All hail Barack Obama, Commander-in-Chief, and the hottest politician since JFK. Thank God the Bush era is ended and hopefully now we can all get back to loving America and Americans again.

America is a strange place, because America isn’t a country – it’s a concept. The United States is a motley collection of states, laws, people and beliefs that are staggering in their diversity. While the last eight years has seen the primacy of some of the worst excesses of dark side of the USA – warmongering, rampant consumerism and insular foreign policy – America has always been a place where dissent has flourished.
While some Americans preach abstinence, believe in the Rapture and their God-giving right to hunt moose, American scientists, social commentators, researchers, feminists, academics, journalists, and even the pornographers haven’t so much transformed as created the modern world.
We can thank Yankee ingenuity and the American can-do attitude for the modern sexually liberal society. Although a number of factors influenced the sexual revolution it would never have happened with two important things – the birth control pill and counter-culture movements including the late 20th Century resurgence of feminism. Yessiree: an American invention and a largely American social movement respectively.
Men have always enjoyed a certain amount of sexual freedom, while women’s sexuality was long curtailed by religion, social convention and the fear of pregnancy. The sexual revolution changed all that. There are thousands of people who influenced the shifting sexual landscape, but since I am a woman I’d like to use this issue to thank some of those Americans whose contributions made it possible for women to have the kind of interesting and varied sex lives we tend to take for granted nowadays.
Alfred Kinsey (1894 – 1956)
Alfred Kinsey was on track for a career as one of America’s most prominent young scientists, but all that changed when he began teaching a marriage course at Indiana University in 1938. Kinsey, dismayed with the widespread ignorance of sexual matters, began collecting case histories of sexual behaviour. The result of this research, the Kinsey Reports – Sexual Behavior In The Human Male in 1948 and Sexual Behavior In The Human Female published in 1953 – caused widespread shock and outrage. Both, however, were bestsellers.
The most notable finding of the reports include the fact that extra-marital and pre-martial sex were more common than previously supposed and that sexuality could be seen as a continuum between hetero- and homosexuality, not an either/or. Kinsey was censured on moral grounds and it’s probably true that his methodology was flawed, but there’s no underestimating his impact. His studies demystified sexual behaviour in a way never seen before.
Gregory Goodwin Pincus (1903 – 1967); John Rock (1890 – 1984); and Min Chueh Chang (American by naturalisation, 1908 – 1991,); and Carl Djerassi (American by naturalisation, 1923 –)
The men who gave us the pill! The oral contraceptive pill was approved for use in the United States in 1960 and within a few years everything had changed. The pill put control of fertility in woman’s hands for the first time: a woman could use it and her husband or sexual partner might not even know; it was a scientific breakthrough in an age of technological marvels; and it was ‘cleaner’ and more effective than any other contraceptive. Although originally developed as a method of population control, the pill soon became the one of the most potent influences on the sexual revolution and feminism.
Betty Friedan (1921 – 2006) and the National Organization for Women
Activist, author and feminist, Betty Friedan’s 1963 The Feminine Mystique essentially kicked off what’s known as second wave feminism. While the first wave in the 19th and early 20th centuries had concentrated on giving women equal rights under the law, the second wave addressed both legal inequalities and sexist cultural assumptions. The Feminine Mystique examined the stifling existence of women in the West relegated to the status of second-class citizens who could only find identity and meaningfulness through a husband and children. In 1966 Friedan along with 27 others founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) and served as its president until 1970. Although essentially a white, middle-class and heterosexual organisation, NOW was central to ‘women’s lib’ and the sexual revolution and is still the largest American feminist organisation.
Helen Gurley Brown (1922 –)
Today’s Cosmopolitan seems to exist merely to tell us what shoes we should be wearing while executing a blowjob, but before it became the consumerist bible it is today, Cosmo was pretty radical, at least for the time, and that’s all down to one woman – Helen Gurley Brown. In 1962 Brown published Sex And The Single Girl. Based on her own life, the best seller encouraged women to explore an active sex life and earn their own money. Cosmo, previously a literary magazine, hired her in 1965. Brown and Cosmo scandalised large sections of America as, from that point on, the magazine’s ethos was that single woman have sex, and most shocking of all, actually like and need it too. Horrors!
Candida Royalle (1950 –)
Veteran feminist and adult film star, Candida Royalle reclaimed porn for women. When second wave feminism dissolved into in-fighting and anti-male sentiment, Royalle decided a more sex-positive approach was needed. The star of around 25 porn films herself, Royalle believed that most porn was pretty boring from a woman’s point of view and she founded Femme Productions to redress the imbalance. Royalle uses storylines, avoids actresses that have been cosmetically enhanced and allows her stars to workshop sex scenes in a way that feels natural. But if you haven’t seen her stuff, don’t think it’s all touchy-feely soft-core – it’s got an artistic touch but it’s explicit. Royalle reckons most women feel uncomfortable with their bodies and with sexuality in general and that explicit erotica can go along way to achieving a healthier, happier and more sexually fulfilled world.
Annie Sprinkle (1954 –)
You gotta love Annie Sprinkle – the woman knows no bounds or boundaries for that matter. Like Candida Royalle, Sprinkle was one of the greatest influences on the evolution of sex-positive feminism. The former prostitute and porn star turned sexologist is an educator, activist, artist and author who explores every – and I do mean every – aspect of sexuality.
The 1990s and beyond
America’s contribution to the current sexual climate is so diverse I hardly know where to begin. From the Riot Grrrls to Bitch Magazine, Lydia Lunch to Jenna Jameson, Violet Blue to Ariel Levy, feminist blogs, lesbian collectives, third wave feminists, all manner of websites, from the porn capital of San Fernando to the abstinence movement, erotic novels, slash fiction, Girls Gone Wild and Suicide Girls, there’s a whole lot happening.
The great American poet Walt Whitman wrote, “Sex contains all... all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,” and the modern American has taken that to heart. Sex and sexuality is no longer the hidden topic, it’s one of America’s great debates – one of the most talked about, argued over, divisive, controversial and hilarious subjects there is.
Sex is everywhere in America – some glorious, some repressive, much enlightening but thankfully all diverse, and it’s all down to a canny little piece of legislation called the First Amendment. We owe our neighbours. We owe them big time. God bless America!

SEXTIP:
TO SQUIRT OR NOT TO SQUIRT
There’s a lot of confusion about female ejaculation (AKA squirting or gushing). Doctors can’t agree whether or not women can, or if those that do are actually urinating. However most sex experts believe that most women do, at least in small amounts, and that although it may contain some traces of urine, it’s not the same thing. Again, most experts think it’s intense stimulation of the G-spot (another controversial topic) that causes gushing.
If you want to try, here’s what you do.
* If you’re worried about making a mess, chances are you’ll hold back, so put down a towel.
* A woman is more likely to squirt if she’s already had at least one orgasm. That alone makes giving it a go a worthwhile endeavour.
* It’s recommended that you stimulate both the clitoris and the G-spot to get the best results. This could be hard work, so you might want to consider using a toy specifically designed for G-spot stimulation. Vary the speed, strokes and pressure until you find what feels best.
* If you feel the urge to pee, that’s completely normal. Stimulating the G-spot can make you feel like you need the toilet anyway, so get this out of the way and go to the loo before you begin. If however you feel the urge just before or while you are having an orgasm, just let it out. That’s the ejaculate.
* Remember, there’s no point in getting upset if it doesn’t work. Trying should be fun enough by itself.

SEX O'CLOCK NEWS:
BLAME IT ON THE BOOZE, LADIES
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, particularly when it comes to the fairer sex. A university in Canada has found that women who drink even small amounts are less able to distinguish an attractive male face from an, em, ugly one. It gets worse – even when sober just five drinks a month leads to a reduced ability to tell whether or not a man has a symmetrical face. Symmetry is prized by both sexes – the more symmetrical you are the less likely you are to suffer from genetic defects and the higher your perceived attractiveness. Or so they say! Good thing women all go for personality then…

HARD MAN, HARD FACTS
The CIA just love their drugs. The intelligence agency has been swapping Viagra with Afghan warlords in return for information on the Taliban. According to The Washington Post, the agency saw an opportunity when visiting an uncooperative clan, headed by a 60-year-old warlord with four younger wives. A CIA official claims that Viagra could put chieftains “back in an authoritative position.” Indeed.

HOT CHIP
Scientists predict that within ten years you’ll be able to have a ‘sex chip’ installed to stimulate the pleasure centres of your brain. According to Tipu Aziz, a professor of neurosurgery in Oxford, trials with similar devices have already taken place, but wiring still remains a problem. Similar studies to up the pleasure ante are taking place in America, and a North Carolina doctor is developing an electronic machine that generates sexual sensations in women. This is called the Orgasmatron and named for the yoke in Woody Allen’s Sleeper.

LINGERIE
SKIMPIES FOR THE LADS
It’s started with Ginch Gonch: the colourful men’s underwear company decision to feature two extremely hot gay spokes models has seen the demise of the tightie-whitie brief. Last year, for the first time ever, less than 50 percent of men’s underwear sold in the US was white. Next, Vizeau came up with extreme g-strings and odd one-sided briefs. Fair play, have some fun boys. Now XDress has taken the trend one giant step further with actual lingerie for men, featuring frilly briefs, see-through G-strings and even silk camisoles – great for cross-dressers, but not ideal for everyone. See www.xdress.com for more information.

SEX TOYS
BUT IS IT ART?
Swarovski Crystals are apparently not content with bling bling nipple tassels and crystal tattoo bikini waxes, they’ve teamed up with designer Angus Campbell to create three crystal dildos to ensure every aspect of our sex life can sparkle like a teenager in the midst of a glitter attack. Aesthetically pleasing dildos have been around for a while, but I reckon 2009 is the year they go mainstream. The crystal dildos are kind of pretty, but the shape and style of them isn’t a million miles away from the tacky Swarovski animals of yore.