David Perel, 45
Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer
I’m having sex with a coworker. How can we keep it a secret and evade office gossip?
Forget it, it’s not going to happen. I don’t think I’ve met more than three people in this world who can keep a secret. Find me the first guy who has never told his friends, and we’ll put him in the Smithsonian. Since it’s going to get out anyway, just put your own spin on it.
What are the ethics on sleeping with someone for information?
Don’t get caught, and don’t break up until you get the full story.
So it’s okay to do it.
It happens all the time whether it’s okay or not. You see journalists with government officials, you see journalists with other journalists, you see journalists with sources, and the truth is, sometimes that’s how you get some of your best information.
Do you have an example?
Yeah, but I’m not going to tell you. It wasn’t me, it was a close friend of mine. Let’s just say it involved a very high-profile national story, and the story went on for more than a year, and he slept with more than one female family member — sisters. Everything was going well until the sisters compared notes. Then it got kind of messy.
My new boyfriend wants to know how many people I’ve slept with, but I’m afraid my high number will freak him out. Is honesty the best policy?
Never. Not in terms of that. Nobody likes a bimbo. Divide your list by four and start with that number. Everybody expects your list to be on the low side of the estimate. Then after you’ve been dating for awhile, say, "Oh yeah, I forgot about . . . " And you can gradually up your tally. On your twentieth anniversary together, you can give him the real number.
I want to fuck a celebrity. How do I do this?
We have a word for people like this: stalkers. But if you insist, the best way to do it is to go to the clubs where they go in L.A., make sure you’re at the right place at the right time and let nature take its course. In terms of clothing, it depends on the celebrity, but leave as little to the imagination as possible. Plus, celebrities are really not that imaginative. If this is your goal, make it obvious. C-list will be a lot easier to get to and score with. A-list, you might have to fight your way past various bodyguards to get into VIP areas, and ultimately, it’ll probably make little difference.
I’m a celebrity, and a gossip columnist has some dirt on me. He says he’ll print it unless I sleep with him. I really don’t want my laundry aired. Do I do what he wants?
No. It’s a bad idea because he still has the dirt. You’ll just make yourself beholden to his whims. Give him a better story on one of your costars.
What tips can you give me for making a great sex tape?
Light it well, check the audio and have the camera hooked up to a monitor so you can see what’s being filmed so that you’re not out of the frame at a crucial moment. I will say this after having viewed probably most if not all of the very good sex tapes that have come down in the last ten-to-fifteen years: Paris Hilton made the worst sex tape ever. Pam and Tommy, obviously that was a great one. There’s one that’s lesser known — and I’m not going to tell you who’s in it other than to say he’s a very well-known media mogul once married to somebody famous — was probably one of the best ones I’ve ever seen. It had all sorts of surprises in it, especially when all of a sudden in the middle of the tape, out comes this huge vibrator. This was a few years ago, so it was plug-in device, which is scary enough. I mean, what if there’s a power surge? So here we are watching the tape, thinking that it’s for her, and surprise! It turns out to be for him. It went on for about thirty-to-forty minutes.
My boyfriend is an actor. He just got a big part in a TV show, and now wherever we go he’s fawned over. I can’t help it, but I’m resentful he’s getting so much attention. How can we resolve this?
Unequal power and unequal fame does more to break up Hollywood romances and marriages than anything else. See an analyst every day for years. Try not to go out in public. Live an isolated life. Because as somebody once said, celebrities are people who spend their whole lives trying to get famous, and when they become famous, try to hide behind sunglasses and pretend they’re not famous.
My new man and I have been dating for a couple months. I’m in my thirties, and I can’t waste my time with someone who’s not going to commit. How do I bring up the future without scaring him off?
Subtle hints, like leaving copies of Brides magazine lying around. Window shopping at jewelry stores and looking at rings. Start small and work your way up. You may want to bring it up in the bedroom the first couple times — that’s generally where men are most receptive to new ideas.
Joy Kendra Miller, 30 
Red carpet/events reporter for Star
I’m a socialite who’s sometimes in the tabloids. How can I minimize gossip about my active sex life?
Wear underwear. Don’t hang out with Lindsay Lohan. But if you’re a socialite, then your job is to be in the tabloids. Stop acting like you hate the attention — what you really hate is that you’re scandalous and people are calling you out on it. Next time you bed a catch, try staying in your Manhattan condo and ordering in instead of trotting him out at Bungalow 8.
I’m having sex with a coworker. How can we keep it a secret and evade office gossip?
Talk about a fantastic new boyfriend to everyone who will listen. Then once the gossip starts about you and the coworker, act incredulous that they would suggest that you would cheat on your amazing new imaginary boyfriend. They’ll feel stupid, and eventually they’ll drop it. Or you could embrace the gossip and ramble on about the coworker’s sexual prowess so much that it makes everyone so uncomfortable they begin to leave you alone.
What are the ethics on sleeping with someone for information?
Everybody does it. It’s an unwritten, completely kosher rule, and eventually if you need good information, you’re going to have to do it. Hopefully, you’ll have to extract information on Orlando Bloom and not Clay Aiken. Every tabloid reporter eventually does something that they wouldn’t agree to under normal circumstances, whether it’s digging through garbage, or showing up at Ben Affleck’s grandmother’s doorstep to ask if she likes Jennifer, or sleeping with a celebrity, assistant, or mail-room clerk for information. Get over it. I once had to sleep with a celebrity, who thankfully was hot, in order to find out if he was still with his baby’s mama. I was supposed to flirt with him, and it just went above and beyond. We hung out in his hotel room and had sex, and I got all the information on his baby and got a picture. I had my editor pay for me to have a spa the day after to help wash off the shame.
How was he?
Hot. Right now he’s a little bloated and chubby, but he was hot then. It was for Star. I was supposed to dig through his garbage at his house in Malibu. Instead, I asked if I could just go and flirt with him because I hate the thought of digging through the garbage. We already knew that he ate dinner every night at the Chateau Marmont, so I just went to the restaurant there and got a table next to him and tipped the host.
My boyfriend is an actor. He just got a big part in a TV show, and now wherever we go he’s fawned over. I can’t help it, but I’m jealous. How can we resolve this?
Get an eating disorder so people will start paying attention to you. I’m serious. Nicole Richie? You never heard much about her until she got an eating disorder. Get an eating disorder or a boob job. Otherwise, he’s going to leave your ass for Jessica Biel.
My new boyfriend wants to know how many people I’ve slept with, but I’m afraid my high number will freak him out. Is honesty the best policy?
Honesty is only good in shoe sizes. Why is it his business anyway? Guys only ask this so they can gauge what kinds of freaky things you’ll do in bed. For instance, if you’ve had sex with twenty people, he assumes you’ve done it in the butt. If it’s thirty, he’s going to think a threesome is feasible. If it’s in the forty-and-up range, he’ll use it in an argument to call you a whore. Divide your number by three because he’s going to multiply it by two anyway. I always delete the ones whose names I can’t remember, so my number is hovering around twenty-five.
Kissing immediately after oral sex: turn-on or turn-off?
Turn-on! Everyone likes to taste themselves. Everyone likes to know that they taste good. It’s comforting.
What is the most embarrassing thing that can happen during sex, and what can I do to avoid it?
Tooting. To avoid it, sit in a warm bathtub right before you have sex for ten-to-twenty minutes. It brings everything to the surface and gets your toots out.
I want to help my girlfriend curb her drinking, but she’s a freak in bed when drunk, and a total bore when sober. How can I bring out her kinky side without booze?
You can’t. Just go with it. A lot of people are boring sober; that’s why the Prohibition ban was lifted. Do you think Brandon Davis would ever get laid if it weren’t for alcohol? Embrace her drunky freak. If the alcohol becomes a problem in your relationship, then worrying about her being good in bed is the least of your issues.
My boyfriend and I moved in together, and now our sex life has been reduced to quickies without foreplay. How can I get him to take his time again?
Go out of town for the weekend without him. When you return, the next time he goes down on you, pretend to have dozens of orgasms. This will give him the impression that you went away and had your world rocked by someone else. Then he’ll think that somebody else has been down there, and he’s going to get very nervous. They get complacent when they’re the only ones. They get lazy. When they think you might get it from someone else, they go back their original methods.
Patrick Huguenin, 22
Staff writer for "Rush & Molloy" at the New York Daily News
I’m a socialite who’s sometimes in the tabloids. What can I do to minimize gossip about my active sex life?
Avoid any photo of you coming or going from someone’s house, or coming or going from a secret luncheon. You see a lot of people having lunch with someone, and then they’ll leave separately, but that still fuels all kinds of speculation. A good disguise helps. Tinted windows.
What are the ethics on sleeping with someone for information?
I personally would never sleep with someone for information. But I think it’s only fair to do if you’re upfront about your profession, and that you’re seeking information. If you give fair and clear warning, you can let your seductive wiles do the rest.
A gossip columnist has some dirt on me. He says he’ll print it unless I sleep with him. Do I do what he wants?
Weigh the ugliness of the gossip against the ugliness of the gossip columnist, then decide.
My boyfriend is an actor. He just got a big part in a TV show, and now wherever we go he’s fawned over. I’m jealous. How can we resolve this?
You can always show your vagina, that works very well. If you don’t want to do that, I recommend either outlandishly poor fashion sense or outlandishly big jewelry. It’s also good to dress in a way that makes you look maybe pregnant.
The poor fashion sense — what is that about?
You can go one of two routes here. You can either be written about as the glamorous girlfriend, or you can be written about as the sad girlfriend. Glamour is very hard to pull off and very expensive, so you should do the old Britney Spears "pillowcase dress, barefoot in Wal-Mart" thing, and gain attention that way.
What was the best sex tape of 2006?
The Screech tape. You can buy it, it’s him and two women, and it gets really dirty.
Do you see his ten-inch penis?
You absolutely do.
And you’re not weirded out because it’s Screech?
You’re extremely weirded out because it’s Screech. Why else are you watching it?
Was Paris’s a bad sex tape?
The phrase "bad sex tape" is almost an oxymoron. Even if the sex is bad, the tape is still good.
I want to sleep with a celebrity. How do I do this?
There is a lot of loneliness in celebrity culture, so the right conversation, a little companionship, some warm Christmas cookies and a roaring fire should do the trick.
I’m having sex with a coworker. How can we keep it a secret?
You can’t make any special allowances for that person — no special hello when you come in. Also, if you’re coming from the same apartment in the morning, you’ve got to vary it a little. I worked in an office where a couple came in exactly nine minutes apart everyday. That gets noticed.
Ian Drew, 30 
Editor-at-Large for Us Weekly
I’m a socialite who’s sometimes in the tabloids. What can I do to minimize gossip about my active sex life?
Stay away from Bungalow 8, Chateau Marmont, Privilege, or the Ivy. You go to these places specifically so people know what’s going on in your love life. Instead, go to the Outback Steak House in Glendale, McDonalds in Long Beach.
How can I use sex to get famous?
The best way to get famous is to attach yourself to somebody more famous, and the best way to get even more famous than that is to leave somebody famous for somebody else who’s famous. So concoct a scheme where you’re seen going to a very public place with somebody even more famous than [the famous person you’re currently dating], then go back to [the less famous person] the next week. You’ll become a tabloid soap opera. Kristin Cavallari did not end up in the pages of everything without attaching herself to more famous guys. You’ve got to find someone who’s in the white-hot heat of it. Jennifer Aniston is an expert at that. People think that she’s this good girl who doesn’t want the attention, but it’s quite the opposite. She always seems to date someone who’s right in the spotlight at that moment.
I’m having sex with a coworker. How can we evade office gossip?
Act like you hate the person. If you act like the person is your bitter enemy, and you don’t even speak to them, and you talk shit about them in front of everyone else, no one will ever suspect.
What tips can you give me for making a great sex tape?
There are two parts to it: making the tape, and the distribution of it. When making the tape, you want it to look as grainy, authentic and amateur as possible, because once you put it out, that will increase the likelihood that people will think this terrible thing was done to you, and then you can ride the fame off the scandal. Then you need a good go-between — you need to find someone you can put a bitter stance to, like Paris Hilton did with Rick Salomon, so you can go out and say that this horrible person is doing this horrible thing to you. Then you both can laugh about it and split the change. Next, you want it to reflect the embodiment of your celebrity — the theme, if you will. If your aim is [A-list] celebrity, then you need to invest just like you would in any other aspect of your career. Find a posh hotel suite or an exotic location like Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee did. It should be attached to a real relationship so it’s more authentic. You’re not going to get much attention doing what Dustin Diamond [Screech] did, because the girls in the tape didn’t mean anything to him. But if you can get another celebrity to do it with you, or your known paramour, the authenticity is great and the bang is double. You’re let into this moment in their evolution as a celebrity.
Best tape ever?
Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee. Theirs was done during their honeymoon, so you were let into their world. And because it was their honeymoon, it was a news event. Colin Farrell, no one remembers the girl he was in a sex tape with because she was a one-time thing, or a few-times fling. But if you’re with someone you’re connected to in the public eye, it will get you much more attention because it’s part of the heat of a celebrity news moment. Pam and Tommy’s tape had romance and emotion and intrigue. The exotic location, this private moment in their lives — there was color and there was life. n°
Interviews by Kai Ma. Sex Advice From… appears on Thursdays. Have questions for the general public? Send them to .
