"Faux-gasm"

Every girl has faked it. Every. Single. One. Boys are always so outraged when I say this--I’m usually greeted with a host of rebuttals from “It’s never happened to me” (yep, and you were the biggest she’s ever been with right?) to “I can always tell when it’s fake” (as long as you’re talking about her hair extensions, I believe you).

There’s this old joke that always makes me laugh:
Why did Moses wander the desert for 40 years? Because even then, men wouldn’t stop and ask for directions.

It’s true though, men have a real terror of appearing like they don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going. And I don’t just mean on the road. Navigating the female form is a complicated process, and more importantly, a delicate one. It requires a certain degree of knowledge and know-how to successfully bring a woman to the end of the journey and yet, most guys seem to think that it’s merely a matter of turning up and sticking their key in the ignition.

A girlfriend of mine dated a doctor once who is the worst offender to date. They went away for the weekend and it got so bad, she took to faking her orgasms just to end the torture. At one point, just to check whether he was even paying any attention, she faked it as he was humping her hip bone. As I later commented, “Dude, if he couldn’t find your clitoris and his face was right up in it, I doubt he’s a very good surgeon.” Needless to say, the relationship didn’t last past the weekend.

The last date-pash I had, the guy went in with his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth. I, being normal, kept my mouth firmly closed. His tongue ended up ramming into my lips, and when I opened my mouth to go “WTF?!” it ended up falling in, where it then proceeded to flop around like a dying fish before I pulled away and put us all out of our misery.

The problem was, I took one look at his face and realized the misery wasn't mutual. He had that proud, self-satisfied look on his face and I just couldn't, couldn't tell him that my moans were a desperate plea for air rather than a product of my desire for him.

Yes, hundreds of girls are experiencing the 'faux-gasm', faking their orgasms in order to avoid an awkward conversation. And the older we get, the more unbelievable it seems that guys don't know they're playing in the wrong postcode. For a woman, it's a no-win situation: point out that he's licking your inner thigh rather than anything relevant, and he's going to get offended, but tell him you faked it and boys tend to flip out.

So guys, the next time you get offended that a girl has faked it, I suggest you remember two things:

1. She took one for the team. It's not like she got anything out of faking it (except a brief moment of respite) and

2. Don't wait 40 years to ask for directions. Women may not be able to read a map, but we do know when it's time to tell him to get lost.

The Man Diet

A friend of mine recently announced that, as New Years are all about New Resolutions, her 2010 was no different. She had resolved, like many others, to kick old habits, begin a new diet, and lose dead weight. She planned to achieve all of the above with one simple solution: A Man Diet.

Buddhist philosophy teaches that the human body requires one day off every week to purify itself. Devout Buddhists fast in order to give their digestive systems a break and recover from the constant overuse. Hindus often fast on religious holidays, suggesting that our preoccupation with food—the sourcing of it, the preparation and consumption of it—occupies so much of our time that by removing food entirely as an issue, our minds are free focus on higher thoughts.

In the same way, the Dating Detox is intended to give her body and mind a break by removing a need and replacing it with higher thoughts. And the results are immediate. By not putting herself through the torture of wondering if he likes her, if he’ll call her, if he’ll return her text, she can step back and stop treating every man like a potential shag and pay attention to what he’s actually saying. Sadly most of the men she knows have fallen in her estimation because of these new standards, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

And there is no longer the pressure of going out on the weekend and feeling like she needs to compete with 18 year olds whose bodies don’t feel the cold and whose tits don’t feel gravity (although, as I watch them teetering in their tiny dresses in the middle of winter, their tic-tac nipples suggest they DO in fact, feel the cold). Instead, she can dress weather-and-mood appropriate, secure in the knowledge that she’s judged on the content of her character rather than the context of her crotch. She no longer has to be vigilant about waxing or contraception. She can wear comfy panties 24/7, instead of pretending that having a g-string riding up her ass makes her feel sexy. She’s unaffected by the Man Drought.

There's just one downside. Turns out, you deny your body of one thing, and it craves something else. As she herself admitted, “I’m glad I’m on a Man Fast, because if I wasn’t, I’m not sure I’d get lucky. Because now, I’m fat. Happy, but fat.” And when I think about myself, thin but exhausted by maintaining de-forestation in Brazil and denying myself that last slice of chocolate cake, I wonder if the pursuit of happiness is in fact, making me unhappy.

So, I guess if the trade-off is getting fat or getting laid, I know which one I’m choosing. Hello Double-Choc Cookie Dough Ice-Cream. Mama’s home and wondering if you want to come to bed with me, bad boy.

"Down-Dating"

A friend of mine recently introduced us to her new boyfriend. She'd been raving about him for weeks, and I'd been expecting a cross between Chace Crawford and Hugh Jackman, so imagine my disappointment to find him....well, to put it delicately...fugly.

While my friend is a gorgeous blonde with an impeccable sense of style and a dry sense of humor, her chosen beau was well past chubby (ok, he was so far into obese he couldn't even see the signpost to Chubby Town. If Obese-City was on 4square, he'd be the freaking MAYOR) and I'm pretty sure his hairline hasn't seen any actual hair since the late 90s. He wasn't funny, interesting or particularly bright, and his resulting inferiority complex made him downright rude to her friends, despite our best efforts.

This wouldn't be a big deal if it was an isolated incident, but everywhere I turn, all over this fabulous city and indeed all over the globe, women are indulging in a phemonenon I'm dubbing "Down-Dating." Really gorgeous girls are shacking up with duds and drop-kicks who, in a normal world, shouldn't even get a first date. I'm not talking about the vacuous or the ditzy either; bright, cool, talented, beautiful women are hooking up with men who have nothing to show for themselves except their ability to snag afore-mentioned hottie.

Don't believe me? Explain this:

The gorgeous Kate Moss with the gungy Pete Doherty


Hot Sienna Miller, not-so-hot Rhys Ifans

And the stunning Jen Aniston with scrag John Mayer

Interestingly, Down-Dating is only limited to women--hot guys are certainly not going for their visually disturbing counterparts. So why is this happening? Is it just the Man Drought driving us to desperation, or something more sinister?

It's common knowledge that ugly guys have to work harder. Just like small men are better in bed (they know they have something to make up for), ugly men need to be nice guys and good human beings in order to get the girl. And so, hot women date them thinking they've made a fair trade-off, which is "Ugly guy, but he'll be great to me."

Well girls, I'm smashing the urban myth that gross guys are nice people. You know what the above three couples have in common? They're no longer together. In every case, love-rat guy cheated on super-hot female.

The thing is, these guys are perfectly normal until they hook up with their significantly-hotter other. And it's a Law of Dating Nature that other women are interested in any guy that can get a hot girl, because they're all wondering what secret weapon he has. And so, like moths to a flame, we're drawn in, trying to discover whether it's his scintillating wit, his vast wealth or just his willy that got him the girl.

It's easy to confuse all this female attention with sexual interest, but the truth is, as soon as these guys dump their hot girlfriends, they lose the only thing that made other women interested to begin with. And yes, it's true that while some love-rats go on to make a career out of Dating-Up, it never ends well for the girl.

So ladies, if you're going to date a guy for his personality, make it a hot guy. Because the only thing that you get by "Down-Dating" is an ugly Facebook album, and in Kate Moss' case, a crack addiction, which I imagine she needed to bring herself to have sex with Pete Doherty.