The New York Times recently reported that, apparently, dating is dead. The story partially blamed social media:

Instead of dinner-and-a-movie, which seems as obsolete as a rotary phone, they rendezvous over phone texts, Facebook posts, instant messages and other “non-dates” that are leaving a generation confused about how to land a boyfriend or girlfriend.

“The new date is ‘hanging out,’ ” said Denise Hewett, 24, an associate television producer in Manhattan, who is currently developing a show about this frustrating new romantic landscape. As one male friend recently told her: “I don’t like to take girls out. I like to have them join in on what I’m doing — going to an event, a concert.”

The story also discusses the "'hook-up' culture":

Blame the much-documented rise of the “hookup culture” among young people, characterized by spontaneous, commitment-free (and often, alcohol-fueled) romantic flings. Many students today have never been on a traditional date, said Donna Freitas, who has taught religion and gender studies at Boston University and Hofstra and is the author of the forthcoming book, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.”

Hookups may be fine for college students, but what about after, when they start to build an adult life? The problem is that “young people today don’t know how to get out of hookup culture,” Ms. Freitas said. In interviews with students, many graduating seniors did not know the first thing about the basic mechanics of a traditional date. “They’re wondering, ‘If you like someone, how would you walk up to them? What would you say? What words would you use?’ ” Ms. Freitas said.

Of course, throwing fuel on the hook-up fire, you've got sites like onlinebootycall.com to make the notion of 'hook-ups' all too real:

The website's home page takes you through ten commandments. Some of my favorites:

- Thou shalt kiss anything except my mouth

and

- Thou shalt never greet me in public — neither shouldest thou comment on my facebook page

The website asks you to look at photos and people on a scale from one to 10. Oddly enough these photos aren't slutty. People are actually fully clothed. Facebook photos are worse than those on this site.

The best part of the website is that at the bottom of the page they have a 'He said, She said' section. Here, people talk about having a real connection with someone they found on 'OBC' and even marrying someone they met on this site.

Clearly these people broke at least one of the commandments. Most importantly, the fact that this site even exists goes to show we've got a lot of work to do as a society if we ever want to go back to the times where dinner and a movie were a norm.

Well, we could be getting closer to rescinding our affectionate name, Girls Gone Wild University and Casino, er, ASU. We received a press release from a company that creates a very special kind of love connection. Some might call this kind of hook-up prostitution, but the folks from SeekingArrangement.com, call it a special arrangement. It's a Sugar Daddy and Sugar Baby kind of arrangement.

According to a press release from these fine folks, the top 20 fastest growing Sugar Baby schools of 2012 includes GGWUC and yes, the UA. Do we blame our long-time party school reputation? No, SeekingArrangement.com said it could be the economy and student debt:

According to SeekingArrangement.com’s annual list of the “Top 20 Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools”, a rising number of female students from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona are turning to the “Sugar Baby Lifestyle” to fund their education.

From Arizona State University (Tempe), SeekingArrangement.com received 204 new Sugar Baby sign-ups giving it a 240% increase overall membership from the university. This moved Arizona State to the 6th Fastest Growing Sugar Baby School from a number 8 spot in the previous year. While neighboring University of Arizona had a 171.15% increase in 2012.

Top 20 Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools, determined by number of new sign-ups in 2012 (emphasis ours):
1. Georgia State University - 292 (#11 in 2011) 2. New York University - 285 (#1 in 2011) 3. Temple University - 268 (#5 in 2011) 4. University of Central Florida - 221 (#14 in 2011) 5. University of Southern Florida - 212 (#7 in 2011) 6. Arizona State University - 204 (#8 in 2011) 7. Florida International University - 187 8. University of Georgia - 148 (#2 in 2011) 9. Indiana University - 123 (#17 in 2011) 10. Texas State - 131 11. Kent State University - 128 (#15 in 2011) 12. Penn State - 121 (#13 in 2011) 13. University of North Texas - 112 14. Florida State University - 111 15.Tulane University - 109 (#4 in 2011)
16. Michigan State University - 108 (#9 in 2011) 17. University of Ohio - 103 18. Columbia University - 100 19. University of Alabama - 96 20. University of California Los Angeles - 91

“Arizona State is known for having open-minded and fun-loving students,” says Founder and CEO, Brandon Wade. “So the Sugar Baby Lifestyle is perfect for ASU co-eds. Having to choose between achieving their academic goals and taking full advantage of new college experiences goes against that spirit.”

SeekingArrangement.com is the world’s largest Sugar Daddy website with over two million members worldwide. In 2011, 40% of the website’s total population was comprised of college students. But after a 58% increase in co-ed signups in 2012, that number rose to 44%. The website encourages the growth of the student population by offering college students a free premium membership upgrade if they register with their college email address (.edu).

“College should be an opportunity to expand the mind and experience new things,” says Wade. “Unfortunately, because of the of recent tuition hikes, the college experience has become greatly unbalanced.”

...

With more students debating the true value of a college degree versus the risk of debt, female students on SeekingArrangment.com have chosen to find benefactors who can help pay for the high cost of an education.

• Courtesy: Center for Biological Diversity
• For when you've gotta play it cool—cool as ice.

From the release:

“There are more than 3 billion people on the planet under the age of 25. The choices this generation makes will determine whether our planet and its wildlife and natural resource base are burdened with 8 billion or 15 billion people. The difference between these paths can be measured by how many other species are left to roam alongside us,” said Jerry Karnas, population campaign director with the Center. “Our Endangered Species Condoms are a great way to get a conversation started about how the growing human population is affecting the wild world around us, especially animals already teetering on the edge of extinction.”

Since launching the campaign in 2009, CBD claims to have given out 450,000 condoms, all of which feature animal designs. While I can't account for the effectiveness of their condoms, I can definitely vouch for the fact that the packaging (hah) is eye-catching: the Endangered Species Condoms come in boxes covered in designs featuring a number of endangered animals and snappy slogans.

For example: "In the sack? Save the leatherback," "safe intercourse saves the dwarf seahorse," "don't go bare, panthers are rare," and the classic "when you're feeling tender...think about the hellbender," which conjures rather uncomfortable images if you're not familiar with the hellbender salamander.

In all seriousness, they have a point: the earth's population of humans has doubled (!) since 1970, which will soon put an even greater strain on our already-aching natural resources. So the message here seems to be "for your children's sake, try to not have children," which is certainly a message that I can behind (hah).

Check out EndangeredSpeciesCondoms.com for a look at the packages (hah) and head to biologicaldiversity.org to read more about their campaign, including a report on the top 10 U.S. species threatened by population growth.

I'm sure you're saying to yourself, is it time for the Adult Video News nominations already? It sure is, as the 147 categories full of surely excited nominees were revealed yesterday, from Best Lubricant Manufacturer to Best Big Butt Release.

While I haven't seen any of the films nominated in the video categories to remark on their relative quality, here are a few of the titles that seemed interesting on some level and that I was willing to bring myself to cut and paste in this blog post:

Subtle Fragrance of Her Private Parts
Nacho Vidal: The Sexual Messiah 2
His Booty Is My Duty 2
El Gordo y La Flaca XXX
This Ain't Avatar 2 XXX 3D: Escape From Pandwhora
Inglorious Bitches
Brazzers Worldwide: Budapest 2
Put Your Feet on My Meat 5
Oil Overload 7
Ghostlusters
Booty Clappin’ Superfreaks
Deep Tushy Massage 3
This Ain't The Expendables XXX 3D

The winners will be announced at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on January 19. Tickets in the rear balcony (still, by my understanding, close enough to smell the despair) are available for $224 (plus applicable fees).

In honor of October being National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the pornography streaming website Pornhub has announced that they'll be donating one cent for every thirty views of "breast-related videos" to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The Komen Foundation, for some strange reason, has decided to refuse this money.

I'm just as shocked as you are.

According to the Huffington Post, the Komen Foundation has told them, via email:

Susan G. Komen for the Cure is not a partner of pornhub.com. We will not accept donations from this organization and have asked them to stop using our name.

To their credit, Pornhub apparently still wishes to donate the funds to another organization. Again, from Huffington Post:

Unfortunately, we have had to change our targeted beneficiary. As such, Pornhub.com is now calling on all breast cancer foundations to come forward and be considered as the recipient of this cash donation.

Classy job there, Pornhub. Classy job.

[Huffington Post - Pornhub.com Donates To Susan G. Komen When Users Watch Breast-Related Videos This Month]

No, really — I'm not just making that up as a Cardinals fan, bitter at years of Dallas fans stealing my home team's glory. Check it out.

• Redundancy alert: The site title reads "The #1 Dating Portal For Gay Dating."

According to Yahoo! Sports, this is all the result of the Cowboys front office goofing up the acquisition of the domain name — apparently, they didn't think that letting their fans jump straight to their site by way of "cowboys.com" was worth the (admittedly exorbitant) $275,000 price-tag that they were being charged.

So, someone else swept in, seeing the potential dollar signs, and dropped down a site for men who prefer saddling up with other fellas — with a willingness to serve the needs of straight daters as well. An admirable job done by the folks behind cowboys.com.

My favorite part of this news coming out? The Cowboys are playing the Bears tonight.

Well, "national crisis" in the sense that the NFL has made an agreement with its referees, folding them back into the games and showing the replacement refs the door.

But with that said, it's time to get back to what matters — and who better to remind us of what that is than Dr. Ruth Westheimer?

With real refs back halftime can once again be for taking care of sexual frustrations instead of venting about ref frustrations

— Dr. Ruth Westheimer (@AskDrRuth) September 27, 2012

Indeed. So let's remember what halftime is really all about, folks — sexytime with the person who is putting up with you and your complaints about how Wes Welker has ruined your fantasy football team.

Yeah, this definitely blows "free smoothie" punch cards out of the water.

A Malaysian car wash recently got in trouble for its interesting customer loyalty cross-promotion — apparently, someone got the bright idea to offer free sexytimes at a local brothel to repeat customers who got their repeat customer cards punched ten times.

From The Truth About Cars:

“To get the extra ‘offer’, customers must send their cars for washing nine times within a certain period. The tenth car wash will entitle them to free sex,” Emmi Shah Fadhil, officer-in-charge of the local Crime Prevention Division told the Malay Mail.

Car-less customers, or those who did not want to wait for nine car washes for free sex could pay between 130 and 180 Malaysian ringgit ($42 and $58) for immediate gratification.

A raid of the premises led to the arrest of four men, none of them customers, and “nine Vietnamese women, believed to be prostitutes and [guest relations officers], aged between 18 and 28,” says the paper. A report by the Malaysia Chronicle says that the raid netted evidence in form of “several condoms stashed inside a microwave.”

...

The car wash connection was only revealed after loyalty cards were found on several customers (who were not arrested.)

This puts a new spin on the phrase "wax job," I guess. I'll just have to file this under "business ideas to take to Nevada should journalism not pan out."

For more on this story, check out The Truth About Cars.

Monetarily, that is.

According to this report from CNN, Tampa-area strip clubs are expecting a boom in business during the four-day-long conservative pep rally that is the Republican National Convention—and they should, considering how many conventioneers tend to go wild when in a strange city with their peers.

From CNN.com:

A strip club with a spaceship on the roof seems an odd place to expect Republicans. At first blush, one might not equate lap dances with the political party that wraps itself in buttoned-down family values.

But at convention time, even upstanding men seem to seek out undressed women. When the Christian group Promise Keepers held a convention in Tampa a couple of years ago, attendees flooded the 2001 Odyssey, co-owner Jim Kleinhans recalls. They had such a good time that "they kept their promise to come back the next night."

Many male convention-goers, regardless of political stripe, are drawn to the sexual underground, according to a study conducted by Baylor University business professor Scott Cunningham. He examined sex ads placed online around the time of the 2008 conventions in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Denver. Ads for prostitutes and escorts jumped 25% to 40%. Cunningham offers a range of possible explanations — chief among them anonymity, or what he calls "the reduced likelihood of future shaming."

As someone who has experienced new levels of confusion as a result of attending industry conventions, I can both sympathize and understand. Here's to hoping that GOPers who make it down to Tampa's flesh palaces take care of those young ladies—because according to that story, they're working for both tips and new hips.

Warning: Possibly NSFW. And while amusing, it's probably not really all that far from the truth, if this story is any indication.

In case you don't have time to watch the video, the headline and subheadline are amusing and probably quite accurate:

Tampa Bay Gay Prostitutes Gearing Up For Flood Of Closeted Republicans

Tampa Bay gay sex workers say they plan to rake in the cash sucking off secretly gay Republican politicians during the Republican National Convention.