Brace yourselves. Details and Random House joined forces last fall to conduct the largest ever - they claim - survey about college sex, doing their quizzing via a 151-question poll mailed to 20,000 college students. The survey netted a 10 percent response rate.
The May issue of Details is featuring partial results of the survey in its fifth annual "Sex Issue." Complete findings appear in Random House's "Sex on Campus: The Naked Truth About the Real Sex Lives of College Students," which also went on sale Tuesday along with Details.
In his editor's letter, Details Editor-in-chief Joe Dolce expresses surprise at the results. Given all "the ambiguous sexuality so prevalent in advertising, and with the boom in amateur pornography, I assumed we'd be witnessing a return to pleasure, the rebirth of the sexual revolution, or at least the beginnings of a nascent sexual evolution."
Rebirth of the sexual revolution? Well, the report finds that 74 percent of those responding lost their virginity in high school or earlier; 68 percent have had sex under the influence of alcohol, while 55 percent don't always practice safe sex. It looks as if the impact of the sexual revolution is still very much alive and flourishing.
Yet, despite these figures and the findings that college students are showing an increase in, as Mr. Dolce puts it, "kink lite" (that is, spanking, bondage and talking dirty), it turns out that 96 percent of those responding consider marriage the best form of relationship.
Along with a photo spread on couples at University of California at Los Angeles who've been together anywhere from one month to six years and a feature on young women going naked on the Internet ("Downloading the Girls Next Door"), Details pulls its forelock in praise of marriage with an article by novelist Brad Meltzer. The writer met his future wife in high school when he was 15, married her when graduating from college and on the eve of their 10th high school reunion couldn't be happier than in the bonds of wedlock.
The Weekly Standard of April 21 leads off with a dandy article by The Washington Times' own Tod Lindberg: "Lawyer, Heal Thyself," in which he studies the curious case of Richard Ben-Veniste, describing him as the attack dog genus of lawyer - "an in-your-face, take no prisoners type."
Mr. Lindberg acknowledges Mr. Ben-Veniste as one of the top 50 lawyers in town, but notes that he has left a "distasteful trail of ethical flotsam stirred up in the wake of his confrontational style." It's a juicy, well-researched piece of work. Vanity Fair, always exceedingly good value, offers a goodly collection of worthy articles in its May issue, some with strong Washington links. Judy Bachrach does an in-depth feature on superbest-seller author Patricia Cornwell with an interesting photograph of author as medical examiner (like her heroine, Kay Scarpetta) in blood-stained gown, with lots of blood around her on autopsy tools. The article goes into the curious story linking the author with a married couple of FBI agents - very strange stuff, particularly Miss Cornwell's comments on the whole affair.
Sally Bedell Smith, who recently gave us an excellent biography of the late Pamela Harriman, has turned to a very much alive billionaire: Sir James Goldsmith, a very bright, complex, and oh-so-rich man. His domestic relationships are almost as interesting as his political goals for Europe.
The same issue also gives us a long excerpt from an upcoming biography of another ambitious woman - a near contemporary of Pamela Harriman, but one who made it with some genuine talent: Clare Boothe Luce. The excerpt takes her from working as a caption writer to managing editor of Vanity Fair (a slightly different publication then), and the courtship and marriage to the media mogul of the day, Henry Luce. A lot of fascinating social history.
Speaking of beautiful, ambitious and successful women, Esquire in its May issue brings you "Arianna (Rhymes with `Top Banana')," in which writer Jonathan Van Meter endeavors to explain how Mrs. Huffington went from "the Lady Macbeth of the Republican Party to being the lovable star of a a hip political-comedy show" with her own development deal. This too makes for some pretty entertaining reading.
Had enough of glamorous successful women? How about the glamour of wealth and power? Well, Fortune with its April 28 issue is bringing forth its "1997 500," America's 500 largest corporations and how they've done in this year of a very bull market. You get Fortune's annual list plus "The 500 Medians" (how the industries in the 500 compare), the 500 ranked by performance and the 500 ranked within states. In short, everything you could possibly want to know about the 500.
Yet another new magazine has blossomed forth on the newsstands of the land. Hearst Publications is launching Mr. Food's EasyCooking. Mr. Food, it seems, is "America's Favorite TV Chef," according to the subtitle of the magazine. His program doesn't appear to play in the immediate Washington area, although according to a list in the magazine, he can be seen in a great many states, including on WRIC in Richmond, Va.
Mr. Food, judging from the many photographs of him in his chef's toque blanche scattered through the pages of his magazine, seems like a jolly fellow whose big line is "Ooh, it's so good!" That line appears frequently throughout the issue. The magazine seems aimed at the busy housewife, but it has no breakdown of the recipes as to percentage of fat content or total calories, unlike many cooking magazines these days. Still, there is an article on low-fat ways of satisfying the fat urge.
If you're into gardening instead of cooking, check out the May/June issue of Organic Gardening with its feature on sunflowers, described in an alliterative burst as "a seriously sensational selection of supremely scintillating sunflowers." You get descriptions of 33 different styles of the flower plus a field guide with illustrations of 25 garden pests and how to beat them. Just what you need with summer edging up, right?
Cynthia Grenier writes The Mag Trade column Saturdays.
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