The Spotted Owl Does Not Belong in the Bedroom

"Green is the new black. And, in these days of "inconvenient truths," even our sex lives can use a little environmental consciousness."

That's from Yahoo Lifestyle, one of those dippy tabs you click on when you've got nothing better to do. When I saw that opening line of the "environmental sex" article, my 'nads crawled up into my kidneys.

As if it isn't hard enough to get laid (fear of STDs, "drink responsibly" billboards, the illegality of Rohypnol), now the environmental movement has gotten in on the act.

The environment and sex have never gone together. The only reason humans evolved to live in caves and then Bel Air was so they could find more comfortable places to get laid.

Anyone who's had sex on the beach knows that it's better off as the name of a tourist cocktail. Sand gets everywhere when you're on the beach. Movie scenes involving apocalyptic surf sex might look good on the big-screen (Blame it on Rio, From Here To Eternity, The Firm), but they don't add much spice in real life. I remember once going for a romantic walk on the beach in Acapulco, hand in hand with a pretty lass. We hopscotched through the surf, waded blissfully through the moonlit water, dreamed impossible dreams...and then saw the cavern of a sewage pipe. At 3 AM, Acapulco empties its sewage onto the beach, and we both now smelled like urinal pucks.

Environment 1, Sex 0.

Sex in the woods isn't so great either. Bears, wolverines, mountain lions, and those are just the girls you meet before the cabin kegger even gets started. Sex in the woods requires all manner of planning, which is impossible for a city guy because if he's in the woods, he's probably dead drunk. The Scouts may have taught him that poison ivy shouldn't be used for wiping, but one high school bush bash (pardon the pun) teaches him that pine needles should never be used in place of silk sheets.

Here's Yahoo: "...find yourself a nice bed of duff, the dense layer of decayed leaves and pine needles on the forest floor, as it restores itself more easily.

Beware of your sex noise pollution, too, they add: "Yells and moans carry over open water and across meadows but will disperse quickly among trees."

For a minute I thought Yahoo was getting dirty, but now I know that "duff" is a dense layer of decayed leaves. Sounds great. Let's not "hit the hay," let's "do it on the duff." And there's those pine needles again. Poor Yahoo. They actually believe that the yells and moans are from great sex, meanwhile the girl's butt is being treated like a pin cushion.

Environment 2, Sex 0.

The Yahoo article has it that your sex life can save the Earth. Not by having kids to live on the planet (that's so 50's, and besides, we all know kids grow up to kill everything they see), but by cutting down on the energy (rechargeable batteries, so forth) used in the act of copulation.

How's that for a pick-up line? "Hey baby, we'll have a wild time tonight, and I'll be sure to cut down on the power."

Um, no. The unfortunate thing about movies and TV is they've led women to believe that sex should last 5 hours, and orgasms should go on forever. The cover of Cosmo is constantly telling women what to do with their man, and what to tell their man to do with them. I don't think I've ever seen the cover announce "saving energy" as the way to a Magic O. Instead, it's "have your man go down on you for an entire Grey's Anatomy episode." This might save energy for the woman, who isn't doing anything but trying to keep the man's head out of the way, but it does nothing for the planet. Televisions use a lot of electricity, and a sweating man will work too hard, require a shower, and there goes the rain forest.

Yahoo has other interesting tips. Strangely, they don't advise doing it in a hybrid car, but they do tell you to purchase plug-in vibrators. Not a bad call, but for some reason women are notoriously shy about those things, and tend to hide them in their underwear drawer, somewhere behind the socks that don't match, and beneath the lingerie they never wear except on third dates. A plug-in vibrator could be disastrous in this situation because if it shorts out, there goes the underwear, the socks, and maybe even the whole house. Think of the carbon that would be pumped into the atmosphere.

Here's one tip that I just don't get: "Avoid parabens. Often contained in lubes. Like phthalates, the jury is still out on their impact on humans, but you can avoid them by simply reading the ingredients. Look for Canadian-made and organically sourced, preservative-free massage oils and lubricants."

All right, I'll be honest. I had no idea what a phthalates was until Yahoo told me, and I still don't know how to pronounce it. A word that begins with "phth" is probably not a good thing if it's in the same sentence as the word "sex," so I'll take Yahoo's word for it that phthalates are scary and evil. But seriously, has sex really become so complicated that you have to stand in the aisle and read the ingredients on lube? When it comes to sex, the planet be damned, just grab the cherry flavoured and let's get to the check out line (you're buying, I'm embarrassed).

Pierre Trudeau once said that the government does not belong in the bedroom. I agree with him. Neither does the spotted owl, the president of the Greenpeace, or the whackos from Yahoo Lifestyle.