No, you aren’t the only ones! Lots of couples try to spice up or revive their relationships, specifically the s.e.x. part, by sharing some porn. If you get lucky and find a tip-top specimen, it can be a very inspiring experience. Unfortunately, the market is glutted by low production quality and generally sub-standard fare. But if you’re looking for something unique, something artistic, perhaps even avant garde — or if your partner happens to be an environmentalist, an entomologist, or either Bjork or Matthew Barney — then the Sundance Channel has just the thing for you.

It’s called Green Porno and it stars no less than certified fox Isabella Rossellini. Tagline: “LIVE NUDE BUGS!”
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I love the Internet. It is indeed a beautiful tool, allowing you to research information efficiently and to communicate with an ever-expanding global network. And now, of course, as Switched.com reminds us, you can also use it to break up with your significant other. (That is, if you’re momentarily unable to text. Rrowr!)

Have we really gotten that lazy? Have our communication skills gotten that crappy? Are we just too chicken for — never mind a face-to-face — a phone-to-phone? Why I remember back in the day when I would take a deep breath, review my written speech, pick up my rotary phone and proceed to break hearts. Kids these days! All they have to do is change their Facebook status! Though, I suppose there’s always room for creativity, like the woman who was dumped on Wikipedia who sold her ex-boyfriend’s stuff on eBay. Now that, that’s e-theater.

On the upside, as Switched’s roundup also reminds us, the Internet has also created the opportunity for creative marriage proposals. Remember when CmdrTaco at Slashdot got down on virtual bended knee? Almost seems quaint now. My current favorite is this fake iPhone commercial. So iCute! Now if someone would propose to me in the form of one of those adorable ads for Sonic, I’d be the happiest girl on the planet.

The other night I swung by the legendary Algonquin Hotel for a discussion — sadly, not at the round table — on the new book Sex and Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love…in 200 Cartoons. (Not to be confused with this Sex and Sensibility, which contains an essay by BG’s alter ego entitled “Someone Old, Someone Blue.”)

Anyway: gasp! A gaggle of cartoonists (including BG idol Roz Chast!) on a mission to figure out this whole love thang? Sounds like BG’s got a backup team! Much of the group’s discussion actually centered on whether or not men and women find different things funny, and why that might be. (No final conclusions were drawn, but everyone found the discussion funny, so I guess that’s saying something.)

Liza Donnelly, the book’s editor — and a staff cartoonist at the New Yorker (thus a superhero of sorts) — also mentioned to me that she is working on another book of cartoons about marriage with her fellow-cartoonist husband. Will it be full of actual solutions? Probably not. But is it fun to imagine the two of them hanging around their apartment saying things like, “You don’t have to go to this party. It’s ‘Men Optional,'” or “Now that our last is off to college, could you tell me who the hell you are?” Oh yeah.

Or at least an exterior of the Studio Apartment of Justice?

Here is a supersmart — if at least PG-13 — interview with X-rated satirist and FOBG Polly Frost, whose erotic horror stories and brilliantly filthy serials capture lay very, very bare the deepest essence of human relationships.

X-rated satire? Sure. “I don’t see how you can write satire without writing about sex!” she says in the Q&A. “I mean, how can you live in this country and not write about the conflicted, crazy attitudes Americans have about sex?” (Another provocative point: “It’s sad that book publishing and bookstores do such a lousy job of appealing to men. Hey, book-publishing people: Men love reading fiction with sex in it. But they do not want to venture into the romance section to find a book!”) Check it out, if only because — speaking of books — “Lotta Drum and the 69 Pleasures” clearly needs to be on your mental nightstand.

Via BG’s alter ego at Broadsheet:

What to do with that old engagement ring? You know, after you whip it at your lying, cheating ex-fiancé?

Keepsake? Yeah, right. EBay? So impersonal. Pirates? That’ll only do more damage.

Now, as today’s New York Times reports, there may be a more appealing option: an auction site called ExBoyfriendJewelry.com (tag line: “You don’t want it. He can’t have it back”).

At first glance, I cringed. After all, I consider most public expressions of us vs. him (or her) anti-ex bitterness to be inelegant, tacky, TMI. That said, I will also give a pass to just about anything with real humor and heart. And this site, I must admit (which is not hetero-only), has inspired some gems of poignant free verse.

The description for some Celtic knot earrings: “At some point, he began to take fabulous trips to Ireland. Without me.” For an engagement ring and wedding band: “Hey, Mom and Dad. Remember that time I got married really young?” (Her offer: “I can’t pay you back for the wedding, but I’ll split whatever I get for these with you.”) For an emerald ring, this novella: “It was 1989 on Long Island. Poison and Paula Abdul were battling for the top billboard spots. He was 19, drove a white honda crx and rocked skidz; I smoked marlboro lights and lied about my age of 14. We fell in love over whoppers and the run dmc that pumped out of his ridiculously large speakers. When he bought me this emerald and diamond ring from Sears, it was probably the single best thing that had ever happened to me. I wore it all up and down that high school with pride. But soon enough, it was time to trade my gold for silver as the 80s gave way to the 90s. I got into Nirvana and Ani DiFranco and it was clear that an ocean of Drakkar Noir lay between us.”

And, for some clip-on earrings: “Clip ons. Clip ons!”

There’s also an area of the site for “Gifts That Should Have Been Jewelry.”

I see just one pitfall, really: the perhaps inevitable description reading “I dumped him because he bought my engagement ring used from this site!”

Okay, this (as opposed to this) is the kind of representation online dating deserves.

alone like the oak.
think I’ll make a haiku thread
on v-day. then leaf.

It’s a zen poetry slam! Simply post your own haiku in the comments. Syllables go 5-7-5. Need some inspiration? Check out our Valentines Haiku Contests of years past.

 

Got a very specific message in mind this Valentine’s Day? Breakup Girl may have you covered; Take a look at our Flash-animated eCards!

If NECCO just doesn’t cut it, try our e-mailable custom candy hearts this Valentines Day!