Yes, I’ve somehow crossed the line from cybersex researcher to plain old cyber slut. A fellow games writer who shall remain nameless emailed me the other day, and happened to mention he’d purchased a webcam. I took that to mean he was using it for sexiness (seriously, does anyone own a webcam who isn’t wanking in front of it?). From there I apparently leapt to offering to help him try it out, wink wink. It couldn’t have been that crass; this particular game writing friend and I even have a sexy online history. Still, I got told, “If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic sport, you’d get the gold medal.”

Ouch. Well, at least I’d get a gold medal for something. Anyways, I blame all the “research” cybersex. And all the writing about sex. And all the thinking about sex. It’s like that episode of Friends where they get the pay-per-view porn channel for free, so they sit in front of it for days. Then they’re really confused why the bank teller doesn’t offer them sex in the vault, or why the pizza deliver guy doesn’t strip down. After long enough, it’s hard to remember that everyone else doesn’t have sex on the brain 24/7. At least, not that they’ll admit.

My cyber slut-dom apparently has some use, though. For example–in combination with my general love of shiny new toys–it helped me put together a holiday cybersex gift guide: this week’s Click Me. Webcams, lingerie, enough online cash to buy time with 50 internet prostitutes–it’s everything a cybersex enthusiast could want. Next week, check back for a year-end Click Me, featuring the best and worst moments from my personal floozy exploits. And you thought winning a gold medal was bad!

P.S. The photo for this post is of me showing off the pasties that came with the striptease kit I reviewed. First step, promiscuous cybersex. Second step, a career as a professional stripper.

Being a sex writer and a teacher makes for an interesting combination. As I’ve mentioned, I’m teaching English to French high school students part-time this year. Most of them are boys. Some of them are only a year or two younger than me. They come packed with moped-driving energy, and I get to control them by the classroom full. I lovingly refer to the as my “hooligans.”

My hooligans, thank goodness, have no idea what I write about. If they knew my last name, if they Googled me, and if they actually understood the results (those are big ifs), the classroom might be a very different place. So far, the few teachers I’ve talked to about my writing have been surprisingly supportive and nonchalant. Still, the teaching/sex writing combination sometimes makes me feel funny. And I’m the last person to be embarrassed or apologetic about what I do.

It was with all that in mind that I came across Regina Lynn’s recent column about teachers in Ohio who were told they couldn’t use social networking or dating sites because it would encourage inappropriate relationships with their students. Eek! I wonder what the state of Ohio would have to say about cybersex. Luckily, I don’t think there’s a chance that my English-speaking lovers are secretly French technical school students–though they’re knowledge of sex words (and there lack of knowledge of anything else) does sometimes amaze me.

Anyways, thank to Regina for sticking up for the sexy rights of us teachers. As for this teacher, I’m off to Sweden for the weekend to frolic in Christmas markets and ingest Glogg. It may not be sexy, but it promises to be delicious!

Blame it on the fact that she’s awesome. Blame it on the fact that she’s hot. One way or another, I’ve become a sucker for the blog of ex-sex worker and all around tech sexpert Melissa Gira.

As part of the “Future of Sexuality” conference in Amsterdam two weeks ago, Gira gave an online talk about “Sex in the Information Age.” The recording isn’t online yet, but there is a teaser Q&A with Gira here–if you can wade through the question side in Dutch. What interested me was her description of the talk:

Sexuality, as it is produced by social software, makes sexual networks visible and hackable. What has come to be known as Web 2.0 — microblogging, ubiquitous computing, tools to push continuous partial attention & presence, and the rise of social networking — powers a space where sex is simply another facet in our networked lives. Can the information age improve sex? What conflicts arise from social networking & managing online identity? Are we innovating sexual communities? And on what ethic is Sex 2.0 founded?

There’s a lot to parse there and ponder there. Specifically, it reminded me of my Click Me about Zivity–the site’s that trying to be a Web 2.0 space specifically for sexuality. That piece in turn was sparked by an interview Regina Lynn did with NPR about porn and social networking. How exactly do you express sexuality in an environment like, for example, Facebook?

If the musings of one ex-sex worker doesn’t satisfy your industry cravings, check out this week’s Click Me. It’s about an ex-escort who’s written a book that teaches fellow independent call girls how to advertise and keep safe by using the internet. Plus it comes with tips for avoiding the fuzz. Cheese it!

To my pleasant surprise, what should arrive in my little French mailbox earlier this week but a package from the one-and-only Babeland? Okay, so it wasn’t a surprise. And okay, it was review copies for a holiday cybersex gift guide I’m writing. And okay okay, I did end up having to fork out an unexpected and totally ridiculous amount for taxes before the UPS guy would even hand over the package. But the fact remains, I am now the proud reviewer/owner of an elastomer Rabbit Habit, a super-shiny striptease kit, and a book and a DVD by fellow Village Voice writer Tristan Taormino. Happy Hanukah to me, and my previously semi “respectable” new bookshelves.

Right now I’d have to say I’m most impressed with the striptease kit–for cybersex-related purposes, at least. It comes complete with red sequin pasties. Just what I’ve always wanted? Apparently!

Made by the same people who brought you Odin Sphere–the game Heroine Sheik just couldn’t shut up about–Persona 3 promised to be a sex and gender goldmine. Released at the end of this summer, fellow sexy games dorks heralded it as both awesome and damn interesting. I finally got around to taking my review copy for a spin the other day though, and I have to admit I was underwhelmed.

The premise, I’ll admit, oozes with creepy promise. Somewhere between a traditional RPG and a Japanese dating sim, Persona 3 lets you save the world from evil monsters by night and climb to the top of the high school social ladder by day. Right off the bat you’ve got the “teenagers with demons” metaphor we Americans know so well from “Buffy: the Vampire Slayer.”

Persona 3 also gives us the added twist of pseudo-suicide. In order to switch “personas”–and thus fighting abilities–characters blow their brains out with revolvers. In the end everyone’s okay, but the effect is still unsettling: perhaps even more so because, as a player, you get used to it.

Still, despite the creepy points it earns, Persona 3 remains pretty dull from a sex and gender perspective. There are the normal, archetypal school girls who appear regular in anime and Japanese games: the quiet but pretty classmate, the large-chested class president. A few of the personas themselves takes the form of cool female monsters. And I suppose you could point out the slim, sightly effeminate main male character–but that seems to be a Japanese trope as well. I’m thinking of Shinji, for example.

What’s the deal? Am I missing something?

With or without a review copy, I’m determined to have something to say about Ubisoft’s babysitting sim, Imagine Babyz. Released this October, Babyz is part of the Imagine series, a collection of Nintendo DS titles Ubisoft is trying to market to young girls. Other games include Imagine Fashion Designer and Imagine Animal Doctor. It’s true: if there are three things women can do, it’s raise children, design clothes, and tend to wounded animal. Oh, and bake pies. That’s why there’s also Imagine Master Chef.

When the series was announced, it got heat for being, well, amazingly sexist. Sure, girls games aren’t all bad. They appeal to female players who might not otherwise take up gaming. Besides, professions like veterinarian or chef are hardly career choices to scoff at. Still, the fact of the matter remains: aside from being plain old lower quality than non-girl games, titles like these pigeon hole female players into “women’s professions.” Where’s the pretty pink version of Imagine Firefighter, or Imagine Corporate Lawyer?

Of the Imagine games, Babyz has incited the most finger wagging. Why? It turns child rearing into a game, it inspires young girls to want children, it seems to have the gender sense of a 1950’s health ed teacher: take your pick. Of course, early speculation that Babyz was a game about actually having children were quelled when it turned out the game was a mere babysitting simulator. Still, taking care of infants is taking care of infants–whether they they popped out of your uterus or someone just dropped them at your grandma’s house for the afternoon.

I’d like to be able to say Imagine Babyz is bad. Or good. Or anything. Honestly, I have zero gameplay input–though the singular review I’ve come across gives it a whopping 3.5. So in the place of actual constructive criticism, I give you sex and gender deconstruction.

First there’s the idea of “playing mom.” Pick up Babyz, and you’re doing this in two senses: first, as a babysitter, you’re playing the role of the mother substitute. Second, as the game player you’re playing the role of the babysitter. Lots of children “play mother” to their dolls, their friends, etc. That in and of itself is nothing new. What’s interesting is to see the role played in a structured, game format with preset gameplay rewards. Rock the cradle well, gain points. Forget to feed your charges, lose them. Oddly enough, what we’re being reminded of here is that motherhood itself–like gender–is a role to be played, not an inherent state. For such a sexist game, it’s a strangely feminist message.

We could also talk about why children play mother in the first place. Have you ever watched a toddler pretend to coddle a plastic doll? To tell the truth, it’s kind of creepy. Why would a child that small want to be a mom? Kristeva says (yes, I’m breaking out the psychoanalysis) it’s because the female child wants to be closer to her father. Subconsciously, she believes the father of her new baby is her own father. She replaces her mother as an object of affection by becoming a mother herself.

Now it’s time for the fun over-analyzing! Can we read Kristeva’s theory into girl games? Are Imagine Babyz players somehow usurping the power they currently lack as consumers in the games industry? If Babyz is the toy baby in question, then the industry would be its “father,” and us reviewers and players are the child busy coddling it. That would mean the attention we give to the game–both negative and positive–is really be energy diverted from the paternal “industry,” who’s love we’re hoping to turn toward ourselves. But then who would be our mother?