I try to avoid VD in all its incarnations but there are a couple of things I wouldn’t mind recommending to all of you dithering about aimlessly, looking for gifts for expectant lovers. Don’t fret if you don’t have a boyfriend or whatever — these items will suit you single kids, too.

Champion, directed by Shine Louise Houston, tells the story of a mixed martial arts fighter named Jessie — played by stinking-hot real life MMA fighter Syd Blakovich — and her trials in and out of the ring. (Watch the trailer here.) I know I said just last week that buying porn for Valentine’s Day is courting disaster. Yeah, I’m gonna need to take that back in light of this new information.

Firstly, the lighting, sets, music (taiko drumming, a brilliant choice to build fight and sex scenes) and direction are all top-notch, art-house quality. Houston has succeeded in capturing on film the sex you think you’re having when you’re fucking but which — if you’ve ever videotaped yourself and were mortified by the static lumbering combined with fits of frantic jackhammering — seems to have eluded your own lens. (For all you film geeks out there, she shoots on a Panasonic DVX100b at 24p with a 35mm lens adaptor. I don’t know what that means but the results are gorgeous.)

She lingers, with superb editing, on sex scenes that do not dilly-dally themselves. Feverishly hardcore and deeply intimate all at once, the real kissing and passionate oral sex are so arousing and so delightfully greedy compared to the usual faux-lez, slack-jawed tongue rolling, bogus moaning and baby-voiced reprimands.

Every moment of Champion bursts with lust: well-tended butch hands yanking on long, pretty hair, pale flesh all red-hot from slaps, swift, hard penetration and, good lord, finally some decently turned out femmes — no tattered feather boas or god-awful clompy heels. And hey, does your boyfriend suck at digital and oral sex? Are you all like, “Bitch, where’d you learn to handle a pussy, at Butterfly School?” The lad needs to see this movie, trust me. The final scene lacks the same charged charisma as the others but virtually no fast-forwarding, not once.

Thank you, thank you, thank YOU Shine Louise, for making what is hands-down the best pornographic film I have ever seen. Thank you for improving queer female and trans porn by more leaps and bounds than words can adequately express. And thank you most of all for making a movie that I got so out-of-sorts watching at the Toronto premiere that I had to take not one, not two, but three people home to deal with the situation. (One of you left your copy at my house, by the way.) I don’t care who you are or what you like to fuck, it doesn’t seem possible that you won’t find this film utterly captivating. Champion is available locally at Good For Her.

I’ve never been a big fan of flavoured lubes; additionally, I’d never found a natural lube I really liked. Despite people’s best efforts, they are often unpleasantly sticky and at times even more improbably flavoured than their synthetic counterparts — seriously, just tell me the Cinnamon Vanilla by Good Clean Love doesn’t smell like Kozy Shack rice pudding.

But a Canadian line called Capotain’s has changed that (see “Local lovin’”). Capotain’s contains real fruit essence with no peculiar combinations — just a nice zesty orange or a sweet, fresh strawberry — actually lending to the occasion rather than overwhelming it. No sugar, no preservatives, 95 per cent organic and up, no glycerin, condom- and toy-compatible, slick as silicone and also available fragrance free. It’s available locally at Red Tent Sisters, Come As You Are, Good For Her and Lovecraft or online at www.aqualaria.com.

I’m also super-impressed with the company’s Soin D’Aphrodite line of sensual massage oils balms and scrubs, which you can get on the Aqualaria site or at Red Tent Sisters. Again, they feature really well-chosen fragrances (this time in delicious combinations) and they definitely live up to their namesake. I’m not even kidding —someone pulled an Impulse body spray ad on me a few weeks ago, when I was swooshing about after a session with the hammam body scrub.

Looking for something unique and reasonably priced? Look no further than the third annual Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair (www.eroticartsandcrafts.com). Hosted by Come As You Are on Feb. 14 at the Gladstone, the event also seems like a great place to cruise for nifty babes. I am completely in love with Emma Gerard’s breast implant paperweights, which are ridiculously affordable at $15-$60 each.

Shameless self-promotion
Please join me and my burlesque troupe The Scandelles for our 10th and final shindig at Lee’s Palace on Feb. 14. If you happen to have any photos from previous years, send them along here. We are doing a montage of our decade at Lee’s and if you’ve got something we end up using, it’s free tix for you and a pal.

Love bits
At long last, my intern search is over. Though I received some impressive submissions, it was actually a letter critiquing some of my advice that captured my attention. I read it and emailed the lad. “You’re smart,” I wrote. “Do you want to be my intern?” When we met for drinks, he told me stories that made both sets of my cheeks burn; his experience will be a valuable asset to Love Bites, I can assure you. He has chosen to work under a pseudonym to protect his cherished and eventful sex life. Girls and boys, meet Dmitri Lovesit:

Hi Sasha,
I'm a tad hung over today, so please forgive my haphazardness. I regularly enjoy your column and progressive thought and could wax ecstatic about you for 3 paragraphs, but I'll skip over that and get to my point.

I did want to add my own few cents in regards to your response to the "Quit Your Moonlighting." What "Worried" is probably failing to realize is that not every person falls into the cookie-cutter norms of sexuality (or wants to be categorized and put on a sexual radar by his friends).

There is something to be said about a broody and secretive approach to hooking up with other men, not dating, not relationships but "hooking up, getting off, and see you later". Cruising. It’s really at a basic level is a biological instinct—"spreading your seed" is based on testosterone. If you add a 21st century modern world on that basic biological urge, "spreading your seed", turns into finding and hooking up with men who have similar urges as yourself on a casual (and quite often one-time) basis.

There is rarely an romantic context to this type of sex and even though your friend may have tried to hook up with your gay friend, he probably backed out because he realized that sex with gay friend may have had some sort of emotional context that he either didn’t want or even possibly found confusing (and of course the inevitable disclosing by gay friend that he had sex with your closeted bi friend).

Men have been secretly and anonmously hooking up for centuries (tearooms, saunas, gyms, parks, darkrooms, porn theratres, navy boats, hotels…I could go on here but I think you get the point) and its early 21st century form, this is online. While there is rarely a romantic attachment to this, the secret lifestyle does fulfill something emotionally in the men who do it. It’s a craft, a skill to be honed and the secretive nature of the exchanges is probably part of the turn on for her friend. Nothing makes me hornier than meeting a discreet closeted normal-looking bi (i.e. non-gay looking, styled, or attituded) man for some sweaty action, doing our business, and then going our separate ways.

Likewise, I know I have turned many straight/bi men’s cranks by being normal looking, discreet and casual about the whole affair. That’s a persona I take on when I meet these guys. On the flipside, when with friends I can be flamboyant, aggressive and downright super-gay at times and that’s the persona that I take on when I'm with them. I enjoy dishing the sordid details of my latest hook-up.

That’s just me, I like to orally gloat. Your friend however, probably prefers not to discuss details and is probably internally gloating while you and gay friend dish about your own sex life (I know when I was a closeted teenager I sure as hell as laughed on the inside as my girlfriends were telling me about their first blowjob experience when I had already had foursomes). Maybe he doesn’t want to disclose this because there is no emotional context to men he is playing with. It sounds like he doesn’t mind introducing you though to the women he dates because he does have more of an emotional bond with them. To put it even simpler, here is a little math to ponder:

For the bi friend:
Man + Man = Sex.

Man + Woman = Love (and Sex too)

My advice for Worried is to simply back off and leave this poor chap alone about his sexuality. Tell the gay roomie to drop it too. I understand that she loves and would accept him no matter his sexual preference but by confronting him, she is forcing to disclose (or hide) something that is ultimately his own. Disclosing that he is bi (or gay) is forcing him to give away a part of himself to you and to whomever else you ultimately end up telling as well (and from the detective shenanigans, it does sound like you would be immature enough to tell mutual friends that you finally confirmed your friends "secret"). In this day and age, we share our living space, office space, our lives are pretty much open books. Inside your own mind is really only the true space that is entirely yours and if your friend wants that to be a secretive sexual playground that he quietly enjoys then LET HIM HAVE HIS SPACE. I could even infer that by writing this letter, you were hoping Sasha would somehow condone or convince him to "come out" to you.

I'm pretty sure Sasha wouldn't want to violate this man’s space and being the good columnist that she is, she didn't in her response. Maybe he doesn’t want to tell you right now about anything because he thinks you have a big mouth and will tell people. Maybe in a couple of years you will be past this phase and maybe then he will be ready to tell you. There a lots of maybes to consider Worried and maybe you just have to drop this whole witchhunt and enjoy your friendship for what it is. Or Worried can send him my way. I would gladly engage him in no strings, no drama fun and then gloat about the hot anonymous hook-up to my friends over drinks a few days later when he is long gone. Maybe I already have.

Don't worry, be happy.