I JUST HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS

Looking to turn things up a notch in the bedroom with your man? Follow our easy tips to pleasure-land.

1. Go on a cute hiking date, and when he’s not looking, pick up a fallen pinecone. When things start to get heated on the mountain top, gently insert the pinecone up his anus. No worries, the tree sap will act as an all-natural lubricant!
2. Ladies, you’re not the only ones who enjoy receiving flowers. Buy a cheap bouquet of carnations for your man. Then, take those fragrant bad boys and rub them all over his FACE.
3. The Angry Donkey: Play into his deepest bestiality fantasies by braying away in the sack. Remember to alternate between “HEE-HAWWW” and  “EEUOOOOH” to keep things fresh. Don’t be afraid to experiment with other options like “The Frantic Monkey” and “The Jolly Whale” (advanced level).
4. Ask him when the last time he cried was, and when he answers, start laughing. The embarrassment and anger that he feels will create a hot burst of passion in his pants.
   
5. Role-playing may seem intimidating at first, so start from the basics with some fond childhood memories. Buy a pair of khakis, clear plastic glasses, and a fake moustache at the mall. You can be the creepy schoolbus driver, he can be Johnny the innocent schoolboy. All aboard— his quivering member!
6. The Palm Tree: Cover his eyes with your palm and make rhythmic ocean sounds while going down on him. So relaxing. Surf’s up!
7. With Magic Markers, draw random squiggles on his naked bod, while singing songs by The Beatles. 
8. Is there anything more romantic than knowing that your lover is on his deathbed? Pretend that he’s a dying AIDS patient and that you’re his kindly nurse who’s always harbored a forbidden crush on your client. He’s just learned that he has one more day to live, and he has one final wish: to “insert his catheter” into his caregiver. 
   
9. Tightly knot a piece of industrial-strength twine around his manhood, and then try to untie it using only your teeth. He’ll be surprised by how many new sensations he feels just by the lack of circulation and the rough texture rubbing up against him. 
10. The Fruit Roll Up: Stick a fruit roll up — or fruit leather for the health-conscious — in your Netherlands and have your man extract it. Then, suck it slowly off of his fingers. Keep the mood silly and get into his erogenous zone by giving him a light noogie simultaneously (advanced level).
11. The Hungry Mouse: Missionary position, except you’re eating cheese.
12. When you get back from work, slap your thighs and yell “Mommy’s home!” He will instantly get rock hard.
13. The Betty Cocker: Pop some cookies in the oven, turn up the Beach Boys, put on your sexiest apron, and go down on your man while they’re baking. The nostalgic smell and your warm mouth will bring back some memories and get your man’s blood pumping! Don’t forget to keep some fat-free Fig Newtons on hand for you!
14. Flick your tongue repeatedly into his belly button, while tickling the sensitive swath of skin located between his first two toes, or his D-spot. This alone will feel incredible, but the sensual thrills triple if you also trace slow circles around his armpit with your index finger, working your way from one armpit to the other.
15. The Dot Com: While your beau takes you from behind, have him yell out random things that you must immediately Wikipedia from a laptop. He’ll be able to revel in seeing your fingers bounce up and down the keyboard. Guys love watching, and you’ll be learning new facts, so it’s a win-win situation.
    
16. Steam things up by inviting your man to a night of Appalachian erotica. You’re 14-year-old Lindy-Lou, and he’s your big brother Harley-Bob whom you’ve always looked up to. It’s a frosty winter night in them mountains, so Harley-Bob and his sis get together for some warmth— and a little more. To take it to a whole new level, wear a tattered potato sack.

Remember: if you don’t please your man, you deserve to be alone. Thank you to my right-hand puta, Sofia, for her aid in compiling this list. 

PART I: A couple of months ago, I was gushing to a friend about how I’d partaken in some pretty wonderful heart-to-heart moments with our mutual homie. “He told me his coming out story, and how his mom isn’t accepting of his gayness,” I bragged. “And he even told me about how he lost his virginity!” Then, my companion rained upon the excitement of my Blossoming Friendship parade. “But don’t you see?” he replied. “He tells these stories to everyone, so they feel close to him. They’re rehearsed.” Oh. So you mean he wasn’t revealing his personal truths to me - special, sparkly me - because of some cozy rapport? Hmm, that was a disappointment.

PART II: Last week, I was listening to This American Life in between classes, a habit that I’ve picked up again this semester. Ain’t nuthin’ like some learnin’ in between some mo’ learnin’. By the way, it is the world’s greatest turn-on to find out that someone is a fan of This American Life. Warning: do not bounce around with joy when he tells you this because he will probably start talking about some episode that you’re not familiar with. You will look like some wannabe NPR aficionada, not that that’s happened to me before. Anyway, Ira Glass was interviewing lexicographer Erin McKean about portmanteaus, such as frenemy and linner (that meal between lunch and dinner, to which Ira commented, “that makes me feel mad at somebody, hearing that word”). Most importantly, Erin introduced her favorite portmanteau: anecdotage. “So it’s like you get old, and you start telling your anecdotes, and that’s it?” asked Ira. “The essential part is that you start telling the same anecdote over and over again,” explained Erin. Aha! I had been an unwitting victim of anecdotage, misinterpreting the sharing of an intimate story for some type of real closeness, though it instead functioned as an established conversation filler.

Unless you’re my friend Sofia, you do not have an infinite stockpile of gasp-worthy stories, so of course you’re going to recycle them once in a while. Everyone has that one “reckless” story that they’ve recited to everyone in their social circle, like that time they got really drunk, slept with the son of their school’s president, and subsequently peed in his bed. We all need to casually bring up these tales in daily conversation, in order for acquaintances to know how totally bad-ass and fun we are. Moreover, such stories typically involve substance abuse. As a sidenote, at what age do people stop thinking that doing drugs makes one cool? I am hardly anti-drug, but the showboat aspect of reacreational usage is exhausting. Nobody cares that you took a fucking Valium, please grow up.

The trick to anecdotage is to never be caught red-handed in doing so. On the first day of English class in August, this guy next to me told me that his friend had once made a movie for a class, which consisted of zooming in slowly on a dripping faucet. The absurd punchline was that the friend’s Visual Studies professor had actually started crying at the beauty of it all. Okay, to give credit where credit is due, that is a truly excellent anecdote. However, several weeks later, he began recounting the very same one to me. I stopped him in the middle of it, clarifying that I’d heard it before. “Oh,” he said. “That’s weird that I told you.” [Hi Nick, if you ever stumble upon this.] My main point is that you should create an Excel spreadsheet of your anecdotes, so you can systematically check off anyone who already knows about that time when a donkey in Egypt ate your hat. That way, you can avoid slightly awkward interactions consisting of unwanted recaps.

PART III. As a result of having probed this phenomenon within an inch of its life, I’ve become disenchanted with anecdote-telling for now. While the person spins their yarn to me, an unsettling thought lurks in the back of my mind: “You are the 50th person they have repeated this story to. In fact, Annie, it is a regurgitative song and dance, and they anticipate your predictable reaction at every crucial point in the story arc. Yeah, that’s right, they didn’t actually single out you as the primary listener because you are special, sparkly you. Sorry.” And then my alter ego is like, “So other people know about that time when Monica’s boyfriend took off his socks at the beach, only to reveal a pair of incredibly long, yellow toenails?”

Looking at the bigger picture, isn’t the real reason that we latch onto particular stories as our go-to stories is because we think they’ll make people like us more? That these stories will conveniently portray us as bad-ass or interesting or funny? We choose to divulge information that will fit with the self-image we hope to project. As Celine said in “Before Sunrise,” whilst Ethan Hawke inexplicably clutched his stomach, “Isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?” Marx believed that capitalism utterly determined society’s superstructure, from laws and religion to schools and political ideology. On the other hand, methinks that the universal quest for love is society’s driving force. Dear Marx, perhaps the real reason that we crave money is to be loved.