Dear Hooksexup Readers,
It's been another busy year here at Hooksexup, and before we launch into 2013, we'd like to look back at some of our favorite Hooksexup stories of 2012. We're enormously grateful both to the writers and interviewers who've poured their feelings and ideas out for us with such wit and grace, and to the readers who have consistently engaged in ways that are passionate and thoughtful. Thanks to you all for a great year, and please enjoy this sampling of our favorite stuff.
TRUE STORIES
• EJ Dickson wrote hilariously about her parents' hyper-awareness of her sex life.
• Nick Keppler found a relationship in a mental institution.
• Jillian Capewell was the only woman on a team of construction workers.
• Abigail Fox worked as a cam girl and fell for one of her clients.
• Jude Gibson walked us through a rough breakup in seven pop songs. (Incidentally, we also listed the greatest breakup songs of all time, for those occasions when you really need a good one.)
• Ben Cake told us what straight men could learn from getting hit on by gay men,
• Alisa Mackay shared the love secrets of a couch surfer.
• Charlie Adams' parents graded his exes.
• Eric Silvera's dad told him "Don't kiss anyone or your dick'll fall off."
• Lastly, in one of our most-commented-on pieces ever, Markham Lee broke readers' hearts with his story about an amazing girlfriend who had one terrible flaw.
NEXT: Opinions and arguments, from The Republican Guide to Female Anatomy to the heart of Ladies' Night…
OPINIONS AND ARGUMENTS
• Ben Reininga swept the internet with his hilarious takedowns of Cosmopolitan, Ridiculous Tips for a Miserable Sex Life.
• James Brady Ryan wrote a touching history of gay characters on television, and how they've changed in his lifetime.
• Rebecca Bohanan looked at the women in Bruce Springsteen's songs.
• Sonya Saraiya ranked Disney Princesses from least to most feminist, in a piece that really got comments flying.
• Alex Heigl wrote about Against Me! and Laura Jane Grace coming out as a trans person.
• Stefan Sirucek decried the sexlessness of Christopher Nolan's Batman.
• Jeremy Harlin examined the obsession with perceived authenticity in new porn plotlines.
• Colette McIntyre boldly forged deep into the heart of Ladies' Night.
• Lizzie Plaugic argued for the retirement of some unsavory sex terms, which then kicked off a further argument specifically about the term "friend zone."
• Kate Hakala swore never to sleep with a Kerouac fan.
• We also offered up a Republican Guide to Female Anatomy, a timeline of things historically blamed for teen sex (Dungeons & Dragons?), a new dating app specifically for Mitt Romney, and a handy infographic look at major problems caused by feminism.
NEXT: New features we launched this year, and highlights from some of our returning favorites…
NEW FEATURES AND OLD
We launched a bunch of new stuff this year, including:
• Dateline, time-stamped recountings of readers' romantic adventures
• Everyone I've Ever Had Sex With, which is just what it sounds like
• The Hooksexup Mixtape, in which celebrity musicians like Reggie Watts and Air share the playlists they'd make for someone they were trying to seduce.
• Our Sex Advice From series also brought us lusty tips from such luminaries as Aubrey Plaza, John Oliver, Rashida Jones, Taylor Kitsch, Alan Cumming, NOFX, and — best of all, to be honest — Andrew W.K., who inspired many with his passion.
• Much fuss surrounded Lena Dunham, so we dug into the archives to unearth one of her first series, Tight Shots, which she created for Hooksexup in 2007.
• Finally, our Talking to Strangers series was more adventurous than ever, travelling the world in search of great stories, and opening our eyes to sex and dating culture outside our familiar locales. Ruth Tam interviewed strangers in Ghana; Diksha Basu, in India; Silvia Donati, in Italy; Martina Dechevska, in Bulgaria; and Elissa Gross, in Iceland. Meanwhile, our fantastic interviewers like Daniela Cervetti and Marguerite Kennedy consistently found fascinating people right here at home.
• We rounded up our favorite stories from these in a little feature we called "The Craziest Place I Ever Had Sex."
Woo, that's a lot of features. Believe it or not, that's just a small fraction of what we published on Hooksexup this year. Thanks so much for reading, and we've got lots more to come.
All best,
Your friends at Hooksexup