Heteroflexibility

You might want to cover your eyes to read this one - it's JUST TOO SHOCKING! Young heterosexual women - I just can't believe it - are kissing each other to impress guys!

Seriously, one episode of MTV's sleazy (yet completely addictive) dating show, Next, could've told you that. All those straight girls who are spending their day on a bus to meet one boy they know nothing about can barely keep their hands off each other.

Deborah Tolman, director of San Francisco State University's Center for Research on Gender and sexuality calls this "heteroflexible." By her definition, bisexuality is when there is a same-sex attraction while heteroflexibility is when lesbian acts occur for gain - to impress a boy or get free beer or whatever.

I say lesbian acts because though the article in Salon.com sites an "increase in acceptance of same-sex relationships and behavior in general" for this shocking phenomenon, it totally neglects the fact that not only would a group of party-goers not find this same behavior titillating if performed by two guys, those guys would likely find themselves ostracized, if not in the emergency room.

Don't get me wrong: the idea of heteroflexibility rubs me the wrong way because it's demeaning to the girls who practice it and it's belittling to women who are truly bisexual or lesbian. Then again, is using sexuality for gain that much different than the traditional batted eyelashes or a grinding dance with a guy for a free drink?

My favorite part of this article was in the reader's comments where No Name Given, PhD (seriously, she says she has a PhD) admits to kissing women and bemoans the bevy of other readers' comments which call these heteroflexibles whores. "I can't believe how alarmist and misogynistic these letters are," she says. "And, to clear up any questions, I kissed predominantly straight girls because they are hot, and lesbians, all too often, are not."

I wish I was making this up.