Listen to the track @yourstru.ly…

Trials and tribulations have nothing on Jelly Jells’ relentless optimism. “Life is not cruel; life is school,” he preaches on the track “It Is What It Is,” tackling some serious family issues with a bubbling concoction of reggae, hip-hop and blissful tropical harmonies. From the absence of a legit father figure, to domestic abuse and his schizophrenic mother, Jelly grew up in troubled waters, but refused to go down with the ship. Today he turns his past into a wicked dance party, refusing to dwell on the issues and instead choosing to celebrate the person who overcame them.

Listen to the track @yourstru.ly…

The hairs on the back of your neck stand tall and a violent shiver runs down the length of your curved spine. Your heart pounds high into your throat as your lungs cease to supply the air for which you’re so desperately gasping. You flail on the cold floor, overwhelmed and terrified, and just before you choke on your own despair, a single breath reassures of the body’s will to survive. The haunting nature of Holy Other and the tragic reality of How To Dress Well’s lyrical content perfectly combine in this dense remix, encapsulating those moments when breathing alone feels like a triumph.

Social media is for lovers: TheIceBreak brings couples to the web

Read the original SF Bay Guardian post @www.sfbg.com/sexsf

Even when you meet someone online, most people would agree that the reward is eventually being able to interact with that human in real life, face to face, parts to parts. So why then is TheIceBreakgetting already established couples to turn back to their computers and join the Facebook-style network designed for lovers? The answer is communication. We’re all obsessed with typing, texting, and virtually sharing our feelings with our friends and family, so why not chat and share mushy-sexy-sweet-secrets with our partners over the Interwebs?

TheIceBreak is a month-old SF start-up aimed at helping couples dig deeper into their relationship on three levels: understanding, affection, and excitement. Users can participate in fun, flirty stuff like Seventeen-style “icebreaker” questions and post photos or comments to their significant other’s private wall. You can win points for playing along and posting bits and bobs. The game aspect could be a good way to brainwash your partner into signing up, but even if they refuse, people without a significant other on the site can still take part solo and send their lovesick posts through email.

TheIceBreak also has an analytical component, regularily posting charts and data for couples to not only track their own relationship stats, but compare them against the relationships of others — healthy in moderation, we guess. Among the site’s recent findings was the disappointing notion that San Franciscans may be less satisfied with their sex lives than those living in Mountain View, Palo Alto, and a host of other seemingly non-sexy cities. Maybe we need to lower our expectations.

SF can’t get no satisfaction, according to TheIceBreak’s findings

Most of the questions and challenges currently up on the site are pretty tame and sweet, but TheIceBreak founders Christina A. Brodbeck and Dwipal Desai both agree there’s a whole lot of potential in sexual content. A popular icebreaker in the past month: “What piece of clothing do you find sexiest on your partner?” Answering questions about types of play, fantasies, BDSM, orgasm-inducers, and tricks could be super fun, especially while you’re killing time on the BART or avoiding work, and a fresh way for partners to be honest about bedroom needs and wants. Regardless of how sexy the questions will be, Brodbeck is firm about making sure these questions aim to tie partners together.

“Yes these are conversations you should be having face to face, but sometimes it’s difficult to think of some of these questions off the top of your head. This is just our way of pushing you to initially answer and discuss those questions,” Brodbeck says.

In the next couple of weeks the site will be available in app form and will make sharing while apart that much easier. While it still seems a little unnesessary that people would need so many options to poke and post pictures of puppies and hearts on their beau’s social media profiles, we’ve all blocked (or at least made fun of) the friends on Facebook who get into this kinda thing; those who irritatingly go overboard with updating the Internets about their “perfect” relationship and can’t seem to detach long enough to get a profile photo of just themselves…ever.

Social media PDA = puke. Get a room, lovebirds… or just sign up with TheIceBreak.

Read the original SF Bay Guardian post @www.sfbg.com/sexsf

Kinsey was an obvious pioneer of sexy science and the sexual revolution was sparked in the decades after his first studies contributed hard facts about human sexuality, but at this point his findings needs refreshing.

But instead of intensified sexual investigations, our country is regressing and the frigidness of conservative politics tied up with the pharmaceutical industry have pushed sex nerds away from researching healthy bodies to focus their attention on limp studies — deficiencies, dysfunction, and anything else that can be prescribed.

The PSIgasm Project, a Bay Area sex-positive research project, wants to jump back into the fun stuff and track down just what exactly the the big “o” does to the human body.

It may look like a super powerful dildo, but the PSIgasm is actually a fancy scienticfic device that records changes in body temperature, heat capacity, heart rate, blood volume, moisture, and movement; all signs pointing to orgasm. The smart instrument of pleasure was concieved in 2010 by Ned Mayhem, a PhD candidate in experimental physics at UC Berkeley and his lover Maggie Mayhem, an HIV prevention specialist, both of whom are sex positive activists, queer porn performers. The aim of their project is simple: to get people off and simaltaeously monitor the physiological responses correlated with arousal and orgasm. You can almost hear this city full of tech geeks pleading, “more, more!”

“The idea that the reactions to sex can be quantified blows their minds,” says Mr. Mayhem of excited audeinces and test subjects who have been introduced to the project. “Sex is usually talked about in a kind of ‘woo-woo’ way, but what’s going on in your body are real physical processes. When you’re turned on, it’s not just your mental state, or magic divorced from your body. It’s actual chemicals, flowing.”

The scientific shaft, version II

Mr. Mayhem is currently bulking up version three of the PSIgasm, which involves a lot of technical tweaking and electronics upgrading to make sure it’s reliable enough for vigerous, all-night, hot and heavy testing. The plan is to record data from people with all different anatomies, gender identities, ages and cultures, engaged in sex for various reasons and in different places, like dungens, bedrooms, and backseats. If there were ever a research study that would gain ethusiastic volunteers in this city, PSIgasm would be it.

The Mayhems want their findings to not only inform people about the wonders of their own bodies, but dispute society’s widespread misconceptions of “normal” sex by showing conclusive data that people orgasm from differnt types of action, both soft and rough, wild and quiet. The mobility of the PSIgasm will also keep the data honest by allowing individuals using the smart dildo to play privately however they please, without white lab coats standing over their shoulder.

Eventaully Mr. Mayhem plans to make all of the PSIgasm’s designs public so people can build their own equipement and anonomously share their data.

For the time being, he’s working the projects presentation for Arse Elektronika, which may or may not include a live demonstration. Now that sounds like exciting science!

Bloom year-round with the new flowery Yakkay 

Read the original Bicycle Muse post @www.thebicyclemuse.blogspot.com

Our yearly rendezvous with old man winter may be next on the calendar, but it’s no reason to hide your true love for April showers and May flowers. Yakkay’s newest “Flower” helmet cover is packed with pretty; bursting with a garden of delicate petals in hushed hues of pink, red, orange and green. Is this uber femme gem really a helmet, or a girly hat ready to spring your bicycle wardrobe into the cold season with optimistic beauty? Of course that was a trick– it’s both! Now for the real question: where else can you plant some fetching floral?

Topshop‘s Pansy Fit and Flare Dress is not only super cute and girly, but the easy ruffle of the skirt promises smooth, uninhibited riding. Layer the simple sleeveless over a pair of leggings, tights or fun bloomers for extra warmth when the sun sets or add a cotton cardigan to keep your arms cozy.

Ahh, rompers! Modcloth‘s retro inspired one-piece by Stop Staring wins points no matter if your plans are rowdy or prim and proper. The pleated bust and high waist flatter, while the flexible fabric makes sure you can spin your wheels, run and play. Match your lipstick to the rosy red belt and pucker up!

The Pashley Poppy in pastel blue is an obvious bff to a field of blossoms and just begs you to ride it while you not only wear the roses, but smell them, too!

Get extra girly and add on a whole garden variety of nature-inspired prints, like the Kitsch Kitchen pannier in eye-popping orange. The bees (and beaus) will be trailing behind you!

Forget clowns, acrobats, and bedazzled animals and step right up to a stage full of erotic stimulation, play, and perversion at Fleur De Lis SF’s Very Sexy Circus. The sex-positive blogger is throwing the big-top themed bash as a finale to the year she spent documenting her exploration of sex in this city, with the evening’s entertainment made up of the crazy pervs she met along the way. From BDSM eye-candy to bawdy comedy and hands-on educational demos, this show ain’t no tight-rope and monkey act.

When the seventh of August rolled around last month, Fleur De Lis SF, a.k.a. Vanessa, said she was nearly in tears. It was the end of an era, a wild year of kissing (and/or sucking, fucking, teasing, experimenting, spanking, coming) and telling. She tried animal play, cracked the whip, attended super-secret parties, got dirty, played hard and worked hard, all for the sake of the blog… and personal exploration, of course.

“The blog was a nice excuse to try things, but this year really helped me discover what I like and what I don’t,” says Vanessa while sipping coffee on a Friday morning. “For example, now I know that I really enjoy group sex and orgies. It takes a particular person to get into it and turns out, I’m one of them.” Putting insecurities, inhibitions, and hesitations aside, Vanessa says the year made her a stronger, more confident, sexually satisfied being. Pretty sure sex sabbaticals should be mandatory for everyone.

The local sex celebs turned Circus performers

“I’ve always been sexual and I’ve always liked to tell my stories privately,” she says, recounting the numerous times her friends would beg for the juicy details over dinner.

Before, spilling these randy tales outside of that trust circle never seemed like a good idea for fear of stigmatization. Even in 2011, most female-identified persons who openly talk about their sexual explorations aren’t given high-fives and kudos. Vanessa wants this double standard to change, which is why she started blogging and getting extra honest about her endeavors; initially under the pen name Fleur De Lis, then with her first name. When she happily accepted the title of the Guardian’s “Sluttiest Blogger of the Year”, her boss found out and fired her.

“I’m a certified paralegal. I’m an educated woman. I’m not stupid. Yet because I’m a woman, I’m put into that category– I’m ‘that type of girl’ who supports ‘that kind of lifestyle’,” she says with a frustrated sigh, questioning and challenging what those types of labels even mean. “If I was a dude, my boss probably would have thought my blog was great and would have wanted to talk more about it.”

Performer Monika and the "slutty" blogger showing off some lovely assets

She continued to write and eventually landed some legal work with a group of people who are okay with the concept of a personal life. Now she hopes her willingness to being open and honest about kinky-ness will help pave a trail for other women struggling to overcome cultural bias. The best part about being Vanessa again? She can do whatever the hell she wants.

“My life belongs to me again. Fucking in a fishbowl has been difficult — everyone knowing everything, but people need to be reminded that sometimes sex isn’t personal. Sometimes its a great stress reliever. Or it’s just fun to try interesting things. It’s my life and I’m free to make these choices.”

Vanessa wanted to put on The Sexy Circus to share these valuable life lessons and she really hopes people who may be interested in being more experimental and want to begin exploring their curiosities can view this celebration as a jumping off point. From suspension to burlesque, The Circus will give the audience a big, fat taste of the SF sex community and send everyone home craving more of their favorite flavors.

Performer Reid Mihalko needs a good taming

“Hope to see you all under my big top,” says Vanessa on the flier for the event, which is also ”make-out friendly”, meaning while this bundle of performances won’t equate to a full-on sex party, the vibe will definitely be flirty. Vanessa is all about encouraging play and where better than the circus.

Under Fleur De Lis SF’s Big Top: A Very Sexy Circus

Sat/17, 8 p.m., $20

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

This song…aw man, this song. Watch the gorgeous Yours Truly video @yourstru.ly…

The sun rises on yet another day but your body is still recovering from the hours and minutes of yesterday. No compass, no map; you’ve been wandering without a clue for too long, allowing indecision to point left and right, only to circle back to your own dusty trail. You wait for that epiphany, a magical moment that promises to direct your “Great Life:” an eagle soaring overhead, an overturned stone or the hooves of a hundred wild horses clearing the horizon— fairy-tale signs that may leave you hopelessly searching forever. If you’d only just close your eyes and let the sun warm your face, maybe you’d realize that your sheer existence in this world is a sign in and of itself.