(Caution: Today's entry discusses sexuality in a graphic fashion, including several homoerotic comments from your humble bisexual narrator. Those who don't wish to read about such things [including, as always, the author's family] should skip today's post.)

So, last week I posed an open question to the female readers of this journal - of whether there are certain types of erect penises that get women more turned on than other types of erect penises, or rather that it's merely the erect penis itself that gets women turned on. A little backstory, for those who need it...

Regular readers will of course know that I'm bisexual, and regular readers will also know that I've done quite a bit of past writing on the subject of sex, including a full-length book in 2003 about Chicago's swinging community, and a monthly sex column in 2004 for a British magazine that is now sadly defunct. I don't do that much sex writing anymore, and of course haven't even actually had sex in almost a year now (which is a whole other journal entry for a whole other time); but in true obsessive fashion, I still visit porn and other sexual sites on a pretty regular basis, and in recent months have also been subscribing to a growing amount of adult/erotic Flickr groups, most of which are co-ed (that is, they feature nude photos of both men and women).

So, one day last week I came across a photo of a guy with an erection that can only be described as legitimately turgid - rock-hard, sticking straight out from his body and slightly upwards, a deep purple in color as if he were seconds away from orgasm, and glistening in the camera's flash from all the lubrication on it. And I thought to myself, "You know, that's a hot photo." And the reason I found it hot, when I stopped and thought about it, was because of all the little details involved - of it being purple instead of pink, for example, of it sticking straight out from his body versus curving towards the ground (like mine does). But then I realized that when it comes to vaginas, I don't think this way at all - that it's merely the sight of a vagina itself that gets me all horny, not what color the vagina is or what condition the labia are in, etc. And so I wondered, is this the result of gender bias? Do the details of cocks matter more to me than the details of vaginas simply because I'm a man, and own a cock myself, so naturally would be fascinated by the subtle difference in others? Or is this a gender-neutral simple fact about the world? Are the details of cocks just naturally more interesting than the details of vaginas, simply because they're fucking there and can't be ignored? And so I asked all the female readers of my site if they'd like to share their opinions as well.

So what were the results? Oh, well, like most things that have to do with women, opinion was split - with both sides believing that they're in the majority as well, of course. And I guess overall, the funniest and most surprising thing was how many women said something along the lines of, "I was all ready to tell you how the details of dicks don't matter, but then I thought about it a minute, and, well..."

On the "it doesn't matter" side, for example, here are some thoughts from my old friend B., author of the sex blog Boys Will Be:

"Sorry... only men pay so much attention to the aesthetic details of another man's penis. We notice size, generally. And aberrations (don't ask). But women generally don't note subtleties in color, angle, etc. Guys do. And I don't think it has to do with sexual attraction, probably more due to a innate drive toward competition with other males.

"While I might be aroused by the sight of an erect penis, it's the thought of him being excited by me that turns me on, not the actual appendage. To be honest, I think penises are kind of silly-looking. No offense intended ;)

"On the other hand... I can look at a woman for 30 seconds and walk away knowing her weight, dress size, natural hair color, what kind of underwear she's wearing (or not wearing) and just how perky her boobs would be without that bra. Go figure."

So that's interesting - that B. notices a dozen things about random women that it would normally take me months of dating someone to notice. And no offense taken, B - penises are kind of silly-looking!

But then on the other hand is someone like GH from right here in Chicago, who takes an almost opposite attitude about it all:

"Throbbing hard cocks are always best. Why do you need to ask? It's much more of a turn-on to see a vein-popping, hang-a-coat-on-it erection than the half-ass, hurry-or-your-chance-is-over variety.

"Shiny is also nice. It looks inviiting and not painful. I don't really care about the color, as long as it's not grey or some weird shit.

"Oh - and cut is better than uncut. I like that shiny hard muscular look. I know this is cultural preference, but what can I do about that?"

And then here's a good example from the "it doesn't matter...er, but now that I think about it..." camp, from my old pal Kathryn in Australia:

"Great question - when I first read it, I thought that I had no preference at all. It took me about 2 seconds for the 'except for...' thoughts to start though.

"The obvious one is big over small :P But also I would prefer straight to bendy/curvy - although more as an visual thing, curvy could be better sexually esp if it's curved toward the G spot.

"I don't like veiny penises, well not awfully keen on protruding veins anywhere on the bod. I'm also not keen on purple penises or too red either. Or big, mushroom-cloud knobs.

"Thick is a big turn on.

"Man, I sound like a real fussy bitch but really I'm easy to please...lol. I'm talking about looking at penises. I mean if I got to the stage where I got naked with a guy and he had a veiny, bendy, knobby, purple penis, I'm hardly going to send him on his way.

"As for vaginas, I really dislike long, dangly labia minor."

And this was a very common type of answer, to tell you the truth - that there are of course certain details about cocks that certain women find more arousing than others, but that none of these details would actually affect whether or not the woman would have sex with the man in question. And boy, this is just about the opposite situation than it is for gay and bisexual men - in fact, what type of cock a man owns has in several cases over the years directly affected whether or not I've slept with them, and I know for a fact that the details of my own penis has gotten me several invitations over the years that I would not have received otherwise.

The majority of the responses I received, though, were very typical of what you hear from a lot of women - that it's the context and circumstances of the erection that decide how much a woman is turned on, not the erection itself. Here, for example, is what my friend Caro in South Africa had to say about it all:

"For me, its not the size/shape/colour of the erection, its the cause. An example... he gets hard as hell, looking at a porn mag. No points. He gets hard as hell talking to, or playing with, *me*... full marks! :)"

So thanks, ladies, for sending in all the interesting and somewhat dirty emails! It's pretty much the most action I've seen in eleven months now, so it's much appreciated. And of course, this also begs another question, which is whether full-time gay men view this subject differently than part-time bisexuals like myself. Any thoughts? I know I have a ton of gay male readers, so feel free to let your opinion be known if you want.

Hey, my friend Alamar made it to town! He's been here about 24 hours, in fact, and is doing quite well - jetlag doesn't seem to have affected him one bit, unbelievably enough. We've just been taking it easy so far, but this weekend should prove to be a highly entertaining one...

It all starts tonight, when we meet up with my friends Kate, Tom, Anna, Joshua and others at some bar called Trader Todd's (Division and Dearborn at 10 pm, if anyone wants to join us) for...wait for it...that's right, karaoke! FUCK! I hate karaoke, to tell you the truth, but love hanging out with my friends, and of course am sure that Alamar will get a great surreal story about it all to tell his friends back in Germany when he gets home.

Then tomorrow we head over to Wicker Park, to attend both the Around The Coyote arts festival and an exhibition by the Mud Queens of Chicago, a group of hot punk-rock girls who actually wrestle each other in the mud, started by an ex-lover of mine named Meg (who I usually refer to as *Bettie here, but Meg's now using her real name at the Mud Queens website, so I figure it's okay for me to use it now too). So that should be fun, albeit a little expensive, and provide yet another amusing story for Alamar to take back to Germany with him. And then most likely we'll end up at a goth club afterwards, since Alamar is a goth kid himself, so again feel free to write if you're a goth person too and feel like meeting up with us at some place like Exit or Neo.

And then Sunday is our big trip out to the suburbs, to go visit the Fermi Accelerator Lab in Batavia, which houses the largest particle accelerator in the world (or at least for another year, according to Alamar, until a place in Switzerland opens that's going to have an even larger one). And this has so far just been a nightmare, because 1) I don't own a car and 2) never go out to the suburbs myself, so don't have the slightest clue how to actually get there efficiently and cheaply by public transit. So, we went down to the Metra headquarters today in the west Loop, and tried to map out our journey - it looks like the best plan will be to take the Burlington North line to Naperville, then the Pace 676 bus over to Fermilab itself, but God only knows if it's going to be this simple once we actually get out there. Anyway, this is a rare chance for suburban readers to meet up with me in the actual suburbs, if they're interested; and we're going to have several hours to kill both when we get there and before we go back to the city, so we're very much looking for someone fun in the area who might want to have breakfast or lunch with us, before or after our trip. So if you're in the Naperville/Geneva/Batavia/Aurora area, please feel free to drop me a line!

And then of course we have lots of other plans for the rest of Alamar's trip; but it's getting awfully late today, and I need to get this up to the web soon so we can head back to my place, so I guess I'll leave it at that for now. Anyway, like I said, drop me a line if you want to meet up with us for any of these events; and if not, then of course I'll speak with you again come Monday. Have a good weekend, everyone!