Another adult shoppe, 'Come As You Are' in Toronto ON, is hosting a day of solo sex on May 24
, to raise funds for Voices of Positive Women - a community based, member driven agency which provides free and confidential support and advocacy to HIV positive women.

According to its website, "The event will be held on the honour system and you decide how long you want to masturbate in the privacy of your own home. The top fundraisers in each category will win some wonderful prizes."

It doesn't say what first prize is, but my suggestion would be this: an actual living sex partner, so the winner can - ahem! - stop talking to the hand.

This month of frenzied, yet pleasurable, activity can be satisfactorily concluded with a Portland OR-based event, which has been sub-titled a "hand orgy".

No, I'm not making that phrase up.

Admittance cost to this RSVP-only night is on a - gulp! - sliding scale, and the evening will include "fun masturbation games" and, for those who work up a powerful hunger, a "potluck and full kitchen."

Yes, don't forget people - you must keep up your strength.

And, for god's sake, pace yourselves.

For the sexually repressed who don't wish to participate, but still want to show their - ahh! - support, you can simply donate to the "CamLives Celebrity Masturbate-A-Thon". All monies go to the Feminist Women's Health Center. However, before you go beating a path to the nearest search engine to find these brave gals, please note: It's not an "on-cam" thing.

Awww, where's the fun in that?

Of the four contestants listed, poor pink-haired and pierced Ellen has only raised a paltry $42 as of this writing. So get your freak on, people. Show her some lovin'. Hell, she's a cutie. I'd do her. If she weren't so busy getting her hand "caught in the cookie jar" and all.

Yes, it's about fuckin' time we stopped being "the master of our domain." If anything proves that, it's a recent article from 'New Scientist', published 02 May '03, which reads in part...

"A horrific venereal disease is preying on baboons in eastern Africa. An estimated 200 animals have been infected and scientists are scrambling to identify the mystery microbe that is attacking them.

The disease targets the reproductive organs of the primate. The consequences for male baboons are particularly gruesome, says Elibariki Mtui, of the African Wildlife Foundation in Arusha, Tanzania. "The genitals kind of rot away, then they just drop off," he told New Scientist." (end quote)