Articulated, porcelain, China paint, silk hair. The porcelain is engraved with a needle while still raw, fired and then china paint is rubbed into the grooves. Accents are added in additional layers.

Many are making love. Up above, the angels
in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing
are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond
and the texture of cold rivers. They glance
down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy--
it must look to them like featherless birds
splashing in the spring puddle of a bed--
and then one woman, she is about to come,
peels back the man's shut eyelids and says,
look at me, and he does. Or is it the man
tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater?
Anyway, they do, they look at each other;
two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious,
startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet
lubricious glue, stare at each other,
and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically
like lithographs of Victorian beggars
with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags
in the lewd alleys of the novel.
All of creation is offended by this distress.
It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes,
rising. The lovers especially cannot bear it,
it fills them with unspeakable sadness, so that
they close their eyes again and hold each other, each
feeling the mortal singularity of the body
they have enchanted out of death for an hour so,
and one day, running at sunset, the woman says to the man,
I woke up feeling so sad this morning because I realized
that you could not, as much as I love you,
dear heart, cure my loneliness,
wherewith she touched his cheek to reassure him
that she did not mean to hurt him with this truth...

A study was conducted to assess whether individual differences in sexual activity during the past 30 days, in particular penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI; which is associated with measures of relationship quality), are related to the perception of the facial attractiveness of unknown men. Forty-five women reported the frequency of a variety of sexual behaviors and rated the facial attractiveness and friendliness of 24 men. Women who reported more frequent orgasm from masturbation rated men as less friendly. This finding might be reflective of the more anti-social attitude associated with more frequent masturbation. The results also show that women who engaged more frequently in most kinds of sexual behavior, not only PVI, considered unknown men to be less facially attractive. That is, individuals who engage more frequently in a variety of sexual behaviors with their partner perceived unknown men as less attractive and thereby may be less susceptible to the lure of other (or if the only sexual behavior is masturbation, any) men.

The explanation for the preference is not clear, but experts in human evolution say that that facial hair may be a signal of aggression because it boosts the apparent size of the lower jaw, emphasising the teeth as weapons.

Psychologists at Northumbria University who carried out the new study believe that stubbly men may offer women the best worlds - not too strongly masculine, but mature and with the potential to grow a full beard...

Fischl is one of the most active and influential figurative painters working at the end of the 20th century. His figures, most often nude and caught in compromising or alienating positions, are blunt portrayals of the human body.

I watched them in the car park, embracing on the tailgate of her car. At least I believe it was her car because she had the keys and seemed to be organising the loading of the bags.

He was standing close behind her, admiring the curve of her bottom through their thin cotton combat covering.

When she turned around, he lifted her onto the tailgate and insinuated himself between her legs....

As a salesman I've found amazing similarites between picking up women and pitching a business to a Venture Capitalist. In VC language, you need to be prepared for an elevator pitch – a 60 second monologue on why they should care about your business. With women you actually have less time – maybe 15 seconds – so you need to make them count.

Let’s break this up into something that us business guys can understand. This advice is equally effective in any sales cycle but it is more fun to think about as it relates to the fairer sex. Keep in mind that these points build upon one another.

1) Know your strengths and weaknesses.

Do you ever see that awesome girl with the fat, stupid guy who works as a toll booth collector? Yeah, me neither. Give your self an honest assessment – are you a 6 out of 10? No problem, you can go up or down 2 points. Go any lower and your friends will make fun of you, go any higher, and the object of your desire will. Please take ALL things into consideration when you rate yourself – make sure that the ones that are clearly apparent are weighted higher. Your height, good looks, broad shoulders, your nice car, etc.. are worth more. The fact that you are willing to see "Sex And The City" and you call your mother on Mother’s day weigh less....

”What happens” I demanded, prodding my finger at the bit in the middle ”if I press this button?"

”All my clothes fall off”.

I jabbed at it with my finger. Nothing happened. I tried again, repeatedly.

”This thing’s defective” I complained.

”Ah well, I didn’t tell you that it’s on a time-delay. The clothes don’t fall off until after we get home”

”Shame”.

She pulled me even closer to her and in the middle of that milling mass of people gyrating around us she thrust a leg firmly between mine. She couldn’t possibly fail to notice the tangible sign of my growing excitement, pressed up hard as it was against her inner thigh. Ironic really that in my youth if I happened to get a hard-on while I was dancing I would do everything I could to disguise the fact from my partner. This one I bore with pride and ground it up against her leg through the cloth of my trousers as we grinned at each other like randy teenagers....