine O'Donnell

Few outside the most extreme fringes of the so-called Tea Party movement actually take anything that nut job says seriously; however, just because Miss O'Donnell is plumb loco does not necessarily mean she's wrong.

Even most sexual therapists will have you believe masturbation is not only natural, but a sign of sexual health, but is this true? Perhaps, but we're not convinced. Too often we've encountered stories (and we're talking about hundreds of couples with whom we've met) of how one or both partners are somehow able to masturbate regularly but not engage in regular sexual intercourse.

If we're to understand correctly, one can carve out private time to watch porn or utilize imagination, then masturbate to achieve orgasm, but making the effort to have actual sex is too difficult? Hmmm.

More »

Courtesy photo: Freddy and Eddy

Returning to the newly revamped After Dark LA posed an interesting challenge for the two of us. First and foremost, the new slate of writers (Sam Phillips? How the HELL do we share space with that kind of talent?) brings a decidedly hip and upscale vibe, often clashing with our seemingly outdated old school value system - especially regarding sex.

Don't get us wrong, we're as open sexually as the next porn star; however, how does a long-term (22 years together at this point), monogamous couple compete for air space alongside Barbie Davenporte's sardonic adventures, sexual expertise of Jamye Waxman, and the douche-baggery exploits of Brennan Foley? Even our namesake white picket fence is gone, awaiting a rebuild after being eaten by termites during the last heat wave. Such is the reality of a recession that seems to meander on without end.

So, if you click away now we understand completely; who wants to stick it out, a-la " Leave It To Beaver" (farewell, Barbara Billingsley), in a confining marriage year after year in such an enticingly sexy metropolis as L.A., right?

Yet here we are, continuing to enjoy a rather robust intimate life together, outpacing many of our supposedly more active and youthful acquaintances in both quantity and quality. Certainly, our "jobs" as sex product peddlers is a contributing factor (after all, someone has to try vibrators and such before deciding to sell them), but this factor hardly tells the whole story.

More »

For whatever reason(s), we've found ourselves in a mild funk, intimacy-wise. Since starting our year off with a literal bang, the sexual heat has dissipated slightly, with frequency dropping from our stable average of three-to-four times weekly to once or twice.

Though precipitous, what worried us was not the number, but our casual attitude toward letting things slip to a 10-year low. Now beyond a mere blip, we seem to have firmly established a pattern that neither of us finds troublesome – which is troublesome. In fact, we've hardly given sex a second thought, what with work, “Glee,” “Modern Family,” and other non-passionate distractions occupying the majority of our time these days.

Ironic considering we run an adult business, no?

Never missing an opportunity to grow sexually, however, we've finally decided to reclaim our sexual mojo by exploring an area to which we've yet to fully commit – BDSM. For those of you uninitiated, this acronym stands for Bondage, Domination, Sado Masochism, in other words whips, chains, ball gags, leather, latex and giving in to your partner's demands.

Sure, we've experimented lightly with some soft BDSM play, such as restraining one another with cuffs and rope, and/or mildly striking the fleshier parts of each other's bodies with crops or whips; but really assuming the roles of dom and sub? Not even close.

Give us sex toys, positions, tantra and screaming orgasms; to our minds, though, BDSM is a much deeper and scarier world, entirely.

And if fear of black leather and pain thresholds isn't enough, there's the tricky process of simply starting out. Which one of us, for example, will assume the dominant role and is the other comfortable in the submissive casting? How far are we willing to go in these new positions of power/submission? Do we switch as a matter of course?

We've read books that assure us of the safety and rewards of BDSM, but is our trust in our relationship solid enough to push the boundaries in this direction?

The answers to these questions obviously depend on the individual participants, but we decided to start things off in the simplest way we could by turning our normal routine upside down. This is to say that for the last 22 years, most of our sexual encounters have been initiated from the male side of our coupling (for no other reason than it just happened to fall that way naturally).

For the foreseeable future, we decided, ALL sexual situations would spring from our female half, meaning foreplay through full-blown intercourse would be in the exclusive control of the feminine side. Our agreement was (and is currently) that sexual initiation of any kind can only be started in this manner, period. If this meant going days, weeks, or months without intimacy, then so be it.

Of course, we laughed about the risk nothing would happen, and for the first few days that was exactly how things went. After a week, however, the female libido kicked in with a vengeance and sex returned, albeit awkwardly – then accelerated to a brisk pace approaching pre-doldrum levels.

And that's where we currently stand. Sex has been injected with a healthy dose of excitement again and we're once again motivated to learn and expand in this intriguing area. Slowly, we plan to take things further, adding implements of destruction as our comfort levels increase, outfits to match our journey, and sojourns to BDSM oriented events as well.

Will pleasure be found in pain?

Looking for something amazing to do over the Memorial Day weekend? Come party with US at Lightning in a Bottle! Our friends at the DoLab are presenting three full days of dancing, art, education, environmental awareness and incredible people in Irvine's Oak Canyon Ranch. We will be volunteering during the day and partying from late afternoon ‘til the sun rises each morning.

Tickets are available for all three days, or limited day entries on a first come, first served basis.

For more information, please visit the Lightning In A Bottle website and come hang with us – it's kid-friendly, too!