The problem is, the more advanced civilization gets, the more complicated everything else gets, as well: Today, mastering even the basics of clothing, food, and shelter takes more effort and energy than our hunter-gatherer ancestors could ever have imagined. Neanderthals wore skins; today we have Gay Eye for The Straight Guy ordering us to wear Dolce & Gabbana. Cavemen ate raw, dripping hunks of wooly mammoth; today we have the Japanese cloning mammoths to use as the secret ingredient on Iron Chef. And, whereas early humans in the 1950s might have been satisfied with some missionary-style in-and-out, never mind the orgasm, today no one dares to do the nasty without a six-pack of brand-name condoms, a bottle of top-quality lube that's the equivalent of water-based Dom Perignon '85, a sex-toy toolkit containing everything from manacles to a Hello Kitty vibrator, and a AAA road map to the clitoris. Both women and men expect more from their partners these days, and woe to anybody who doesn't dish up the goods.

Part of being one of the cool kids is knowing the right thing to say, the right thing to do, and the right thing to wear, and what you do in bed has been an indicator of what kind of person you are (or think you should be) ever since Kinsey announced that college-educated men tended to go down on their partners and go in through the out door more often than those with high school educations. How you screw is an item of conspicuous cool no less than whose jeans you're wearing. It goes without saying that a trash-talking, wife-beater-wearing Schlitz drinker like Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire just isn't going to be the same in bed as, say, Christopher Walken as The Continental. (Though which one is scarier is a matter of some debate.) Sex is just as subject to the dictates of fashion as everything else: In the 1950s, no one could think of anything more ultimate than just getting her clothes off and fucking; in the sixties, thanks to Masters and Johnson, you started worrying about his orgasm, her orgasm, and everyone else's orgasm; by the 1970s, you had to deep-throat and find the G-spot; by the Reagan administration, men had to go down there, too; nineties porno chic made anal sex mandatory; and by the twenty-first century, people feel the same shame that they're not into bondage, S&M, and enemas that the Puritans reserved for simple masturbation. Meanwhile, freelance writers are making fortunes telling us what the next big trend is: Is it bisexuality and three-ways this month? Or are we going to be retro and write about swing parties?

So, the way I see it, we have two choices. One, we can admit that what we do in our most intimate moments is as much at the mercy of market forces as any other aspect of life, and invest the time, energy, and money to become sexual sophisticates, to complement our hip apartments, cars, clothes, and hairstyles. Or, we can keep fucking like an animal, and hope that sincerity is enough to carry through.

Me, I'm going with the first choice. The idea that fucking requires more expertise these days than converting an X-Box into a Linux-based microcomputer, really got driven home when I was reading my new copy of The Big Bang: Nerve's Guide to the New Sexual Universe. To be honest, it's probably one of the best sex manuals I've ever read—and I've read them all, from Betty Dodson's Liberating Masturbation to The Goofy Foot Press Guide to Getting it On. With the possible exception of San Francisco, there's no place on Earth where people are more serious about sex as a hobby than Manhattan, and Nerve has been one of the things driving forward this postmodern, post-gay, post-9/11 fuckfest we call a culture. There's no one better qualified to be our intrepid native guides in the somewhat wild and wooly jungle that is Down There than Nerve's Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey. Not only does the book explain everything you might be requested or required to do in bed (pegging, anyone?), it's illustrated with Lo's anatomically correct sketches (when masturbation's lost its fun, try the "Alex Chee Inverted Plum Roll"), as well as Matt Gunther's somewhat-Richard-Kern-inspired softcore photography (my favorite shot: cunnilingus on the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island). If you wanna buy it, click here to support our site and order it from Amazon.

Also noted: I have to admit it: I'm not really into hip-hop. On the other hand, underground rap artists are both carrying forward the DIY torch that the punk movement has let dim and making some of the most socially relevant music out there. Check out, for instance, Hydrophonik's 11-song debut CD from Brooklyn-based Lester Fresh Records. With the right blend of rhythm and melody, plus some damn clever lyrics, it's like chilling on the stoop with your friends and some beer on an August afternoon-and then getting harassed by the cops.