Sometimes you feel like you need a translator to figure out what your lover is saying when it comes to sex, right?

It either sounds too simple to be true, or it’s the farthest thing from your imagination. Don’t call Rosetta Stone, we can help you right here. Read on.

When she screams: Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t! Stop!
What she means: Please continue doing exactly what you are doing without changing the tempo or pressure. This is not the time to get creative in an attempt to take things to the next level or show off. You are at the next level, all she wants is for you to keep doing exactly what you are doing, and I do mean exactly, for just a little while longer. So use all your will power to ignore the cramp in your calf, the stitch in your side, or your parched palette, and whether it’s clockwise, counterclockwise, side-to-side or up and down, don’t stop!

When he states: I think the kids are asleep by now… I locked the door.
What he means: Let’s get busy.

When she asks: Are you more of a derriere man or breast man?
What she means: Sure, you hear this as an honest question akin to whether you want salad or fries, but the truth is she is asking if you find her sexy. Although honesty is the best policy, when it comes to women and body/weight-related questions, you are treading on very thin ice, my friend. If her assets are not your faves, I would suggest you say, “both.” This is not being devious, this is being polite. (Consider yourself asking her what is more important to her, “length or girth?”).

When he asks: Why are you putting all those clothes on to come to bed?
What he means: Don’t bother, I am just going to take them all off.

When she says: Talk to me…
What she means: Thankfully, this is not the same “talk” of, “we need to talk,” or “we don’t talk anymore..,” or “you are all talk.”

This means either: 1. Say something sassy/romantic as part of foreplay (or just pretending you are Gomez kissing Morticia’s arm muttering in another language will do), or 2. Say something dirty to turn up the heat in the bedroom; this usually involves describing a “what I am going to do to you,” type scene you can detail. Luckily these can be completely improbable and lacking in any sense of reality…No joke, go hog wild. Get as raunchy as you want as long as you steer clear of scenarios that include her mother, her sister, the neighbor or her best friend.

When he suggests: How about a quickie?
What he means: I really just want to have sex, without all the bells and whistles. Can you cut me some slack? Really, just count to 10, I’ll be fast.

When she suggests: Let’s try something new/something we’ve never done.
What she means: There is a slight chance there is a question underneath this suggestion, one that is asking “are you bored with me/our sex life?” If this isn’t the case, it might unfortunately be the reverse, in which she is being tactful in saying that things may be getting a little monotonous for her. What not to do: Look exasperated. Now would be the best time to break out the fuzzy handcuffs, the improbable role play scenario, or just raid the kitchen for the can of whipped cream.

Got the gist of it? If all else fails, use humor. Lower your voice to a whisper and confer with him/her about logistics. You should never be faulted for trying to be a more accurate when it comes to lovin’.

Why do women moan during sex?

Moaning is a way of communicating or expressing excitement and pleasure. Some women and men moan as a signal to let their partner know that the sensation feels good. Others utter sounds and let their bodies move freely as they “lose control” and allow themselves to be part of the sexual and satisfying experience.

Movies, television, and music present us with idealized sex scenes or lyrics of people moaning and panting at the height of passion. In reality, some people are vocal and may moan and groan, other folks may muffle any sounds with a pillow, and yet others may not make a single peep. Some express themselves by twitching or moving their bodies rhythmically as a response to sexual pleasure.
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I will resist suggesting I am starting off the New Year with a bang when I reveal that a new and very important and/or disturbing (depending on whether you have laced your cornflakes with a David Copperfield mushroom or two) thesis has now been published as a book.

The title might interest many of you: “Love and Sex with Robots- The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships” by David Levy.

And the thesis itself finds a rather neat climax at the very end of the book: “Great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7. What’s not to like?” Well, the tap part, for example. Doesn’t that rather downgrade the, um, romance part?

You will not, perhaps, be surprised that Mr. Levy is a former chess grand master who, having become bored with the board, became fascinated with the bordello. Or at least what happens within it.

Before I further quote Mr Levy, I want to underline that his is a serious work. He defended this thesis in October of last year at the University of Maastricht.

Alright then, are you ready for this? Mr. Levy believes that Massachusetts will be the first state to legalize human/robot marriages.

” Massachusetts is more liberal than most other jurisdictions in the U.S. and it has been at the forefront of same-sex marriage,” declares Mr. Levy. “There’s also a lot of high-tech research there at places like MIT.”

I’m not sure I have this quite right, but is he suggesting that those who are more liberal about gay marriage will be equally liberal about man in flagrante machina?

Mr. Levy does border on the nonchalant when he declares that intercoursal robots will be mere upgrades of blowup dolls: “It’s just a matter of adding some electronics to add some vibration. That’s fairly primitive in terms of robotics. The technology is already there.”

I am not sure I could possibly turn to my paramour and suggest to her that she is fairly primitive in terms of robotics. But I would very much appreciate it if readers could all try popping this question when they get home tonight. It will be fascinating to see whether there are any men or women who would find this description flattering.

I find myself resisting the urge to imagine what Mr. Levy’s sex life might have resembled up to this point (he says he’s happily married and that he would try having sex with a robot and wouldn’t mind if his wife tried it too), so I turn to the words of Henrik Christensen, the founder of the European Robotics Research Network.

In 2006, Mr. Christensen declared somewhat modestly that people will be having sex with robots within five years. Please mark your calendar. In 2011, Gisele Bundchen, Tom Cruise, Kathy Bates, whichever of these might be your chosen partner, will be yours. With the appropriate added vibration and image licensing rights.

Some of you might be wondering: Cui Bono? Well, Mr. Levy and his fellow techno-electrodollogists have given this subject great thought: “If you ask me if every human will want to marry a robot, my answer is probably not. But will there be a subset of people? There are people ready right now to marry sex toys.”

One assumes from Mr. Levy’s other proclamations that he has a suspicion that many of these sex toy nuptialists are at MIT.

This perhaps might be the reason why, in the highly prescient ABC series, “Boston Legal,” Jerry Espensen, a lawyer known as “Hands” (please don’t ask, watch the show) has a blowup doll with which he has a very meaningful relationship. Indeed, when he tried having a relationship with a human, he found himself dumped for an iPhone.

However, I think anyone out there, in Boston or elsewhere, who knows someone, or indeed, has the notion themselves, of marrying a sex toy, should write me and help unblur those lines for those of us who are less enlightened.

In essence, Levy argues that robots will be most welcomed by those who have trouble making relationships with humans: “…those who are extremely shy, or have psychological problems or are just plain ugly or have unpleasant personalities.”

Hold on, I know many people who would not be considered attractive with extremely unpleasant personalities who seem to do very well with their target sex. And I am thinking neither of Mickey Rourke nor Jack Welch nor Cherie Blair when I say this.

Levy is human enough to accept that electrodolls might well cause some friction in those old-fashioned human/human marriages. However, he declares: “Maybe some other relationships could welcome a robot. Instead of a woman saying ‘not tonight, darling, I have a headache,’ you could get ‘I have a headache, darling. Why not use your robot?’”

Leaving aside the gross sexism inherent in his presumption, it seems to me that Levy has his philosophical knickers very much twisted. But to him, a man who has immersed himself in chess and artificial intelligence, having sex with a robot is nothing other than a further evolutional step that began with interracial marriages.

Perhaps I have a romantic notion about relationships, but I find it very difficult to grasp that a robot could ever take the place of those that I love. Maybe I’m the naive one, standing in the way of progress like someone using their hotel phone at the CES conference.

So please let me underline Mr. Levy’s scientific credentials. In the 1990s he led a team that won the 1997 Loebner Prize, something akin to a world championship of artificially intelligent conversational software. And today he runs a company that makes electronic brain games. Hand-held, naturally.

Sex with robots by 2050

An artificial intelligence expert claims we will be having sex with robots by 2050.

David Levy says by then robots will be nearly indistinguishable from real people.

In his book, Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot relationships, he writes: ‘Great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7. What’s not to like?’

According to Levy, the people who are most likely to benefit from these sexbots are those so ugly or isolated that they have trouble finding human romance.

He said: “They’re lonely, they’re miserable. I think society will be a much better place when they have an alternative that satisfies them without doing any harm to other people.”

“If there was a robot of the sort I describe in the book, I would certainly want to experience using it for sex and I wouldn’t regard it as anything untoward. “I would do it out of curiosity. Not that I have a need for a new sex partner, I’m happily married.”

Jim Trulock and Julie Norris look like an average suburban Dallas couple. He’s a graying middle-aged divorcé pushing 60. She’s 30 years younger but partial to frumpy floral dresses. But on weekends their late-’70s split-level house in the southwestern Dallas suburb of Duncanville is transformed into “The Cherry Pit.” Tubs of whipped cream are laid out with the chips and dip on the yellow Formica countertop. A garland of thong panties adorns a kitchen wall. After a game of Naked Twister or a turn under the disco ball, Jim and Julie and their most intimate friends might pile into their steamy oversize hot tub. And for the, ahem, climax of the night? A semiprivate romp in a side bedroom or a more gregarious encounter on white sheets in “the pit”: a half-dozen beds pushed together in front of the fireplace.

Jim and Julie are swingers—couples who socialize sexually with other couples or singles living “the lifestyle,” as they call it. Surprisingly, the Cherry Pit parties held in the Texan notch of the Bible Belt went relatively unnoticed for years, despite attendance of sometimes 100 or more invited guests. They stayed under the radar partly because the couple lives on a semisecluded, wooded one-acre lot near a state park, and partly because of the libertarian streak of many Texans. Despite the presence of a Boy Scouts campground across the street, they have few neighbors. But city officials said they had received dozens of complaints over the years that the “parties” on Cedar Ridge Drive were attracting streams of traffic to their normally quiet neighborhood. After examining the couple’s Web site, officials found a request for a suggested donation of $50 per couple (since removed) and accused Trulock of running a sex business from his home. In early November the Duncanville city council passed a law against sex clubs, calling them a public nuisance to the self-proclaimed family-friendly city.

The Cherry Pit parties continued, and Trulock was cited twice for the misdemeanor crime of operating a sex club. On Wednesday Trulock filed suit against the city, saying the new law is unconstitutional on the grounds that it invades the couple’s privacy, denies them due process and is overly vague. “What they do behind closed doors, unless it’s some kind of activity involving violence or children or animals or drugs, it’s none of the government’s business!” says their attorney, Edward Klein.

Trulock and Norris say they tried to be good neighbors. They had always set strict rules for their events: no drugs, no weapons and, above all, each guest’s wishes must be respected by other guests at all times (in other words, “no” always means “no”). After the city “attacked,” as Trulock put it in a message to the Cherry Pit’s Yahoo online group, which has almost 4,000 members, they tried to keep the party going by encouraging car pools. When the city erected No Parking signs on the street in front of their driveway, they arranged for off-site parking. They toned down their Web site and tried to explain their lifestyle to the gawkers and TV camera crews that began cruising by their house. Bloggers joked that Baptists were trying to shut the swinger parties down because they might lead to dancing. Many of Trulock and Norris’s neighbors told reporters they have a “live and let live” attitude toward what the couple does behind closed doors. But others denounced the swinging lifestyle. “It’s immoral,” says one neighbor, Jack Martin, a 74-year-old retiree. “Would you want someone living next to you who was a pedophile if you have a bunch of kids? It’s on the same line. The frame of mind is the same. The end result is the same: sex.”

Norris, a 29-year-old nonpracticing attorney with a law degree from Southern Methodist University, is cheerfully open about swinging, which she describes as a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle for couples. Their attorney has advised them to refrain from media interviews while their criminal case is pending, but she spoke briefly with NEWSWEEK. One common misconception about swingers, she says, is that they have troubled relationships. “Many people who are swingers believe that it saved their marriage. Now it’s part of their marriage and part of who they are. But it has to be something you need or are interested in.” While Norris and Trulock aren’t married, many swingers are, she says. Other areas of the country are more open to the swinging lifestyle, Norris adds. But in Texas “the fear is if one little small town can do it, then everyone can.”

No one knows how many swingers there are, but there is a growing number of Web sites, clubs and resorts that cater to the swinging lifestyle. Robert McGinley, founder and president of NASCA (informally known as the North America Swing Club Association), says many people “want more than just one bite of the apple.” McGinley, now 74, became an activist for the swinging lifestyle almost 40 years ago with his wife. Today there are swinger clubs operating as public businesses or gatherings in private homes in almost every major city in America, he says. “In the United States we’re rather uptight compared to all other Western countries when it comes to sexual behavior. But you cannot outlaw sex. You can try all you want to, but it won’t stand up in life, even if it stands up in the courts. We are full-time sexual beings.”

Swinging isn’t new. California military families reportedly swapped wives at the first “key parties” in the 1950s; these events later became part of the lore of the swinging ’60s and ’70s. Today’s modern swinging movement includes conventions and national publications—and Swing Stock, a four-day campout in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area featuring group showers and the crowning of a king and queen. Swingers even have their own generation gap; older swingers feel that the youth are too superficial or that they are looking for a “big orgy” instead of strengthening their current relationships and making new friendships, says Curtis Bergstrand, head of sociology at Bellarmine University, a Roman Catholic institution in Louisville, Ky.

The Cherry Pit started as a private gathering in an apartment in the 1980s in a neighborhood popular with young urban professionals. It outgrew those digs and eventually moved with its host to Duncanville. In 2004 Trulock and Norris restarted the parties, which compete for patrons of other Dallas-area swinger clubs, including the Silver Minx, Velvet Curtain, Spankee’s Club, Iniquity and the Rustic Red House, to name a few.
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Australian coal miners are being taught to explore their wives and understand menopause in order to have a healthy sex life, which in turn will make them happy, productive workers.

The “Toolbox Talks” at the Bulga coal mine in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, have been such a success that the Xstrata mining company is considering running them at other mines.

“The Toolbox Talks are a series of health briefings … addressing issues such as fatigue, prostate cancer, nutrition, heart disease and this month we are addressing the issue of menopause,” said Xstrata spokesman James Rickards.

“Even though it is a predominately male working environment we have to look at the lifestyles of our employees, making sure they are fit and healthy at work, but also fit, healthy and happy at home,” Rickards told Reuters on Thursday.

Bulga’s miners are aged mainly from late 40s to 50s and menopause may be affecting their wives, sisters and friends, said Rickards.

“The health briefings provide them with information on how to help and assist their loved ones who may be going through this or approaching this period of their life,” he said.

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